The Blue Iris, page 5
For the first time, despite ground all over the world begging to be covered, Charlie worried she was missing out by staying on the move. The following summer, Sam asked her to take over the inside counter so he could focus on the rest, and she agreed. Darryl went so ballistic on both of them, Charlie thought for sure the police would be called.
She missed floating between departments. But inside the shop, it was easier to avoid Darryl, who loved to remind her that Sam didn’t look at young, willowy Charlie the way he did at other, full-fledged women. He called her Sam’s Pet Spider, trapped behind the glass, Sam roaming free.
Charlie fired back; Darryl’s temper combusted instantly and it terrified her, but as soon he came charging, Sam dropped everything to defend her. And so, the pattern was set. The more heated the brothers’ exchanges, the luckier she secretly felt to have Darryl hate her so much.
By her second August at the shop, it was like Charlie had known Sam all her life. But he still wouldn’t say how his parents died. As far as she and Rowan could tell, the brothers had never told anyone.
One slow, hazy Monday, she asked Sam through the window by the register if he was okay. If passing along his parents’ horticultural knowledge to her was enough, or if, maybe, he needed more. In order to heal properly.
His grin landed like a reflex hammer to her knees. He left the window, then burst inside, cranking the radio in the corner, goof-dancing to the oldies among the casablancas.
“I sell flowers for a living, Spider. How bad can I screw it up?” He pulled her from behind the counter. “Look! Thirty bucks for these, and when you think about it, they’re already dead!”
“But what could it hurt to—”
He lifted her hand. Sent her twirling. “Come on, sing with me. You love this one.” And just like that, they had sunshine on a cloudy day. The cold outside disappeared into the month of May.
Sam left no choice but to believe him. It would all turn out fine; Charlie only had to wait. Soon, he would look at her in real life the way he did in her mind whenever she flicked off her light. He’d stop denying what they both knew; he didn’t need those women anymore. She was right here, she’d be enough.
It might have been the record-breaking heat, or that she was leaving for university the next day and change hung muggy in the air. Whatever the reason, on Labor Day, a measly nine days before she turned eighteen, Sam finally let her follow him. Down the sidewalk. Past the sighing Japanese blood grasses, the feathered Crimson Queens. The vigilant black-eyed Susan. Up the back steps, through the door nobody bothered to lock. Down the hall, to the bedroom on the left, where he took her chin in his rough-sawn hands and pressed his lips to hers like flame to wick, then outright asked if she was on the pill.
Charlie swallowed hard, nodding up at him. Afraid of losing her chance. Starved all over again to learn from Sam everything she didn’t know before.
Pennyroyal / Mentha Pulegium
Consecration.
TESSA
Tessa wheeled another cart to a stop on the sidewalk, this one flush with Martha Washington geraniums. She lingered over them, the pops of magenta like a melody.
“Sam was right about Mother’s Day the whole time,” Tony said. “What a legend.”
Luke looked doubtful. “I popped my head in, and it seemed kind of painful.”
Tony chuckled. “Nah, bro. All you do is run carry-outs, pass out a few irises, and they’re all over you. Record tips, no sweat. Right, Tessa?”
Behind her sunglasses, Tessa rolled her eyes. “Yeah, no sweat.” Mother’s Day weekend at the inside counter saw her ankle-deep in thorny clippings, wet sprigs flying, floral paper clattering in a combined twenty-two-hour sprint through a bramble of cologne and complaining Sunday skirts, infants skipping naps, children mollified with chocolate. Innocent blooms set people unraveling. Tessa was chastised for failing to produce thirty-six identical roses, ordered to water eight perfectly happy azaleas right now, then screamed at when they were wet going into a Mercedes. Yet strangely, she was unbothered by it all, as if that battered counter was an impermeable wall.
It helped that Charlie lulled even the most frenzied retail theatrics with unbending ease. Together, the two women weaved smoothly as pair figure skaters. The air sucked from the shop with every mention of Sam, so Tessa redoubled her efforts to keep Charlie laughing, the booming sound springing forth like a bohemian jack-in-the-box, bouncing off the shop’s sweaty windows and filling Tessa with pride in freeing it. Tessa confirmed Charlie was working at the shop the year she and Beth visited—“every April to September since ninety-five, girlie!”—but the shop was too busy; Tessa couldn’t probe further. Still, somehow, just being in there on Mother’s Day did wonders enough.
Now, the crew focused on preparing for the May holiday weekend. Tessa climbed on an overturned bucket beside the exterior wall of the shop with an old hammer and some roofing nails, intent on displaying a soggy collection of gardening accessories she’d found abandoned behind the trilliums. Tony’s sharp inhale rang out as he reached for the lower rack, hand flying to his rear where, clearly, his sutures still hadn’t healed. Luke laughed.
“Thanks for telling everyone about my ass cheek, by the way. You dick,” Tony said.
Luke laughed harder, unwrapping a skid of hibiscus standards to be stacked along the boulevard. “That was your best one in a while.”
Tony’s bitter expression flipped to a grin. “That’s why I wanted to tell it myself.”
Luke shook his head, still chuckling. “Charlie holding up okay, though?”
“You know Charlie. But she liked having Tessa around, I think. Me, I could watch her bending over the bachelor buttons all day.”
“Dude, she’s right there.”
“Nah, she’s cool.” His voice lifted towards Tessa. “I meant that, you know, respectfully. You know that, right?”
Tessa left her eyes on the pruning shears, stifling a smile. “I mean, I’d feel a lot more respected as an Eagle, but sure.”
The look between the men was nearly audible. She’d cracked their code for scoping out women; the question “How about those Ravens?” invited a roundtable of sorts, couched in football terms like tight end room, while Falcons were inarguably doable, and Eagles warranted a full stop-and-stare. “Speaking of Eagles, there’s two at nine o’clock . . . in case you’re feeling respectful.” Their heads whipped around. Tessa felt a flash of triumph at being the tiniest bit part of the group.
“Damn,” Tony said. “She probably could have warned me off that barista.”
Rowan appeared with a heavy binder and was about to speak when Luke and Tony’s conversation took a noticeable turn. Tessa followed his gaze towards them.
“I could have warned you about the barista,” Luke was saying.
“Then why didn’t you?” Tony said.
“Would you have listened?”
“Your grenade radar isn’t exactly on point, bro.”
Luke’s jovial tone faded. “Wasn’t. It’s razor sharp now.”
“Yeah. Too sharp,” Tony muttered. “Like, maybe aim for a butter knife or something.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means get back on the horse already, bro, before you forget how to ride one.”
Luke’s voice lifted, his chill starting to melt. “I told you, I’ve been busy. That’s all!”
Tony’s followed suit. “See, now you’re making excuses. Nobody’s too busy to get laid! Charlie’s right, it’s a symptom of a bigger problem!”
“And letting some rando go Mike Tyson on your ass cheek doesn’t spell bigger problem?”
“For fuck’s sake,” Darryl barked from the vegetable section. “Give it a rest. You sound like a couple of bitches.”
The shop fell silent. Tessa pretended she hadn’t heard a thing. “What’s up, Uncle Rowan?”
By now, she knew her boss was neither bossy nor anyone’s uncle. But he doted on the staff, handing out food or coffee on the hour, pressing extra cash into her palms after those excessively busy shifts, and Tessa was determined to ease his social awkwardness however she could, mostly because she recognized it well. How many times had she peered from behind the velvet rope of Will’s arm, feeling like a total interloper?
The wattage in his expression told her she’d chosen exactly the right nickname. He handed her the product catalogue. “For your display,” he said. “Thought you might like to do up an order.”
Tessa flipped through the glossy pages. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
He shrugged. “Pick whatever you’d want for your own garden.”
The west-facing patch by the coach house sprung to mind. Tessa pushed it away, conjuring Pop instead, who always spoke of seeing the world from the deck of a cruise ship, then poured his savings into soccer cleats and orthodontist appointments. Nano, who had hunched over the sewing machine in her magnifiers, altering wedding gowns for extra cash. With the property sold, they could travel to the extent Pop was able, free of worry about lawns or staircases . . . and she and Will could stop living apart.
Tessa never truly imagined moving away for good and not finding Nano and Pop a minute’s walk up the driveway, puttering about. Since Pop’s fall in the bathroom, it was all on borrowed time; the oak-strewn lawn, wide enough for exactly thirty-seven cartwheels; the mark on the kitchen counter left by the pizzelle iron; the pop-pop-pop exploding from the garage after school as she and Pop ran boxing drills, gloves and pads exorcising what their tears could not.
She moved into the coach house with her mother at age five. The main house, heart shattered, at eleven. Then, back into the coach house by senior year. Her whole history was tied to those grounds. Staying there full-time again only made it harder to leave, even temporarily. But sleeping without Will was equally unbearable. It was unfair making him trek thirty extra minutes to the coach house after finishing work—by which time Tessa was often asleep—then wake even earlier to avoid rush hour back into the city. Tessa felt guilty, but she’d feel even guiltier staying at the penthouse next to Will.
The breeze through the storefront was mild, but prickles rose from her skin. Her mother’s voice drifted through her head. “What’s meant for you can’t pass you, sweet girl.” Tessa had the whole summer to figure everything out. She smiled at her handwritten order—dainty watering cans, matching mother-daughter gardening gloves in playful patterns, herb stakes labelled in looping cursive—pleased at how easily the choices came, how little the urge to overthink.
The air around the counter darkened. “Shit looks ready for the circular filing bin,” Darryl said, eyeing her display.
Tessa remained forcedly unaffected, per Charlie’s directive. “It was soaked. But I’m ordering more.”
Darryl yanked the paper from her hands. “Fucking Rowan’s turning us into a goddamn henhouse.” He crumpled it, then lobbed it into the trash. “We sell plants, Princess.”
Tessa fished the order out of the bin and smoothed it on the counter.
Darryl squinted through his shadowy sockets, then slammed his palm into the paper. Tessa regretted how it made her eyelids flutter. He tore the order into pieces, scattering them on the ground where the wind obligingly dispersed them. Heat crept through her, incinerating her usual urge to cry. Darryl looked pleased for once, feeding off her reaction like a piranha. He gestured to the trowels she’d hung around Charlie’s window.
“You priced those wrong.”
“They were already priced. I put fresh tags over top.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I did.” She peeled away a $9.99 sticker to reveal the weather-beaten original underneath.
Darryl snatched the metal tool, pointing. “What does that say?”
Tessa studied the faded ink. $9.95.
“And what does yours say?”
Tessa uncurled the discarded tag. $9.99. She frowned.
“Exactly. Redo them.”
She gave a short laugh, her face hot, aware now of the others watching. “You’re joking.”
“Prices here have ended in ninety-five since you were pissing in diapers, Princess.”
Tessa was used to blanking out in moments like these, only to conjure the perfect retort in the shower three days later. It took a few seconds to realize her next words had come from her own mouth. “You just said it belonged in the garbage, now you’re on my case about five cents? Losing someone you care about sucks, Darryl, but it’s no excuse to shit on people. I’m done.”
Darryl angled his chin at Rowan. “Told you.”
Tessa spun around. “Told him what?”
“You’d quit by May two-four.”
“But I didn’t quit. I said I was done, as in I no longer care that you’re a raging, prehistoric psychopath. Stomp around all you want, I’ll just redo the order. And feel free to go ahead and change those price tags yourself while I’m at it, if it means that much to you.”
At the window, Charlie’s eyes curved into valiant crescent moons. Tessa stalked off with two hours left until closing, down the sidewalk to her car without a word or a backwards glance, heads swiveling like weathervanes as she went.
Herb of Circe / Mandragora
Demons.
LUKE
Rain pressed in a heavy sheet, setting the afternoon on pause. The crew was standing around inside, bantering and cupping hot drinks, except Darryl, who never set foot in here. Instead, he hovered under the awning, droplets smacking against his vinyl-clad bottom half.
Luke stared out the window, avoiding the group. His conversation with Tony by the flats earlier had gotten more heated than necessary, and it was still niggling at him. He knew his friend meant well, but at the end of the day, Tony just didn’t get it.
Outside, a young family celebrated every puddle. Mom and Dad each held one squishy toddler hand, swinging in tandem, pulling the boy up just in time to keep the wiggly bum dry. The raincoat had a plastic lion’s mane for a hood, and the creases along each sleeve suggested the garment had spent months folded in a nursery drawer, waiting for this day to arrive.
The smiley shark-boots devoured the wet pavement in gleeful bursts. Mom cheered with abandon, wet hair like cling wrap against her face. Dad’s glance stole from the boy to his mother and back. Unadulterated happiness on the darkest of afternoons.
Sour heat curdled in Luke’s stomach as the word rose to mind all over again, scrawling like bright red graffiti.
BITCH.
His eyelids floated closed.
Maybe Charlie was right. Maybe it was time to go talk to someone.
Hot Water Plant / Achimenes Cupreata
“Such worth is rare.”
ROWAN
Rowan walked out to the corner of Morrow and Cresthaven, jaw slack, phone damp at his cheek, observing his failure in full panorama. He wasn’t even listening to the stuffed shirt on the call anymore.
Rowan Simon Miller. A default risk.
The four-hundred-dollar basketball tickets burned in his jeans pocket; payment-in-lieu for six-fifty in inventory. Those would cheer Luke up, at least, while the twelve-hundred-dollar Versace suit from this morning—settlement for a two-thousand-dollar tab—would bring Christmas early to Tony. At this rate, the shop might clear actual profit by Thanksgiving.
Toronto’s biggest names strolled past here daily, a stop at the local flower market being every somebody’s favorite way to play humble nobody. But as it turned out, approaching the checkout counter was for actual nobodies. They all beelined instead for Rowan, looking to swing a deal. Unaccustomed to paying for things, they ran tabs they never settled, bartered goods he had no use for, and were highly insulted by even a roundabout suggestion they owed a dime.
Although Rowan inherited his father Simon’s majority stake in the Blue Iris fifteen years ago, and all the coveted midtown frontage it sat on in its entirety, he was still no more a man in charge than a skittish adolescent waiting to be stuffed into a locker. But up to now, it didn’t much matter. Even half-rusted out, the place was a license to print money thanks to Simon’s expansion in the nineties, and when Rowan passed out the bartered goods, the crews’ awestruck appreciation was a direct deposit to his overdrawn ego. What he stupidly failed to acknowledge was none of it was possible without the ticking time bomb named Sam.
Rowan handled the banking, taxes, insurance, the faint-making water bills. But Sam was the lifeblood, despite multiple DUIs and a recent arrest warrant for failing to show for his court-ordered addiction counseling. Rowan should have put a contingency plan in place ages ago. Now, he was officially the pathetic failure his mother had always promised he’d become.
A green Jaguar parked three feet off the curb. Rowan’s gut squelched. Another regular, looking for the Rowan Special. “Go find us some coffee, Browan,” Sam would have said. “Keep the hell outta Dodge.” With an easy grin and a firm squeeze of the shoulder, Sam had no trouble taking payment in full, whereas Rowan had a better chance of balancing the till if he stayed out of sight. A stowaway on his own ship.
Truthfully, he wasn’t all that worried until April; Sam had holed away plenty of times before, falling dormant with the perennials. Planting season always brought him back, the only time he was fully together; but a fully together Sam was pure magic. Propulsive and laidback at once, forever crooning and cracking jokes. Naturally effervescent. Ran the city’s largest garden center with all its lightning-speed parts like it was as uncomplicated as a lemonade stand.
Sure, there was some concern Sam would eventually run out of lives, but at the same time it was unfathomable he wouldn’t resurface like daffodil shoots after the thaw. The man didn’t know how to be anywhere else.
Then, he missed the Easter-Passover rush.
When May hit, Rowan knew. For once, even Darryl and Charlie agreed that if Sam were alive, he’d have been here by now. The only remaining question was, with the business full of holes and his golden bailing bucket lost to the wind, how long Rowan could float this place without him.
