The Language of Flowers

Like Elizabeth, Grant was hard to forget. It was more than the intersection of our pasts, more than the drawing of the white poplar, which, in its obscurity, had led me to the truth about the language of flowers. It was something about Grant specifically, the seriousness with which he regarded the flowers, or the tone of his voice when he argued, simultaneously pleading and forceful. He’d shrugged his shoulders when I expressed sympathy at the death of his mother, and this, too, I found intriguing. His past—with the exception of the moments I’d glimpsed as a child—was a mystery to me. Group-home girls divulge their pasts relentlessly, and on the rare occasion I’d met someone unwilling to expose the details of her childhood, it was a relief. With Grant, I felt different. After only one night, I wanted to know more.

For a week I rose early and spent the library’s open hours comparing definitions. I filled my pockets with smooth stones from a display in front of the Japanese teahouse in Golden Gate Park and used them as paperweights. Lining up dictionaries on two tables, I opened each to the same letter and placed rocks on the corners of the pages. Moving from one book to the next, I compared the entries flower by flower. Whenever I found conflicting definitions, I had long, drawn-out debates in my mind with Grant. Occasionally, I let him win.

On Saturday I arrived at the flower market before Renata. I handed Grant the scroll I had created, a list of definitions through the letter J, including revisions I’d made to the list we compiled together. When Renata and I returned to Grant’s stall an hour later, he was still reading the scroll. He looked up to watch Renata finger his roses.

“Wedding today?” he asked.

Renata nodded. “Two. Small, though. One is my oldest niece. She’s eloping but told me because she wanted me to give her flowers.” Renata rolled her eyes. “Using me, the doll.”

“An early day, then?” Grant asked, looking at me.

“Probably, the way Victoria works,” she said. “I’d like to close the shop by three.”

Grant wrapped Renata’s roses and gave her more change than she deserved. She had stopped bargaining with him; there was no need. We turned to leave.

“See you then,” he called after us. I turned, my eyes quizzical. He held up three fingers.

The space below my rib cage expanded. The room felt unnaturally bright and filled with too much oxygen. I concentrated on exhaling, following Renata’s orders without thinking. We had loaded everything into her truck before I remembered my promise of the week before.

“Wait,” I said, slamming the truck door and leaving Renata inside the cab.

I raced through the market, looking for red roses and lilac. Grant had bucketsful, but I passed him without looking up. On the way back to the car, I passed him again. Shielding my face with a stalk of white lilac, I peeked in his direction. He held up three fingers again and cracked a shy smile. My face was hot, embarrassed. I hoped he didn’t think the flowers in my arms were for him.

I worked all day in a nervous haze. The door opened and closed, and customers came in and out, but I never looked up.

At half past one, Renata lifted the hair off my forehead, and when I raised my head, her eyes were inches from mine.

“Hello? I’ve called you three times,” she said. “There’s a lady waiting for you.”

I grabbed the roses and lilac from the walk-in and went into the showroom. The woman faced the door as if she might leave, her shoulders low.

“I didn’t forget,” I said when I saw her. She turned.

“Earl said you wouldn’t.” She watched me work, arranging the white lilac around the roses until the red was no longer visible. I wound sprigs of rosemary—which I had learned at the library could mean commitment as well as remembrance—around the stems like a ribbon. The rosemary was young and supple, and did not break when I tied it in a knot. I added a white ribbon for support and wrapped the whole thing in brown paper.

“First emotions of love, true love, and commitment,” I said, handing her the flowers. She handed me forty dollars. At the register I made change, but when I looked up, she was gone.

I returned to the worktable, and Renata examined me with a half-smile. “What were you doing out there?”

“Just giving the people what they want,” I said, rolling my eyes the way Renata had the first day we’d met, when she stood on the sidewalk with dozens of out-of-season tulips.

“Whatever they want,” Renata agreed, clipping a row of sharp thorns off a yellow rose. A yellow rose for her niece’s wedding: her fugitive, eloping, using niece. Jealousy, infidelity. The specifics of the definition didn’t matter much in this case, I thought. The outcome did not look good. I finished my last table arrangement and looked at the clock. Two-fifteen.