The Language of Flowers

I spent the evening sitting in the blue room, mulling over Annemarie’s request. I was well acquainted with the opposite of intimacy: hydrangea, dispassion, had long been a favorite of mine. It bloomed in manicured gardens in San Francisco six months out of the year, and was useful for keeping housemates and group-home staff at a distance. But intimacy, closeness, and sexual pleasure—these were things for which I had never had a reason to look. For hours I sat underneath the naked bulb, the light yellowing the water-stained pages of my dictionary, scanning for useful flowers.

There was the linden tree, which signified conjugal love, but this didn’t seem quite right. The definition felt more like a description of the past than a suggestion for the future. There was also the difficulty of identifying a linden tree, removing a small branch, and explaining to Annemarie why she should display the limb on her dining room table instead of a bouquet of flowers. No, I decided, the linden tree would not work.

Below me, Natalya’s band started up, and I reached for a pair of earplugs. The pages of the book vibrated on my lap. I found flowers for affection, sensuality, and pleasure, but none, on their own, felt like enough to combat Annemarie’s empty eyes. Growing frustrated, I reached the last flower in the book and turned back to the beginning. Grant would know, I thought, but I couldn’t ask him. The asking alone would be too intimate.

As I searched, it occurred to me that if I couldn’t find the right flowers, I could give Annemarie a bouquet of something bold and bright and lie about its meaning. It wasn’t as if the flowers themselves held within them the ability to bring an abstract definition into physical reality. Instead, it seemed that Earl, and then Bethany, walked home with a bouquet of flowers expecting change, and the very belief in the possibility instigated a transformation. Better to wrap Gerber daisies in brown paper and declare sexual fulfillment, I decided, than to ask Grant his opinion on the subject.

I closed the book, closed my eyes, and tried to sleep.

Two hours later I got up and dressed for the market. It was cold, and even as I changed my clothes and put on my jacket, I knew I could not give Annemarie Gerber daisies. I had been loyal to nothing except the language of flowers. If I started lying about it, there would be nothing left in my life that was beautiful or true. I hurried out the door and jogged down twelve cold blocks, hoping to beat Renata.

Grant was still in the parking lot, unloading his truck. I waited for him to hand me buckets and then carried them inside. There was only one stool in his booth; I sat down on it, and Grant leaned against the plywood wall.

“You’re early,” he said.

I looked at my watch. It was just past three in the morning. “You, too.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. I couldn’t, either, but I didn’t say anything.

“I met this woman,” I said. I turned my stool away from Grant as if I would help a customer through the window, but the market was nearly empty.

“Yeah?” he said. “Who?”

“Just some woman,” I said. “She came into Bloom yesterday. I helped her sister last weekend. She says her husband doesn’t want her anymore. You know, in a—” I stopped, unable to finish.

“Hmm,” Grant said. I felt his eyes all over my back, but I didn’t turn to face him. “That’s tough. It was the Victorian era, you know? Not a lot of talk about sex.”

I hadn’t thought of that. We watched the market begin to fill in silence. Renata would come through the door any minute, and I would think of nothing but someone else’s wedding flowers for hours.

“Desire,” Grant said finally. “I would go with desire. I think that’s as close as you’ll get.”

I didn’t know desire. “How?”

“Jonquil,” Grant said. “It’s a form of narcissus. They grow wild in the southern states. I have some, but the bulbs won’t bloom till spring.”

Spring wasn’t for months. Annemarie didn’t appear as though she could wait that long. “There’s no other way?”

“We could force the bulbs in my greenhouse. I don’t, usually; the flowers are so associated with spring, there isn’t much of a market for them until late February. But we can try, if you want.”

“How long will it take?”

“Not long,” he said. “I bet you could see flowers by mid-January.”

“I’ll ask her,” I said. “Thanks.” I started to walk away, but Grant stopped me with his hand on my shoulder. I turned around.

“This afternoon?” he asked.

I thought about the flowers, his camera, and my dictionary. “I should be done by two,” I said.

“I’ll pick you up.”

“I’ll be hungry,” I said as I walked away.

Grant laughed. “I know.”