Arthurs Flowers

A ROMANTIC SHORT STORY BY CHRISTINA ORTIZ

This was the perfect opportunity for Sophie’s feelings to bloom!

Did you give the flowers back?” Arthur asked after they’d walked a couple of streets in silence.

They were on their way home from a party hosted by a coworker they barely knew. It had been two weeks since the last time they’d seen each other.

Before them lay the city, half asleep.

The light fell against Arthur’s hair. Gold strands turned to honey.

“The flowers?” Sophie asked.

They stopped at a pedestrian crossing and his gaze fell on her and, at times, she could find bits of green within them.

Then she remembered. Two weeks earlier, on the morning of his last day at work, someone had dropped a bouquet at her door.

Yellow carnations and roses, purple thistles, sea lavender and daisies.

They’d come with a note. Two sentences printed on to a small card, written in black pen.

Marie, don’t forget you’re not alone. Lots of love, Susan.

Her name wasn’t Marie, nor was her sister’s, the only other resident at 45 Huntington Drive.

She’d heard the knock, heard the letter fall through the letter-box, but had somehow missed the person who’d dropped off the flowers.

She’d written on a piece of paper, as bold and noticeably as she could: Marie, Susan left flowers for you at my doorstep.

Simple and short.

She brought the flowers into the house, since it seemed like it would rain.

She expected Marie to see the note, knock, then get her flowers from Ana, her sister, who had nothing to do until the afternoon, when Sophie would be back home.

“You think Marie will see it?” her sister had asked after Sophie had taped the piece of paper to the door.

She’d made sure it was visible from the street, just a couple of steps away.

“They dropped it off here, didn’t they?” she muttered. “Marie probably lives nearby.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Then I guess we have flowers. Keep an eye out.”

That was as much as she had told Arthur when he’d asked how her morning had been.

His own had involved a late bus and coffee spilled on his shirt.

He was gone by the time there was something else to tell. He’d quit the agency to work as a freelance graphic designer from the comfort of his home.

She’d joked about doing the same but had pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind.

Sophie liked the consistency of the job and the people there, even if she missed their shared lunch, conversations across the room and preparing two cups of tea instead of one in the break room.

The first Monday without him had been odd.

She kept turning towards his desk with a comment or two only to find it empty.

She couldn’t ask for his input, nor had the sound of someone else’s mouse and keyboard clicking away.

For the first time in a while she was aware of how wide the room felt and how loud the outside was.

When she got home, she found a card on the floor of her home’s entrance.

On its front was a letter.

I’m probably the Marie you’re looking for, it began.

Marie lived at 145 Huntington Drive and had just gone through a tough time.

There were no details as to what that meant.

Susan was Marie’s friend from uni and had gotten the numbers mixed up.

She apparently did that often.

Marie thanked Sophie for the note.

The trek uphill, as the numbers on the houses kept going up, was exhausting.

Ana had quit halfway through, choosing instead to wait for her at home.

Sophie had kept going, even if her legs ached and threatened to give way under her.

An old injury on her knee began to act up, pushing her body to the side.

Eventually Sophie came across a small white house with 145 on the door.

She’d knocked once, then twice. Both times there had been no reply.

Since she’d already made it all the way there, she dropped the flowers at the door and dug a pen out from her pocket.

On the original card, she wrote in crooked black letters: Your flowers, from Sophie, 45 Huntington Drive. I hope things get better soon.

Then she had made the journey back down.

Small steps. Trying not to fall as she went.

That was the last she heard of Marie and her flowers.

Now, Arthur blinked as the little man turned green.

He clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“They should have said thank you at least. You went all the way there.”

They crossed the street and continued on.

Sophie shrugged. It didn’t really matter if she got a thank-you note or some person at her door with a story to give.

She didn’t need to know what the flowers were for, nor who Marie and Susan were.

“Do you mind if we go into the Co-op?” she asked.

Arthur bought some toilet paper and some snacks, then went outside to wait.

Sophie wandered aimlessly, eyes on the time, trying to figure out what she wanted for dinner.

She settled on some chicken goujons and rice.

A bouquet of orange flowers caught her eye as she went to pay, all on its own in a black container. As though it were waiting.

She picked it up, looked it over, then made her way to the counter.

Six pounds.

“You got flowers,” Arthur said when she walked out.

His shopping hung from his fingertips.

“For your sister?”

She hesitated for a second.

“They’re for you.”

“Why?” There was a smile on his lips. The kind that was polite, but didn’t quite understand the situation. “What’s the occasion?”

“No occasion. It’s just . . . didn’t you say you’ve never been given flowers?”

She waited, hand held out.

Arthur looked a little startled.

He’d mentioned it when she was worried about Marie’s flowers and if they’d survive being in her home.

She’d commented on the petals falling off and how it seemed like, at any moment, they’d fall apart.

“I like flowers,” she’d said. “But not getting them. The big bouquets, I mean. They’re beautiful, but when they die . . .”

Tossing them into the bin made her feel like she was responsible for killing them.

“True,” he’d agreed.

He’d offered her a mint and she took one from the roll.

“Still. I’d like to get flowers once,” Arthur had added.

Then he’d asked her if she could look over an e-mail for him, and all thoughts of flowers and bouquets were set to the side.

Now, Arthur took the flowers from her and held them in between his fingertips, as though any bit of pressure might make them shatter in his grasp.

The corner of his mouth rose.

He muttered a simple thank you, then struggled to find how to hold them.

He tested several ways as they walked, letting them hang down at first, but petals fell when he did that.

He tried holding them up against his body, but felt as though he was crushing them.

In the end he simply held them upright with care.

They came to where their paths broke apart.

She’d head five minutes west while he walked seven east, then five more north.

They stopped. A thousand different words hung between them.

A thousand things they could say and none that seemed right.

He offered to walk her the whole way, but she shook her head.

It was only five minutes. The streets were wide and well lit, and she knew her neighbours well.

“There’s a salsa class on the beach tomorrow evening,” she said.

It was the first thing that came to mind.

She’d seen them once while walking down the coast, and the lights on the street reminded her of then.

She hid her hands inside her pockets.

I’ve always wanted to go, but you need a partner.

He smiled. A little too wide.

Then he swallowed it down and gave a simple nod.

“What time?” he asked.

“Six.”

“OK. You have my number, right?”

She did. He’d written it in pen on a sticky note and given it to her on his last day of work.

He’d told her to call him if she ever wanted to go out on a date.

It was on her nightstand, the edges worn.

They argued a little over him walking back with her.

He finally relented on her going back alone after she’d threatened to walk towards his home, trapping them both in a loop on the pavement.

She could smell the flowers and hints of what little cologne was left on him.

“Call me?” he asked.

The night was cold. She felt nervous, like her hands didn’t quite fit where they were and her leg was slightly longer than normal.

Her knee groaned beneath her weight.

The houses loomed above her head and the path she knew as well as the back of her hand had turned unfamiliar.

She couldn’t quite remember how to breathe.

She allowed herself to stop, then fell to the ground, knees against concrete.

Her hands found a place against her lap and cupped her heart within her grasp.

You deserve love, too, you know?

her sister had muttered three years ago, head against Sophie’s shoulder.

She’d picked up the pieces Sophie’s ex had left. Brushed off the dirt and wiped the tears off her cheeks.

He’d left her with nothing.

Left her feeling so stupid she couldn’t stop to think that it hadn’t been her fault.

It was terrifying. Someone out there had pieces of her she’d never questioned giving away.

It had taken a long time to put herself back again. To regain what she’d lost.

She took a deep breath and pulled herself up and let the sky fall before her.

“You deserve to be loved well,” Ana had said.

Like it was a simple thing.

There was a bouquet at her door when she arrived.

A small collection of chrysanthemums and pink gerberas, wrapped in white.

Beneath them, there was a note – two sentences printed on a card with a bird on the back.

She leaned down and picked them up.

She made her way inside the house, which was empty, as her sister was still out.

She set the flowers down on the table and turned the card around.

Thank you for dropping off the flowers. These are for you.

Sophie found a vase towards the back of the cupboard.

She filled it up to the top with water and set it in the middle of the table, then clipped the string tying the bouquet together.

It looked right. Cheerful, even.

She put the note in the small box kept at the top of the bookcase, alongside birthday cards and letters she’d collected over the years.

She tried not to dream about the future. The dangerous, indecisive thing.

Instead, she messaged Arthur the details.

She smiled at his goodnight texts, then went to bed.

The flowers remained on the table.

When they died off, leaving behind only glimpses of what they were, Arthur bought her a pot full of pale pink flowers.

Enjoy exclusive short stories every week inside the pages of “The People’s Friend”. On sale every Wednesday.