He shrugs and gives me a half smile. “It’s no problem. I’ve got my favorite place on standby.”
“Well, thank you. I appreciate it.” I turn to head back to the girls.
“I’m really glad you’re here, Sadie.”
The words stop me in my tracks, because honestly, I truly can’t imagine why anyone would be happy to have me here. But the look inhis bright green eyes, even hidden behind those big-ass glasses, is nothing but genuine.
And so is my smile. “Me too.”
Sunday is spent in a glorious Brooklyn hipster haze, with me strolling through the blocks surrounding Jack’s brownstone, exploring farmers’ markets and drinking like ten cups of coffee so I can find which place makes my favorite. Spoiler alert: they’re all delicious, and the more I traverse the streets of Park Slope, the more in love I am with my new neighborhood.
I give myself the day to do whatever I want because tomorrow is Monday. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life, and yeah, I’m embracing the cliché and I’m not even mad about it. Tomorrow is for bartender job hunting, and budget setting, and figuring out how the hell one starts a sustainable floral design company with no real experience.
You must be an idiot to think you can pull this off.
The words halt my steps, the negativity catching me off guard in the middle of this overwhelmingly positive day. For a second, I consider heading back to the brownstone, sprucing up my résumé, and applying for more soul-sucking finance jobs. It’d be easier to go back to the known than try for something completely new. Something risky, something that might actually make me happy.
But today is all about the good stuff. It has to be. Shoving the self-doubt into the back corner of my mind, I force a fake smile across my face, until the charm of my new neighborhood makes it real. I takeabout a hundred photos for my new Instagram account and buy far more bunches of flowers than I should at the farmers’ market, excited to get back to the house and arrange them in whatever vessels I can manage to scrape up. I brought a few of my standbys with me, but one of my favorite things to do is create arrangements in nontraditional vases. In fact, one of the first tenets of my as-yet-to-be-written business plan will be not buying new vases but rather repurposing recycled and vintage items.
Jack is nowhere to be found when I push through the front door in the late afternoon, an iced latte in one hand and five paper-wrapped bushels of flowers tucked in the other. I drop all my goodies on the kitchen counter before running upstairs to kick off my shoes and dump my purse. I stash my receipts from my floral purchases in a folder labeled “Tax Shit” before digging out my flower-cutting shears, mentally adding a cute gardening apron to my shopping list.
Before I get to the actual flower arranging, I dig around in the kitchen to see what I might want to use for vases. I pull four beer cans from the recycling bin, along with an old coffee can, and I dig out one of my favorite ceramic vases from a still-packed kitchen box. The coffee-can lid gets tossed back in the recycling, and the vase gets unwrapped, but the beer cans require a little more work. I attack one of the tops with my shears, cutting around the edges until I can yank on the tab and rip the whole thing off, leaving me a perfect cylinder.
I’m stabbing beer can number two when Jack startles me out of my concentration. “Um, what’s going on here?”
Jumping about a foot, I barely manage to avoid stabbing myself in the process. “Jesus, dude, first rule of roommating, don’t sneak up on anyone holding scissors. Or a knife. Or anything sharp that couldliterally poke their eyes out. And by ‘their eyes,’ I mean my eyes, which I’d quite like to keep in my head, thank you very much.”
His face scrunches up like he’s making some sort of mental note. “Sorry. No sneaking. Won’t happen again.” He crosses over to the kitchen peninsula, which looks like a floral shop exploded all over it, which, to be fair, it basically did. “What’s going on here?”
“Floral arranging.” I look at him and blink a lot so he knows how I feel about questions he should already know the answer to, because hello, look at the counter.
“I thought your thing was gardening.”
“It’s both. And yes, you’re right, the backyard is already looking a million times better than before I moved in.” I meet his eyes and smile sweetly, right before piercing the top of the next beer can.
He gestures to the mounds of flowers currently covering all available space in his kitchen. “Is this going to be an everyday occurrence?”
I get to work on beer can number four. “Not right away, but hopefully once my business picks up some traction, then maybe yeah. Maybe at that point I’ll have enough to rent a small studio space somewhere. Though I’d obviously have to be really raking it in for that to be a possibility. But it’s totally a possibility, I mean, I definitely have ‘next Martha Stewart’ potential, don’t you think?” I slip back into my woman-at-work mask flawlessly, charming confidence fitting over me like armor to hide all the doubts I naturally have about this business venture’s succeeding.
Jack picks up a peony, examining it like it might bite him. “I thought you were looking for a job in finance.”
“I was going to, but do you remember that whole thing about my job being the least interesting thing about me?”
Jack carefully puts down the bud, a look of terror growing in his eyes. “Yes?”
“Well, I’ve decided to open a business instead!” Taking my vessels over to the sink to fill them with water, I let the sound of the rushing liquid drown out whatever Jack’s response might be.
Jack’s mouth is still hanging open when I return to the peninsula. “You’re opening some kind of floral business?”
“Yeah, is that okay? I mean I know I don’t need permission from you to make a career change, as long as I can keep paying rent, which I promise I will. But I guess I maybe should’ve asked how you feel about flowers and stuff before really committing to this plan long-term since I’ll need to use the kitchen from time to time and this is technically communal space.” I slide my scissors through the brown paper around one of the bunches, releasing the flowers and starting to trim the stems. “I guess if you’re really opposed to it I could do most of my work outside, for the spring and summer months anyway, and then we could figure out something in the fall. Assuming you haven’t kicked me out by then.” I flash him what I hope is an endearing grin.
He grips the edge of the counter like he physically needs the support in order to remain standing. “I’m not going to kick you out, Sadie.”
“Oh, sweetie, it’s day one. You’re going to find so many reasons to kick me out between now and fall. It’s only April.” Once all the flowers are trimmed, the fun part begins. I look at the vessels, deciding which will get what flowers, and then I dive in. I attack it with gusto, willing to take risks, knowing that all floral arranging mistakes can be fixed. It’s one of the things I like most about flowers—the freedom to make mistakes. Freedom not found in many other areas of life.
“I guess as long as you keep everything clean, it shouldn’t be a bigdeal for you to use the kitchen when you need it.” Jack runs a hand through his unruly long hair, pushing it back from his face.
Which is when I notice it could be quite a nice face, if it weren’t so hidden by dark curls and glasses, which I’m still not sure are real.
