It was alreadyPink Blossom’sthird week in business, and she’d still not had the experience of her daydreams, her beautiful, dreamy-looking little shop unknown to all eyes but hers. They were simply too busy, the orders coming in a non-stop deluge each morning until she turned off the system. Sumi knew she could have stemmed the tide, set the minimum order amount higher, but she was too new for that, according to her Bloomerang managing partner.
“You don’t want to start fiddling with the system too deeply, not yet. Get your shop’s name out there first, that’s the whole point. If a business has one of your arrangements on their desk and it starts to wilt, are they going to go online and start the whole order process from scratch? No, they’re going to scan the QR on your card, and now you have a built-in customer. Trust the process, Sumi. I know it’s overwhelming at first; your staff just needs to find their rhythm.”
That was the goal, she’d told the designers the following morning — find their rhythm enough to unlock the doors. After the morning meeting, she’d gone to the front to pull from the coolers for the morning’s first deliveries, baskets and vases that had been made at the end of the previous day. Seff and Doona had proved to be their most valuable hires, bringing along the experience of having worked in several Bloomerang-branded shops in Bridgeton.
The Bloomerang website, they’d explained, was built on a handful of base products. Four different baskets and four different vases, the basis of everything else offered. “If you have those pre-made, all we have to do is add flowers to bring it to value, depending on what they want.”
It had been the game changer they’d needed, entering the second week of business with no slowing in sight. As she’d pulled the baskets from the cooler, Sumi had looked around her beautiful shop, understanding now why the footprint of her sales floor was barely half the size of the backroom.You’re nothing but a bouquet sweatshop.
She was determined to prove him wrong, open her doors, let the whole of Cambric Creek see her beautiful shop. Near the front door was a four-foot section of wall covered in plants and live greens, the Pink Blossom logo rendered in glowing neon. Sumi had longed for the day when they would be able to turn the sign on, encouraging customers to take advantage of the socialmedia ready photo op. Now the day was here, the rhythm found; a system that worked for them.
And isn’t that what you want? To be successful?She did. Without question, she did. This washerdream.But did you want to be successful like this? This isn’t what you envisioned at all.The question nagged at the back of mind, the reality of her shop so night-and-day-different with her naive daydreams that it kept her up at night, but she had reached a consensus with herself, at least for the time being. She would open the shop doors every morning, for just a few hours a day. It wasn’t what she had envisioned, but it satisfied the inch beneath her skin.
The first customers through the door were a pair of shifters, gagging as they pushed the door shut behind them. “What is that fucking smell?!”
Sumi felt her grin falter as one of the women exclaimed, ignoring her cheerful greeting. “Something in the street, I think,” she forced out, still smiling. “I hope they get it picked up soon. Fortunately, we smell lovely in here.”
It proved to be a common refrain. She didn’t have many customers come in, but each one that did mentioned the offensive odor outside her door.
“I didn’t see anything in the street,” an amphibious woman corrected her, nearly retching as she burst into the shop. “Maybe it’s something in the trash.”
Sumi nodded, cheeks burning. They were all looky-loos, just coming in to check her out, but that was fine. She didn’t need their sales through the front door, but neither did she want the reputation of smelling like the dump. “Fortunately, the trash pickup is tomorrow.”
Sumi watched with her own two eyes as the bin was emptied the following morning, breathing a sigh of relief.Today’s going to be a good day.
That was, at least, until the very first troll through the door did so with her hand clasped over her mouth, just a short while later. “This whole corner smells disgusting.” She peered around suspiciously, as though the source of the smell might be coming from Sumi’s tree. “I really don’t think it’s sanitary for you to even be open.”
Her smile felt frozen as she picked up her phone, once the troll left, hiding her face again, dialing City Hall.
“Miss, I don’t know what you want us to do. It was picked up this morning.”
Sumi glowered, wishing the bored-sounding voice on the phone could see her. “I understand they picked up the trash this morning, but obviously they left something behind. They need to come back and get it.”
A long-suffering side from the voice on the phone. “Our trucks have very tight routes. We don’t make repeat runs, because that would mean someone else doesn’t get their trash picked —“
“I don’t care,” she interrupted, struggling to keep her voice from rising.Donotlet them make you the Karen. You are being unfairly targeted. Hedda popped her head around the corner, eyebrows raised. “Can’t you send someone to come out and check it? Call that guy from the planning commission, his name was Owen. He liked shooting orders, see what he’s doing this morning. It smells like a dead body outside my door, and it’s affecting my business!”
She was fuming when the city truck finally made its way around to their trash can, thefollowingafternoon. Even opening the front door made the noxious odor suck into the shop, leaving her with no choice but to keep theclosedsign in the window.
The orc driving the truck pulled a face as he approached the bin. She watched him pull up the nearly empty bag, knotting it and tossing it into the flatbed of his pickup before peeling off his gloves and turning for her door.
“Yeah, it was something in the trash. Just unlucky that someone dumped their take out right after pickup. The smell should go away now.”
Sumi thanked him profusely, insisting he take a wrap of roses home for his wife on the house, waving as he pulled away . . . when her eyes narrowed.Just unlucky my big bouncy ass.
She walked back to her desk, after the truck pulled away, pondering the orc’s words.Unluckywas having something noxious dumped in her trash in the first place. Having something dumped again, immediatelyafterpickup,afterthe original something noxious was removed, was sabotage.
She stared at the shelf above her desk, where the most recent bouquet rested, her most recent reminder. Chrysanthemums, once again, bright and cheerful . . . and a single black dahlia at their center. She had retaliated, of course, not willing to back down from his intimidation, by sending him a dish garden of yellow hyacinths.
At least once a week a new bouquet arrived. Lilies and narcissus, carnations and even once a small pot of basil.The fucking audacity!Hedda and the gnome twins had watched open-mouthed as Sumi stamped around the shop, ranting to herself over the basil for a full afternoon.
As a response, she had sent him a beautiful bouquet of lush yellow roses and the gnomes had nudged each other, watching as she laughed wickedly, wrapping the flowers for delivery.
“Is all this supposed tomeansomething?“ Hedda asked conversationally one morning, eyeing the collection of dried flowers fromThe Perfect Petal. “I feel you could both save a lot of money by just, I don’t know,notsending each other a hundred of dollars worth of lilies every week. This is like, averystrange relationship you have together.”
“Oh,heknows what it means,“ Sumi had assured her, cackling to herself as she prepared a bud vase with a single daffodil. “And we don’t have a relationship.”
This, though, was altogether different. This wasn’t luck. This was biological warfare, and she wouldn’t stand for it.
