"Really?"
"Really."
She bounces in her seat with excitement. "This is the best day ever!"
Our food arrives and Anya attacks her spaghetti with enthusiasm, getting sauce on her chin and her cheeks and somehow on her forehead. I wipe her face with a napkin and she squirms away from me.
"Papa, stop, I'm eating."
"You're wearing more than you're eating."
She giggles and shoves another forkful of pasta into her mouth.
When we finish lunch I pay the bill and carry Anya back to the car, and Viktor drives us to the first stop on our list.
"Are there any more yellow flowers?" Anya asks while standing on her tiptoes to peer over the display case. "Mama loves yellow flowers."
The florist, a middle-aged woman with dirt under her fingernails and a kind face, looks down at Anya with a warm smile. "We have plenty of yellow flowers, sweetheart, what kind does your mama like?"
"Yellow roses and sunflowers," I say. "I need daily deliveries to my wife's office starting tomorrow and ending the day before Valentine's Day."
The florist pulls out a notepad. "Of course, how many flowers per delivery?"
"First day one hundred yellow roses, second day one hundred and fifty, third day two hundred, fourth day three hundred, fifth day four hundred, sixth day five hundred."
The florist stops writing and looks up at me. "I'm sorry, did you say the deliveries increase each day?"
"Yes."
"And the final delivery is five hundred roses?"
"Yes."
She blinks a few times and then continues writing. "One hundred, one fifty, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred, five hundred, yellow roses, daily deliveries."
"Add fifty sunflowers to each delivery as well."
"Fifty sunflowers, got it."
Anya tugs on my hand. "Papa, can we add pink ones too?"
"Which pink ones?"
She pulls me toward another section of the shop and points at a bucket of soft pink peonies. "These ones, they're fluffy."
"Those are peonies," the florist says. "Very popular for Valentine's Day."
"Add thirty pink peonies to each delivery," I tell her.
She writes it down. "Thirty pink peonies added to each daily order."
I walk through the shop examining the different flowers while Anya trails behind me, and I stop in front of a bucket of white flowers with delicate petals.
"What are these?" I ask.
"Gardenias," the florist explains. "Very strong fragrance, very romantic."
I pick one up and bring it to my nose, and the scent is overwhelming. "Too strong, Iris prefers subtle scents."
