CHAPTER ONE
NICHOLAS
I turn off the quiet, shaded road and find a spot to park along a ditch. The sun has just barely risen, gray light fills the sky, and birds chirp to greet the morning in the forest around me.
Tired as I am from working late last night, flower-picking is always best bright and early.
Stepping into the chilly air, I gather my tools, two big woven baskets with my snippers, cooler buckets, gloves, and assorted gardening supplies. After spritzing myself with natural insect repellent, a rumble gets my attention, and I turn.
I’m over an hour’s drive down the coast of Lake Erie from Buffalo, and I practically never spot another person in this slice of nature, especially not so early.
An old blue truck comes down the road, coughing and sputtering. The back is loaded up and tied down, hauling something I can’t see.
The truck slows to a creep. As it passes, the driver and I make eye contact, and the world seems to slow.
The man is probably my age, a white guy like me in his late twenties or so, with short, dark hair and heavy stubble. He’s attractive in a rugged, roguish way. Not my usual type, but a pleasant sight to encounter on this enchanted morning.
He’s less than twenty feet away now, and I see the slightly crooked bent of his nose, the heavy furrow of his brow, and the square cut of his jaw. His features delight me, and I’m hit with a peculiar sensation like I’ve seen him before, although I’m certain I never have.
Just as quickly, the man’s expression falls halfway to a frown, and the truck is gone, further into the woods.
I hum to myself, intrigued.
Hopefully, that scowl doesn’t mean he’s a local, deciding I’m up to no good. I’ve got the landowner’s permission to come here and harvest. She’s a regular at my flower shop in the city.
Years ago, she brought in a photograph of the wildflowers growing at her vacation cabin, asking for identification help. When I saw the open woods and meadow, filled with delicate lavender shooting stars, my heart soared. We quickly struck a deal, and she now stops by for a free bouquet every month, while I trot out to gather a sustainable harvest of shooting stars once each year, timed so the plants will send up a second bloom for the butterflies and bees.
I haul my baskets across the ditch and into the forest, heading toward the wildflower patch. It takes a lot of hands-on missions to make ends meet at Blossom. But I don’t mind. As I swat mosquitoes and get to harvesting, I’m grateful for the peaceful time in nature as well as for the profit we’ll make selling these.
Costs in the gayborhood keep rising, and good flowers are perpetually harder to source. Every dollar I can scrimp together puts me closer to paying off the business startup loans, too, so I can’t afford to skip an opportunity like this.
I sing “Work, Bitch” by Britney Spears to myself and quicken my pace, thinking of the tasks that wait for me back in the city.
Complicating everything at the business, a few months ago, the owner of Blossom’s building died. Randy lived above theshop for decades. He’s a dearly missed friend, and those of us who shared the lot with him were perplexed to learn of his decision to leave his entire estate to his grandson.
Building included.
Not least because everyone was shocked Randy had a grandson in the first place. It took the bank until last week to even locate him.
Now, I’m waiting for this mysterious relative to appear. With the rate of development on our block alone, he’ll have no problem selling the building if that’s what he wants. And regardless of what happens, no one is going to charge me rent as low as Randy did.
I remind myself that, for all I know, the new owner will want to live upstairs himself and keep things just as they are.
Maybe he’s always dreamed of living above a flower shop in Buffalo. You never know.
And relentless optimism hasn’t failed me yet.
It might not make me rich, but Blossom is my dream come true. Or at least part of a dream, until I finally find my Prince Charming to settle down and enjoy this life with me. Even without that piece of the puzzle, though, I’ve surrounded myself with flowers and good friends, and I’m grateful to have exactly the career I wanted, satisfying and enlivening.
A new question mark hanging over my lease can’t bring me down now.
The sun rises, and the spring day warms. Shooting stars look like faerie wings, purple hearts that float above a rosette of lush green leaves. Each flower’s stamens hang beneath the petals in a pointed cluster, yellow and white and dark pink. Delicate and drooping, the flowers are sturdy, too, and they’ll hold up well in the small bouquets that I’ll create this morning.
Every spring, customers gush over the bouquets I make from the shooting stars.
When I’m done, I climb back through the woods. It’s more difficult with the flowers, which I try to protect. At the ditch, I step gingerly and wobble on rocks to find my crossing, the water just high enough to be a problem.
Wind blows through the trees. I scramble up the other side of the ditch, and my pulse skips when I see that truck rumbling down the road again, returning my way. Compromised by my position, I’m now also sweaty, and there’s dirt all over my long-sleeved T-shirt and old, ill-fitting work jeans.
