She walked away with Callie and Poppy, the three of them falling back into conversation about something I didn’t catch.
I looked at the dahlias.
Margaux pointed at a large mixed bouquet near the front of the cart, whites and pale greens and something purple I didn’t know the name of. The man started wrapping it. I waited while he tied the paper.
I looked at the Café au Lait dahlias.
I picked one stem up.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Margaux.
August and Callie were about twenty feet ahead, stopped outside a window display, Poppy reading the shop name out loud and then explaining how ice creams started to be called ice creams to no one who had asked. I caught up to them. August turned around and saw me and looked at the dahlia in my hand with an expression like she wasn’t sure if she was reading this correctly.
I held it out.
“I could see you wanted to buy something,” I said. “So.” I stopped. “It’s one flower. I’m not giving you a whole bouquet or anything.”
I could hear how that sounded. I kept going anyway because stopping mid-sentence was worse.
“I just thought—” I stopped again. “Here.”
She took it.
She looked at it. She looked up at me. Her face did the thing it did when dad said he had three daughters, except this time she wasn’t close to crying, she was just — happy. Straightforwardly,completely happy, the way she was happy about things, without trying to manage it.
“Thank you,” she said.
“It’s one stem.”
“I know.” She smiled. “Thank you, Fletcher.”
I went back.
Margaux was holding her bouquet when I returned. She looked at me, then at the direction I’d come from, then back at me. Her mouth was in a smile that didn’t move when the rest of her face moved.
“Thank you for the flowers,” she said. Very sweetly.
“Of course.”
She held the bouquet out slightly. “Can you carry them? They’re heavier than I thought.”
I took them.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out.
The email had come in. The one I’d been waiting on for two weeks. The subject line was twelve words and I read them once and the evening went flat around me, the music and the warm light and the smell of the restaurants all going to background noise.
“I have to get back,” I said.
Margaux looked up. “Now?”
“There’s something I need to deal with.” I looked at the group. “I have some work. I’ll head back to the estate.”
“I wanted to look at the antique store and there’s a boutique on the next block—”
“Take your time. I’ll see you back there.”
Callie, August, and Poppy were a few feet away. Poppy was already waving. Callie said goodbye. August looked at me for a second with something in her eyes that I didn’t have time to name and then she smiled and said goodnight.
