Dahlias were among my favorites, and I'd said so publicly more times than I could count. The ranunculus and garden roses in the first arrangement could have been copied from any number of posts on the shop account, where I regularly photographed and captioned my own arrangements with small essays about the language of flowers that I had always found quietly meaningful but now sat differently in my memory. But the rosemary was the kind of detail that lived in a single caption, written in October, on a night when I'd been in a mood and had gotten a little more personal than usual, and the number of people who would have read that caption carefully enough to file it away was a number I didn't want to think about.
"You have to tell Wade," Lila said.
"I really don't." I could hear the defensiveness in my own voice, and I didn't like it. It was the same reflex that had driven every fight I'd ever had with my brothers about the solo hiking or the fighting they’d done on my behalf. They’d been amazing brothers, and I loved them, but there had been times it had been hard to find my own footing. Telling Wade was the right thing to do. I knew that, but my mouth was still flapping. “Not yet. It's just flowers.”
Lila’s face pinched with disapproval. “This is exactly what you’d make. I heard Phiny when the other one came. We joked about it, but she thought it was a supplier. This note is creepy. Two of them? That’s not…”
“My social media is public." I pressed two fingers to the space between my eyes. "If I call Wade every time something feels a little odd, he’ll come in here and make a scene.”
Her expression said she wasn't entirely opposed to a scene, and I knew that if the shoe was on the other foot, I would have been the one insisting.
"Let me think," I said. "Just give me a day to think about it. If anything else happens, I'll tell him." At her expression, I added, “I promise.”
Internally, I was freaking out. There was just this sensation I couldn’t quite grasp onto, even for myself, let alone trying to explain to someone as logical as Wade. Granted, the flowers and the deliveries were concrete. Feelings? Those weren’t something police officers could file a report on. I knew that.
She looked at me for a long moment, obviously trying to decide how hard to push. Then she exhaled and nodded once in the waythat meant she was agreeing while simultaneously reserving the right to revisit the decision at a later date.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. I'm coming back at lunch, and we’re going to talk about this again.” She slid off the stool but paused at the door, her hand on the frame, and her voice softened. “You don’t have to know what it is to take it seriously. If someone is sending you these, we should tell your brothers. Or tell Hattie. She still has those connections with her squad. She might be able to figure out who’s sending them. Just think about it, Sage-O-Rama. Please?”
“I’ll think about it.” She was right to press me. Telling Wade so he could at least look into the deliveries was the right call. I hadn’t been too concerned (that much) about the first two, but three? I wouldn’t ask Hattie. She’d stopped the whole podcast thing, and I didn’t think she wanted to get back into that scene. I knew she’d call in a favor, but I wouldn’t ask her to, not when she and Kipp were so happy right now.
“You’re coming to book club this week, right?”
“You know it. I’m all caught up on my chapters and everything,” I exhaled with relief that she was letting me off the hook and changing the subject.
“It’ll be fun. Isn’t this book good?A Curious Beginning.Awesome title too.I just love the Victorian setting and the mystery. It gives me all sorts of different directions to go in for my desserts and activities on book club night.”
Lila always had so much fun coming up with matching desserts, and they were always a hit. She consistently had full houses ather book club nights, to the point where we had to split into two discussion groups because attendance was so high.
“This is the first time I’ve picked a title that is part of a series, but Deanna Raybourn is really good. I was thinking it might be a good seller, so I stocked the rest of the titles in the shop.”
“Smart thinking.” One of the things that really helped us strengthen our friendship in adulthood was our shared interest in business. Lila was always making steady moves. This was her way of thinking ahead. “After I finish this one, I’ll definitely pick up the next. You already have a customer.” I gave her a squeeze.
“I can always count on you. See you later, babe.” She gave me a pointed glance that told me she wouldn’t forget to talk to me about the flowers.
The bell sang over the door as she left, and the shop went quiet again—just the heater, the faint drip from the cooler. The arrangement with its perfect copper dahlias and that rosemary sprig seemed to mock me from my workbench.
I stood there for a minute.
Then I reached for my phone, opened my shop account, and pulled up the October post with its caption about remembrance. I read through the comments carefully. Nothing jumped out.
There was no comment or like on the photo that made me think it was from some weirdo. It was just a few tags to friends and the cluster of regulars. Tucking my phone away, I put the flowers in a vase and placed them in the sun near the window. They were beautiful, and I wasn’t planning on throwing them out because then it would feel like conceding to a feeling I hadn’t decided on yet. If I started being afraid, I’d never stop.
The copper dahlias caught the light and gleamed, so I took a picture of them with the soft light and the windows behind them, with the dahlias framed within a frame, and posted it to the shop account. Something dumb about autumn flowers in spring, and then I waited for Cedric to get there so I could make the Handler delivery. I just wanted to get out of the building. Everything felt wrong.
Chat
Dysfunction Junction
Kipp
I need everyone to know that I found a spider the size of a small country in the bathroom this morning, and I handled it with extreme grace and dignity. I relocated it to a more suitable habitat.
Kippers, I have a small fern with your name on it if you want something living in your bathroom that won't traumatize you.
Kipp
