Page 43

My hands at ten and two on the wheel didn’t agree. They held on like the car might try to leave without me, and I took the turns too sharply.

Vivienne’s driveway was blocked by Caspian’s Maserati, the florist’s van, and a FedEx truck. I parked on the street.

I crossed the road, toward the driveway.

A man stood leaning against his car, scrolling on his phone.

I filed his face away, told myself that was just more paranoia, then went inside.

The kitchen had been colonized by flowers. Vivienne did this every spring. She called it her living prayer to nature’s abundance. To me it had always felt like a symbol for her purchased vitality, but this morning, it was so much worse. This morning it made my stomach churn. The heady, sweet scent made me think of a crown of wildflowers on my head. Of a man made of eels and rotting flesh, vomiting daisies and marigolds onto my dress. I dumped my purse on a stool and swallowed hard.

The florist’s delivery guy, Simon, gave me a sympathetic nod on the way out.

Sofia was busy at the sink, her apron covered in water. She glanced over her shoulder.

“This again,” I said on my way to the butler’s pantry. I grabbed every vase I could find.

Sofia replied with a look that told me she wished the flowers were for Vivienne’s funeral. “She’s already mad because the lilies aren’t—”

“Sustainably sourced?”

“Exactly.”

“Neither is your labor, Sofia.”

She laughed at that. A low, sad chuckle.

We worked together. Sofia transferred narcissus bulbs to cylindrical glass. I worked on the sacred geometry bouquet, which required finding directions buried in an email from a year ago. Those I had deleted, it turned out. I called the florist. Left her a voicemail. She returned my call sounding as stressed as I was. I trimmed and positioned seven hundred dollars’ worth of white lilies, calla lilies, and monstera leaves to form a spiral display as a symbol of ascension. Or ostentatious excess.

“Can you get the peonies?” Sofia said.

I blinked at the purple flowers on the island. “I don’t remember them from last year.”

“Those aren’t from the florist,” Sofia said, now in the throes of trying to coax fifty stems of hellebores and muscari into an enormous vase.

I set the scissors on the counter and read the small card buried in the bouquet.

Vivienne,

Thank you for sending Marlowe to us. It’s a joy to hold space for women at the beginning of transformation.

Your intuition is a gift to the universe and to Marlowe. By trusting the process, you’ve helped her step into her highest self.

With gratitude and light,

Aurora

“Marlowe, are you okay, mi amor?”

Sofia was at my side, scissors still in hand.

“Yes, yes. I’m okay,” I said.

“You’re shaking.”

“I didn’t get much sleep. I ate something bad, and I was up late with it.”

Before I could embellish the white lie further, the door to Vivienne’s healing room opened. Vivienne emerged in a silk plum kimono, barefoot, the ends of her hair heavy with oil and her mouth red, as if it had just received some friction.