Love in Bloom

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love in Bloom

 

 

 

 

 

 

ALSO BY SHEILA ROBERTS

 

Bikini Season

 

On Strike for Christmas

 

 

 

 

 

SHEILA ROBERTS

 

 

ST. MARTIN
'
S GRIFFIN
NEW YORK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

 

LOVE IN BLOOM
. Copyright © 2009 by Sheila Rabe. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

 

www.stmartins.com

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

Roberts, Sheila.
Love in bloom / Sheila Roberts. — 1st ed.

p.   cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-38481-4
ISBN-10: 0-312-38481-5
1.   Florists—Fiction.   2.   Breast—Cancer—Patients—Fiction.   3.   Female
friendship—Fiction.   I.   Title.
PS3618.Q31625L68 2006
813'.6—dc22
2008042639

 

First Edition: April 2009

 

10   9   8   7   6ˆ   5   4   3   2   1

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the Garden Queens:
Jan, Billie, Jenni, Vicki, Alexa, and Katherine.
I thank you for all your help with my garden.
So does everything in there that's still alive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T
HIS WAS SUCH
a fun book to write, especially now that I have caught the gardening bug. Part of what made it fun to write was all the wonderful people who helped me. Huge thanks to Bethany Shippen, owner of the real Changing Seasons, which is on Bainbridge Island, Washington, for all her amazing flower advice and for giving me a glimpse into how a florist works. I'm still not sure I got it all right, but one huge thing I learned from Bethany: There's a lot more to flower arranging than sticking those babies in a vase. Flowers are very labor intensive. Thanks also to Damon Herrick, floral designer at Flowers To Go, for being so willing to answer my last-minute flower questions. I'm greatly indebted to Kathy Defenbaugh and Linda Johnson, the helpful experts at Clear Creek Nursery in Silverdale, Washington, for giving me gardening tips for this book. Thanks, too, to my friends Alexa Darin, Bonnie Westcott, and Anjali Banerjee, who also shared some great
tips. I'm hugely indebted to my writing group buddies for their valiant efforts to save me from myself: the Susans, Krysteen, Rose Marie, Lois, PJ, Kate, Suzanne, Elsa, Carol, and Anjali. Thanks to my friend Kema Bohn for helping me with insight into the mind and heart of a cancer survivor. And to my friend Ruth, who saved me in so many ways, all I can say is, I owe you chocolate. Finally, huge thanks and gratitude to Paige Wheeler and Rose Hilliard, world's best agent and editor. You two are simply awesome. Boy, does it take a lot of people to keep a writer on track! So, with all that help, any boo-boos, anything that doesn't read right, sound right, or smell right . . . my bad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

GARDEN SEASON IS HERE AGAIN
.

The Heart Lake Park and Recreation Department
is currently reserving plots for all interested
gardeners at the community garden
at Grandview Park.

 

—from
The Heart Lake Herald

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TIPS ON PLANTING

 

Plant a fifty-cent flower in a five-dollar hole. In other
words, invest some money in your soil. Preparing
the soil with good nutrients for your plants and
flowers will guarantee you a healthy, happy garden.

 

Feed your soil regularly. Beneficial microbes need
organic material to break down and feed the roots
of your plants; an annual top dressing of no more
than one-half inch of organic compost will help to
replenish their banquet table.

 

Plan ahead. If you plant seeds or bulbs, you will
save almost fifty percent over what you'd spend
by purchasing the same plant in a pot.

 

To make your gardening a little easier, keep your
plants that are needy divas in one area of the
garden. You'll be able to meet their heavier
watering and feeding needs in much less time than
if they are scattered throughout your garden.

 

Plants that have been grown in a container
sometimes develop encircling roots. These should
be stretched out or cut when planting to avoid
letting the roots continue circling in the planting
hole. These could eventually girdle the plant
and kill it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I
NEED FLOWERS
, dead ones. Have you got any that are starting to wilt?”

“Excuse me?” Hope Walker stared at the scowling woman standing in front of her. She looked like she could scorch a pansy at twenty paces. This was a new one for Changing Seasons Floral. Was this some sort of April Fools' Day joke? Had she just been punked?

“I want to send flowers to my dog,” the woman explained. Hope took in the woman's dark hair and angry eyes and thought, Cruella de Vil.

Hope frowned and ran a hand through her hair—all those curls, still hard to get used to. “Excuse me?”

The woman talked right over her. “My ex has custody, so I don't want anything pretty sitting on his doorstep. And I want the card to read, ‘These aren't for you, they're for the dog. Condolences, Schatsi, on getting stuck with Daddy.' I'll pay for it with MasterCard.”

For everything else, there's MasterCard
. But not for this. Life was too short to waste it helping people be bitter.

“I'm afraid I can't help you,” said Hope with a smile of faux regret. “All my flowers are fresh.”

“Well, you must have something,” snapped the woman, making Hope feel like she was twelve instead of thirty.

You are a businesswoman. You can deal with difficult people.

No, she couldn't. If she could, she'd be a lawyer. Or a cop. Or a baseball referee. She went into this business so she could spread love and comfort with pretty flower arrangements.

Hope's heart rate picked up a notch. At five feet five inches, she could look most women in the eye, but this one had a couple of inches on her. And her foul mood made her look seven feet tall.

What to say to someone like this? Hope arranged flowers for happy: weddings, graduations, birthdays. She arranged flowers for sad: funerals, hospital stays. And she arranged flowers for love and sex, and probably not always in that order. But what she didn't arrange flowers for was bitter, angry, or vindictive, and this woman could qualify for all three. It was all Hope could do not to say, “Get visiting rights for the dog and come back when I can help you in a positive way.”

“I don't care what you do, just do something that gets the message across. Okay?”

Okay. This was a business. She had to be professional. “How much do you want to spend?”

“Whatever it takes.”

Whatever it takes? That wasn't something a woman said when she wanted to prove a point and then move on. That was something a woman said when she was hurt and angry and, deep down, hoping that one desperate gesture would work magic and take her to a Hallmark happy ending.

Now Hope knew these flowers weren't for the dog. She also knew the message this woman really wanted to send and just how she
could help. “All right,” she said crisply. “I think I can help you. But you need to allow me creative license.”

“Do Whatever you want,” said the woman.

There it was. Permission to do what she did best: speak what was in someone's heart with her flowers. She took the credit card information and Schatsi and Daddy's address, then, after assuring the woman she would get just what she needed, Hope sent her on her way with a little shamrock plant to make her feel better.

Then she slipped behind the thick velvet curtains that hid her work area at the back of the shop and got busy. She combined red carnations, which symbolized an aching heart, with red roses, for love, remembrance, and passion. Ferns made the perfect green for this arrangement because they symbolized sincerity. On the card, she wrote the message behind the message:
Schatsi, I wish things could be different
. She added a quick note explaining the symbolism of the flowers. She'd wait a day before delivering. The flowers wouldn't be wilted, but they wouldn't be fresh, either. It felt like a good compromise.

But would her customer think so? Would the woman call and yell at her? Storm into the shop and threaten to sue her? Had this really been the right thing to do?

She emerged with her masterpiece and looked around her shop, all gussied up in anticipation of Easter with baskets brimming with tulips and daffodils, Easter egg trees and pastel egg garlands. “Well, everyone,” she said as she set the bouquet on the counter, “you heard. She insisted. And this will accomplish so much more than what she originally wanted.”

Of course, none of the flowers responded, but if they could have, Hope knew they would have cheered her brilliance, clapped their petals even.

The little bell over the shop door jingled and Clarice, her girl Friday, walked in, ten minutes late as usual, a vision in retro hippy clothes, maroon hair, and ear piercings. Clarice was nineteen and
very creative, and she liked to make sure people picked up on that at first glance. “Who are you talking to?”