The bell on the door clanged as Mr. Hughes left the shop, and I went back to work on an arrangement that was scheduled for pickup in less than an hour. I clipped a few sprigs of baby’s breath and stuck them alongside bundles of fuchsia crape myrtles, St. John’s wort, and blush-colored roses in a tall vase. I ran my fingers over the roses and they plumped up.
Mom flipped on the Bluetooth speaker and Faith Evans’s voice rang out as she bobbed her head to the beat.
“Lookin’ good,” she said, eyeing the arrangement in front of me. “I love the colors.”
“Thanks. I’ve been working on it since yesterday. I should be done soon.”
She came over and put her arm around my shoulder. “Thank you for doing that for Mr. Hughes. It means a lot to him to have those flowers, but . . .” She looked down the hall toward the back door. “You have to be really careful.”
“I know,” I said, reading the worry in her eyes. “I was. I got all six from a single pistil.”
“Really?” Mom lowered her voice and leaned in close, even though we were the only two people in the shop. “That’s some kind of record, right?”
I nodded. She had always been fascinated with what I could do, but her curiosity was tempered with concern. I couldn’t blame her.
She looked me over. “How you feeling? Dizzy?”
I nodded. A shadow of unease crossed her face.
“Anything else you need me to do today?” I asked, avoiding her eyes.
“No, but there’s something you can do after you finish this arrangement.” She rested her hand on my cheek. “Try relaxing a little. School’s out for the summer, baby. I know this year was tough.”
I raised my eyebrows in mock surprise.
Mom narrowed her eyes at me. “Okay. ‘Tough’ is the understatement of the century.”
This past school year had put my acting skills to the test. Not because I wanted to be on stage, but because the row of potted plants my English teacher kept on her windowsill grew roots as long as I was tall; the trees in the courtyard arched toward the window next to my assigned seat in science—and everybody noticed. I had to pretend like I was shocked, like I thought it was weird. I had to speculate loudly about the cause. It could’ve been chemicals seeping into the ground from toxic runoff. Maybe all the hormones the government put in our food were leaking out of the lunchroom trash and into the ground, making the trees grow in strange and unusual ways. It made zero sense, but some people latched on to the idea, and now I had to show up at protests demanding the soil around our school be tested, like I didn’t make up the whole thing to keep from being found out. If anybody had been paying close enough attention, they would have seen that every school I’d ever attended had a similar “contamination.”
“I love having you in the shop,” Mom said. “I really do. But don’t feel like you have to be.”
“I love working here,” I said. “You know that.”
“I want you to have some fun this summer. We can manage.”
“But I can help. You know what I mean.”
Mom shook her head. My parents liked to pretend they were fine with me slacking off for the summer, but the truth was, they needed the extra help. Orders were coming in and walk-ins happened all the time, but even though business was steady, gentrification rent was erasing our gains. They couldn’t afford to hire any more people, so I took on the responsibility.
The bell clanged again, and Mo came in balancing a plastic container full of croissants on top of a flimsy cardboard tray with three cups of coffee. I ran over to grab the coffees before they toppled over.
“Good save,” Mo said. She kissed me on the forehead and set the food on the counter.
“It’s busy today,” said Mom. “I got a call about the basic wedding package. They wanted to know if we can do it by Friday?”
“We can do it by Friday.” Mo clapped her hands together and turned to me. “You workin’ today, love?”
“Yup.”
“Nope,” Mo said. She took my hand and pulled me out from behind the counter, scooting me toward the door. She untied my apron and took it off, tossing it to Mom. “I love you, but you need to get out of here and go do some teenager stuff.”