Alex Hines - Chance

As soon as Ava was back behind her desk with a smile on her face, Matt popped out to get himself something to eat. Typically, the moment he left there was a sudden flurry of customers and then Ava had the shop to herself once more to do a little tidying up. She was standing inelegantly on a chair, trying to reach into one of the highest pails, when she heard the tinkle of the doorbell and looked down to find out who it was. The sun beaming through the shop front meant that she could only see a figure in silhouette, but she knew who it was in an instant. That curious combination of leather and vetiver drifted over the scent of the flowers again: it was the man from last week, the Argentine Tango man. As she stepped down from the chair, she brushed the hair from her face and for the second time that day wished that she had made more of an effort with her outfit. She swiftly dismissed that thought, however, remembering Lauren’s wise words that she should do more for herself, not other people.

‘Hello there,’ she said with a smile, brisk and professional.

‘Hi. Me again, I’m afraid.’

This time Ava noticed that he was not as young as she had thought him last time. He looked crisp and fresh, though, and carried himself with none of the defeated slouch that Rob had lately acquired but he was unmistakably her age, or maybe even slightly older. This time he was carrying a classic Harris Tweed overnight bag. An umbrella was lying across the top of it, along the zip between the two soft leather handles.

‘How can I help?’

‘I’d like something gorgeous again.’

Ava blushed and quickly looked away.

Stop it , she told herself.

‘Last time, you did a perfect job.’

Why did everything he say sound so outrageous? She must stop thinking like this.

‘Thank you,’ she mumbled. ‘You liked the cabbage roses, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, and those sweet peas are rather lovely too. Where are they from?’

‘They’re local, from a farm near Alvediston.’ Ava was proud to have been asked – and also relieved that for once the sweet peas had actually arrived when she’d been told they would.

‘It’s wonderful down there – I love that valley.’

He had taken a bunch of sweet peas from the pail and was now holding them up to glance at them against the light of the window. The petals looked translucent, almost glowing.

But Ava wasn’t looking at them.

He probably had a little more girth than he should beneath that bright blue shirt and while in profile she could see that his dark, slightly curly hair was greying a little at the sides, just the beginnings of salt and pepper. His hair was perhaps an inch longer than someone her dad’s age would have approved of and it certainly wasn’t a cut that Rob would have deemed businesslike, yet he carried it off. His clothes, especially his brown leather shoes, were pretty smart and his bag was clearly expensive. He had a lovely nose, and as he turned back to her she could see how dark his eyes were, almost black.

‘That’s where I grew up,’ said Ava – at exactly the same time as he asked, ‘Could you do me something with these, then?’

There was a confusion of apologies and gesticulation while each did their best to let the other be heard.

‘You …’

‘No, you …’

‘Go ahead …’ and eventually, ‘So, you grew up there? Me too – well, Bower Chalke.’

‘Really?’

Suddenly the shop felt extremely hot again. Why had she told him this? She took a fresh posy of sweet peas from the pail and started on the bouquet.

‘Yes, I used to go to ping-pong club in your village hall.’

‘So did I! Well, I did ballet – just after the ping-pongers.’

She looked away. Stop telling him this stuff …

‘Oh, those ballet girls! The 12-year-old me used to dream of catching a glimpse of them on our way out of ping-pong. Wow, I was a real dork! I’m sorry, you don’t need to know any of this.’ He laughed sheepishly. Was he embarrassed too? ‘It sounds like it!’ Ava laughed. ‘We ballet girls were not impressed by the ping-pong dorks! We thought we were the bee’s knees. In fact, I’m pretty sure I thought I was Ola Jordan at the very least. By the way, we could see you looking in the window at the end of our lessons – none of you were very subtle.’

‘Busted!’ As if wounded, he put a hand to his chest. ‘So cruel, the ballet girls! And it turns out even today they remain heartbreakers. That’s my childhood you’re trampling all over.’

Ava giggled again. For a moment she was unsure what the noise was before realising with sadness that she had become unaccustomed to the sound of her own happiness.

‘Suck it up, Dork – the ballet girls rule!’

Her exuberance was bubbling over, she had to catch herself and remember he was there for flowers. Now she set about making the bouquet, carefully selecting the stems, greenery and the twine. She put it together deliberately, concentrating on each movement, proud of her art. The man watched as she did so, silent as last time. There was no sulky tension here, though – he seemed perfectly comfortable without speaking, happy to watch her work without needing to comment on it or to make polite chit-chat. It was a sort of collaborative concentration. Ava remembered the silences that she and Rob had shared over the weekend, how they seemed so leaden, as if their words had been locked in an airtight room. This silence was very different: the longer it lasted, the more nervous she became about saying the wrong thing. All weekend she had been afraid the wrong words would appear too heavy and crush the mood, now she was afraid words would be too ephemeral, too unknowable, fizzing with uncertain electricity.

Whatever else, she mustn’t ask who the bouquet was for.

When he came to pay Ava, the man patted down his trousers and realised his wallet wasn’t in one of his pockets before bending down to search for it in his overnight bag. Ava made a point of looking away, not wanting to see a flash of his boxer shorts, or an intimidating scrap of some other woman’s silk negligee. Then she looked back immediately, eager to see exactly that. Her desire for clues as to who this mysterious – yet local – charmer was now consumed her. But she saw nothing, and he paid for the bouquet in cash. Denied a glimpse of either his name on a bankcard or the contents of his bag, she was none the wiser. Should she ask?

She picked up the bouquet, ready to hand it to him and by now convinced there might be an actual crackle if they touched.

This is a man with an overnight bag, who regularly buys flowers for someone else. Don’t ask, she told herself. Just don’t!

‘Thank you,’ he said, with a gracious sincerity that unnerved her more than the lighthearted flirting ever had. He took the flowers but there was no crackle. ‘They’re beautiful,’ he told her. He looked up, smiled at her and then left, quietly.

Ava watched him go, noticing how broad his shoulders were, really lovely and broad. Not in an ironic super-hero way, just capable looking .

She sat at her desk, staring ahead and strummed her fingers a couple of times. Something good, for me , she thought to herself. It had been so long since she had considered this that she really didn’t know what she wanted. She glanced down at her nails, stared around the shop again, uncomfortable with this moment of deliberate self-examination then looked for something else to do.

Anything. She reached for the pile of junk mail that had been below the door when she had opened up and idly flicked through it. Just like last week, there was a flyer for the local arts centre. She plucked it from the pile and turned it over, knowing she had thrown away an identical one last week. They were advertising dance classes: one week Latin, another ballroom, 12-week courses.