Ванесса Диффенбау: The Language of Flowers

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“Are you done eating?” Elizabeth asked, setting down her fork. I had only picked at the slabs of ham, but I nodded. “Then come with me and I’ll explain.”

Elizabeth stood and turned to cross the kitchen. I stuffed a fistful of pasta into one pocket and dumped the bowl of small tomatoes into the other. Elizabeth paused at the back door but did not turn around. I pulled up my kneesocks and lined the American cheese between my socks and calves. Before jumping down from the chair, I grabbed the spoon of peanut butter, licking it slowly as I followed Elizabeth. Four wooden steps brought us down into a large flower garden.

“I’m talking about the language of flowers,” Elizabeth said. “It’s from the Victorian era, like your name. If a man gave a young lady a bouquet of flowers, she would race home and try to decode it like a secret message. Red roses mean love; yellow roses infidelity . So a man would have to choose his flowers carefully.”

“What’s infidelity?” I asked as we turned down a path and yellow roses surrounded us on all sides.

Elizabeth paused. When I looked up, I saw that her expression had turned sad. For a moment I thought something I said had disturbed her, but then I realized her eyes were directed at the roses, not at me. I wondered who had planted them. “It means to have friends … secret friends,” she said finally. “Friends you aren’t supposed to have.”

I didn’t understand her definition, but Elizabeth had already moved along the path, reaching out for my peanut-butter spoon to drag me with her. I snatched my spoon back and followed her around another bend.

“There’s rosemary; that’s for remembrance. I’m quoting Shakespeare; you’ll read him in high school. And there’s columbine, desertion; holly, foresight; lavender, mistrust. ” We took a fork in the path, and Elizabeth ducked under a low-hanging branch. I finished the last of the peanut butter with one slow lick, threw the spoon into the bushes, and jumped up to swing on the branch. The tree did not sway.

“That’s an almond tree. Its spring blossoms are the symbol of indiscretion—nothing you need to know about. A beautiful tree, though,” she added, “and I’ve long thought it would be a great place for a tree house. I’ll ask Carlos about building one.”

“Who’s Carlos?” I asked, jumping down. Elizabeth was ahead of me on the path, and I skipped to catch up.

“The foreman. He lives in the trailer between the tool sheds, but you won’t meet him this week—he took his daughter camping. Perla’s nine, like you are. She’ll look out for you when you start school.”

“I’m not going to school,” I said, struggling to keep up. Elizabeth had reached the center of the garden and was making her way back to the house. She was still pointing out plants and reciting meanings, but she walked too fast for me to keep up. I started to jog and caught up with her just as she reached the back porch steps. She crouched down so that we were eye to eye.

“You’ll start school a week from Monday,” she said. “Fourth grade. And you aren’t coming inside until you bring me my spoon.”

She turned then and went inside, locking the door behind her.

Tucking the florist’sfive-dollar bill into the empty space beneath the cup of my bra, I paced the neighborhood. It was still early, and there were more bars than coffee shops open as I walked through the Mission District. On the corner of 24th and Alabama, I slid into a pink plastic booth and spent two hours eating donuts and waiting for the small shops on Valencia Street to open. At ten o’clock I counted my remaining money—one dollar and eighty-seven cents—and walked until I found a fabric shop. I purchased half a yard of white satin ribbon and a single pearl-topped pin.

When I returned to McKinley Square it was late morning, and I crept toward my garden on silent grass. I was afraid the couple would still be sprawled across my flowers, but they were gone. The imprint of the boy’s back in my helenium and the tequila bottle protruding from a dense shrub were all that remained.

I had only one chance. It was clear to me that the florist needed help; her face had been as pale and lined as Elizabeth’s in the weeks before the harvest. If I could convince her I was capable, she would hire me. With the money I earned I would rent a room with a locking door and tend my garden only in daylight, when I could see strangers as they approached.

Sitting under a tree, I studied my options. The fall flowers were in full bloom: verbena, goldenrod, chrysanthemum, and a late-blooming rose. The carefully tended city beds around the park held layers of textured evergreen but little color.

I set to work, considering height, density, texture, and layers of scent, removing touch-damaged petals with careful pinches. When I had finished, spiraling white mums emerged from a cushion of snow-colored verbena, and clusters of pale climbing roses circled and dripped over the edge of a tightly wrapped nosegay. I removed every thorn. The bouquet was white as a wedding and spoke of prayers, truth, and an unacquainted heart. No one would know.

The woman was locking up when I arrived. It was not yet noon.

“If you’re looking for another five dollars, you’re too late,” she said, gesturing to the truck with her head. It was full of heavy arrangements. “I could have used your help.”

I held out my bouquet.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Experience,” I said, handing her the flowers.

She smelled the mums and roses, and then poked the verbena, examining the tip of her finger. It was clean. Starting up the hill to her truck, she motioned for me to follow.

From within the truck she withdrew a nosegay of stiff white roses, packed close and tied with pink satin. She held the two bouquets side by side. There was no comparison. She tossed me the white roses, and I caught them with one hand.

“Take those to Spitari’s, up the hill. Ask for Andrew, and tell him I sent you. He’ll let you trade the flowers for your lunch.”

I nodded, and she climbed inside the truck. “I’m Renata.” She started the engine. “If you want to work next Saturday, be here by five a.m. If you’re even a minute late, I’ll leave you behind.”

I felt like sprinting down the hill, overcome with relief. It didn’t matter that I’d been promised only a single day’s work, or that the money would probably only be enough to rent a room for a handful of nights. It was something. And if I proved myself, she would invite me back. I smiled at the sidewalk, my toes jittering in my shoes.

Renata pulled away from the curb, then slowed to a stop and rolled down her window. “Name?” she asked.

“Victoria,” I said, looking up and suppressing a smile. “Victoria Jones.”

She nodded once and drove away.

The following Saturday, I arrived at Bloom just after midnight. I had fallen asleep in my garden with my back against a redwood, keeping watch, and I bolted awake at the sound of approaching laughter. It was a band of drunken young men this time. The nearest, an overgrown boy with hair past his chin, smiled at me as if we were lovers meeting at a prearranged location. I avoided his eyes and walked quickly to the nearest streetlamp, then down the hill to the flower shop.

While I waited I applied deodorant and gel, then paced the block, forcing myself to stay awake. By the time Renata’s truck turned up the street, I had checked my reflection in parked car mirrors twice and reordered my clothing three times. Even with all of this, I knew I was beginning to look and smell like a street person.