Forget Me Not by Julie Soto

7

Ama

MARCH

Ihaven’t been to Blooming in two years. Two years, two months, one week, and four days, to be more exact. I tried to calculate the hours and minutes while curling my hair, but that was overkill.

And I burned my wrist.

I’ve cut my hair since he’s last seen me, and it’s stupid to wonder if he’d notice when I’m actively hoping he doesn’t notice me—that maybe I can hide behind an especially tall orchid for the entire meeting and let Jackie take lead. But it’s still on my mind.

I’m not bringing donuts, because with him, it’s never been the “endearing” thing to do.

I park down the street instead of in the three-car lot attached to the shop. My Apple Watch wanted me to call 9-1-1 six minutes ago based on my heart rate, so I’m actively meditating, imagining creeks trickling slowly over rocks. I wait for Jackie and Hazel to pull up, with the intense focus of a hunting hound, jerking quickly whenever a car with two women in it slows down. My check engine light is flashing at me, but I ignore it as usual.

This is the first time we’ll be in the same room, breathing the same air, in over two years. I’ve driven out of my way to avoid Blooming every day of those two years, and I can assume he hasn’t had a glimpse of me either. I started working with other florists, obviously, even though it was a huge hit to my style and creativity. There were even some weddings that I needed to cut him from after—well, after. Largely, I am able to put him out of my mind most days. It got easier as time went on, but it’s just now hitting me how difficult this is going to be.

A cute little Prius puts on its blinker for the parking lot, and as soon as I confirm it’s Jackie behind the wheel, I grab my bag and jump out. They’re shutting their doors by the time I walk up to them. I think we all hug. I’m blacking out, so details are getting fuzzy. We’re chatting up to the main door. I’m reaching for the handle.

“Hey!”

The bark freezes me like a statue. The three of us whip to the right, and there he is, a rag between his hands, black Henley, black jeans. He’s stepping out from around the building where we just came from, out the side door that leads to the back room. His hair is long again. He has half of it tied back, out of his face. I called it a man bun once, and he gave me the silent treatment for the rest of the day.

I can feel my knees wobble. My heartbeat is kicking into “Is there an intruder in your house?” status again.

I wait for him to point at me and say “She can’t come in,” or “Meeting’s canceled.”

But he doesn’t glance at me at all. He just jerks his head for us to enter that way, and disappears.

Jackie rolls her eyes and says to Hazel, “He’s always like that. Rude is his brand.”

It would have been funny to me if I didn’t feel a sudden pain in my chest. Jackie knows Elliot. More than just “the boss’s son.” Forget anything about sexual orientation, but there’s a person in his life who knows him well enough to make that joke, and I didn’t know she existed until this week.

Jackie and Hazel link hands and walk toward the side door, and I follow them like a dog who’s being led to a bathtub, cowering and shaking. I take the weight of the door from Hazel, and when I hear her say, “Oh, wow!” I look up and stop on the threshold.

The back room—it’s transformed. Where there were boxes and broken things to be fixed, there are now two worktables, eight feet long with marble tops. Where there was peeling olive-green paint and rusty nails, there are now white walls with wedding arches hanging from the high ceiling, wreaths mounted, a ten-foot wall covered in roses—silks, maybe—spelling Blooming. Where there was one bare bulb ceiling light, there are now neons and LEDs popping clear violet light from above.

My eyes flutter with all there is to take in, and I remember—

“If you want to do custom installations, you’ll need a studio, Elliot.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “I made a couple things. I’m not converting the shop just to play ball with Whitney’s high-end clients. My dad would never have wanted that.”

I shrugged. “Why not both? What about the back room?”

I have to place my hand on the door frame before I fall down. I’ve never in my life felt unsteady on heels, but my legs don’t want to cooperate.

“Shut the door,” his gruff voice calls from across the room. He’s standing at a smaller table in the corner that’s more of a workbench. It’s the only messy spot in the entire room. It’s the only Elliot spot in the entire room.

“Elliot,” Jackie says, “this is my fiancée, Hazel.”

I let the door close behind me, and I watch from a distance of thirty feet as Hazel shakes his hand. He mutters something that must be “Nice to meet you.”

Hazel gestures to the rose wall. “This is incredible. Your whole workshop is, really.”

He nods, never one to say thank you. “This was my father’s shop for forty years. He operated in bouquets and small-scale wedding pieces, but when I took over, I started experimenting with constructions and installations. Blooming now offers both.”

They’re the longest sentences I’ve heard him speak—ever. And I realize it’s a script he’s trying to pretend isn’t memorized. The familiarity I feel around him sends an electric shock through my system, and I have to turn away. I face the wall and examine the way he’s arranged the wreaths for spring.

I hear them give him the wedding date. I hear Hazel start to describe a couple of her wish-list items. I hear the low hum of his approval.

I should be over there in the thick of it. I’m designing this wedding, and that includes collaborating on the floral arrangements.

Under the guise of staring at the potted flowers on his tabletops, I wander closer just as he asks, “Where’s the reception?”

“I’m working on that this week,” I say. My voice is scratchy. When I slip my gaze to him, he’s adjusting his sleeve, looking at Jackie. “Once I know, I can email you about a visit time.”

“Rehearsal dinner?” he says.

“No details yet, but I’d love some centerpieces for that,” Jackie says hopefully, clapping her hands together. He only nods.

His fingers reach for the stem of a fuchsia calla lily, tugging it out of an arrangement as he says, “McKinley Park Rose Garden. Are we sticking to roses for the ceremony? Or are you interested in seeing variety?”

Jackie and Hazel look at each other, then at me. “I think variety sounds nice,” I say, trusting his intuition.

He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t nod. No indication that I’ve spoken or even exist. I swallow tightly and watch him reach for the muted orange chrysanthemums at the other table. My heart skips, already knowing what he’s doing. I’m buzzing, remembering my first boutonniere. Buttercups and petunias—immaturity and resentment. I shake my head free of the memory as Jackie says, “This is cool.”

I turn my head over my shoulder and see what she’s looking at. Leaning against the wall is a large clear box, split into four quadrants packed full of blossoms. It’s about a foot deep and as high as my waist, and it’s covered with a slab of clear Plexiglas. It looks like it could be hung on the wall as a faux window.

Elliot hums, and he leaves the flowers on the table. I step back to give him a wide berth as he comes over to the window box. He grabs a wall plug I didn’t see before, connects it to an outlet, and before I can marvel at how sweet the fairy lights look inside that window box, he flips it flat onto the floor and steps on top.

It isn’t until he extends his hand to Jackie to have her join him that we realize—

“Is this …” Hazel’s eyes are wide. “Is this a dance floor?”

Jackie’s jaw drops as she joins him on the Plexiglas.

“It’s one-tenth of a dance floor,” he clarifies.

He steps down and gestures to Hazel to take his place on the floor. When Hazel eyes it warily, Jackie whispers, “It’s okay. He’s an architect.”

Elliot doesn’t correct her. She steps up, and he turns the lights off in the workshop to let them get the feeling of an evening reception with the lights from below.

I’m honestly speechless. Which is fine, because he wouldn’t want to hear from me anyway. I’ve seen LED dance floors before, but this is a floor made out of flowers and light. It’s nothing short of magical, and it’s only a three-by-three slab. Hazel and Jackie look at me with their I-want-a-fairytale eyes, and I say, “Include it in the quote.”

The lights turn on, and as they chatter with him, he continues with the calla lilies and chrysanthemums, grabbing a feathery grass and some boxwood. He nods while they talk, winding the twine and grabbing a fraying rope to tie it off. When he places the bouquet in front of Hazel and Jackie on the table, they stop midsentence and stare down at it.

“Free of charge.” He moves toward the door leading to the main shop. “Email me,” he says to no one. Me.

Jackie picks up the bouquet and runs her fingers over the petals. “Wow. This …”

“Pinks like you want, fall colors like I want,” Hazel says. She turns to me. “Did you tell him how we were arguing about colors?”

I shake my head. “No. He just … knows.” I shift my bag on my shoulder and gesture toward the exit. “Shall we?”

Hazel snaps a picture of his studio before we leave and says, “Can you ask him if I can post it?”

I’d rather eat glass. “Of course.”

When the door shuts, and we’re walking to our cars, I realize I survived. He didn’t look at me once. He didn’t speak to me. But I survived.

“My god, if I wasn’t into girls …” Hazel says suggestively.

“Or engaged?” Jackie pinches her side.

“He’s aggressively hot.”

I stare straight ahead.

“His mother says he doesn’t date. Isn’t that sad?” Jackie looks over her shoulder at the shop and lowers her voice like he could be listening in. “She said his last girlfriend broke his heart real good.”

I trip over nothing, looking back like a large rock will appear, and Hazel says, “When was that?”

My stomach is in knots, but Senator Gilbert didn’t know about us, I thought. How could she possibly—

“Last fall, I think? She was a girl from the office—Kate,” Jackie says.

The twisting in my stomach turns violent. I look back at the shop. There was another girl that broke his heart? Since me? It’s been two years, so I suppose it makes sense that he’s dated. I’ve seen a couple people, but not anyone who could mean anything. He was the first person I’d let get that close anyway—the first I broke all my rules for—and I wasn’t interested in doing it again.

I don’t know what feels worse. The idea that he moved on, or the hope that he hadn’t.

“Ama?”

I jerk toward Hazel and smile. “Yes? Sorry?”

“Anything else we need today? I’ll be gone for two weeks.”

“No! We’re great. That dance floor is amazing. I think it will be a perfect centerpiece.”

We say goodbye, and I walk the half block to my car, looking over my shoulder like an idiot. Hoping someone’s watching me.