Seidel, Kathleen Gilles (29 page)

"No, I'm not," she answered. "Creative people write movies. I arrange flowers."

He crushed his bag into a ball and deftly tossed it into her heap of stripped leaves and cut stems. "That's the first time I've heard you put yourself down."

Jill clipped a withering blossom off an iris. Her therapy group often told her that she should stop comparing herself to her father. She didn't think she did it as much as they thought she did. "You're right. I shouldn't have put it that way. I try for a realistic assessment of my abilities. I did not inherit my father's narrative imagination. This sort of eye for domestic, craftsy detail I got from my mother."

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Of course."

"It's about your mother."

"AH right." Which Jill realized was a step down from "Of course."

"The media makes her out to be such a ditz. That judge... they gave him a really hard time when he married her."

" 'Judge Norfolk marries ex-showgirl,' " Jill quoted the headlines.

"She's gorgeous, she's... excuse me, but apparently she's had some pill problems, so it's never sounded like she's the strongest person in the world, and no one's pretended that she's well-educated. But then she's married these really talented men—your father, the judge, and now David Ahearn, he's no slouch. He'll probably go straight into network broadcasting the minute he retires. What's her secret?"

Jill considered the few flowers remaining; they were going to make for an odd arrangement.

"You don't have to answer," Doug said.

"No, no, I don't mind." She had spent several years pondering her mother's character. Doug was right. Melody had married some noteworthy men. Jill had been very sorry when she divorced George Norfolk, but had been pleased when Melody returned to David Ahearn after leaving Hazelden.

"She's a nurturer," Jill explained. "She likes to take care of people. Mother's homes are deliciously comfortable. There's always exactly the right number of pillows on the sofa, there's a footstool in the precise spot you want a footstool to be in. Her sheets smell of lavender. Luxury and beauty and comfort matter to her, and she knows how to pamper people. Some men like that."

"Did you?"

"I suppose I found it a little smothering. I also felt like she expected something in return. Here she was, rushing around, doing all these things that seemed motherly, and I knew that there was something daughterly I was supposed to be doing in return, and I didn't have a clue as to what it was. That's what I loved about my horse; I knew what she expected of me."

"It sounds like you feel a little guilty about it."

"I'm trying not to." Jill decided that these last flowers would have to be for their own kitchen table. "Maybe, if she had been a full-time mother, she would have learned that nurturing involves more than physical comfort. But I think she knows that and feels inadequate; that's what brings on the bad times. But I know it isn't my fault." Jill's voice was more emphatic than her heart. She had often felt totally responsible for her mother's situation. "I was completely uninvolved in the whole custody issue; there was no question of it ever being my decision." She stepped back and surveyed the line of coffee cans. Each week there would be more and more flowers. A few more days of sun would bring the peonies to flower, followed by the hybrid tea roses. In the woods and along the roads would be the daisies, the black-eyed susans, the magnificent tiger-colored day lilies, and the coneflowers. "Now, what do we do with all these?"

"Put them in the truck."

Randy came out to help. "Jill, this is great," he exclaimed the minute he saw all the coffee cans. "Look how many we have, and they're so... so done. I'll bet we can get away with charging a buck more a bouquet." He clapped Jill on the shoulder. "I'd hire you in an instant, but I can't afford you, and since the flowers are really yours anyway, it would seem a little silly."

Jill
waved her hand, dismissing him. "I don't want your money."

"I know. That's what I like about you."

Randy had brought a red pickup over from the barn. It was older than the one with oversized tires and blue metallic paint. He used this one when he genuinely needed a pickup; the other was reserved for pickups of human blossoms.

The three of them loaded the truck. Some of the cans were so heavy with flowers that they had to steady them with bricks. Then the men laced on a canvas cover, and discussed the weather, deciding that there was no need to back the truck into the barn.

Randy turned to Doug. "I went last week."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. Because I had this long discussion with Dad about how I should pick up Aunt Jill at the airport since it was on my way home, but he thought she might be insulted if we picked her up in a truck."

"Me?" Jill shook her head. "I wouldn't have minded riding in a truck. And anyway, I didn't want anyone to pick me up in the first place. I wanted to rent a car."

"You don't need to defend yourself to us," Doug put in. "We know what it's like to be told what to do. We have sisters. But if you're really so gung ho about driving 120 miles in a truck, why don't you come with me tomorrow?"

That was not a difficult decision. "I'd love to."

Doug knocked on her motel door shortly before five the next morning. He had already stopped at the all-night 7-Eleven to fill a thermos with coffee. Sharing sips out of the red plastic cup, they shot up north on 81 and then cut east on 66. The dark highway was almost deserted except for an occasional convoy of eighteen-wheelers, barreling at such speed that Doug pulled over to the shoulder and let them pass.

More traffic appeared as they approached the city, and the sky was growing light when Doug drove into McLean, one of the wealthiest suburbs of Washington, D.C. The farmer's market was in the parking lot of the town's soccer fields. Doug backed the truck into what had, for years, been Aunt Carrie's space.

They were one of the last ones there. Other vendors had much more elaborate setups. In the space next to theirs was a trailer built like a little house with red-painted half-walls, a white-shingled roof and a space in the center from which the grower and his wife could sell. Other had shelving and awnings, burnt-wood signs. Doug set up an aluminum folding table, put out his coffee cans, and scrawled the new price on a piece of cardboard.

The market did not open until eight; while waiting, the vendors chatted among themselves, familiar and friendly. Doug and Jill's neighbors immediately noticed their price increase, and it caused a bit of flurry among the others with flowers.

The customers who arrived first seemed to be retired people, perhaps with a lifelong habit of getting up early, now needing someplace to go. Jill could tell who the regulars were; they commented on how different the flowers were this week.

She had a good time. The first few times someone looked at all the flowers and bought nothing, she took it rather personally, but then she managed to disengage her feelings from the process. The retired people wanted to chat, and since she had thought about every bunch, she had something to say.

"These smell better, but these will last longer."

"Once it starts to wilt, dunk the whole thing head first in a bucket of water. That only works with some kinds of flowers, but it might work with these."

"If you want the buds to flower, snip off the old flowers with the sharpest scissors you have."

"That one may be a little tricky to arrange, but the azaleas should hold up the other flowers. If you have any problems, let us know next week."

She saw Doug looking at her oddly. "What is it?" she asked.

"I'm surprised, that's all. I didn't know that you were staying through next week."

"Oh, yes." Guiltily Jill realized that she hadn't communicated her intentions to anyone; she had assumed that Doug, at least, would somehow know. "I think I'm hooked on these flowers, and I would like to clear out Aunt Carrie's house if that's all right with everyone."

"It's certainly fine by me. All those little doily things are driving me nuts. I'm starting to dream about them."

After nine the customers grew younger, and their cars more expensive. They were McLean's mothers, driving Volvo station wagons and Mercedes sedans. Some were in tennis clothes, others in casual, but well-cut skirts. Even those in jeans wore expensive T-shirts, with shoulder pads and interesting collars. In a hurry, none of them cared to chat. As it took only one person to make change, Jill left Doug at the truck while she looked at the other stalls.

When she returned, one customer at the table was wearing a tapestry-covered hair clip that Jill herself might have worn. Jill was sufficiently interested in the hair clip that it took her a moment to notice that the customer and Doug were not on the best of terms.

One end of the metal table was covered with loose flowers. The customer, a well-groomed woman in her mid-thirties, was dismantling the bouquets.

"Look, lady," Doug was saying, "I don't care what color your sofa is. You can't do that."

The woman ignored him. The other customers were moving away.

"Now I'm serious." Doug started to set the coffee cans back out of her reach. "I don't want all these taken apart."

Jill felt the desperate scurrying in the pit of her stomach that she always got when people grew angry, even when they weren't angry with her. She spoke quickly. "Can I help you?" Behind her back, she gestured to Doug, telling him that she would handle this.

"I have already explained." The woman's voice was rigid with stress. "My sofa is yellow chintz with pink, ivory, and lavender flowers. I must have those color flowers." She pulled the deep purple tulips out from the bunch of Corsage azaleas, dropping them to the table. "I'm having a Senator to dinner."

Jill's mother once had a pair of flowery chintz sofas. Melody never would have dreamed of slavishly copying its floral design... perhaps because she entertained people much more sensitive to beauty than your average politician. "You might find," Jill suggested mildly, "that the deeper tones would make an interesting accent."

"I think I can judge what is appropriate for my own house." The customer thrust a large bunch of yellow, pink, lavender, and ivory flowers at Doug. "How much are these?"

He was leaning back against the tailgate of the truck, his hands in his pocket. He stayed right there. "Lady, if you're too cheap to order from a florist, you and the Senator had better accept those as our gift."

The woman drew back, startled. "What are you talking about?"

"Your money is not money I care to have."

She stared at him, her lips tightening.

"I mean it," he repeated. "Take them." He gestured with an elbow, not taking his hand out of his pocket. "They're yours."

The woman was trembling. She dropped her flowers on the tables and spun, stalking away.

Jill started to gather the blossoms up, sorting them back out into bunches, mingling them again with the deep-hued rejected flowers.

"What a bitch." Doug was shaking his head. "You get people like that every once in a while. People who think they're such hot stuff because they've got money. I can't stand them."

Jill ignored the slur on people with money. "Don't be angry with her. Feel sorry for her. She was under so much strain. Giving this dinner's got her twisted in knots, and now she does have to go to the florist. She's going to have one awful day, and you certainly didn't help."

"Okay." Doug grinned, a little boy pleased with his own naughtiness. "The people you ought to feel sorry for are those poor bastards who are going to her house. She's going to be such a fun hostess." Jill had to agree with him there.

They sold out well before the market closed. Doug looked pleased as he counted the money, and Jill, owner of shopping malls and office buildings, of golf courses and avocado groves, was tickled pink.

"Are you in any rush to get home?" she asked Doug as they stacked the coffee cans in the truck and folded up the table. "I could really use some clothes. Is there any decent place to shop around here?"

Whenever Jill traveled to a place with laundry facilities, she took a standard set of clothes—the short, straight navy skirt; a loose, mid-calf denim skirt of a light soft blue so pale it was nearly lavender; a pair of white running shorts; some pleated taupe slacks of washable silk; assorted T-shirts in white, lavender and peach, some cotton, some silk; a cotton sweater, patterned in taupe and lavender; and a fistful of handhammered silver jewelry. The wardrobe all fit into a carry-on barrel bag and would take her everywhere people weren't mourning or wearing sequins and bugle beads. But it wasn't going to do for a week's worth of gardening.

"I don't mind stopping," he answered. "There's a big mall just up Dolley Madison, but I don't know if it's got your kind of shopping, as I don't have a clue as to where people in your financial stratosphere usually shop."

Big malls were certainly not where Jill usually shopped. "We can go there, but let me call my mother. Maybe she'll have some ideas."

"Does she know Washington?"

"No, but she knows shopping. If I have to go into a department store, I'm only going into one, and she'll know which is the best bet."

At one time in her life Jill had truly loathed shopping, a reaction, no doubt, to her mother's binges. Her year of therapy had softened some of the jangling associations, and she could now regard it as a boring chore.

Doug pulled into a gas station that had a public phone at the edge of its lot. As it was nine o'clock in California, Jill caught her mother thinking about getting out of bed. "I don't need anything dressy," she explained. "Jeans and a sweatsuit. A bathrobe and maybe some kind of dress. Except for the dress, I suppose I could go to the Gap."

Jill had never been in the Gap in her life, but some of her friends had been featured in that store's series of celebrity advertisements.

"No, Jill," her mother told her. "You can't go to the Gap. I could shop at the Gap, Susannah could shop at the Gap, but you aren't nearly interested enough in clothes to shop there."