Ida's Flower Shop

Ida’s flower shop was at the corner of the street, between the second hand bookstore and local bakery. The flower shop was small, and cluttered, and Ida ran the place completely on her own. The townspeople gossiped about how the young woman was a little strange at times. Sometimes she was seen whispering to her flowers, cupping the buds in her hands and leaning in close as if speaking to a lover. Other times she would walk into town with dying flowers placed delicately between her coarse curls. 

“It’s so they’re not alone, when they’re sick.” She told one of the farmers on market day after he’d asked.

“Do flowers get lonely?” The man said. Ida had nodded enthusiastically. 

“Of course they do. Haven’t you ever spoken to a flower? They’re awfully social creatures.” 

No, the man had told her, he had not spoken to a flower. And Ida had tutted at him and shook her head and went on her way, leaving him quite confused. 

Arthur lived at the edge of town. He was not a sociable creature, and kept to himself, ducking his head anytime somebody said hello or good morning. Arthur liked simplicity- he didn’t bother with complicated things such as friends or lovers or flowers. He reminded himself this every morning as he passed Ida’s flower shop. Sometimes, though, he’d find himself peeking in through the window, and watch Ida whisper to her flowers, and wonder what it could be they were talking about. Other times he’d find himself passing the shop more than necessary, accidentally going out of his way just to catch a glimpse of the strange woman. But Arthur never bothered with complicated things such as friends or lovers or flowers, and so he’d never say hello to Ida, and he’d never wander in. 

Never, that was, until Mr. Fallow died. 

Mr. Fallow had not been Arthur’s friend- Arthur didn’t have any friends- but he was as close as Arthur would have allowed. An elderly man, who had been famous for yelling at children that played louder than necessary and sometimes nicking pastries from the bakery, Arthur and Mr. Fallow had spent most afternoons together. They never spoke much, electing to smoke their pipes in silence and watch the ducks float across the pond that rested just behind Mr. Fallow’s house. If anything, Arthur respected Mr. Fallow, and the stories he sometimes told. Respected, and therefore in his own simple way, had loved. Arthur had been the one to find the old man, sitting on his porch, appearing to be napping. But Mr. Fallow had not been napping, and so Arthur found himself the sole organizer of his not-quite-friend’s funeral. 

Being an organizer of a funeral meant having to deal with all sorts of things, but most importantly, Arthur had to deal with the flowers. A couple of young women from the town had offered to help out, but the man had refused quite rudely. No, he’d tell them, Mr. Fallow wouldn’t have liked that. Mr. Fallow had trusted me, and so I must do this on my own. He didn’t want to admit that the idea sent strange excited butterflies to his chest. It seemed a little morbid, being excited about an aspect of organizing a funeral. So Arthur ignored the feeling, and pretending his hand wasn’t trembling just slightly as he approached Ida’s flower shop. 

Ida hadn’t known Mr. Fallow. She told Arthur as much when he relayed his reasoning for being there. Ida did know, however, that great big patches of lilies grew around Mr. Fallow’s yard. 

“How’d you know that?” Arthur had asked. Ida had shrugged. 

“The roses told me. They know those sorts of things, you know. Quite gossipy, roses.” 

“They told you.” Arthur repeated, doubtful and uneasy. Flowers were not simple things to begin with, but flowers that talked- or, rather, pretty young women who talked to flowers- well, that was everything but simple. 

“Of course they told me. The flowers tell me everything.” Ida fingered the droopy daisy that had been stuck haphazardly into her curls. It almost seemed to reach out to her, and Arthur watched it curiously. 

“You sound like a lunatic.” He let her know.

“That’s rather rude of you to say.” 

“I never claimed to be polite.” 

“Well, it isn’t nice.” 

Arthur had shifted from foot to foot, battling down the blush that threatened to fill his face. 

“I’d just like some flowers for the funeral, please.” 

“But what sorts of flowers?” 

“Oh, I don’t really care. Whichever ones you think are best.”

“But what do you want the flowers to say.”

“I don’t talk to flowers.”

Ida huffed, and shook her head. “I know that. Your mind is too stubborn to talk to them- they’ve already tried. But the language of flowers still applies- different flowers mean different things.” 

“Well,” Arthur tapped the counter in frustration. This had not been going at all how he’d planned it. Or, he wasn’t sure how he’d planned it to go. But this outcome certainly was not it. “-What do lilies say?”

“It depends on the type of lily.” 

Arthur scoffed. “Well, then, the lilies that Mister Fallow grew.” 

“White lilies-” Ida told him, “-represent purity, or rebirth. They’d be a good choice for a funeral. Sometimes they like to call themselves sympathy flowers, but I think that’s rather silly. They can also mean pure love.” She squinted up at Arthur. “Was your love for Mister Fallow pure?”

Arthur wrinkled his nose. “I had no love for Mister Fallow.” 

“A fondness, then?” Ida’s tone was almost teasing, and she had stepped around him to begin collecting lilies from a great vase. Arthur spun on his heel slightly as she did so, following her. There was barely enough room in the shop for the two of them, being so overridden with shelves and tables and plants and flowers that Arthur had to hop slightly in order to keep from kicking something over. They stood closer than he’d liked, and it made his heart hammer in his chest and his brain feel fuzzy and slow. A sweet smell broke through the stifling scent of flowers, and Arthur dimly realized that it was Ida who smelled sweet. Like vanilla and toffee. He couldn’t help realizing that he liked it. 

“Fondness isn’t the word I’d use.” He said instead of anything else, because he rather couldn’t think of anything else to say. 

“Is there something else you’d call it, then?” Ida asked, wrapping the lilies in paper. “How many flowers do you need anyway, Arthur?

His heart stammered when she said his name. He’d never heard such a nice thing, and it made him sweaty and nervous. What had she asked? He couldn’t remember- he was just staring down at her, blinking rapidly. 

“...Arthur?” She prodded. He cleared his throat, looking wildly between the flowers and the girl. She gestured vaguely at him with the bouquet in her hand. “Are you alright?”

“Yes.” He said a little too curtly, “I’m fine.”

“So, do you know how many flowers you’d need?”

“No.” It slipped out before he could stop it. No, he didn’t know. How many flowers were normal at a funeral?

“Mister Seddon had ordered five bouquets for his wife’s wake. Two for the foyer, two for the room and one for the casket.” Ida informed him, rattling off the numbers as if she’d had to repeat them a hundred times. And maybe she had, Arthur figured. Mr. Seddon was known for his slipping mind. 

“Mister Fallow doesn’t have a foyer.” Arthur said. 

“So three then.” She said it so matter of factly Arthur had no choice but to agree. It was overwhelming, being in this stuffy little shop smelling of flowers and vanilla and toffee. He just wanted to get out, and be in the fresh air again, and get away from the nervousness being so close to Ida had brought.

The funeral was a small and quiet affair. Mr. Fallow hadn’t had many friends, and even less family, and so Arthur found himself standing amongst only a handful of faces he wasn’t quite sure he recognized. 

There was Mr. Fallow’s son, who hadn’t spoken to his father in nearly eight years, and his wife and their four boys. And Mr. Fallow’s daughter, who was engaged to a rather pompous looking fellow who’s face pinched in the spring sunlight as if it was painful. An elderly woman who visited Mr. Fallow at times had given an awfully heartfelt speech, and Arthur had almost been brought to tears then. Almost, but he hadn’t. Arthur didn’t cry- crying was complicated. And Arthur was simple. 

The service was over almost as soon as it began, and Arthur soon was alone standing before Mr. Fallow’s grave. Ida’s bouquet stood over it, and Arthur touched one of the petals thoughtlessly. He rubbed the thing between his thumb and pointer finger, and looked down at the little stone with his not-quite-friend’s name carved into it. He realized, absently, that Arthur had never touched Mr. Fallow. They had never hugged. They’ve never bumped shoulders. They’d always sat an arms length apart, and it had always been simple. Arthur wondered if maybe he’d be sadder if they hugged. If they’d embraced. But they hadn’t, and so he wasn’t, and he continued to fiddle with the flower petal.

“They don’t like it when you do that.” A voice tore Arthur from his thoughts, and he jumped slightly when he realized that Ida had been standing only about a pace behind him. 

“How long have you been there?” He responded, sounding angrier than he felt. She shrugged.

“Long enough.” 

“It’s rude to sneak up on a grieving person.” 

“I never claimed to be polite.”

Arthur scowled at her. Ida grinned, and in two quick steps, was standing by his side. He shifted a little, nervous at her proximity, and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. 

“What was he like?” Ida asked.

“Who, Mister Fallow?”

“Obviously.”

He let out a long breath. Then shrugged. “Quiet. Stubborn. He liked to smoke.” 

“Do you like to smoke?” 

“I liked to smoke with him.” 

“I see.” 

“Do you really talk to flowers?” He wasn’t sure why he’d asked the question. He was sure to get a complicated answer, and Arthur hated complicated answers. But, it felt simple to talk about flowers, in comparison to the feeling that is grief. 

“I do.” Ida told him. 

“Voices, then.” 

“Excuse me?”

“You hear voices.” 

“Flowers don’t have a voice.”

“How do they speak, then?” 

Ida regarded him carefully. Wind whistled through the trees, rustling the leaves and grass. It was sunny, but it wasn’t warm, and Arthur suppressed the slight shiver that passed through him. He tucked his arms in closer to his body, trying to ignore how restless Ida’s gaze made him feel. He wanted to fidget. He wanted to shift from foot to foot. He wanted to be nervous. The woman beside him heaved a heavy sigh, and then nodded, and Arthur wondered what she was nodding at. 

“Alright.” She finally said. “Meet me in front of the flower shop at midnight tonight.”

“Midnight?” Arthur asked incredulously.

“On the dot. And bring dancing shoes.” 

“Dancing shoes?” Arthur didn’t dance. 

“Or something along the lines of.” She was turning to walk away now. “Please don’t be late.” 

Arthur spent the rest of the day in a rather complicated state, which gave him quite the headache. It pressed against the bridge of his nose, and up around his eyeballs, and he pinched and prodded at his temples in hopes that it would go away. But the more that Arthur thought about Ida and her invitation, the more the headache pressed. And when he tried not to think of Ida, he’d think about Mr. Fallow, which merely made the ache even worse. He dunked his head in cold water, and popped pain killer in his mouth, and squeezed his eyes shut under a pillow, but nothing lessened the pounding. It was as if all these complicated emotions were too much for Arthur’s head to handle. He wished desperately for the week prior, when everything had still been simple and he’d lived his life in peace. He wished for the days before he’d spoken to Ida, or learned about her flowers, or found Mr. Fallow. 

Midnight chimed faster than Arthur had anticipated, and he found himself fidgety and jumpy when he reached Ida’s flower shop. His headache had reached an all time high, now, and it made his eyes water and his heartbeat pound against his forehead. But he still made it to the flower shop, because Ida’s voice had been so matter of fact, and because if he stayed at home he’d only think of Mr. Fallow. 

She was waiting for him in the doorway, and squinted at him in the dim moonlight. 

“Did you bring your dancing shoes?” She said in a way of greeting. Arthur shrugged, struggling to maintain an easy appearance. 

“I brought something along the lines of.” 

Ida hummed, and then nodded, the same way she had earlier at the graveyard. It was a satisfactory sort of nod, as if she was in agreement with whatever had been thought inside her head. Or whatever had been said that Arthur couldn't hear. 

“That’ll do, I suppose. Come in, then.” She ushered Arthur into the small little shop. It was darker than he’d expected, and the darkness seemed to lighten his headache just slightly. She bumbled around him, plucking stems and flowers from their vases and carrying them towards a back door. Arthur hovered by the doorway uncomfortably, unsure of what he was meant to do. 

“What’re we doing, Ida?” He asked, and would have been angry at the way his voice trembled with nerves, if not for the fact that he was indeed quite nervous. 

“We’re going to a party.” She told him easily, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“A party?” Arthur repeated, and she simply smiled, and gestured for him to follow. They walked beyond a door, and up a set of rickety old stairs. It got darker and darker as they went, and Arthur’s headache miraculously ebbed and ebbed away with it. Suddenly they were at the top of the stairs, and down a hallway that wasn’t very long nor very short, and Arthur was holding his hands out, blinded by the dark. 

“Ida?” He hissed into it.

“Here.” Her voice came nearer than he’d expected, and he jumped nearly a foot into the air. There was a girlish giggle, and then a burst of light. Ida had opened a door that Arthur hadn’t seen, and she was standing in the light that streamed in from the room beyond. And Arthur watched in horror as the flowers that had been held close to her chest seemed to grow and shift and change and then they resembled people, dressed in delicate and wonderful clothing. 

“Hello.” One of them, that had once been a rose, spoke to Arthur, and he blinked quickly, desperately grappling for something to say. For his mouth to speak. For his brain to function. The rose giggled, and looked between Ida and Arthur. “What a stubborn man.”

“They’re all stubborn.” Ida told the rose, and pushed the lot of them into the room. 

The room, it seemed, was rather like a ballroom. Bigger than should have been possible, considering how small and run down Ida’s flower shop looked from the outside, and decorated in all sorts of pearls and marble. Groups of the same strange flower like people milled about, drinking from glass tea cups and chattering amongst themselves. As they stepped through the threshold, a warm buzzing sounded in Arthur’s ears. His headache was gone now, replaced with a sort of bright and clear feeling. His fingers flexed, and he looked down at himself in surprise. For now he wore an outfit made of the finest fabrics, and shoes that looked much too expensive to be on his feet. 

“What is this place?” He whispered to Ida, making no attempt to hide the awe in his voice.

“The land of the flowers.” She told him.

“But- but- how?” Arthur sputtered, his very uncomplicated mind whirling with the implications that this scene presented. 

“Doesn’t matter.” Ida told him lightly. She, too, was dressed in fantastical garb, and her curly hair bounced around her shoulders. “Come, Arthur, let’s dance together.” 

And despite the fact that Arthur didn’t dance, he allowed Ida to pull him into the center of the ballroom. And they danced, amongst the flowers and plants that stood and clapped and danced around them. And Arthur was suddenly aware that his life of simplicity was gone forever, now. Now with Ida, instead of Mr. Fallow. Now that he had spoken to the flowers, and the woman who speaks to flowers, and grieved his not-quite-friend. But that was okay, Arthur thought, and for the first time in his not so long life, he was happy.