Coming Up Roses (4 page)

He was thirteen years old, so I doubted he’d be a professional. But I let it go.

Nice!
I typed.

I’m looking forward to taking some shots of the foliage, and also some action shots at the football game.

Sounds good!
I wrote.

Just wondering — is there anything at McIlhenny that’s one of a kind that would be fun to photograph?

I was stumped.
The statue of Sarah Josepha Hale?
I thought.
The Dairy Queen where Elvis Presley allegedly ate three Peanut Buster Parfaits?
Then I remembered a random piece of information that Dad had shared with me on my last visit to the university. I was sure this was something that Nicholas wouldn’t be able to be an expert on. With a smile I typed:
You’re in luck! McIlhenny Library has a new exhibit on Tupperware!

Silence. I grinned. I had stumped him!

That’s right!
he wrote back.
Earl Silas Tupper was from New Hampshire!

Sheesh, is there anything this kid doesn’t know?
I wondered.

Del, you made my day!
he wrote.
Believe it or not, I love Tupperware.

Oh, I believe it,
I thought. One thing was for sure. Nicholas was still a totally dorktastic know-it-all.

Ugh. I could hardly wait for his visit to be over and he hadn’t even arrived yet.

“Hello, Hamilton, would you be interested in accompanying me to the Homecoming game?” I asked my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

No, too formal.

I tried again.

“Hey, Hamilton, want to go to the big game next weekend? With me?”

“Why, certainly, Delphinium,” I replied in a deep, didn’t-sound-very-much-like-Hamilton-at-all voice.

“Hey, Del,” a voice said from behind me.

I spun around, mortified. Then I breathed a sigh of relief. It was just Poppy.

“What are you pretending?” she asked. “Can I play, too?”

“I … um …”

Luckily, Mom called up the stairs at that moment. “Girls! Breakfast!”

“How about later, Pops?” I told her.

She shrugged. “Okay,” she said and took off.

I turned back to the mirror for one last glance and frowned at my reflection. I took off the pink scarf I had looped around my neck.
Too Ashleyish,
I decided.

My entire family was already at the breakfast table by the time I got downstairs.

“So what shall we plant this morning, Poppy?” Dad asked.

The rest of us had thought Gnomeland was cute enough, but Poppy had shown a real interest. “It reminds me of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” she’d said. “That’s a movie I saw when I was a little girl.” That made us all laugh, because she had seen it just two weeks before.

“Lima beans!” she told Dad now.

“Those take six hours to grow,” Dad replied. He frowned and checked his watch. “I’ll be between classes. Perfect! I can harvest them then.”

“Yay!” said Poppy, clapping her hands.

Rose, Aster, and I exchanged glances. Seriously, this gnome stuff was getting out of hand.

Mom piled Dad’s plate with scrambled eggs and placed a kiss on top of his head. “You’re so funny,” she told him. “I love seeing you and Poppy having so much fun together.”

“I got this game for you girls,” Dad told all of us.

“Gee, thanks,” said Aster drily.

I laughed, looking at my dad hunched over his phone, letting his eggs get cold. “I can tell.”

After the usual waiting period, I headed to school with my sisters. I was relieved that Rose and Aster were listening to music together on Aster’s iPod so I didn’t have to talk at all. My thoughts kept returning to Hamilton, and whether he would say yes when I asked him to Homecoming.
If
I asked him.

But I couldn’t ask him if I couldn’t find him. I searched high and low for Hamilton. Waited at his locker until I got too embarrassed and left. Scanned the cafeteria for him at breakfast.

At lunch, I sat down at the table and unwrapped my ham and cheese on rye (with mustard) unenthusiastically.
“I can’t find Hamilton anywhere,” I told my friends. “Weird, huh?”

Heather made a face. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Hamilton wasn’t in math class this morning. It’s kind of gross. Rumor is he has … conjunctivitis.”

Pink eye?
I thought.

“Oh my gosh!” said Jessica. “Is he going to be okay?”

“I would think so,” said Amy.

“But won’t they need to take it out?” Jess asked.

We all stared at her.
Huh?

“Take out his eye?” I finally asked.

“No, silly,” she said. “His — you know —” She pointed to her stomach.

Complete silence. Finally, Becky said, keeping as straight a face as she could, “Not
appendicitis,
Jess,
conjunctivitis
.”

At her blank stare, Becky explained, “Pink eye.”

“Ewwwwwww,” we all said.

Pink eye had been making the rounds of Sarah Josepha Hale Middle School for weeks. It was an uncomfortable infection that brought itchy, watery, pink eyes. Hamilton would be out for a couple of days waiting for the antibiotics
to clear it up. I felt relieved for my reprieve, sorry about Hamilton’s itchy eyeballs, and a little grossed out, too. Not a stellar combination.

That afternoon, I trudged home alone. Rose was at auditions for the play. Aster was, shockingly enough, going to the mall with her new friends. Poppy was at a playdate, and Dad had office hours. I decided to head to Petal Pushers to see how things were coming along.

I paused to look inside the front window of our cozy little store. Mom’s latest window display was a fun fall combination of cheerful yellow and red zinnias; Chinese lanterns with their orange, papery seedpods; and these fluffy, white flowers called bunny tails. Inside, I saw Mom, a goofy little smile on her face as she finished up a simple yet stunning arrangement of orange orchids. It made me smile, too. The woman totally loved flowers. Just like me.

I pushed open the door, relishing the cheery jingle the bell made. I took a deep, appreciative sniff. The air smelled like it always did: sweet and slightly spicy.

“Well, if this isn’t a pleasant surprise!” Mom said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “How was your day?”

“All right,” I said. “You need any help?”

Mom glanced around. “Not really,” she said. “We can go home together as soon as I clean up.”

I felt a little disappointed. I had been hoping to help out with an arrangement. “Maybe I’ll go in the back and start my homework,” I said.

I headed to the back office, and gasped. Clearly, I hadn’t been here in a while.

Mom, left to her own devices, had left her mark — with a vengeance. Overflowing files, half-opened desk drawers with papers spilling out. A cold cup of coffee with a ring of mold sat on the desk next to a petrified half-eaten bagel. What a disaster.

I opened a cupboard, pulled out a garbage bag, and snapped it open. Homework would have to wait.

I tied up old newspapers and catalogs for recycling (or “Being Good to the Earth,” as Poppy called it). I Pledged the old wooden desk, enjoying the lemony scent. Then I began to tackle the desk drawers. Mom has a terrible habit of shoving mail that doesn’t look urgent or interesting into them, to get to at a later date. Many times, the later date never comes. “Junk mail. Junk mail, junk mail. Junk … Hey, wait a minute,” I said. The return address read
BOSTON BEANS,
a popular chain of coffee shops. They served expensive coffee drinks and decent baked goods. You either loved them for their convenience or hated them because they were almost everywhere. I myself really liked their fancy hot chocolate, which you could get with both whipped cream
and
marshmallows. I tore open the envelope, hoping to find some coupons.

But there weren’t any coupons inside, just a piece of expensive-looking stationery. I unfolded the letter and began to read. I shook my head. That couldn’t be right.
I must have read that incorrectly,
I thought. I began reading the letter again. A chill ran through me and I literally shuddered. I stood up, still feeling discombobulated, as if I had just had a scary dream but wasn’t sure if I was awake or still asleep.

Slowly, I walked to the front of the store.

“Hey, Del!” Mom called, a wilted rose in each hand. “Almost ready to go?”

I opened my mouth but nothing came out. “I … I …”

Mom dropped the roses on the counter and came up to me, putting her hand on my arm. “Del, what’s wrong?”
she asked worriedly. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

“I was cleaning,” I finally managed to say.

Mom laughed. “I know it’s a mess, but don’t you think you’re overreacting a bit?”

“I found this,” I said, holding out the letter. “It’s from Boston Beans.”

“Oh, that,” she said. “Coupons, right? I should have just thrown that away. Their coffee is so bitter.”

I shook my head and finally found my voice. “That’s not it. Boston Beans wants to open a store in Elwood Falls,” I told her. “And I’ll give you three guesses as to where they think the perfect location is.”

“Boston Beans?” said Dad that night at dinner. “That’s preposterous! We have the Corner Café. We don’t need a Boston Beans on Fairfield Street!”

I nodded in agreement. “Unfortunately, they think that Petal Pushers is the perfect spot for their new store,” I told my family, who all wore expressions of shock. “And they’re willing to pay a lot of money for it.”

“How much?” asked Dad.

Mom named a sum so large that everyone at the table gasped. Dad even put down his iPhone, mid–cannellini bean harvest.

“Daddy, they’re going to wither!” Poppy squealed. She scooped the phone up and began to harvest the beans. The sound effects were comical.
Ploop, ploop, ploop, ploop, ploop.
Too bad I couldn’t laugh.

“The crops are saved,” Poppy said solemnly.

“That’s a lot of money,” Dad said to Mom thoughtfully. “Think about it. We could open a bigger place. Hire a full-time delivery person. Maybe another designer to work on arrangements.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“And not have to worry so much about every little thing,” he added. “We’d have a cushion.”

Mom wrung her hands. “That’s all true,” she said. “But it’s our
place.
It’s been in the family for a hundred years!”

“I know,” said Dad, “I know. But we have to at least consider it.”

Mom’s eyes brimmed with tears.

I put down my fork. “You can’t be serious!” I said to my father. “We can’t sell the store!”

I thought about the uneven floors and the drafty windows. The rattling flower cooler and the scratched wooden worktable that was a century old. Those things might sound like good reasons to sell the place, to some people. But I loved everything just the way it was. With the name change that we had introduced when Mom and Dad took over
and
a new location, there would be nothing left of the original place. Nothing left of Gran and Gramps. It left a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Rose shrugged. “The place
is
kind of old,” she offered. “We could get a cool, new store.”

I glared at her. “Like Fleur? That place is cold and impersonal. It’s the history of our store that makes us special. The old-fashionedness of it. The tradition.”

Mom sighed and dabbed her eyes with her ever-present bandanna. This one was red. I could feel a tightness in the back of my throat and my eyes filled with tears, too. I blinked them back. I hate to cry in front of people, even my family.

Aster spoke up. “And Boston Beans is a chain! I thought we didn’t like chain stores. They put the mom-and-pops out of business and all that.”

Like our store,
I thought, but then shook my head. They wouldn’t be putting us out of business. Just forcing us to move!

“That does bother me,” Dad said thoughtfully. “Contributing to the decline of Main Street.”

Now
that’s
what I was talking about.

“But they’re offering an awful lot of money,” Rose pointed out.

Dad nodded. “It’s true.”

Mom blew her nose.

Dad leaned forward. “I know this is hard,” he said in measured tones. “But this is a business. We need to discuss this with Gran and Gramps and Aunt Lily. The decision is ultimately up to them, since they are the owners.”

Mom nodded grimly. “You’re right,” she said. “I’ll call them now.”

I hid my smile. There was no way Gran and Gramps would agree to this ridiculous idea. Petal Pushers would stay where it belonged. No question about it. We’d be telling Boston Beans to get lost in no time.

“Well, of course we have to sell,” said Aunt Lily. “I’ll have my lawyer contact Boston Beans tomorrow morning. End of story.”

It was an hour later. Aunt Lily, upon hearing the news from Mom, had insisted she come over immediately so we could call Gran and Gramps together.

“Whoa there, Lily,” said Gramps. “This is a family decision.”

We were all huddled around the computer in Dad’s office, staring at Gran and Gramps on the screen. As always, I marveled over how happy and relaxed they looked. Life in Key West was treating them well. And they loved their new place. I had been relieved to hear they were renting it instead of buying. It gave me a small hope that maybe one day they would return to Elwood Falls.

“I don’t understand why you all aren’t jumping at this chance,” Aunt Lily said huffily. “Offers like this don’t come along every day.”

I cleared my throat. “What do
you
think, Gran and Gramps?” I asked pointedly.

Gran looked at Gramps. “I don’t want to speak for both of us, but I think that the choice needs to be made by
those we left in charge — Daisy, Ben, and Lily. You know how things are going right now.”

“I agree,” said Gramps. “So really think this through. Decide what will be best for business and for everyone.”

I sighed. Gran and Gramps were being totally reasonable, like they always were. It was just so frustrating. They owned two-thirds of the business and could have told us all what to do and we would have had to listen. But no, they had to go and be fair!

Gramps laughed. “I see that look, Del!” he said. “I can’t be a dictator. It just isn’t right, especially with us being far away. You are going to have to make the decision for yourselves.”

I looked over at Aunt Lily. It was abundantly clear that her mind was set.

But then again, so was mine.