Elly In Bloom (8 page)

The door swung open, the handle grasped by a guy who was tall and very well dressed. Well, on the top anyway. He was wearing a white button down shirt and tuxedo jacket with ripped jeans.

“Heyyy,” he mumbled, obviously confused. He placed his arm across the door. “Are you here to pick up Jules?” Elly gulped.

“Um, what?”

“Are you her Mom?”

“No, no, I’m not. Is Isaac here?”

The guy dropped his arm from blocking the party and shouted, “Isaac… some girl’s mom is here to see you!!”

Some girl’s mom
….Elly instantly regretted not only her decision to come, but also her decision to wear khaki pants. She glanced down at her outfit, suddenly realizing how much she looked like a soccer mom. Isaac leaned around the corner, holding onto the wall. His face contorted into a wild, irresistible grin.

“Elly! You came! I’m so glad.”

He took her warm hand – a move which was both shocking and sudden – into his cool one, and led her into the living room. The walls were a deep mustard color with a shabbily done texturing overlay. Red and orange couches were pushed up against two walls under two large pencil drawings in black plastic frames. Some sort of inventive, experimental music blared loudly through the room. It sounded like Yanni, only with rapping over it. Three very pretty girls lounged on one couch, and two men sat on the other and were engaged in what seemed to be a rousing debate. A man wearing a tight black t-shirt was waving his arm wildly.

“Your wording is ambiguous on that point. The commercialization of radio music has made it obtuse to arguments of taste. A music aficionado, while being able to recommend music, underscores the people’s choice in the matter. It’s either those who choose independence from influence…”

A girl in some sort of hideous witch-like dress leaned forward.

“Or a normal human being. Gene, you can’t be elitist about the whole thing. Radio is for the people. But musicians and people who see the inner workings, they know the truth. It’s our responsibility to teach, to educate…”

Isaac stepped into the middle of the argument. “Okay, okay! Calm down! I would like to introduce everyone to my new neighbor. This is Elly.”

Elly held her hand up in a half-wave. Everyone stared at her, wine glasses in hand. “Hey. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Elly, are you a musician?” asked a red headed girl with horn-rimmed glasses. She looked doubtful.

“No, no, I’m not, I actually own the florist next door. We do mostly weddings.”

The girl looked at her blankly.

Elly continued blabbering. “I had a really interesting one the other day...there was this chocolate fountain...”

From the other couch, a man with a beret piped in. “Anyway, I believe that if we quit hanging on to these Judeo-Christian rules about music, than we will never be fully realized within our own potential.”

Elly felt lost, stuck in the middle of her own sentence, which she was still finishing.

“And er, I sat in the fountain….”

Isaac glanced at her. “Well, that is a story I want to hear. Come on, let’s leave these blabbering fools.” He winked at the girls on the couch, one of whom noticeably shifted under his gaze.

As he led Elly into the kitchen, it was obvious to her, and everyone at the party, that he only had eyes for her.

“What would you like to drink? I have wine, beer, water, cranberry juice…”

Elly raised her eyebrows. “Cranberry juice? That’s a very manly drink.”

Isaac nodded, “I know. But, at the end of a writing session, when everyone wants a beer, I just want cranberry juice. It stimulates my music, I think. I know, it’s weird. Don’t tell the indie panel,” he trailed off he gestured with his head towards the living room. “They are a little annoying, but they are nice people when you get to know them.”

He leaned towards her and whispered in her ear as he handed her a glass of juice.

“They definitely are a little boring though. You are very UN-boring.” His fingertips brushed over hers, and Elly found herself captivated by everything about him. Their eyes locked. Elly tore herself away from his brown eyes and looked around the kitchen. It was small and bare, except for some food trays and a small Buddha statue on the window ledge. She gestured towards it.

“Is this yours, or do you have roommates?”

“Oh, my grandparents brought this when they came over to the mainland from Hawaii. They gave it to me as a gift when I moved out here. It’s really the only thing I had in the apartment for awhile besides my guitar. I’m not really religious at all, but I just think it looks super awesome there.”

Ahhh
, thought Elly,
he’s Hawaiian
.
And who has a religious icon just for looks?

“Tell me about your parents,” she said.

“Well, they are mostly respectable adults. They live in Honolulu. Modern bungalow, the works. My dad works with software, and my mom owns an antique shop. I love visiting them, but I don’t want to live there. I need room to roam.”

His eyes simmered at her. She felt herself flushing as their conversation flowed. The minutes flew by as they talked over the granite kitchen island that separated them. Elly loved the way his mouth moved when he talked. The moment passed too quickly.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

Should I eat?
thought Elly.
If I don’t eat, he’ll think I’m trying to look skinny, or on a diet. If I do eat, he’ll notice I’m a fatty and squeezed into these size 16 khakis. Why I did WEAR khakis?

She sucked her stomach in and leaned into the counter.

“Well…I could eat something,” she said, trying to sound ambivalent to the very thought, even though her stomach was churning. Isaac glanced around.

“Well, if it was up to me we’d have cereal…but Tifah brought some appetizers, so let’s go ask her what they have.”

Elly was loath to go back to the pompous idiots talking about something she didn’t understand and leave the breezy kitchen where she had his full attention. Isaac ducked under the fringed curtain, looking at back at Elly. He could instantly tell that she was uncomfortable and tried to put her at ease.

“I won’t leave you out there, promise.” His eyes smiled. She followed him out.

A couple of people had arrived late, and the party was in full swing. It was also way past Elly’s bedtime. They approached the group on the couch.

“Isaac, where did you go?” asked the red-head wearing black and white striped stockings and a cute jean skirt. She nudged him with her hip.

Elly. Hated. Redheads.

“Tifah. You are so nosey. We were just in the kitchen. Hey, Elly is hungry.”

Thank you for pointing that out
, Elly sang in her head.

“What are the appetizers you brought?”

Tifah, a waif, leaned into Isaacs shoulder. “Well, I have been trying new things from Gourmet Petite for lighter fare…we have a shrimp ceviche, a salmon mousse on Melba toast, and crudité.”

Elly was suddenly longing for the box of cereal bars that was sitting temptingly in her pantry. Isaac, however, apparently mirrored her feelings.

“What the heck is a crudité?” he asked.

Elly snickered.

“It’s….vegetables. Carrot sticks,” Tifah informed him.

Isaac rolled his eyes. “Then why didn’t you just say carrot sticks?”

Tifah suddenly seemed to shrink. “Whatever. We were talking about parallel fifths and their relation to 20th century music…”

Elly tuned out, cranberry juice in hand. All around the party, people were engrossed in deep conversation. The lanky man who had assumed she was someone’s mom was strumming a sitar in the corner, while a young girl sat in rapt attention at his feet. The man in the tight black t-shirt was clapping some sort of rhythm with his hands, while the other man on the couch nodded in time. Out on the balcony, there were two guys harmonizing.

This is awful
, thought Elly. The girls were all centered around Isaac. She watched in silence. He truly was a commanding presence. He was wearing a button down white shirt with tiny caramel swirls down the arms. Dark lean jeans sat on his narrow hips, and brown sandals showed his lightly tanned toes. He seemed to be a great listener, leaning into each conversation with interest, tossing his head back with laughter at lame jokes that should have garnered a weak smile at best. Isaac possessed allure. Every woman in the room was seeking out his attention, his addictive grin.

Elly could not explain the feeling that Isaac stirred within her. It was a rushing joy – it felt like a familiar comfort, a coming home, an old feeling with a new face. As Elly pondered the strange sensation spreading through her like syrup, Isaac turned and faced her while the three women talked incessantly at him. They shared a moment, not unlike the one she felt in the kitchen. A connection.

Isaac, noticing a lull in the conversation, announced, “Here’s something interesting – Elly grew up in a house with a butler!”

Before Elly was forced to reply, Tifah, who had been swaying and holding on to Isaac’s arm, turned and barfed onto Elly’s shoes.

Twenty minutes later, barefoot and less one puking bohemian, Elly sat on Isaac’s balcony, which overlooked Wydown, the same street that her shop faced. It was strange to see her little patio from this angle. She had a sudden alarmed thought that maybe Isaac had seen the end of her and Kim’s fight that afternoon. How embarrassing!
And
she had looked like crap! She pushed it out of her mind. The white lights sparkled in the trees, and she watched a young couple, who appeared to have had a little too much wine - not unlike Tifah, who was recovering in Isaac’s bedroom – stumble down the street. The girl laced her fingers through the man’s hair, pulling his face down to hers for a voracious kiss.

Elly looked away, suddenly feeling a voyeur to their passion. She couldn’t stop yawning.
I should be in bed by now. What am I doing here?
She thought about Cadbury, who was probably wondering where she could possibly be. She didn’t leave him alone at night often. She never went out, unless she went to Kim’s, and Cadbury always joined them there. He was probably leaving a special present for her on her carpet at this very moment.

The glass door slid open, and Isaac stepped out, shutting it tightly behind him. Elly’s heart quickened.
They were alone!

“Is everything cleaned up?” she asked.

“Yeah. She’s sleeping in my room.” He paused, looking a little queasy. “I have never seen vomit that color.”

Elly laughed. She found talking with him to be calm and easy, like drinking sweet tea. He settled in the chair next to her, his face lit up periodically by turning headlights.

“Elly,” he started drumming on the end of the chair, “tell me something about you.”

Elly mentally checked off the things she
wouldn’t
tell him about. Georgia. Aaron. Deep-seeded weight insecurity. An addiction to trashy romantic reality shows.

“What would you like to know?”

“Well…” he traced his finger down the edge of her chair, inches from her skin. “How did you decide to open a flower shop?”

Ah, that I can talk about
, Elly thought.

“After my mother died of ovarian cancer, I received her life insurance policy as well as the proceeds from her house sale. She had taken it out while I was very young and it had built up over time. It sat in the bank forever.”

She paused to take a large sip of wine. She could feel herself getting sleepier with every passing minute, with every passing drink.

“I couldn’t even think of touching it, not for a long time. It felt like I traded my mother for that money. I was still grieving, three years after the fact.” She felt a rising lump in her throat, and veered immediately in another direction. “When I arrived here in St. Louis, I couldn’t handle the thought of more office politics, or running stupid errands for my boss, like spending hours searching for a new sushi restaurant, or having to spend most of the day typing up documents.” She had purposefully glossed over her overly dramatic departure and was relieved that he hadn’t noticed.

Isaac nodded empathetically. “I totally understand. I’ve never been a person who wanted that. My parents never understood. Parents just don’t get it.”

Elly ignored what sounded to be the most teenage sentence ever and continued talking.

“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Kim – that’s my best friend – helped me carve out a plan. I had no clue what the future held, but I wanted something…earthy.”

There was much Elly wasn’t saying. She didn’t just want earthy. She wanted to immerse herself in something messy. Something dirty and moist, something to make herself forget what she had left. She dreamed, after she left Aaron, of damp earth, of ivy growing under her skin, or her eyes turning into poppy blooms or her body getting covered in veiny soil. It was as if God has sent a garden to spring up around her to heal her pain. She glanced at Isaac, who was staring at her as she spoke.

“I was staying with Kim and her husband Sean at the time, and I just ran across the shop. It was vacant.”

The day was etched so clear in her memory, just two years ago. She remembered sitting on Kim’s couch, going through tissue after tissue, as Kim played both host and therapist. Her days had consisted of waking, eating, sleeping, waking, talking for six hours, and then sleeping again. Elly had not left Kim’s house for weeks. Sean had proven himself to be everything that Aaron wasn’t – patient, kind and understanding – by letting a strange, weepy woman stay in his home for months on end.