Since Betsy started working in Pyramid Investments, we saw more flower delivery guys in and out of that revolving door than bankers. They came only for Betsy, bringing her flowers from her husband for occasions like birthday, anniversary, her first job, her first birth, their first eye contact and her other first things on earth. He must have marked his calendar like someone marked their Bibles in order to carry such a task.
Betsy was the only happy person in the office, with an angelic temperament and a voice that could sooth a perfect storm. Most people didn’t say anything about the flowers for fear of being portrayed as a bully.
There were times when flowers came every day. Someone went to our boss Karen, a fifty year old diabetic spinster. “Betsy’s counter above her desk looks like a memorial. Can we do something about it?” Looking above her gold-trim reading glasses, Karen would say, “As long as they don’t discourage the bankers from coming, I really don’t care.”
Betsy was Karen’s secretary whom Karen depended on like insulin. Besides booking her business trips, copying her paper and answering her phones, Betsy made shampoo appointments for her twelve dogs and five cats.
Betsy sat outside my glass panel. Without moving my chair, I had a direct view of her flowers from every angle, a secret pleasure I took for granted. I hadn’t gotten flowers for many years. How many? I chose to be forgetful on that subject. My husband believed buying flowers was a waste of money because “they will die in a week.”
“What do you mean? They are dead upon delivery. Don’t you know women…?” That was how we started our fight on this subject every time. As usual, I couldn’t get my words out without slamming the door. Was he ever capable to understand the important role of dead flowers? The special way they filled the emotional needs of a living woman? I was tired of the battle these days and learnt to take pleasure of the free flowers in the office, but there were days when my contentment didn’t fill my void.
“Flower Again?” I heard Betsy said one morning when she saw the flower guy. I craned my neck, annoyed by the way she pretended that she didn’t know he came for her.
She pulled out the note card. Her restless anticipation made me wishing with all my strength to my fairy god mother that THEY ARE NOT HERS, at lease for one time.
“Oh, it’s for me” Her face bloomed with wrinkles. “From my husband.”
I knew it. My fairy god mother had dozed off.
“Mrs. Kasey, as our most valuable customer, my boss wants you to have this: twenty percent off for your next order.” The flower guy grinned, rubbing his hands. “Our way of saying thanks.” He reached inside his pocket and produced a booklet. “Oh, this, our new catalogue with the latest designs. Take a look.”
“Lovely. I will show it to my husband.” She turned her eyes to my direction and I ducked my head immediately. How much I wanted to smash my keyboard and threw it outside of the window.
Betsy opened the box with patience, untying every knot and peeling every tape. The sweet aroma of the Queen Elizabeth infused the room making me long for a rosewater bath later that night. I couldn’t sit on my chair anymore.
I approached the flowers. “Long stems. Prettier than the wax ones,” I said and I felt regretted the moment these words flew out of my mouth.
She didn’t seem to hear. “For our anniversary,”she told me in giggles. I was relieved that today was the day that her hearing aids didn’t work as well as other days. Her red hair waved and her cascading necklaces jingled as she pulled out the bunch.
Karen passed by. She looked through and above us, unaffected by the flowers. Her starched pants rustled like the flowers’ plastic wrap.
I leaned on the counter, rested my head in my hand. “Your wedding anniversary or the birth of your first child?” I tried to sound joyful, but the feeling of stupidity for being jealous of a woman twice of my age weighed on me. My jaw couldn’t flex a smile.
“Our wedding anniversary, silly.” She didn’t look at me as she crumpled the wrapping paper in her hand. “Forty-five years, “she nodded at the flowers for each word she dispensed, till they bounced on the desk like dewdrops.
“Forty-five year! If you add up his flower money and compound it, you would have gotten yourself a nice portfolio.” I realized I sounded like my husband and I knew these were bad words but I said them loud.
”Money does not always make you happy. The gesture of love does. “She looked at me. Behind her hazel eyes, I saw no bitterness, no regrets, only kindness and wisdom.
I hated I had just made a fool of myself though no one else realized it. I wanted to ran back to my office, to distant myself from someone else affections that pained me like needles inside my shoes, but I couldn’t move my feet. Instead I shifted my weight. I envied her, definitely not for her seven grandkids. Not my time yet. It was…for something I didn’t want to admit, something like a faithful kitchen towel, being used, tossed in the washer, and used again. This was a feeling of a grumpy old woman, older than Betsy’s grandma. Oh God, I loved those roses.
“Your husband sent you flowers too, I bet.” Betsy winked at me as she put the flower in one of her vases.
“Yeh. I got them on our anniversaries too,” I lied. The first bunch of flowers I had got was when we had our first fight after we got married, and more bunches after more fights. Now I didn’t get them even if the house was crumbling down.
”Sometimes, “she continued in her sing-song voice, “men need to be reminded. They don’t always remember those days.” She cocked her head, allowing her red hair cover half of her forehead. ”But it doesn’t mean they don’t love their women. Men expressed their loves differently at different ages. I didn’t have that many flowers when we were young and poor. He wrote me little notes instead. Now, his eyes were bad so he sends flowers.”
I pondered her words. A renewed hope crawled under my skin like a secret desire. Maybe if I reminded my husband enough, things might change. Maybe when we were older, I would get flowers.
Then, Betsy stopped in the middle of putting the flowers in the water and came whispering to me, “We are going to Venice. Shhh…, I don’t want to scare my luck away.”
She was so close. I could see the different hues and the uneven cuts of her hair. She looked lovely even in the hands of an armature stylist. “I won’t beep a word,” I said.
“His job benefits working for a travel agency; always gets some discounts for trips.” She gleamed and returned to mind her flowers.
“I… great for you,” I said. My phone rand and I stumbled back to my office. Betsy and her flowers pained me like a stomach ulcer, aggravated by the dosage of Venice. “Hello” I picked up the phone. My husband was on the other end.
“What?” I slapped.
“I will be late tonight. Don’t wait for me for dinner.”
“You need to come home on time tonight and I need to talk to you. The house is on fire, hear me?” I slammed the receiver. Such a workaholic who never had time for anything. Venice? Our tenth wedding anniversary trip to Paris was stolen by his stupid project popped up like a thief of the night.
That night at dinner, I couldn’t swallow my roast beef, so I told him that Betsy got flowers in the office. “Again?” he said but didn’t stop slicing the beef.
“So, you think I should have them once in a while at home, right? Let’s say, some holidays? Delivery to me as a surprise,” I said. “Don’t’ you think I deserve them?”
“Of course, but don’t you get flowers in your garden?” he asked blankly, gazing at me in confusion.
“It’s different. Haven’t I told you?” I pushed my plate away. I landed on Planet Man again but I determined to give it another try before I crashed and burned.
“Flowers are flowers. I don’t see any difference, “he reasoned in his scientific tone.
“And they all die in a week,” I finished his sentence. “But women even like mummified flowers. Do you know I hung them upside down in the basement to dry? Those bunches you gave me. I wanted to preserve that moment, the sentimental value that can’t be measured in dollars and cents? Even Karen likes them but she can’t have. Her cats will knock them over and eat them before dinner time. Why don’t you understand?” I stormed out of the kitchen.
What an idiot I have married. I bet he has never noticed my dry flowers in the basement. His brain has been twisted by those mathematical formulas that he solved for a pleasure and it is hopeless to reshape to a sensible one. No wonder people get married right after high school, like Betsy, to preserve her husband’s brain from turning to piece of dead wood, soft and numb. I can’t imagine Betsy is a better wife than I. I cook, I clean and I wipe the kids’ butts. Oh do I mention I also keep a fulltime job to pay mortgage and to put food on the table, too? Betsy has been a fulltime mom just recently returned to work. I hate him, his insensitive, his aloofness, his obsession to everything concise like stone.
I felt that I was losing it. The thought tormented me like I was a toy at the paws of a fierce cat. Somehow I knew it was an absurd comparison I had made, but I indulged myself for that moment, a moment of extreme frustration worsened by knowing that an immediate resolution was nowhere in sight.
“Mommy, are you okay?” a small hand nudged inside mine. My son sat next to me, black eyes wondering. His hair was wet and sleek like a beaver and he smelt like soap. “You showered?” I stroked his hair.
“Yes, daddy said you are not feeling well, and he gave me a shower.”
I hugged my son and hid my face on his shoulder, like he hid his on mine when he was sad.
“Are you crying? Mommy,” he asked carefully and reached to cup my face.
“No, mommy is a grown-up, and grown-ups don’t cry.”
“Why your eyes are wet?” He cocked his head, tucking his lower lip under the teeth.
“Thinking,” I replied. His eyes grew larger. “When adults think too hard, their eyes sweat,” I added. He laughed. ”Why don’t you go and see what’s on TV? I will be there shortly.”
“Okay, don’t think too hard, mommy.”
When I returned to the kitchen, the dinner table had been cleared. My husband had made me a cup of coffee, next to it, a plate of macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips cookies I made yesterday. From the kitchen window, I could see my peonies; pink, white and burgundy with names less royal like “Maroon” and “Sorbet”. They waved sluggishly in the evening breeze, lit by the setting sun. For the last three years, I had replaced my failing rosebushes with the peonies one at a time and fed them with top quality fertilizer pellets. Year after year, they returned with flowers size of a Boston lettuce weighing down on leafy branches.
The bees had returned home. The fireflies had gathered for their evening dance. When the breeze came, the perfume of the peonies elated me through the open window. For the first time, I regarded my “Maroon” more highly than “Queen Elizabeth”.
That night, I picked up the scissors and brought home a bigger bouquet than Betsy’s.
