The Fat Ballerina Flower Shop: by Suzy Black
Chapter One
Spring in New Orleans meant optimism, and optimism translated into flower sales. For men it was a potential new sexual partner. For women it was a potential new life. Walk-in traffic doubled and everyone was either cleaning house or playing at it. Men ordered red roses by the pallet. Ilsa scanned the day’s deliveries, she counted six dozen red rose designs already on the books. Four weeks since Valentine’s day and she was still churning these things out by the van full. The men filed in, dazed, with eyes big like black-centered sunflowers. In the first throes of love or lust (whatever) they couldn’t speak, just grunted and gestured; lurching toward the cooler where Ilsa kept her roses. Once, they found what they sought, a spark of intelligence would appear in their eyes, only to disappear again when they looked up at Ilsa. “Do you play basketball?” They’d ask, thinking themselves terribly clever. “No,” she’d retort, “Do you play miniature golf?” They’d laugh then sneak peeks at her chest when she was arranging those roses that had been so important, so packed with potence. Did this sudden flip flop of emotion shock Ilsa? A man just moments ago so obsessed with his new love that he couldn’t manage basic speech, now making wisecracks about Ilsa’s statuesque frame? Not in the least. Ilsa had been six-foot-one and endowed with double FF’s since high school and was resigned to the idiocy her packaging unleashed. Often, Ilsa felt so disconnected from her body that she would objectify herself for the amusement of her friends. Gripping her breasts, pushing them together, then pulling them apart. “Don’t make me use the head crusher's on you,” she’d threaten. Opening and closing the gap, coming at her prey with an expression that said, ‘These things confound me as much as they do you.’
With each bouquet, Ilsa would ask customers what they would like her to write on the card? Oh, there’s that blank look again. Let me guess? I love you? “Just put, I love you.” They’d grin, proud of their magnum opus. Sneering on the inside, she knew she was becoming too calloused toward her customers. Too far removed for lack of a better word from, love. A word handed out in a flower shop like candy on Halloween, but Ilsa suspected after the initial sugar rush no real sustenance remained. Love was wet and sticky. Ilsa felt arid and brittle. Writing the lines, I love you, for these guys made her feel like a fraud. Suspecting, that most men never did or said anything original Ilsa would nod and say something along the lines of that’s nice. Always with the same dozen roses, always the same card message. In the first blush of love Ilsa was sure this was exciting for most women, but why the same thing year after year. Why, when there were so many other beautiful flowers to choose from, so many other words to express devotion? Ilsa didn’t want a dozen roses kind of love, and certainly never had it with her late husband Mark. Six years since his death, and Ilsa thirty-one now, was finally able to smile at the coming warm weather, able to be delighted by the surplus of peonies, hyacinths and tulips coming through her shop doors, but inside she was beginning to worry. His death had given her an entire flower shop, literally, so was roses all she could hope for with another?
Today started at eight am like any other. Big refrigerated trucks parked in front of the shop when she arrived. With the same weary smile she donned every morning, engineer boots and waterproof apron on, a lily in her penny colored hair, she greeted her wholesalers. A smile that she also reserved for new hires that showed up for their first day at work in floral sundresses and open-toed sandals. With her wholesalers she was direct.
“How much?”
“That’s too much.”
“Are these the same orchids from last week?”
“I’m not convinced.”
“I can’t use those in that color.”
“Do you have them in fuchsia?”
“Give me three bunches.”
“No I don’t want the entire box.”
With new hires she wasn’t this forthcoming, preferring to let them figure things out for themselves. As weeks went by, the dresses turned into jeans and the heels into flats, as the glamorized image of a florist twirling in crinoline skirts inhaling bouquets of lavender, greeting each new customer with a smile, faded into the reality of pollen-stained faces and dirty fingernails. Before Daisy and Rebecca, her current staff, no one had lasted more than six weeks.
Her wholesalers come and gone, Ilsa enjoyed the silent hour she had before her crew of two showed up for their shift. Finished pulling the buckets of flowers out of the cooler, setting up the shop displays, the morning arrangement made and ready for Daisy to deliver, Ilsa sat down at her computer to check her emails. She sipped her coffee while scrolling through. She stopped and read:
sub: your flower shop got an email from Troy LeBlanc at May 5, 2014 3:30 am.
Hey ‘Fat Ballerina’ do you deliver to the Bayou St John area? I have a request, I need flowers delivered to the apartments above ‘The Wine Carafe’. The shop is located on Esplanade ave. I don’t know the exact address.
I am going to bottom line this, I met this handsome woman at least a decade older than me at a tasting event Anyway we were coupled to do this blind smelling thing. One of us, me, was like I said blindfolded, while the other one, her, put wine glasses under my nose so I could detect different aromas. It was kind of sexy. Anyway long story short we killed it and won a major bottle of cab. After that, sheinsisted we go up to her apartment to drink our spoils. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Yes she was attractive enough, albeit like I said much older than me, at least forty five. Her apartment reeked of cat box, even though I never saw a cat. And yeah I know this makes me a dick to say, but I was somewhat turned off to find a woman of her age not more established. I should also mention her apartment was filled to the rafters with scary religious statues and candles. I think she mentioned she did some sort of social work for the Archdiocese.
The sex was alright, more because of her enthusiasm than anything I did, but then things started to get weird. And by weird I mean, really fucking weird. That morning she mentions a desire to wash me. Ok sure. We had been at it for many hours, and I was quite ripe, so yeah sure, wash me. She brought out a basin of soapy water. She lit candles, she lit incense, the works. She then knelt totally naked in front of me and began washing my feet while I sat on one of her weird prayer benches. She was so slow and methodical about it, it became for lack of a better word, worshipful. She licked and sucked every inch of them, complete with nail clipping and a nice bottom of my foot buff. Bizarre enough yet? She then mysterious had in her possession a Magnum condom (not one of mine I can assure you LOL) that she easily covered my whole foot in, and then well...
I know I was a willing player in all this, but let’s just say I had spent many hours thinking with my dick and then a few more just trying to get out of there. I won’t go into any more gory details, here is why I emailed. I need flowers that say, while what we had was intense, I need to distance myself and never set eyes on you again. Can the card message read, “I will always remember our time together fondly. Best, Troy”
I’ve seen your work ‘Fat Ballerina’ please don’t let me down.
To reach me for the particulars please call, 555-1728
Troy
PS I hope this will all be handled with discretion, and I shouldn’t have to say I do not want my personal email address or phone number passed along to this woman if she happens to call and question your shop.
PSS This could also be the ramblings of a mad man, don’t believe a word of it ;)
Shocked, Ilsa slammed the computer shut. Her first thought before anything else was to protect the business. And the way to do that was to not let anyone read this thing until after all their other orders had gone out. Sharing this would be as destructive to the flower shop as turning the heat up to one hundred. She knew from experience that these younger girls who worded for her attached themselves to drama the way fleas attached to her longhaired cat. Everything was blown out of proportion, then dissected analyzed and discussed for days. They simply hadn’t realized what Ilsa figured out months after her husband died. And that was that most of life was simple drudgery, the same day in day out, with a few sweet moments thrown in just to keep you going. These twenty something girls still looked for meaning and possibility in every occurrence, everyday an epic adventure. Ilsa knew the email was weird, and it did affect her. It made her feel used, but she knew her reaction would be different than theirs. For the younger girls it would be as if he was doing it to personally offend them. For Ilsa it was as if Troy was using her flower shop to no longer be offended by what happened to him. Something else lingered as well, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. All she knew was she felt unwantedly touched. Almost pleasurable, but with the guilt of and icky uncle touch. And what is worse than a forbidden touch? Liking it.
A few hours later, Daisy still out on deliveries, Ilsa turned to Rebecca who was waist deep in a pile of boxes still awaiting processing. “When we’re done here, remind me to call this pervert who emailed with an order.” Ilsa pulled more roses out of the three foot stack of flower boxes piled next to her own much taller design table. Ilsa winced when one of rose thorns caught the pad of her thumb and took a chunk of skin with it.
From her corner spot at the “little person table,” Rebecca asked, “Stalker?”
Stalkers, male and female, were the most high maintenance of all their clientele. Their demands and weird requests were a thing of legend around The Fat Ballerina flower shop. Daisy would say the shop motto should be, Helping the delusional terrorize those out of their league since 2010. Ilsa smiled, when she watched Rebecca struggle with trimming some branches of giant curly willow taller than her petite 5’ frame. At eighteen, Rebecca had marched into the shop days out of high school and stated, “I want to be a florist, when I grow up and I only want to work at The Fat Ballerina. No other shop would do.” Ilsa, dumbstruck with the pluck of the teenager, and also a bit flattered, had hired Rebecca on the spot.
Coming over to help Rebecca wrestle with the willow, Ilsa answered, “Not a stalker, the exact opposite, really. Potential pervert, most definitely. I’m not sure I should even call this guy back. He’s weirder than Dirty Underwear Dude. Reading it, I was like, time-burglar, TMI. I don’t freakin’ care who you banged just tell me when and where to send the damn flowers, the rest ain't my business. Oh oh, and of course there is no mention of her name or phone number. How I’m gonna’ get paid? You know the actual important stuff.”
While Ilsa spoke, Daisy marched in. Her walk a heavy stomp in her oversized Doc Martins. Not one to remain idle, Daisy reached for the broom and began clearing the floor around the two. Shooing them aside, while they talked, to get to the inch of floral debris that had accumulated below. Daisy demanded. “Stop messing around and just tell us what it said?”
“Sure, you can read it right now. But be prepared to feel a little violated. It’s pretty graphic.”
Daisy motioned toward Ilsa’s hand with the broom handle. “You’re bleeding.”
Ilsa sucked the blood off her thumb then wiped it on her apron. “It was like parts of it he was using me to confess, parts seemed like he needed to play the victim, but most just felt like he was bragging.”
Daisy grumbled, bagging the trash, “I gotta read this email.”
Ilsa asked, “I mean who writes such a blow-by-blow email to a total stranger? You know with some simple instruction this order could have been easily accomplished on the website, so why the long email?”
“You know,” Rebecca paused and appeared to be trying to weigh her words. “You do have a tendency to get annoyed with long-winded customers. Maybe, sometimes people just need to tell you why they’re sending flowers. They think it’ll make their order like some kind of priority for you. People need to feel special. People want to stand out.” She could always be counted on to take the underdog’s side. And the underdog at the flower shop was usually a man. “And, he didn’t exactly make you read it. He was sending it out to a faceless business email address. Maybe he thought he was bragging to another dude?”
Ilsa threw up her hands. “First, read the email before you come down on me. Every design I make is a priority. Second, come on, what kind of man calls his flower shop The Fat Ballerina?” Ilsa forced herself to stop and look around her shop. She willed herself to try and see it with fresh eyes, searching for any hint of a male presence. The walls were deep plum with pale green pistachio trim, accented with deep coral colored frames, antique chairs and shelves hanging on the walls. And of course buckets and buckets of flowers displayed on tiered stands. One small section of wall by the front door was devoted to her “fat ballerinas.” Ornately framed pictures of young chubby little girls decked out in recital wear. She got these photos mailed to her from tourists who had visited her shop from around the world. Her favorites were the ones of little girls eight to ten years old. Those perfect, self-involved years, when these girls knew they were the center of the universe. Everything they did, adorable. Alas...before… before they got the disease of society standards. Her top five photos showed the rotund little angels, smiling brightly holding Miss America style presentation bouquets. And there was Ilsa, right there in the middle of the photo shrine. Fat, beaming, Orphan Annie styled ringlets framing her seven and three quarters year old face. The bouquet her foster mom had presented to her after her first ballet recital displayed proudly in her outstretched arms. For Ilsa, that had been the happiest moment in her young life. That moment marked the beginning of her love affair with flowers. She smiled at her young self and resolutely knew this was the one area of her life where she was being truly authentic.
Daisy said, “You know men. They always assume every business is owned by one of their own. Seriously though, it has got to be bad if it’s got ol’ Ilsa worked up this much. I’m reading it.” She bent over the computer, her long black hair swept over one elegant shoulder, her olive skin glowing in the blue light of the computer screen.
Daisy’s delicate beauty often surprised Ilsa even though she worked with the girl everyday. It was Daisy’s facade of army fatigues, studs and facial hardware that made Ilsa forget, only to delight her anew when she found herself noticing the loveliness behind that grungy facade. She said, “You’re so pretty Daisy.” It wasn’t mockery. Daisy’s beauty so often blindsided Ilsa that she said silly things. Things you might hear a mother say to an obstinate teenager, who goes out of her way not to have her face, body, hair, whatever, noticed, much less commented upon.
“You want a tittie punch?”
“Move,” said Rebecca, pushing Ilsa not so gently, out of the way to read over Daisy’s shoulder.
Ilsa stepped back, returning to her boxes of flowers still awaiting processing. Cutting at an angle underwater, Ilsa sliced through two bunches of casablanca lilies. It was Monday and all twenty of them needed to be open and fully bloomed by Saturday. After dunking the bottom of the stems a few seconds in a preservative solution then placing the lot into a bucket of warm water she transferred them to sit in the direct sunlight of the front window. Careful to label the bucket with a big sign that said ‘SOLD’. She knew from experience to always buy backup of any wedding flowers she ordered because invariably the flowers labeled sold or deemed unavailable were the first flowers all her customers migrated toward. Sometimes leaving in a huff, ignoring the rest of the shops ample inventory because they were told they couldn’t have the thing that hadn’t even known that they wanted.
Rebecca, finished first then turned to face Ilsa. Her mouth opening and closing; her neck lighting up with weird patchy splotches.
“Well?” asked Ilsa. “Am I still a cold bitch who doesn’t sympathize enough with her customers.”
Daisy, still reading, had a pen in her hand, clicking it over and over. The clicking became more violent the further she got into the text. Finished, she slammed the pen on the counter and yelled, “What the fuck?” Rolling her neck on her shoulders she continued. “That’s disgusting! Feet are disgusting! Let me call this Mother!”
Ilsa dove for the cordless and slipped it into the front pocket of her apron.
Rebecca finally finding her voice said, “Do. Not. Call. This. Guy. He’s a total perv who sent you that to mess with you. He’s doing, you know what, right now, thinking of all of us reading his email.” She reached over to a bucket of LA Hybrid lilies and began frantically pulling the anthers off the filaments. “He’s probably been in here and seen all of us. Nope, nope, nope, do not call this guy.”
“Was it as bad as all that?” asked Ilsa with a slight smile.
Daisy just growled.
“Worse. I mean yuck, just yuck,” said Rebecca.
Ilsa nodded. In some way their over reaction cooled her initial distaste for the email. “Well, at least it was well written. I mean the guy really does set the scene. And you did say something about needing to tell us the reason for the flowers as much as sending the flowers themselves.”
“Don’t do it Ilsa,” demanded Rebecca.
“She’s right,” agreed Daisy.
“I’m running a business here guys. I can’t pick and choose. If I turned down every pervert and stalker in New Orleans we’d all be out of a job.” This was true, but there was something else. Something about that email made Ilsa want to help this Troy, protect him in some way. When she replayed images of the graphic email in her head, in it he didn’t appear to her as some big bad douche bag taking advantage of some helpless older woman, in fact it felt like it was the other way around. She sensed isolation in his bravado and felt what an empty life he must lead if he must reach out to strangers in this way. Ilsa knew something about loneliness, she just prayed she never let it get this bad. The email had worked and she began designing the perfect floral design for him in her head. To placate her now almost hysterical staff she said, “Okay, I won’t call him. But. Listen up. If he calls here, I’m taking the order. So let’s all just get back to work and hope that that doesn’t happen.” Ilsa stood up, and rested her hands in the front pockets of her apron, a stance she often took. There was safety for her in that posture. Finding the cordless phone there, she looked at its pollen-stained white plastic as if it was some foreign dildo, well used and certainly not her own. Scowling, handling it with disdain and with only two fingers she slipped it back into the front pocket of her apron. “Work time.” She pulled papers from the fax machine. “We have two internet orders to make. Rebecca, you want this fifty dollar gerbera daisy mix or this seventy-five dollar florist’s choice?”
“What do you think?” said Rebecca, grabbing for the florist’s choice ticket.
“Oh yeah stick me with the hard one.” Gerbera daisies and sunflowers were notoriously hard to work with and the pictures of these designs on her website were no help. The flowers in the photo were facing forward with their blooms all pointing in the same direction. In reality, gerberas and sunflower stems twisted this way and that, sometimes pointing downward, sometimes up. Every bloom was different, which Ilsa thought was the beauty of nature. Her customers didn’t want nature, didn’t want unpredictability. Her customers wanted the design they ordered to look like the picture on the website. Their policy was that as long as the design they sent out was as nice as the photo and utilized seventy-five percent of the same flowers, they’d be okay. However, that was a tall order when working with a set budget and trying to mimic a design photographed and lit to perfection by some expert website design company far far away from their little shop in the French Quarter.
Daisy swept around them as they worked. The air was thick with the stink of the heady Casablanca lilies and the unsaid witticisms percolating in each of their minds. It was just too fresh for any of them. It would be weeks before they would be able to joke, ‘Remember that TMI guy--Mary Magdalene and her foot boy? Ilsa when are you buying US a major bottle of cab? Light the prayer candles Ilsa, it’s about to get freaky in here!’ When Daisy wasn’t on the road Ilsa sometimes coached her by talking through the designs she was working on and this gerbera mix, while simple looking, was trickier than it seemed. “So with gerbers I think it’s easier to green up the vase, but then instead of the focal flowers you load up on your fillers first then in between those wedge the gerbers where you want them to go.”
“Ilsa?” said Daisy.
“That way they have something to balance them upright so they’re not flopping all around. There’s nothing more frustrating than...”
“ILSA!”
“What is it Daisy?”
“Your crotch is ringing.”
Ilsa cleared her voice, relaxed her shoulders and answered with her most professional tone. “Good morning, The Fat Ballerina, this is Ilsa.”
“Yes hello, my name is Troy Leblanc, I sent an email inquiring about sending flowers over to Bayou St. John today.”
“One moment sir.” She eyed Daisy, then Rebecca. Both scurried toward her. “Let me pull that email up.”
“Uhhh,” he said. Ilsa knew by his cadence he was hoping for a more enthusiastic reaction. He was expecting an instant recognition. Like a student eager to get a grade from a reticent teacher. Well she wasn’t going to play that role for him, not until she got something in return anyway.
Ilsa sat down in front of the computer, preparing to take his order, she looked up to find two large sets of eyes looming over the screen at her. She grimaced, and shooed Daisy and Rebecca away. “Yes, sir. I have it right here. You want flowers delivered to The Wine Carafe.”
“Like I said in the email, the people who work there will make sure she gets it. She lives right above them. Do you need anything else from me?”
Yes dumb dumb I need a credit card number!
Ilsa was all business and had no intention of bringing up anymore details from the email. “Just a few more things. Can I have the recipient's name, please?”
“Her first name is Tamara, I don’t know her last name.”
Trust me kid, she doesn’t know yours either, thought Ilsa.
“Can we get a phone number for Tamara in case we run into any problems with delivery?” After a few moments on the phone with this guy, Ilsa was losing her empathy fast and it was being replaced with a surging desire to push Mr. LeBlanc’s buttons.
A twinge of annoyance affected Troy’s otherwise smooth, accent. “You have my phone number, can’t you see it in the email?” Ilsa guessed he could be from the southern part of the east coast. His voice had the laziness of the south with just a touch of the throaty whine of a surfer dude.
She rolled her eyes. “I see it, Sir, but what if we get to the location and can’t find Miss Tamara?”
“Just call me if there are any problems when your driver gets there.”
“Our policy is that if we get to the location and cannot for whatever reason, locate the recipient or someone to receive the flowers on the recipient's behalf, we bring the arrangement back to the shop where it then must be picked up by either you or the recipient. Do you agree to this, Mr. LeBlanc?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine.” He seemed vexed, but without a phone number, Ilsa knew she could be tough. “There will be no problems. The wine store knows her.”
“Ok Mr. LeBlanc, now what would you like us to make?”
“What’s your name again?”
Ilsa pulled the phone away from her ear, then stuck her tongue out at it. She knew he was trying to wrench back some control. “My name is Ilsa, sir.”
“Ok Ilsa, I want you to tell me what to send. I’m assuming you read the email. You did read it didn’t you?”
“I did, Sir.”
“Well….what did you think?”
I think you’re a fuck boy.
“I think you called the right shop.”
Troy sighed. “Well you’re the professional. What do you think would be appropriate? What says, ‘thank you, now go away’?” He snickered. He thought he was being cute.
Not cute.
She hated it when customers put her on the spot like this. It was if they were saying, dance monkey dance. Her best designs happened when she had the freedom to pick and choose whatever colors or flowers spoke to her in that moment. The fresher the better and only she knew the exact age of every bloom in her shop. Luckily, she had been thinking about what she would design for his unusual request all morning. She was prickling with a prepared response.
Get ready.
She described in lengthy detail what she had been designing in her head all morning. She used words like, austere, haughty, spotless, icey.
“Wow. Ok. Yes! That all sounds great.”
Putty in my hands, thought Ilsa.
“Now would you like to give me a budget for the design?”
“You tell me. What do you think it would take?” Ilsa had heard that one before and answering it was like teetering on six-inch heels. Ask for too much, some will become offended, and cancel the order altogether. Ask for too little, and you can’t achieve the look of the design you described. In this case Ilsa had no problem asking for what she wanted. He was either going to pay or not. She guesstimated she’d need at least $150 for the design and she uncharacteristically added twenty percent to that for labor. In this scenario, she figured she’d earned it.
With practiced nonchalance, she spoke. “Oh, I think a budget of one eighty should cut it.”
Troy snapped, “Make it an even two hundred for the whole thing, delivery tax, all that. Just remember, if she should ask, don’t give her any of my personal information.”
She purred, “We are very discreet, Mr. LeBlanc.”
“Good, glad to hear it.” He continued as if he were offering a piece of gaudy costume jewelry to an eager young girl. “Ilsa, why don’t you keep my credit card information on file. If you do good on this one I’ll order from you again.”
You prick.
Deadpan, Ilsa said, “Excellent.” She took all of his credit card details and ended the call with an assurance that his order would be taken care of personally and promptly. He had no idea how close Ilsa had been to telling this guy he could file his credit card where the sun don’t shine, and maybe she would have if Rebecca hadn’t still been eavesdropping.
Of course Ilsa wanted her shop girls to think this was all about the money. If she didn’t stress to them that that was one of her main motivators, sales would slump. They just would, it was a proven fact. Her sales girls were young and only thought about money in the vein of what they would spend on flowers, which wasn’t much because as young women they didn’t have much money to spend. Ilsa needed them to think like people who had money to burn. People who thought nothing of dropping three hundred dollars on a floral design for their dog groomer. She also knew from experience, most average people ordering flowers wanted to pay thirty-five dollars. Why thirty-five? Ilsa never knew. She did know that if larger budgets weren’t encouraged, a lazy salesperson would throw out that number randomly to quickly make a sale and get off the phone. That amount might have been cut it twenty years ago, but now all thirty-five dollars got you was a modest vase arrangement featuring perhaps six roses and a bunch of cheap fillers. The variety of fillers Ilsa didn’t even carry. Baby’s breath was verboten around these parts. First, because it stank to all get out, and even a small batch would have the shop stinking of unwashed nuts for a week. Second, her hoity-toity French Quarter customers would be appalled at seeing the offending stuff out for display, and give Ilsa the stink eye for even having it around. No, Ilsa needed bigger budgets to compete in this higher-end market. She also needed bigger budgets so she could do the kind of design work that Troy was demanding. It wasn’t the money, that was just an added bonus. It was the idea of an order that drove Ilsa. A defense against nature’s cruel chaos. Mastery over the unmasterable. Ilsa needed these designs challenges to feel fueled, and without them, The Fat Ballerina would devolve into any everyday American flower shop with stuffed teddy bears in the window and crappy mylar balloons floating all over the place. Ilsa wasn’t about the dollars, but what perfection those dollars could produce.
She turned around and noted that the remaining flowers had been processed with the boxes broken down and placed outside on the curb. The girls had even finished off the five bunches of baby eucalyptus, a bitch of a filler that left their hands and clippers covered in sticky sap that was impossible to scrub off. Everyone waited to do eucalyptus last, each one hoping that the other one would get stuck with the task. Ilsa supposed that they had stepped up because she had taken the Mr.Troy LeBlanc bullet. All she had to do now was separate and refrigerate the flowers for the wedding, then price and put on display the flowers just for the store. Daisy had left with the two deliveries, so it was just Rebecca with her again. “I heard you using your Mommy voice. How’d it go? I’m so surprised he actually called.”
“Mommy handled it just fine, firm and to the point.”
“Did he sound creepy, or say anything more about the foot lady?”
Ilsa laughed, walking over to the vase display. She pulled down the etched glass vase she wanted to use for his design and brought it over to the sink. Adding powdered flower food, she filled it almost to the top with water. “Nothing more about our poor foot lady. Just the usual stuff. He acted as if we had no other customers in the world but him and he seemed bitchy that I didn’t say much about the email. You heard me talking, I was strictly business.”
“What about his voice? What did he sound like?”
“What do you want to hear? He sounded young and southern and like he couldn’t be bothered. He was like most of our customers, resentful of all the questions. I’m sure he felt that by writing that long email he’d somehow be immune to the impersonal experience of placing an order over the phone to an uncaring worker drone. God, you know they all want such instant intimacy with us. Were not therapists for christ sake! Unfortunately, he emailed me everything I didn’t need to know, and none of what I did.”
Rebecca said, “I heard you. You were like machine. You gave him nothing.”
“I mean he’s still weird, don’t get me wrong. And I know he didn’t get what he was looking for from us, so I doubt we’ll ever hear from him again, but you get it. He thinks he’s a victim, he victimises us, he sends her breakup flowers, now she’s the victim. We all got paid one way or another. Ugh, it’s so gross, let's stop talking about it.“
“Deep Ilsa, real deep, but I can’t forget anything until I see what you come up with for this guy.”
“I’ve got a plan. Don’t worry.”
“You always do,” said Rebecca. “I can’t wait ‘til I can design like you do. I’m always second guessing myself. You’re like a flower whisperer.”
Ilsa shrugged while staring at the empty vase in front of her. A few minutes later Daisy stormed back in holding a half eaten hamburger and dirtying the floor with wet footprints. Typical of New Orleans, the sky had clouded up out of nowhere, followed by an epic downpour that lasted for about ten minutes. Then, like voodoo, the sun took over leaving the streets sweating, shrouding everything in steam. Rebecca shot for the mop, erasing Daisy’s wet mess and then hustled back to her design station. “What’d I’d miss?” Daisy asked. “When I left you were giving TMI dude the no-nonsense flower Mistress voice that drives me wild.” She took a massive bite of her burger and continued with a full mouth, “Did he brag more about Mary Magdalene?”
Rebecca piped in from her corner where she had been pretending to clean the leaves off of some magenta stock but had really been on and off text messaging her newest boyfriend, Richard, a young, idealistic transplant from the Pacific Northwest who was quickly becoming tired of the incurable corruption of this city. Ilsa knew Rebecca was fighting a losing battle with that one, but also knew better than to interfere. “Mommy Ilsa made our Fat Ballerina his whore.”
Daisy stared at Rebecca. “Ilsa what does she mean by that?”
Rebecca giggled. “Mommy doesn’t care if she gets naughty emails as long as she’s getting paid.”
“Look ladies, I’m just thinking, dude can write me all the dirty emails he wants as long as he compensates me for the privilege.”
Rebecca tisked.
Daisy said, “You ho.”
“Alright you bitches, I see how it is.” Ilsa turned her back to them and grabbed her iPhone. She scrolled until she found what she was looking for and placed the device back on the dock. She pressed play while her audience mouthed the words and motioned with their arms. No. No. No.
Let’s start at the very beginning/ A very good way to start/ When you read you being with ABC/ When you sing you begin with Do-re-mi. Ilsa yowled along with The Sound of Music classic while the girls held their ears in dismay.
Ilsa turned the volume back down. “Alright, you guys stop distracting me, I gotta make this thing. First, Daisy call Yannick and make sure he has some more white Anthuriums on the truck. I want to use the ones we got for the wedding in this design. Also, we’re already running low on red roses. Rebecca, give me a stem count on the white callas we have set aside. I only needed two for a design this weekend, but I’ve already been dipping into them for other random stuff.”
“You are freakin’ hilarious,” roared Rebecca. “Anthuriums, of course! You’re a genious.”
Daisy fetched the anthuriums from the back and placed them on Ilsa’s design station. Ignoring the ringing phone, she simulated jerking the flower off by running her thumb and pointer finger quickly up and down the extreme phallic stamen of the flower.
“The phone, Daisy!” Ilsa swatted Daisy’s hand. “Answer the phone.”
“Nasty girl!” screamed Rebecca, frenzied by all the action. “What about these?” she rang out, rushing to a bucket of deep maroon Kangaroo Paws. “To represent the feet?”
“Way ahead of you girl,” said Ilsa, cutting and placing a few thick stalks of white calla lily into the vase.
“Wait! I know. Why don’t you use some of those LED underwater lights to light the whole vase from the inside? That would be so crazy cool.”
Daisy put her hand over the phone receiver, whispering. “Becca’s right. That would be really cool.”
“You guys don’t think that’s too tacky?” questioned Ilsa.
“No ways,” said Rebecca. “I mean this lady clearly likes over the top. Let’s give it to her.”
“Alright. Let’s do it,” agreed Ilsa, lighting a couple of LED battery operated underwater lights and plopping them into the vase. They sank to the bottom and did give the vase an eerie appearance of ice lit from within. Ilsa sank into her design space. She let the flowers tell her where they wanted to go. She knew to have a plan but never be too rigid. After the immaculate white callas and the pornographic anthuriums, she accented with the spiky lines of white Star Of Bethlehem. A silent nod to foot lady’s religious fervor. She then filled in with bits of the maroon kangaroo paw, pieces of blood colored birch branch and burgundy hypericum berries. It still needed something, so Ilsa thought to add a border of dusty miller. That silvery grey leaf added just the frosty element it needed. The final product was breathtaking and cold even to the three flower jaded women who saw hundreds of floral designs come and go everyday.
“Aren’t you gonna take a picture of it?” asked Rebecca. All three girls stood shoulder to shoulder, admiring Ilsa’s final product.
“Let’s just look at it for awhile. It’s too pretty. I feel guilty wasting it on this creep.”
Daisy snapped to action. “Come on Rebecca do the card. I’ll get the van ready. Ilsa take the picture. It is what it is.”
Ilsa sighed, “You’re right.” She grabbed her phone off the dock and took a few photos. She had to turn off the overhead lights and shoot from many angles before she really captured the essence of what she had created. “Perfect.” she whispered. She went to the order form on auto pilot. She plugged Troy LeBlanc’s phone number into a new contact labeled “TMI Dude”. She loaded the photo with the caption: “Your design came out beautifully.” Then she pressed send. Every customer who ordered a design over one hundred dollars got a courtesy text photo, and Ilsa thought nothing of doing that for this order. That was until, Daisy asked.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m sending TMI dude a photo of the flowers. What?”
“No you’re not Missy. You’re not giving that creepshow your personal phone number. Have you gone psycho?”
“It’ll be fine,” soothed Rebecca. “Ilsa gave him nothing to work with. She was right. He wanted a connection and didn’t get one. Even if he was a perv and wanted to shock her she didn’t let on that she was even slightly fazed. This is the last of TMI guy. I’m one hundred percent sure.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. “You said pretty much the same thing about Dirty Underwear Dude, and he was here just last week.”
“That’s different. He’s seen Ilsa.” She motioned to Ilsa’s substantial chest. “Coming in and talking to her is part of his experience.”
Ilsa shooed Rebecca’s hands away. “I agree with Becca. Sadly this is the last of TMI Dude. Even though he told me to keep his cc on file I just feel like this was an experiment gone wrong. He wanted to suck someone else into his sordid drama and he failed. Even if he loves the flowers, thinks their the most beautiful things he’s ever seen, my reaction on the phone is going to leave a bad taste in his mouth.”
“Sadly?” asked Daisy. “Why sadly? You want this dude bothering you with more Penthouse Forum rejects?”
“Come on you two, don’t you guys get bored making dozen-rose arrangements day after day? At least this one was a challenge. And look I got to make this.” Ilsa picked up the overflowing vase and handed it off to Daisy. “Now deliver this beast and make sure you try to get a look at this gal. I want to know if the picture I have of her in my head matches real life.” Daisy moved toward the door. “Oh and Daisy?” Daisy turned and Ilsa walked toward her with a twenty dollar bill. “While you’re there why don’t you pick me out a major cab. I think I’m gonna want to drink tonight. In fact ask the wine store if they remember the one from the contest.”
“Weird, Ilsa!” yelled Rebecca from the back.
Daisy winked. “You got it boss.” Hands full with the vase, Daisy turned and jutted her ass out. Ilsa slipped the twenty into her back pocket.
Later that night, sprawled out on her couch, Ilsa regarded her toes, wiggling them, forever halting on the little piggy that stayed home. That piggy had been broken and was now squared off and stumpy. It was the thing that had ended her vague, teenage dreams of becoming a ballerina. She allowed herself a few moments of what ifs, then she hauled herself, the empty wine glass and her ten pounds of XXX large white terrycloth robe up and off of the couch. The robe was definitely an “unhealthy attachment”, an ex’s words, not hers. It dusted the floor behind her as she walked, multi tasking by cleaning the hardwood and making her feel small and cozy at the same time. She clung to it; she slept with it as a blanket when she was blue, stroked it when anxious. Wrapped in it’s safety now, she puzzled over her reaction to the email.
Daisy had come back to the shop, eager to tell them all about the woman who had stirred up all the fuss. With each adjective that left Daisy’s lips, Ilsa found herself becoming more and more disappointed. Ilsa had pictured a tall woman, a woman who could tower over a man, a busty amazon with her hands on her hips glowering down at her prey. Daisy said the woman was quite petite. Ilsa had envisioned mountains of red wavy hair obscuring one eye while she watched little Troy squirm with every new sexual task. Daisy described the woman's hair as wispy. Ilsa imagined bright green eyes that twinkled mischievously. The woman was reported to have dark almond shaped eyes that didn’t even smile when handed the beautiful bouquet. Daisy said the lady seemed to be expecting them, impatient even, like she had been waiting for them all day and was annoyed that they had taken so long to be delivered. It took Ilsa two glasses of wine to realize the woman she had been fantasizing about was in fact an erotic version of herself, and another whole glass to figure out why. It wasn’t the bizarre foot thing. She looked back down at her feet, like a woman, noticing the broken toe first. Feet were the last thing she’d incorporate into sex. No, it was something else about that damn email. It was the intention of the act, the purposefulness of it. The laid plans, so to speak. Mary Magdalen had a set scenario that got her off. Troy was just a pawn in a game that the woman had probably played many times before. This wasn’t some wild hair, it was all too orchestrated to have happened organically. That was the thing that got to Ilsa, the orchestration of the thing. Ilsa wanted a thing. Or perhaps this whole thing was Troy. Maybe this was all a fantasy of his making? She didn’t doubt that they had had sex but maybe all the crazy extras were the product of his depraved mind and putting them in an email and sending it out made it real somehow. Either way people were out there, mere miles away, having fantasies and getting off. Attracting then repelling. What was she doing? She was on the couch with her cat Edelweiss drinking wine alone. Ilsa checked her phone for the ninth time. No response from TMI Guy. The fact that he didn’t even bothered with a rote response like ‘beautiful’ to her texted photo reinforced her belief that Troy LeBlanc and his famous email would become nothing more than a funny anecdote the girls told people about when asked. And someone always asked. “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen at the flower shop?”
