Rafaela rolls her eyes. “We hired someone so you wouldn’t have to come in so much. What, you don’t trust me to hold down the fort?”
“You know that’s not true,” Ora says in a voice that conveys it to be entirely true. “Where’s Héctor?”
“Out on a delivery—imagine that!” Rafaela’s mouth quirks up as Ora turns to her with a raised eyebrow.
“Okay, okay.” Ora rearranges the glazed ceramic pots of African violets on a table near the front of the small room. “I know when I’m not wanted. Call me if you have any trouble locking up?”
“Will do. Want me to bring something home for dinner?” Rafaela asks as her aunt leans over Tucker, planted in the window seat, and reaches down to give him a head rub.
“Well, with all this extra time I have now, I suppose I should cook something,” Ora says thoughtfully. “I’ll stop by the store.”
We watch Ora cross the parking lot to her car. “You two seem to get along okay,” I say.
“She’s a little overbearing but not so bad most of the time.” Rafaela shrugs but still offers up nothing else. She plants herself in front of the case of peony blooms, same as the first day I was here. “Want to learn how to do an arrangement? Ora’s going to make you start doing them soon, probably. She makes me do two a week.”
“Sure.” I follow her to the back room, which is bigger than I thought it’d be. It has a long table with shelves above it, a refrigerated case full of blooms, boxes of unpacked vases and ribbon, and a small table with two chairs next to the same type of fridge Iris and I had in our dorm.
Rafaela clears the table of debris, sweeping cut stems and dead petals and loose leaves to the floor. Some of the potting soil sticks to her arms and I want to brush it away, find some excuse to touch her again. I don’t think she’d mind, but I clasp my hands behind my back. I watch her place the burgundy-colored peonies on the table, along with a handful of broad, ribbed leaves that she tells me are called hosta.
“Are you right-handed?” she asks, and when I nod, she says, “Then you start making the arrangement in your left hand. Put the largest flower in the center.…”
Rafaela may act like she doesn’t care much about her job, but she’s good at it. She treats the blooms and leaves with care and never takes her eyes off them, as if she’s creating a work of art like the one inked on her arm. I guess she is, in a way.
I watch her instead of her hands forming the bouquet, taking in the small curves of her profile—the way her lips pout from the side and the smooth line of her tattooless shoulder. I’m not listening to what she’s saying as she walks me through the composition and I’m certainly not retaining it for later. The bell from the shop floor snaps me out of my daze.
Rafaela wipes her hands on her apron. “Want to take care of this one?”
I walk out to the front and immediately stop when I see who’s standing at the counter. “What are you doing here?”
Lionel’s red hair and wrinkled gray pants and freckly arms look foreign in this room—too familiar in a place where I’m still getting my bearings. He usually avoids putting himself into new situations if he can help it, and him being inside the shop when he doesn’t have to be makes me wonder if something is wrong.
He doesn’t answer me, at least not right away. His eyes are glued to a point behind me. And something in me drops when I realize he’s looking at Rafaela.
“You told me to pick you up now,” he finally says, his eyes moving to me. But only briefly, before they slide back to Rafaela, who’s standing next to the bonsais, pretending not to notice the attention.
“Oh. It’s already four?” I look at the clock above the counter. It’s five past, and I can’t believe how quickly the six hours have gone by, being in such a small space with just Rafaela, a snoozing cat, and countless containers of flowers and plants.
“I can come back if you’re not ready…?”
“No, it’s okay.” I begin untying my apron. “Rafaela, this is my brother, Lionel.”
“Your brother—?” she begins, but then a flicker of understanding passes through her eyes as she remembers my explanation about Saul and my mother. “Oh, right. Cool.” She walks toward Lionel and offers a hand. “I’m Rafaela.”
The grin on his face is big enough to light up the sky, and I can’t recall the last time I saw him this way: happy and hopeful and at a complete loss for words.
I didn’t know you could identify such moments from the outside—that emotions that have nothing to do with you could be so evident, so tangible—but I am positive I just witnessed my brother falling in love at first sight.
eleven.
Before I left for work, Mom said Emil still isn’t well, and I feel guilty about all the time I just spent with Rafaela, all the different points throughout the day when I thought about what it would be like if she and I were together. Would we sneak off to the back room to kiss, or would we flirt with each other all day, letting the tension build up until we could leave the shop for the evening?
“I want to bring Emil something,” I say to Lionel as we pull away from Castillo Flowers. “Matzo ball soup, from Langer’s.”
It takes him a moment to respond, and I know it has everything to do with Rafaela. The dopey look on his face, the shine in his eyes, hasn’t gone away, even after we walked out of the shop. He turns down the volume on the radio.
“Langer’s, huh? You really like him.”
“Lion.” I flush because he’s not making this easy for me. I can admit to myself that I like Emil, that things have changed between us this summer, but it’s still not easy to talk about it. “He’s sick, and I want to help. I’d do it for DeeDee.”
“No, DeeDee’s girlfriend would do it for DeeDee. And is he even the kind of sick that soup helps?” He takes a right onto a side street to turn us around. “But yeah, I’ll drive you. Only because you look so desperate.”
I shouldn’t let him get away with that, but he’s helping me, so I bite my tongue.
“Should I let Emil know we’re coming?” I ask when we’re headed toward the deli.
“I don’t know, I’d probably like it if someone surprised me with food when I was sick,” Lionel says contemplatively before a pause. “Especially if it was someone I liked back. Speaking of liking people…” He clears his throat and I know exactly what’s coming next, but I feign ignorance. “What’s up with that girl you work with… Rafaela?”
“What do you mean, what’s up with her?”
He grins. “You know what I mean. What’s she like?”
“I don’t know her very well.” I shrug and look out the window. I’m telling the truth, but I’m also trying to sound like I’m not interested in her. After the way Lion looked at her, I can’t tell him about my crush. Although I wish I could admit I understand why he was so instantly smitten, I’m weirded out that we can like the same person. “She’s friends with DeeDee’s girlfriend.”