“Yes. Time. Let me figure it out. Then maybe I’ll even help you. We can do it together. But I just need to be ready. There’s a lot you don’t know about me. I know that and it’s my fault. I’ve kept myself from you, parts that I haven’t been ready to access. It hasn’t been fair, but . . .” he shrugs. “It is what it is.”
“Okay.” I nod slowly. I don’t really understand but I know that real love is about sacrifice, understanding, giving when you just want to take. “I guess I can give you time.” Even though I have no idea what that means.
He pulls me into a fierce hug, his arms around me like a vise. I can’t be sure, but I think I feel tears on my hair. “I won’t let you go. Not again.”
CHAPTER 7
FEBRUARY 2013, NEW YORK CITY
“You have a date?” In my hands I clutched a fistful of wilting anthurium, with their veined, leathery leaf-like petals, a masculine flower. Phallic, really, the stamen popping out like a penis.
“It’s a corporate banquet.” Lydia’s eyes plead. “It’s a big date. You’ll be fine.”
“Elisa hates me. She’s going to hate this,” I grumble, pouting, smoothing out the last of the bouquets. Elisa criticizes the way I change water buckets. I picture her smooth blonde-gray ponytail swinging as she shakes her head, her lined mouth bowed down, as she ticks off on slender fingers all the things I should have done differently in her clipped, efficient accent. Elisa is five feet tall and sixty years old and my hands shake at the thought.
Javi waits in the truck, honks twice impatiently.
“That’s why you’re not going to tell her.” Lydia kisses my cheek and pats my head. Like I’m a dog. “You were going to go with me anyway. Now you’re just . . . in charge.”
“Elisa’s going to flip shit and you know it. He better be worth it.”
“He’s not. If I’m not home by midnight, I’ve been roofied, okay?” She waggles her fingers at me and is out the door, the tinkle of the bell signaling her exit.
As he steers the van, Javi talks a blue streak, gossiping about Elisa, Paula (his partner-slash-girlfriend), even Lydia. I hmmm-mmm in all the right places, but eventually he gives up and we sit in silence in hot, beeping traffic. Lydia’s right, it’s just a corporate event, but I’m jittery and I wipe my palms on my jeans. I think of all the things I’m going to do wrong. I’ve been working at La Fleur d’Elise for almost three years now, and I still don’t have my footing. My job feels precarious, at best. Charitable, at worst. Most, if not all, of my suggestions are met with an outward sigh. I’m still the new kid, the apprentice.
The dinner is small: twenty-five people in a restaurant called Br?lée in Tribeca. All I have to do is place centerpieces and a podium potted plant and leave. The arrangements are all ugly, corporate and masculine: the rounded globes of hydrangeas, the long tapered gladiolus. Literally, all cock and balls, against deep bloodred table settings. I can almost smell the self-congratulatory sweat.
I position the last table setting, only four in all, and one hand bouquet, presumably a gift. White, lilting, and feminine, I guess it’s for someone’s assistant.
I turn to leave and crash directly into someone coming through the door. A flurry of gift bags scatters on the floor, their contents spreading a remarkable distance, flinging under tables and chairs.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” I panic. This will be the thing that Elisa knows about, that she fires me for.
The man bends over, gathers up the flung silk scarves and pen boxes. His hair is shiny blond and when he looks up at me, he smiles, all teeth and dimples. My heart lurches.
“No worries. Nothing breakable. Help me rewrap?” He motions toward the long table where he stacks ten gift bags in various states of crumpled. I hesitate. Since I’ve been working at Elisa’s, I’ve been around some very rich people. Florists are hired help, as invisible as janitors, maids, and interns. Clients may respect the designers, temporarily treat them as equals, but never the drivers. I’m merely the one delivering the masterpieces of the designer. In this case, Lydia.
The man studies the centerpieces. “Did you design these?”
I shake my head. I can almost feel Lydia elbow my side. If I’m the lead here, I’m the designer. I handle the criticism, take the praise.
He grins. “Good. They’re god-awful. What are these, black flowers?”
“Um, bat orchids. Yes, black flowers.” My tongue feels thick, unwieldy.
He reaches out, taps my arm. “Sit, help me. My assistant wrapped all these. I’m hopeless at wrapping things. You must be good at it?”
“Because I’m a woman?” I wrinkle my nose.
“Because you’re in design?” he corrects, carefully. My neck flushes red.
He leans toward me, his long eyelashes lowered, dusting his cheeks. He smells spicy, full of oak and power and something musky, like the inside of a tree trunk. He passes me gift bags and I carefully wrap pens and silk scarves back into delicate tissue paper. Our fingers touch with each pen box, all ten, and then we’re done. Too soon, it feels like.
I smooth my palms on my jeans and clap my hands together, too loudly, for some weird reason, as though he’s a kindergartner. He gives me an odd look.