Love in Bloom (10 page)

If he was, that was a good thing, she told herself. She would be happy for them if they fell in love. Jason would never have a dull moment with Bobbi, and Bobbi would have a dependable man. And Hope would have a nice brother-in-law: a win-win situation for everyone. So, she should feel like a winner.
Okay, feeling like a
winner here
. She drummed her fingers on the countertop.
Feeling like an antsy, irritated winner
. It was time to close up shop for the day. It wasn't even two yet and she always stayed open until four on Saturdays, but she needed garden therapy right now, today, or her heart would explode.

She turned the sign on her door to Closed. Under it she taped a note that said, “Sorry. Flower emergency.”

Then she drove to the Trellis and bought the goodies for her garden: basil, cilantro, dill, and nasturtiums, which would give her pretty orange blossoms to use in salads. She enjoyed growing garden goodies for cooking, and now that her appetite had returned she was looking forward to spending time in the kitchen again. Others, like the baby's breath and the root beer plant, she'd dry and use for flower arrangements.

She left the nursery with a feeling of anticipation. It was sunny and warm. It would be the perfect day to start her garden.

Her cell phone rang. It was Megan Wales, one of her best customers and also now her lawyer and good friend. “I never heard back. Are you coming to night?”

Megan's legal chick-flick night—she'd completely forgotten.

“You don't want to miss my salad buffet,” Megan added.

A change in lifestyle and a significant weight loss had made Megan the queen of salads. Not only was she a good cook, she was good fun, and being out beat staying home. “You're right, I don't,” Hope decided. “I'll be there.”

“Good. See you at seven.”

Gardening and friends—life was good. Not always perfect, not always what a woman wanted it to be, but good. And for now, good was just fine.

Hope arrived at the community garden to find that she had neighbors. Their plots were to the east of hers, side by side. It looked like they were already on their way to becoming friends as they stood conversing: an old woman and a woman who looked
around Hope's age. The younger woman had a little boy beside her, playing in the soil. She was slim, clad in jeans and a black sweatshirt. She had long, brown hair and a slightly long face made pretty by brown eyes and full lips. She looked familiar although Hope couldn't remember where she'd seen her.

The older woman was slender and delicate as a coral bell. She was wearing the kind of smile that said, “You want me for your grandma.” She was also wearing purple slacks and a floral blouse topped with an ancient-looking lavender sweatshirt cardigan. A straw sun hat banded by a purple ribbon shaded her eyes from the afternoon sun.
When I'm an old woman, I shall wear purple
. Hope wondered if this woman was a member of that red hat club her grandma had belonged to when she was alive.

Hope walked over and set down her armload of goodies. “Hi,” the younger woman greeted her.

“We were wondering who our neighbor might be,” said the grandmother, tucking a wandering lock of silver hair behind her ear.

Hope introduced herself.

“I'm Millie Baldwin,” said the grandmother, “and this is Amber Howell.”

“And this is Seth,” Amber said, pointing to her son. “Can you say hi, Sethie?”

The little boy was very busy running a toy truck through the dirt, but he managed a happy hello.

“You look familiar,” Hope said to Amber. “I'm trying to figure out where I've seen you.”

“Ever come into the bakery?”

And then she knew. “Of course. I've seen you behind the counter.”

Amber nodded. “That's me. I'm a lot more at home in the bakery than in the garden, let me tell you. Thank God I met Millie. She's going to be my garden guru and cure me of my disease.”

The word made Hope's heart catch. “Disease?”

“
Gardenus ickus
.” Amber raised a hand, thumb up. “I've got the world's biggest black thumb.”

Millie chuckled and Hope allowed herself to breathe again.

“The only difference between you and me, my dear, is that I've had many more years of practice,” Millie told Amber. She smiled at Hope and peered over at her box. “And what are you growing? Oh, I see herbs!”

Hope ran a loving finger over a feathery dill plant. “I like to cook. And I'm a florist. Some of these I'll dry and use during the year.”

“Do you work at that florist shop downtown?” asked Amber.

“Actually, I own it.”

“How lovely!” cried Millie. “I always thought it would be fun to have a flower shop. But I must admit that between my family and my garden and my church activities, I don't know when I'd have found the time. Owning your own business is a lot of work.”

Amber's genial smile shriveled, and Hope couldn't help wondering what nerve Millie had accidentally hit.

Millie obviously saw the change in Amber. “Well,” she said briskly, “now, thanks to Amber, I can get started planting. Although you really didn't need to turn the soil for me,” she told Amber. “I could have done it.”

Amber brought back some of her smile. “I needed the exercise anyway.”

The women set to work laying out their gardens. Hope felt soothed by the sun and the sound of Millie's soft voice as she gently coached Amber. “I think your pumpkin and zucchini would do better if you plant them in little hills. Yes, that looks about the right size. That was nice helping, Seth. Now, make six little holes around the mound. Just like that. Lovely. Now, drop in the seeds. You'll be able to make wonderful zucchini bread with your harvest.”

As the day moved on, Hope learned a lot about the other two women. Millie had moved to Heart Lake from back east and was
helping her daughter with her two children. But she seemed lonely, happy to have other women to talk to.

“I miss being near my mom,” said Amber. She dropped out of the conversation to redirect her son's Tonka truck traffic away from the hill where they had just planted the zucchini.

“Me, too,” said Hope. Florida sometimes felt like the other side of the world. But just the day before, during their weekly phone chat, Mom had mentioned the possibility of buying a lot on Heart Lake and putting up a small summer home so they could spend summers near their daughters. “Do you and your daughter do a lot of cool stuff together on the weekends?” she asked Millie.

“Debra is awfully busy,” Millie hedged. “Anyway,” she added briskly, “a woman should always have a life of her own, no matter how much she loves her children.”

Hope could see Amber frowning in disapproval. Their gazes met and an unspoken agreement flashed between them. They would make sure this woman felt wanted and appreciated. That wouldn't be hard. Millie was a sweetie.

Millie was the first to quit. “Well, I think it's about time to go home,” she said, straightening and stretching out her back. “I'm afraid I don't have the stamina I did at seventy.”

At seventy? How old was this woman?

“You're older than seventy?” asked Amber, voicing Hope's thought.

Millie smiled, obviously flattered. “I'll be seventy-seven come June.”

Hope vowed right then to make Millie a special bouquet for her birthday.

“Wow. You're amazing,” Amber said. “I hope I'm in as good shape as you when I'm your age.”

“I'm sure you will be,” Millie said. “You young girls all work so hard at staying fit.”

Some of us just work hard at staying alive, Hope thought.

Millie said her good-byes, and the two women watched as she climbed into a big boat of a car with a dented fender and sailed off.

“Wow, she's something else,” said Amber. “Do you picture us being like that when we're old?”

“I'm not sure I picture myself being old at all,” Hope mused. She didn't want to think about that today though, not here in this place filled with growing things.

“I already feel old,” Amber said with a sigh.

“Mommy, I want to go home,” said her son. “I'm hungry.”

“Okay. Let's go see if Daddy's got dinner ready.”

“Your husband cooks for you?” asked Hope.

“Sometimes.”

“Lucky you.”

“Yeah. Lucky me.” Amber's smile was tinged with melancholy. “Okay, Sethie. Pick up your truck. Nice meeting you,” she said to Hope. “See you next weekend?”

Hope nodded and watched as Amber led her son away. Interesting neighbors she had here at the community garden.

 

PLAYING IN THE
dirt and enjoying the fresh air left Hope refreshed, and enjoying the company of friends left her grateful to be alive. That night she dreamed about her garden. The dill grew waist high, and some of Millie's English garden seeds migrated to her plot and produced a wondrous flower chorus, swaying in the breeze and humming “The Waltz of the Flowers.” A beautiful butterfly with lavender wings and a silver body appeared, fluttering from flower to flower. The movie camera of Hope's subconscious zoomed in, showing her that it wasn't a butterfly but a fairy—a beautiful fairy with naked, perfectly formed, rosy-tipped breasts. And her face—the fairy was her! Only more beautiful than she could ever have imagined herself.

She woke up with the morning sun kissing her cheek and sighed,
still warm from the aftereffects of the dream. With a dream like that, she simply had to have a wonderful day. How could it be otherwise?

It began with a favorite ritual. On Sundays Bobbi wandered down from Apartment 302 in the Lake Vista Apartments to have lunch with Hope in number 103. Hope always made a soup or salad and served it with homemade oatmeal muffins or whole wheat bread from the bakery, and Bobbi brought dessert to encourage Hope to “live a little.” Today's offering was chocolate from the Chocolate Bar, the new chocolateria in town that specialized in all things chocolate, from truffles to hot cocoa.

“To night's the night,” Bobbi said, setting out the pink candy box of truffles for dessert. “We are going line dancing at the Grange.”

No need to ask who the “we” was. Hope reached for a chocolate. She'd have just one. “So, he's already getting the dance test.”

“Why not? Anyway, we couldn't exactly go out last night.”

“Did he ask you out for last night?”

“Yeah, but I suggested to night instead.”

“Did you give him a reason for why you couldn't go out last night?”

Bobbi took a truffle. “I played it mysterious and said I had plans. It's good to keep a man intrigued.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “He is so gorgeous.”

“Amen to that,” Hope said. She needed another truffle.

“We talked on the phone for an hour yesterday.”

Hope remembered watching Jason walk down the street, smiling as he talked into his cell phone. She popped another truffle. “What did you talk about?”

“Gosh, just silly stuff, you know. Where we grew up, what we like to do for fun.” She frowned. “He likes to hike. That is not a plus.”

Hope tried not to envision herself and Jason walking in a meadow at Mount Rainer or hiking to the Sol Duc Hot Springs in the Olympic National Park.
Have another chocolate
.

“Whoa,” said Bobbi, watching her put a fourth truffle in her mouth. “Are you on a chocolate bender or something?”

Hope looked at the box. There was only one left. What the heck? She took that and ate it, too. “No. Just in the mood for chocolate. Life's uncertain, eat dessert first.”

“Not funny,” Bobbi said with a scowl. “Not after what we just went through with you.”

“Sorry. I guess I should have said that I'm just trying to live life to the fullest like you're always telling me to do.”

“Well, you've got to be full now,” Bobbi grumped, looking longingly at the empty box. “I guess I should have bought more.”

“Thank God you didn't. That was my sugar quota for the month.” How many cancer cells had she just fed?

Bobbi grinned. “Better your hips than mine.”

“You're just trying to make me fat 'cause you can't stand the competition,” Hope cracked and tried not to think about hungry, out-of-control cells running around her chest, devouring everything in sight like Pac-Man.

“That's it.” Bobbi looked at her watch. “I'd better get going. I need to clean my place.”

No need to ask why. Of course she'd invite Jason over after they were done dancing. Well, good for her.
At this rate, she'll be engaged by May and I'll be doing flowers for her wedding in August
. Hope produced a determined smile.

A quick clean-up in the kitchen, a hug, and then Bobbi was gone and the apartment was quiet. Uncomfortably quiet. Hope sat at her vintage Formica table and drummed her fingers.
Don't just sit here, go do something
. The sun was out, the air was spring warm, and she was on chocolate overload. Time for a walk.

She grabbed her sweatshirt and took off, her destination the Grand Forest, a nineteen-acre stretch of land that had been bought by the Heart Lake Land Trust to provide space for wildlife in the
growing community. Walking through stands of Douglas-fir, red cedar, hemlock, and broadleaf maple trees always restored her equilibrium and reminded her that the world was a beautiful place. Sometimes she'd see a deer regarding her cautiously from a clearing or catch sight of a pheasant or blue jay. And sometimes she'd meet other people, walkers with a dog on a leash, joggers thundering down the path with iPods plugged in. Today, she encountered . . . oh, good grief. What sick little gremlins were responsible for this?

Jason Wells stopped in front of her, the epitome of masculine in his jeans, a Seahawks sweatshirt, and hiking boots. “Well, hi,” he said, giving her a pleasant once-over.