Days Daisies

o you want to pick up the flowers here, Mrs Flob?. Marlene paused and bit her bottom lip with her pearl white teeth, her dark fingers curling the telephone wire. She nodded. Okay, Ill have Stephen bring them over. Stephen. Yes, the one with the green hair. Okay Mrs. Flob. Yes, twelve daffodils and six roses with a daisy thrown in. Okay. Yes the daisys free. Okay. Well, have- A mocking dial tone barked back at her from the vanilla mouthpiece. -a nice day. Marlene finished. She hung up. Marlenes Flower Shoppe was a small stone building with a green thatched roof next to an obviously charming koi pond. It had small wood carvings of cats scattered about the place in repeating patterns of ridiculous cuteness. All in all it was everything a small flower shop should be: sweet, sentimental and charming to behold. Marlene, on the other hand, beheld her flower shop as a rocky saccharine turd that was only capable of sinking her further into the cutesy-fruitsy damnation that she had built for herself. She put so much work into this place. Before she came the building was a forgotten addition of a lumber mill. She had laid down new floors, mowed through miles of rebellious grass, laid siege to broken shutters and tortured beams. She scattered knick-knacks and bric-abrac as if she was possessed by the repressed soul of Liberace, tossing down cutouts of Halloween cats and kiln-fired garden gnomes with punitive measure. The bumbling shack then rather resembled the white lily laid on the chest of a corpse: everyone thought it was pretty but nobody dared go near it for fear of waking it up. When her friends from Columbia (a group of mixed race suburbanite intellectuals who shirked from Tyler Perry movies much the same way a vampire would avoid a layover in Miami) came to visit Marlene at her house not far from the shop (a pretty cottage with a red roof and a oak door), they would ask her how the business was going in airy tones of well-acted pity and when she invariably said that nobody came to the store at all they played the roles of Passive Aggressive Crusaders very well. Well Marlene it makes sense: in this backwater town maybe nobody appreciates the kind of aesthetic integrity that you have naturally., they would say with lips perched on wine glasses like hesitant gulls. Marlene wanted to scream at them its got nothing to do with racism! Most of these people are old hippies-Mrs. Flob (if that is her real name) says she marched with Dr. King himself, for fucks sake. The sad truth was that nobody came to the store for one simple reason: the town was filled with old beatniks and the shop was quite a trek uphill. None of those old acid freaks had cars (electing to simply walk everywhere, their yellow toenails jutting out as their sandals

smacked on and off the pavement) and heights didnt suit them: just last week Greg McKennon had to be helped down from the lofty elevation of a park bench. In a way Marlene wished her friends were right: she would have preferred to be beaten by simple prejudices and not, as it was, a fucking grassy knoll.

s she thought about her state of affairs she went to retrieve Mrs. Flobs flowers. The shop, to be fair, looked quite nice today. The flowers ran in a circle from red roses all the way to bright white daffodils. Tulips and honeysuckle buds lined the four pillars that made up the room, and ready-made bouquets lay chilled in their freezers. In the middle of the rose-daffodil fortress stood a woven basket of daisies. Marlene darted among the red and whites, scooped up the basket by its thin handle and walked back to the counter. She picked out a bud and slowly turned it, counting the petals as they rotated lazily on the stem. Marlenes surname of Day, did not evoke a sunny disposition. Her mother told Marlene stories of her ancestor Silas, who worked for a white family named Day for thirty hard years in the harsh Georgia heat. After the Civil War and the effects of the Emancipation Proclamation took hold Silas took his slavers name as his own and moved up to New York City where he resided until his death. Mom showed Marlene pictures of unsmiling black men in grey suits while teasing the knots out of her hair. Marlene fell in love with history. It was in the way memories changed over time, how things that seemed all-encompassing and serious in the moment could be just inconsequential pebbles in a much deeper sea. It spoke to her in ways other subjects could not. She studied hard in the private school she went to, an bespectacled black girl with an afro reading Dantes Inferno while the rich white girls smoked their first cigarettes behind the gym. When she got her acceptance letter to Columbia she felt radiant. She felt happy, honestly happy, for the first time in a long time. But she had only just moved into her dorm room when her mother called her with the news, news that tore open shutters and let light into dark places. Her father died three days after she had gotten the acceptance letter. He suffered a fatal heart attack while watching television. The police had found him three weeks later after the superintendent complained about the smell. Marlene hadnt talked to her father in years-had blocked him out of her mind entirely after he divorced her Mom. Yet as she looked over him, dead in his pine box with a flower in hand, the memories rushed in unbidden. One impression stuck out: her father with his knees in the dirty ground, his rough hands gently placing the small flowers with their buds chastely folded into neat rows. He looked at her and smiled, and even with all the history laid between them

Marlene found herself, all those years later, smiling again at her father. Her heart turned from history, and towards flowers.

nstead of calling in sick as usual Stephen decided to text his excuse to Marlene. CANT COME IN GRANMA DEAD TXT L8R. Marlene sighed. It was the fifth time Stephens grandmother had died this month. That bitch was hard to keep down. She reached under the counter and opened up the minifridge. She pulled out a cold beer and cracked it open on the edge of the counter like her father taught her. Her dad had taught her a lot of things. The man, despite his flaws, was very skillful with his hands. He taught Marlene the difference between a clove hitch and a bow knot. He showed her how to pitch a tent and how to put just enough chlorine in a swimming pool. He buttoned her shirts for her as a child and ran his rough fingers through her unruly hair. One rainy night he even came into her room and showed her what fearsome things those things could do. It started to rain outside. It was like this all the time during the summer: bright one minute, cloudy the next. Marlene wiped her eyes and sniffed. How do you talk about such cruel things? How do you bring it up? Its not exactly dinner conversation. Her friends would assuredly stand up for her from a safe distance, advising her to face her attacker and contact the police. She could never tell on her father, never send him away even with what he did. Sure , she hated what he did. She cut him off, spent hours in the library, skirted the garden and his smiling eyes. And yet And yet she did love him, still. It took his death for her to realize that. She had buried the memories by then, hiding the truth between lines of work and clubs and social engagements and sealing it up in a delicate white envelope never to be open. Sometimes life throws glue, other times a letter opener, she thought as she looked at her father. He divorced her mother years after the incident and she had told no one. In a way, it was almost as if she herself didnt know. Her friends were right in a way. Facing her attacker did help. It helped a lot.

unlight peaked through the clouds. Marlene threw open the shades. It helped her think about these things, think them through with this sense of peace around her. She took a swig of the beer and scrunched her face. Tears flowed down her cheeks. Why tears? Why tears, after so long? She had no tears that stormy night between the sheets, his fingers reaching to touch her in strange yet familiar parts. She had not cried when she got accepted into

Columbia. There was no weeping on her part when he saw her father cold and lifeless, unable to ever be confronted for his deeds. Yet here she was, in a beautiful shop surrounded by flowers and all she could do was cry. There was three sharp knocks at the door. Marlene whipped her head around. She wiped her cheeks, deposited the beer in one of the freezers with the bouquets and hurried to the door. She opened the door to be greeted with the weathered face of Mrs. Flob. Flob had a bottom jaw that seemed to drag from the bottom of her stout neck to her nose and, if unimpeded by the offending the nasal cavity, would have probably reached her hairline with no effort. She wore a black dress with red flowers embroidered on. That Steve kid never showed up. Came to get the flowers on my own. She looked around, her eyes peering through her glasses like a wizened old tortoise. This your shop? Um, yeah.. Marlene brushed her hair back. Ill get you your flowers. She hurried to the back and got the flowers-twelve daffodils and six roses. Thatll be twenty dollars. That cheap? Thats wonderful. Flob took the money out of a small red pocketbook. She grinned then, a look that on Mrs. Flob looked as alien as an asteroid. Hey, you live round here? Yeah, moved in three years ago. I live down on Berkley Lane. Shit, really?. Flob gave a dry chuckle. You should come over and play bridge with us and the girls. She leaned over and in a low whisper added, Sometimes Ethel brings over some grass. Sound like fun?. Marlene blushed and laughed. Jeez, Mrs. Flob! Please, call me Sherrie Marlene smiled. Well, Sherrie, it sounds great. See you around. Flob picked up the flowers. See you around. Flob looked around. This is a nice place. Your parents would be happy Marlene looked to the left and crossed her arms. They would be. Flob waved. Bye-Marlene, was it? Yes, Mrs. Flob. Well, bye. Bye The door closed. Marlene stared at her basket of daisies.