Chapter Four Emotional Support Bathtubs and Awkward Encounters #2
“I’m good for it.” She shrugs, plunking her AmEx on the counter.
“Of course you are. I’m sure Eliza negotiated you great back-end deals after that Oscar,” I scoff, feeling extra bitter. “Are
you still sniping roles too, or . . . ? I swear that last period piece you did was meant for Florence Pugh.”
“Pugh turned it down long before it got to me, but glad to know you’ve been keeping up with things,” she says. “That explains how you texted me about my book announcement within hours of it going live. Do you follow my TikTok or just check it regularly?”
Shit.
“What are you doing here, Nikki?”
“Ordering flowers,” she says, flipping through my portfolio.
“No, what are you doing here, as in this town.”
“I needed a place to finish my book.”
“Yet here you are, acting like a little stalker instead.”
Nikki scrunches up her face like it’s just now occurring to her how this might look from my perspective. “Wait, I was here
first,” she says and then, seeing my incredulous expression, adds, “not first-first, obviously. But before I knew you were here. I’m over a week into my stay already.”
“You’re so full of it,” I say with a laugh. “There’s no way!”
“You want to bet on that, Ducharme?” She pulls out her phone and starts scrolling through. “Here. Here!” She turns it toward
me. “Here’s the reservation email that proves it. I came here to finish the book. It felt like the right place to do it.”
“What? How?” I ask in disbelief. She’s actually telling the truth. She rented one of those old cabins, just like we did all
those years ago—just like I did when I first came here.
She shrugs. “It’s just fate or luck or something. I mean, this was my place too, once, when it was still ours.”
“I . . .” I trail off because no. No. I’m not doing this.
There was a time, not even that long ago, that hearing her call this place ours would have brought me to my knees. But I’m
not that person anymore—at least I’m not trying to be. I open my mouth to tell her as much, but she cuts me off.
“Whatever you’re about to say, remember that you texted me. You said you were living the dream, and I thought . . . what if? I was already here; how could I not check?”
“You’re in the cabins,” I say, mostly to myself.
“You know what’s weird? Nothing’s changed. Even that horrible painting of the sailboats is still there. I was half waiting
for you to walk in my door with an armful of shells, talking about our dreams or your flowers again.”
I blink and it’s like the world falls away, transporting me back to the summer after our final season of The Nikki and Andy Show. It was a trip full of long lazy days spent lounging in the summer heat and collecting shells to line up in the windows of
our little place on the shore. “Well-worn” would be an extremely forgiving way to describe the ramshackle row of cabins dotting
the small stretch of Maine coast, but it was perfect for us. The ideal location to daydream about our next steps and naively
convince ourselves that we would always be taking them together.
“It was never really our dream, was it?” I ask, digging my nails into the soft wood beneath the counter, letting the splinters ground me. “I wanted
to work in the florist shop, sure, but you were never really going to become a waitress. You love attention too much. You’d
do anything to keep it.”
She winces, and I hope she’s remembering my face when she told me she took the role I was passed over for. The role that I
didn’t even know she was going to audition for. Because that’s the truth about Nikki. She’ll say your name so sweetly while
she’s worshipping at the altar between your legs, but at the end of the day, she’ll sell you out—over and over again if you
let her. And I did let her, until my self-esteem was in the toilet and even Gouda was embarrassed for me.
“I need you to go,” I say, wishing that my words came out sounding stronger. That I wasn’t really just begging her to let me live.
“I haven’t told you my flower order yet,” she says, gently, as if that matters at all.
“Didn’t you just get a massive bouquet yesterday?” I ask.
“Were you hiding in the back? I thought I saw that curtain move, but—”
“Shut up,” I say, and this time I have no problem finding my voice. “You’re not going to walk in here and make me feel small.
You’re not . . . I won’t . . . forget it. Will you please just go back home?”
Her eyes shoot to mine at the word “home” and I clench my hands into fists because no, this is home, right here. There is nothing left for me on the other coast, and not even the ghost of the woman I loved standing
before me can convince me otherwise.
“Andy—Anne,” she corrects herself, holding up her hand like she thinks I’m going to yell at her more. “I just need some flowers.”
“Yesterday you picked them up, today you want them shipped. How many pissed-off women do you have on your roster now? Enough
for a team?”
“What are you talking about?” She looks offended. Good.
I come out from behind the counter, running my fingers along the rows of flowers lining the shop. She watches me closely and
I smile. I’m taking my power back, starting now.
“TMZ has had a field day watching you and your . . . extracurricular friends. God knows I had a front-row seat myself when
we were together. It just stands to reason . . .” I say, and she looks away.
“Right, of course,” she says, glaring down at the floor. “TMZ, again.”
“What do you want this order to say? You already did one that said sorry. We could do . . . ‘Thank you for the screaming orgasms’?
Or ‘You were a great one-night stand. Hope you don’t end up in the gossip blogs too’?”
“Can you really make the flowers say all that?” she asks, catching me off guard with another little laugh. I meant to insult
her, not amuse her.
“Kind of. What doesn’t come across from the blooms we can always add on the note.”
“Excellent,” she says, mischief returning to her face. “I can’t wait to see what a ‘Thank you for the screaming orgasms’ bouquet
looks like.”
“Of course you would pick that one.” I roll my eyes, doing my best to sort through as much of the language of flowers as I’ve
memorized, which is, frankly, a lot.
I come by it honestly: both of my parents are botanists. I was never a science kid, though, so they taught me to appreciate
their beloved buds from another angle, beauty and language. They didn’t care that I didn’t love plants the same way they did;
they were just excited that I cared at all.
When I was staying with my aunt in LA to film, they would send me care packages full of books and pictures. I spent a lot
of time on set reading them—especially when I was feeling homesick for my parents. The idea that I could tell a story with
flower petals blew my mind.
Now it’s the evolution that draws me in—the way meanings change over decades and centuries. After what I’ve been through, I can understand how a beautiful bloom can turn from a sign of hopeful romance to a funeral flower through no fault of its own.
“You have the best thinking face,” Nikki says, pulling me from my head.
I ignore her, walking around the racks of flowers as I plan my attack. The dahlias catch my eyes first and I smile. I grab
a few of the red—lust, desire—and the white—sympathy, sorrow. I toss in a black one for good measure, sure that the betrayal
it represents will be relevant if whoever receives this bouquet has been in Nikki’s orbit for any length of time.
Satisfied, I add a few sprigs of greenery here and there for aesthetics. Even if I’m making this bouquet as a giant screw-you,
I want it to be pretty. Nikki eyes me carefully as I start assembling it all.
“What? Are you planning to open your own flower shop too?”
“Hmm?” she asks, clearly not listening even though her eyes are paying rapt attention.
“Why are you staring?”
“It’s . . . cool,” she settles on awkwardly. “You’re obviously very skilled. It’s fun to watch. I never thought . . .” She
shakes her head and I’m glad she swallowed whatever was coming next.
I grab the shipping materials to finish up. “Where is this going?”
“Back to LA,” she says, and then rattles off an address not too far from where we used to live. I wonder if she still lives
there, and if she’s violating her own don’t shit where you eat rule about dating or doing business with someone hyperlocal, but I don’t ask.
I turn to the register and punch in the shipping fees first, doubling the overnight charge because I know Nikki can afford
it. Then I do the math on the bouquet itself—dahlias aren’t that expensive, so I triple their cost to be petty.
“Two eighty-seven fifty,” I say.
She arches an eyebrow. “Two hundred and eighty-seven dollars for this little bouquet?”
“And fifty cents.” I smile.
“Right, and fifty cents.” She flicks her credit card closer to me. “Do your worst.”
I run it, hoping selfishly that it gets declined even though I know it won’t. How great would it be to loudly announce that to her little stunned face, though. Unfortunately, it goes through just fine. Nikki has more money than god, I’m sure. She
got a better cut of residuals than I did on the show, plus the whole not being robbed blind by her manager—oh, and then the
Oscar probably didn’t hurt.
I pass her card back and finish boxing her bouquet, mildly curious about the woman waiting on the other side of this shipment.
I wonder if she knows about whoever got the first bouquet. I’ll have to google the recipient later—try to figure it out over
a beer or three, when I’m back to pretending that my curiosity isn’t fueled by jealousy.
“Did you need anything else?” I ask, my tone dismissive.
I can’t keep up the act of indifference much longer; my frayed edges are already beginning their descent from sturdy rope
to useless bits of string. I need her to leave. Now.
“No, I guess not,” she says, stepping back. “No loitering, right? I have somewhere I should probably get to anyway. It was good seeing you, Anderson.”
“Wish I could say the same, Nicole.” I run my hand down the last bit of tape on the box. “I’ll get this overnighted to your
latest bang buddy and you’re all set. I’m sure you can find a florist in LA for any future orders, though, right?”
Nikki bites the inside of her cheek, the skin sucking in in a way I can’t believe I used to think was cute. Then she nods,
just once, before heading out the door.
I flop back onto the stool to watch as she darts across the street and, strangely, heads into the church.
She was never the religious type before. What is she up to? Whatever it is, it’s none of my business. I brace my arm against the counter, ignoring the slight tremble in my hands as
I open the cash drawer and set her receipt inside—praying that she didn’t just take a piece of me all over again.