Chapter 21
“Are you sure this is the place?” Lori asked as Rosie parked outside The Flower Loft. “It looks kind of small.”
“I’m sure. Franklin gave me the details, and he wouldn’t use anywhere half-assed. Maybe it goes way back.” Rosie got out of the car and looked up at the facade of the three-story building. “Or maybe it uses all these floors.”
“I guess it doesn’t have to be big as long as they can do what you need.”
“Exactly.” Rosie stooped to smell the snow-white gardenias at the front of the store. “Though I’m not sure anyone will be able to do what Mom wanted.” She pushed open the door, and a quaint little bell tinkled above her head.
A bundle of vibrant red soft-looking curls was the first thing Rosie saw as she ventured farther into the store.
The woman to whom they belonged was hunched over the desk carefully writing a notecard Rosie presumed would accompany the stunning bouquet also on the desk.
She waited until the woman had finished a sentence before she said hi.
The florist peered at her then clamped her hand over her mouth. “Rosie Morgan!” she said at the same time as Rosie said “Alyssa Wilson?”
“Oh my, what a treat.” Alyssa hurried around the counter and threw her arms around Rosie. “It’s been too long. What are you doing here? I didn’t know you lived in Chicago.”
“I don’t. I’m in Burnham.” Rosie eased out of the unexpectedly buoyant embrace. “This is my friend Lori,” she said, strangely and ridiculously ultra-conscious of her history with Alyssa. She should know better than to fall into old patterns so easily.
Lori gave her an awkward wave and hung back, clearly trying to avoid the same effusive greeting.
Alyssa’s eyes sparkled. “Hi, Lori,” she said and then focused back on Rosie. “So what have you been up to? I bet you’ve got your own therapy practice, haven’t you? You were always so single-minded and driven.”
Heat swept over Rosie’s face, and she took a breath to control the youthful stutter that hovered in the background. Christ, she hadn’t had speech issues for over a decade. “Actually, I work in marketing now. I gave up my private practice a little while ago.”
Alyssa frowned. “Really? That’s quite a shift in careers.”
There was no edge or judgment to Alyssa’s words, but Rosie couldn’t help but feel that she’d let Alyssa down, like she had high expectations of Rosie that she no longer met.
All of it was her own baggage and nothing to do with sweet, cute Alyssa Wilson.
Her curious reaction gave Rosie more to consider as she continued to process her current career path and yet another possible change.
“I don’t know that it’s working out,” she said by way of compensation.
“Oh, I don’t believe that. You can do anything you put your mind to, Rosie.”
Rosie gestured at the shop to shift Alyssa’s focus. “I think you’re describing yourself. You always said owning a flower shop was your dream. This place is amazing.”
Alyssa smiled widely. “Thank you. It’s taken a while to get here, but I’m really happy with it. I love what I do.”
She motioned to the notecard she’d just written, and Rosie recognized the beautiful handwriting that she used to admire in college. “I see you’re still using fountain pens. Do you remember the mess you made of our dorm carpet?”
Alyssa held up her hands, both of which were stained with oxblood red ink. “You caught me on refill day.”
Her unrestrained laughter transported Rosie back to that dorm and the wonderful times they’d shared, and she smiled.
Beyond the vague awkwardness that had crept up on her, it was genuinely nice to see Alyssa and better still, it appeared she hadn’t changed.
Her free spirit and refusal to be bound by societal norms had been the main things which had attracted Rosie to her… way back.
And now there was Shay, another woman who refused to be traditionally coupled or tied down in a monogamous relationship. Rosie was in love with someone who wouldn’t love her back. Was she destined to keep repeating that pattern?
“So I’m taking from your surprise that you’re not here just to see me,” Alyssa said. “What do you need?”
“Memorial arrangements.” The ease with which that tripped off her tongue would probably sound callous to most people, but Alyssa was one of the few people in the world Rosie had confided in about her fucked-up family.
“Your mom?” Alyssa seemed to struggle with a half-grimace, half-smile as if she wasn’t sure which would be most appropriate.
Rosie nodded. “She died in Mexico, and I’ve just gotten back with her ashes.
” She swallowed, and her pulse thudded against her temples.
She hadn’t been in the room to see the cremation, but right now, it felt like the heat of that furnace was licking at her spine…
And the darkness invaded the edges of her vision.
“Rosie? Rosie, are you okay?”
Lori’s voice grounded her, and she came back into the room, unsettled and uneasy.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.” She shifted and realized she was sitting on a couch, then she peered around Lori’s shoulders to see the front door of a store forty or so feet away.
“You’re in the back of the Flower Loft,” Lori said. “You fainted, and we caught you before you hit the ground.”
“We?” Rosie switched her gaze to the other shape in front of her, and Alyssa came back into focus along with the past twenty minutes. Great. My college crush saved me from a concussion.
“Has this happened before?” Lori sat beside her and brushed Rosie’s hair over her ear.
She shook her head. “No. I’m confused.”
“It’s okay. Let’s just sit for a while.”
“No.” Rosie stood. “I mean, I’m confused as to what just happened and why.
What you’re describing is like a dissociative incident.
” She raised her eyebrows and shrugged. “I’ll talk to my therapist about it.
I’m sure it’s nothing.” She hadn’t drunk much water or eaten anything since Shay had left the photoshoot abruptly yesterday afternoon.
“It’s probably low blood sugar. We should get lunch after this. ”
Alyssa put her hand on Rosie’s shoulder. “Wait right there. I’ve got a blueberry cheesecake donut with your name on it.”
After Alyssa had left, Lori got up and took Rosie’s hands in hers. “Are you sure that’s what it is?”
“I am. I haven’t eaten anything since I had a Cubano at the shoot yesterday. I’ve been too worried about Shay and her father.”
“You haven’t heard anything?” Lori’s eyes widened, and she nibbled her top lip.
“But you have?” Rosie threw her hands up. “Of course you have. Because if Shay was going to call anyone, it’d be her best friend, not me.” The stab of jealousy went deeper than it should have, and she tried to rein in her irrational emotion.
“I’m sorry. I thought she’d called you. I was so focused on this stuff with your mom that Shay and her dad didn’t figure into my thought process. He’s still unconscious, and Shay stayed overnight by his bedside. Have you called her?”
Rosie shook her head. “I texted last night and this morning, but I don’t want to crowd her. She knows where I am if she needs me.” She shrugged. “She’s so used to handling her family stuff alone, it probably hasn’t occurred to her to call anyone but her friend of twenty years. I’m being silly.”
Alyssa returned with a plate laden with the biggest donut Rosie had ever seen.
“I’ve cut it into smaller pieces.” Alyssa handed her the carb-killer and a wet wipe. “And this is because you don’t like getting sticky fingers.”
In her peripheral vision, she saw Lori’s eyebrows raise almost high enough to touch her hairline. Lori would have a hundred and one questions about their time in college when they left. “You remembered?”
“Of course.” She touched Rosie’s hand gently. “What kind of an old best friend would I be if I forgot something like that?” Alyssa laughed and winked at Lori. “Not to step on your toes, obviously.”
Rosie smiled, touched by the gesture and the sentiment behind it.
She’d been so focused on Alyssa not being her girlfriend in college that she’d missed out on the possibility of a best friend.
After she’d managed a quarter of the donut, she nodded back toward the shop.
“I’m refueled, thank you.” She hooked her hand through Lori’s arm and went back to the front counter.
“I’m sorry about your mom,” Alyssa said when she took her spot on the other side of the desk. “I know your relationship was difficult, but that doesn’t necessarily make all of this any easier.”
Rosie waved off Alyssa’s concerns. “I’m doing okay, actually.
All the stunts she pulled about her health were good practice for when the day finally arrived, I guess.
” She’d had small pockets of tear-filled episodes, but they passed relatively quickly.
Her overriding emotion was still a strange kind of relief coupled with a soft sadness at not having the loss of a positive relationship to grieve.
“Anyway, Mom wanted black roses at her funeral. That ship’s sailed, but we’re having a memorial instead. Are black roses a real thing?”
“They are, in a way,” Alyssa said. “They don’t occur naturally, but people do create them in a variety of ways.
” She pulled out a large folder from under the counter and opened it for Rosie to see.
“These are black baccara, and they can grow to nearly three feet. They’re not a true black though.
If that’s what you want, we can dye them with a special pigment. ”
“We?” Rosie asked. Could it be that someone had finally snagged Alyssa?
She looked up from the folder and arched her eyebrow as if she knew exactly why Rosie was asking. “Harry and me.”
That was inconclusive, but it served her right for snooping.
“Do you think your mom wanted roses because of your name?”
Rosie snorted. “I wouldn’t put it past her. That’s probably why she went with black and not those lovely rainbow roses you can get, or something at least a little bit colorful.”