CHAPTER 5
DAY ONE
The delivery driver named Pavel had been working for the flower shop for three years and he had seen many orders come and go, but he had never seen an order quite like this one.
One hundred yellow roses, fifty sunflowers, and thirty pink peonies, arranged in ceramic vases of varying sizes, for delivery to a law office on the fourth floor of a building downtown.
Simple enough.
He loaded the flowers into his van and drove to the address, and when he arrived he carried the first batch of vases through the front entrance where a security guard barely glanced at him before waving him through.
“Delivery for Iris Ivanovich,” Pavel said to the receptionist on the fourth floor.
The receptionist’s eyes went wide at the sight of the flowers. “Oh my God, those are beautiful, let me show you to her office.”
She led him down a hallway to a corner office where a redheaded woman sat behind a desk covered in papers and files, and when she looked up and saw the flowers her mouth fell open.
“What is this?” she asked.
“Delivery for you, ma’am,” Pavel said while setting down the first vase on her desk. “There’s more in the van.”
“More?”
By the time Pavel finished bringing up the last of the vases, Iris Ivanovich’s office looked like a garden had exploded inside it. Flowers covered her desk, her windowsill, her bookshelf, and a small table in the corner.
“Who sent these?” she asked while pulling the card from one of the arrangements.
She read it and laughed, shaking her head with a smile on her face.
“That man,” she muttered to herself. “That ridiculous man.”
Pavel left feeling good about his job.
This was going to be an easy week.
DAY TWO
One hundred and fifty roses, fifty sunflowers, and thirty pink peonies.
Pavel arrived at the building with his arms full of vases and the security guard frowned at him.
“Didn’t you just come here yesterday?”
“Daily deliveries,” Pavel explained. “For the whole week.”
The security guard shrugged and waved him through.
On the fourth floor, the receptionist saw him coming and her eyes went even wider than the day before.
“Again?” she asked.
“Again,” Pavel confirmed.
Iris Ivanovich’s office was already crowded with yesterday’s flowers, and now Pavel had to find room for even more. He ended up placing vases on the floor, in the corners, and on top of a filing cabinet.
“This is insane,” one of Iris’s colleagues said while peering into her office. “Who is sending you these?”
“My husband,” Iris said with a mixture of exasperation and affection in her voice.
“Your husband sends you flowers every day?”
“Apparently.”
The colleague, a man in a suit who Pavel noticed was staring at Iris with a little too much interest, did not look pleased.
“That seems excessive,” the man said.
Iris smiled. “You don’t know my husband.”
DAY THREE
Two hundred roses, fifty sunflowers, and thirty pink peonies.
The security guard at the front entrance did not look happy to see Pavel this time.
“You again?”
“Daily deliveries,” Pavel said with an apologetic shrug.
“How much longer is this going to go on?”
“Until the day before Valentine’s Day.”
The security guard groaned and waved him through.
On the fourth floor, Pavel had to make six trips from the elevator to Iris Ivanovich’s office, and by the time he was done there was barely any room to walk. Flowers covered every surface and spilled out into the hallway, and people from other offices were stopping by just to look at the spectacle.
“This is getting out of hand,” the receptionist said, though she was smiling as she said it.
“There’s more coming tomorrow,” Pavel warned her.
Her smile faltered. “More?”
“More.”
DAY FOUR
Three hundred roses, fifty sunflowers, and thirty pink peonies.
Pavel needed a second driver to help him carry everything, and when they arrived at the building the security guard held up his hand.
“No,” he said. “Absolutely not.”
“Sir, I have a delivery to make.”
“You’ve been coming here every day and each time you bring more flowers than the last, and the fourth floor is starting to look like a botanical garden, and people are complaining about the smell, and I’ve had three employees come down here with allergies asking me to make it stop.”
“I understand, sir, but I have a job to do.”
The security guard crossed his arms. “How many flowers do you have today?”
“Three hundred roses, fifty sunflowers, and thirty peonies.”
“Three hundred?” The security guard’s eye twitched. “And how many are coming tomorrow?”
Pavel hesitated. “Four hundred.”
“Four hundred.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the day after that?”
Pavel swallowed hard. “Five hundred.”
The security guard stared at him for a long moment and then stepped aside with a heavy sigh. “Fine, but I’m filing a complaint with building management.”
Pavel and his helper rushed past before the guard could change his mind.
On the fourth floor, Iris Ivanovich’s office could no longer contain the flowers. They had to start placing arrangements in the hallway, in the break room, and in the conference room.
“My husband is trying to kill me,” Iris said while stepping over a vase to get to her desk. “Death by flowers.”
The male colleague who always seemed to be lurking nearby appeared in her doorway.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “He’s disrupting the entire office.”
Iris looked at him with a sweet smile. “Are you jealous, Anton?”
Anton’s face turned red. “Of course not, I just think it’s unprofessional.”
“Then don’t look at them.”
DAY FIVE
Four hundred roses, fifty sunflowers, and thirty pink peonies.
Pavel arrived at the building with a team of three drivers and a van packed so full of flowers that petals were falling out of the cracks in the doors.
The security guard saw them coming and immediately picked up his phone.
“Sir, you cannot come in here today,” he said while holding up his free hand. “I’ve spoken with building management and they’ve decided that no more flower deliveries will be permitted until further notice.”
Pavel felt his stomach drop. “Sir, please, I have to deliver these flowers.”
“I’m sorry, but the fourth floor has become a fire hazard, people are tripping over vases, the ventilation system is clogged with pollen, and the building manager received seventeen complaints yesterday alone.”
“But my client—”
“I don’t care about your client, I care about my job, and my job is to maintain order in this building, and your flowers are causing chaos.”
Pavel looked at his team and then back at the security guard. “Can I at least make a phone call?”
The security guard shrugged. “Make all the phone calls you want, but those flowers are not coming inside.”
Pavel walked back to the van with shaking hands and pulled out the card that the florist had given him. The card with the direct number for the client.
He dialed and waited.
The phone rang twice before a deep voice answered. “Yes?”
“Mr. Ivanovich, sir, this is Pavel from the flower shop, I’m at your wife’s building but security won’t let me in, they say no more flower deliveries are permitted.”
Silence on the other end.
Pavel’s palms started to sweat.
“I’m very sorry, sir, I tried to explain that I had a job to do but they wouldn’t listen, and I don’t know what to do, and I really don’t want to disappoint you, sir, because the florist told me that you’re a very important client, and—”
“Pavel.”
Pavel stopped talking.
“Yes, sir?”
“You have four hundred roses in that van?”
“Yes, sir, four hundred roses, fifty sunflowers, and thirty peonies.”
“And you’re telling me that you cannot find a way to get them to my wife?”
Pavel looked at the building and then at the security guard who was watching him with crossed arms.
“The security guard is very firm, sir.”
“I don’t care about the security guard.”
“Sir?”
“I care about my wife receiving her flowers, and if she does not receive her flowers, I will be very disappointed, and you do not want me to be disappointed, Pavel.”
Pavel had never met Mr. Ivanovich in person but something about the calm, quiet way he spoke made Pavel’s blood run cold.
“No, sir, I definitely do not want that.”
“Good, then find a way in, use a back door, use a window, climb up the fire escape, I don’t care how you do it, but those flowers will reach my wife’s desk by 9 AM, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent, I look forward to hearing about your success.”
The line went dead.
Pavel stared at his phone and then turned to his team of three drivers who were waiting by the van.
“We need disguises,” he said.
Thirty minutes later, Pavel and his team approached the building from four different directions.
Pavel was dressed as an IT technician with a fake badge clipped to his shirt and a toolbox in one hand, and hidden inside the toolbox were twenty roses wrapped in plastic.
Driver number two was dressed as a maintenance worker with a mop and a bucket, and hidden inside the bucket beneath a layer of soapy water were thirty roses sealed in waterproof bags.
Driver number three was dressed as a catering delivery person with a stack of pizza boxes, and hidden inside the boxes instead of pizza were layers of roses and peonies.
Driver number four, who was the smallest of the group, was dressed as an intern with a backpack and a nervous expression, and stuffed inside the backpack were as many sunflowers as they could fit.
The remaining flowers were hidden in the van, ready for retrieval once they established a way inside.
Pavel took a deep breath and walked through the front entrance.
The security guard looked at him. “IT?”
“Yes, sir, got a call about a computer problem on the fourth floor.”
The security guard squinted at him. “You look familiar.”
“I have one of those faces.”
The guard stared at him for a long moment and then waved him through.
Pavel walked to the elevator with his heart pounding in his chest, and when the doors closed behind him he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
On the fourth floor, he walked past the receptionist with his head down and made his way to Iris Ivanovich’s office where he quickly unloaded the roses from his toolbox and arranged them on the one small patch of empty floor space he could find.
He was on his way back to the elevator when he passed driver number two in the hallway, who was pretending to mop the floor while strategically placing roses behind potted plants and under chairs.
Driver number three arrived next with the pizza boxes and convinced the receptionist that someone had ordered lunch for the office, and while she went to investigate who had placed the order, he ducked into Iris Ivanovich’s office and unloaded the flowers.
Driver number four came last, wandering the halls with his backpack and asking people for directions to offices that didn’t exist while secretly depositing sunflowers in conference rooms and break areas.
By 8:45 AM, they had made twelve trips each, sneaking flowers in through the front entrance, the back entrance, the loading dock, and at one point the fire escape.
By 8:58 AM, Iris Ivanovich’s office and the entire fourth floor looked like a flower shop had vomited everywhere, and the security guard downstairs was losing his mind trying to figure out how it had happened.
By 9:00 AM, Pavel called Mr. Ivanovich.
“It’s done, sir.”
“I knew you could do it, Pavel.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Same time tomorrow, and Pavel?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Tomorrow there will be five hundred, I trust you’ll be prepared.”
Pavel looked at his exhausted team and wondered if he should start looking for a new job.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “We’ll be ready.”
On the fourth floor, Iris Ivanovich stood in the middle of her office surrounded by a sea of yellow and pink, and she laughed until tears streamed down her face.
Her phone buzzed with a text message.
Ilay: Did you get my flowers?
She typed back: I’m going to kill you.
Ilay: That’s not a thank you.
Iris: Thank you, you absolute lunatic. I love you.
Ilay: I love you too. Times a million.
She shook her head and looked around at the chaos, and even though she would probably get a stern talking-to from building management, she couldn’t stop smiling.
Anton appeared in her doorway with a sour expression on his face.
“The entire floor smells like a funeral home,” he said.
Iris picked up a rose and tucked it behind her ear.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” she said.
Anton walked away without another word.