Page 10 of A Bouquet of Dreams

Claire shook her head. “She was offended that he didn’t trust her, and a purple hyacinth wasn’t enough to soften her heart. So he sent her pink roses to beg her to believe him. Then primroses to say he couldn’t live without her. And finally, he sent her Cleome.” Claire’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He was asking her to elope with him.”

Sophie grabbed Claire’s arm. “Tell us! Did she say yes?”

“It took her a very long time to decide how she was going to respond. She wanted him to suffer. But at long last, she sent him a bundle of narcissus. It was her way of telling him that he was the only one she would ever love.”

Sophie sighed with happiness. A skeptic in the circle squinted at Claire. “And how is that supposed to take our business to the next level?”

Claire clapped her hands on her knees and leaned forward. “Flowers are not merely tokens of beauty. They have meaning and purpose. Start sharing your knowledge of the language of flowers with your customers. Trust me, your business will blossom.”

That, in a nutshell, was the bedrock for Claire’s future flower shop empire.

seven

In joy and in sadness, flowers are our constant friends.

—Kakuzo Okakura

Lunch.Awful.A buffet of beige food. Even the sweet tea was beige. No vegetables, no fruit. Claire was going to give feedback after this conference ended and let them know that beige was an offensive color to florists, unless it happened to be a rare cappuccino rose, just flown in from Kenya.

She liked to follow wedding planners and see what the latest trends in flowers were. Her favorite wedding planner was Liam McMillan, a Scottish event planner who lived in New York City and did all kinds of “wow” weddings. Her high school friend Jaime Harper landed a job with his Epic Events, which was how Claire first found out about him. Even though she hadn’t talked to Jaime since that August day, she did follow her on social media. Claire wasn’t really into “wow” weddings, not like Jaime had always been, but she did love to follow the latest, greatest trends in flowers. It helped to balance out the limitations on her daily work at the shop.

“So how come you got sent to customer service rehab?” Sophie asked.

Got sent?Sophie was funny, in her own way. “I’m here because I plan to have my own florist shop soon, and I want to be as ready as a person can possibly be.”

Sophie stared at her with wide, admiring eyes. “Then you could do arrangements the way you’ve always wanted to.”

“YES!” Claire could have hugged her. Someone understood! “Yes, yes, yes. Exactly that. I can’t wait to have the freedom to do my own arrangements.”

“My boss won’t even let me touch the flowers.”

“Why not?”

“I have no formal training. He just wants me to ring up customers and take orders and sweep the shop.”

“So then,” Claire said, “why were you sent to customer service rehab?”

“I’ve been told I flirt too much with the male customers. I don’t even realize I do it. But I must say I get asked for my phone number a lot.”

That explained so much. Sophie was cute, in a wide-eyed, naive way. And very, very well endowed. Her outfit revealed a lot of cleavage. Quite a lot.

Midafternoon, the conference took a decided upturn for Claire. The floral stylists were given time to create an arrangement. Cut flowers in buckets were brought in, and while they weren’t Claire’s taste (so many carnations!), there was definitely more variety than she usually had. They said they were going to have a prize for the best arrangement.

Nowthe conference was cooking with gas. Claire loved competition. She thrived on it.

Sophie trailed Claire as she examined each option, choosing the stems that fit in the arrangement in her head. Whatever flower Claire picked out, Sophie chose as well, right down to the number of stems she’d taken. Sedum, yarrow, smoke bush. All textures.To Claire, textures added structure and interest. But she needed a focal flower, a star—something to make your eyes pop. She walked up and down the table of buckets, and then, in the back, she saw what she wanted: protea. She picked out sprays of it and one king protea. Gorgeous.

As Sophie reached for the proteas, Claire let out an exasperated breath. “Don’t you want to show off your own style?”

Sophie squinted. “I never really thought about it. Do I need one?”

Claire nearly dropped her king protea. No wonder Sophie’s boss didn’t let her touch the flowers. Every flower shop had a distinctiveness. Even MaryBeth’s old-fashioned style was her own. “You can’t argue with a classic” was her mantra. Everyone in Savannah knew that if they wanted a traditional flower arrangement, go to Same Day Delivery.

Claire had to set aside concern for Sophie’s future so she could focus on her own composition. “Well,” she said, “you can learn a lot by looking around.” She certainly had. Most of Claire’s spare time was spent studying other florists, or botanical information, or walking around Savannah to get inspired with new ideas. And, of course, to forage.

She chose an oval white ceramic vase—ordinary, common. Ideal for what she had in mind. She didn’t need a personality piece for this arrangement; the flowers would provide the drama. Oftentimes, a vessel could add to an arrangement by providing an exciting backdrop, but a king protea needed no help. It could speak for itself.

Claire cut off some chicken wire from a big roll to create a “pillow” in the vase. It was going to be a dense arrangement, so it would need the support. She went off to a table in the corner where she could work with minimal distractions. Sophie followed. Claire started with the king protea, resting the bloom on the rim to one side of the vase. Next, she trimmed the sprays of smoke bush. She tucked them into the chicken wire on the opposite sideof the king protea. She trimmed the sprays of small protea and stood back to appraise it with a critical eye. She wanted a nearly horizontal line of protea sprays from one side to the other, so she cut the stems to sit slightly above the rim of the vessel. Next came the yarrow stems. She trimmed them and placed them in tight, low clusters at the front of the vase, filling the space under the proteas. She finished by adding in the stems of sedum, trimming one to pop out through the yarrow at the front of the vase and others at the back. A cardinal rule: Never forget about the back of an arrangement.

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