Page 11 of A Bouquet of Dreams

She stepped a few feet away to peer at what she had created. Knowing when to stop was tricky. A smile came over her face. Yes. She was happy with this.

Claire realized that someone was nearby and looked up to see a guy she didn’t know staring at her with odd intensity.

“Are you Claire Murphy?”

“Sorry?” she said, blinking.

“Are you the same Claire Murphy who won the Blooms Proclaim contest?”

“That’s me.” She wondered how he knew. This guy was in his late teens, she guessed. He wore bland clothes—blue shirt, black pants. Terrible acne, which made her feel a little sad for him. But that didn’t mean she wanted him to hit on her. It was nice of him to try, but he was way too young for her.

“Will you sign this?” He held out a paper napkin to her.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” He wanted her autograph? She could not have been more mystified. “You like flowers?”

He shrugged. “Eh, they’re okay. I don’t not like them. But this is for my mom. She loved your bouquet. She tacked up the newspaper picture on the bulletin board in our garage.”

Claire would have liked to say something, but no words came to mind. She just stood there, gaping like a hooked fish. This had never happened to her before. Even when she won the contest, there was little fanfare. A picture of her arrangement, plus the recipe,had gone into the local newspaper. Her housemates didn’t notice and used it to line the cat’s litter box.

Sophie stepped in to help Claire. “So, sweetie, is your mama a florist?”

The guy did a double take when he turned to Sophie and caught sight of her cleavage. “No. She wants to be, but for now she’s just doing flowers for friends out of the garage. I work here at the hotel. I was sweeping up leaves and flowers that you people drop everywhere—”

True. The floor in the conference room was littered with discards. Typical of florists.

“—and overheard that guy”—he pointed to Jim Turner—“complain about you. When he said Claire Murphy, I started looking around. Then I saw your flower bouquet. I figured it must be you.”

He again held out the napkin to Claire and a pen, and something about that jerked her into action. “What’s your mother’s name?”

“Lisa.”

Claire wrote:To Lisa. Keep arranging! Claire Murphy

Claire’s birthday had taken a turn for the better. She couldn’t keep from smiling.

Then came the afternoon breakout circle. Like the morning circle, it did not go well. Claire wondered about Jim Turner’s phone call with his girlfriend—he seemed to be in a particularly foul mood.

Jim Turner read from his notes in a monotone voice. “Businesswoman Mary Kay Ash always said that you should imagine every person who comes into your store is wearing a big sign that says, ‘Make me feel important.’ If you keep that in mind every day, your business will flourish. So will your life.” He dropped his notes in his lap. “That’s bogus. I tried, every day, to make my girlfriend feel important, and now she’s breaking up with me.”

See?Justwhat Claire had thought. Those yellow carnations had been a clear message.

“Bless your heart,” Sophie said, placing a hand on his shoulder as the rest of the circle nodded sympathetically.

Claire had no sympathy for him. “How did you try to make your girlfriend feel important?”

“She loves flowers,” he said. “That’s how we met. She came into my shop to get flowers just for herself. That doesn’t happen very often. So I sent her a bouquet of flowers and asked her for a date.”

“What kinds of flowers did you send her?” Claire said.

“Just whatever we had too much of.”

“Remainders,” Claire said, pinching her eyes shut, squeezing her hands together. This was painful. “There’s the problem, right there.”

“What?”

“Well, if she knows flowers like I think she does, she would be aware that you’re sending her a careless bouquet. No theme. No message.”

He rolled his eyes. “I sent flowers to her every day until she agreed to go out with me. And every day since then. There’s a theme in that.”

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