Page 27 of Late Bloomer
I sigh, rubbing my head again, the sharp tension from before building a bridge between my temples. “The plan is… The plan is…”
“Nonexistent?” Diksha offers with a snarl.
“Not great,” I admit, throwing my hands up. “But it’s the best we’ve got. I’m going to slowly buy Opal out. Make a lump-sum payment at the end of this season—”
“Enough that I can find somewhere else to paint my shoes,” Opal chimes in.
Diksha blinks at her. “… Paint shoes?”
“And then I’ll look into getting a loan or something. Get on some sort of payment plan,” I finish. It sounds weak even to my own ears, and the resulting silence in the barn is its own presence, large and intimidating.
“This is absurd,” Diksha eventually says, rubbing the heels of her hands against her eyes. “And you need to call a lawyer.”
“Can’t really afford one,” I mumble.
Diksha’s shoulders fall at that, and some of the harshness melts around her edges. “I actually stopped by to tell you about something that might help the farm,” she says, dragging a hand through her hair. “Seems more pertinent than ever.”
My heart leaps. Please, all goddesses above and below, let it be some sort of massive, easy-to-secure grant that solves all my problems. “What is it?”
“Have you heard of the Living Art Festival?”
I cringe. “Can’t say I’m big on festivals, Dee.” Any type of festival—or event, or gathering, or damn farmers market for that matter—usually ends up being an absolute sensory nightmare. There are just so manynoisesandsmellsand… I don’t know,peoplethat my battery drains immediately and I spend the entire time white-knuckling it to avoid a public meltdown.
“This is different,” Diksha says, flicking her wrist. “Highbrow artsy shit. It’s a nationwide flower show where florists and farmers create these amazing art pieces. Tal travels to attend it every year.”
Tal is a brilliant florist who’s cornered the Western North Carolina wedding market with their innovative arrangements and bold choices on color and composition. Tal is also one of my biggest wholesale buyers and a bit of a financial lifeline for the farm.
“Okay. What about it?”
Diksha shoots me a crafty grin. “The Grove Park Inn is this year’s host.”
I blink. “Oh. That’s cool. Tal won’t have to travel too far.” The Grove Park Inn is an Asheville landmark, providing lodgings for everyone from Fitzgerald to Obama.
Diksha rolls her eyes. “The whole point of the festival is the big competition,” she says. “There’s like, a million small categories for Best in Bloom or whatever, but for the big showcase, entrants design a piece out of flowers that matches the theme, and the winner gets, wait for it, one hundred thousand dollars and a spread inSomething Blue, one of the biggest bridal magazines out there.”
I stare at her blankly. “Again, still trying to figure out what this has to do with the Thistle and Bloom.”
Diksha clasps both hands on my shoulders, leveling me with a stern look. “You need to enter the competition.”
I stare at her, waiting for her to laugh. For the punch line of whatever joke this is that I’m not getting. I’m not an artist. I’m not creative or innovative. I don’t do grand ideas or enter competitions. I stay on my farm, keep my hands in the warm soil, and help flowers grow until they’re ready to be harvested and admired by people with much more exciting lives than mine. And that’s how I like my life. Small and safe and simple.
“This year’s theme is Love in Bloom,” Diksha says, ignoring my silence. “I’m sure you can think of something clever for that.”
“Wow.Bloomfor flowers. How groundbreaking.”
“Why don’t you rein it in there, Meryl Streep. With a grand prize like that, they could call it Pee-Pee-Poo-Poo-Petal-People and it would still be worth doing. One hundredthousanddollars? A spread inSomething Blue? That exposure alone wouldget you enough business to keep this place going for years. This could be huge for you.”
“Nooo,” I say slowly, drawing out the word. “It could be huge for someone that knows how to do any of that artistic stuff. Someone like Tal.”
Diksha clicks her tongue against her teeth. “Tal’s been featured inSomething Blueat least three times. Any more praise and their head won’t fit through the door. Plus, Tal likes to go and observe. Soak up inspiration from others or whatever. Working under a strict theme, quote,disrupts their creative flow, unquote. You, on the other hand, need this. Pretty desperately, if I’m being honest.”
“I’d rather you not be honest,” I whisper. I truly don’t need the reminder of how screwed I am.
Diksha cocks her hip, arms crossed over her chest as she glares at me.
I try to hold her stare, but end up blinking away. “I guess I could think about entering one of the smaller ones? But I’ve never tried to grow an, er, award-winning dahlia, or whatever.”
“The smaller categories have a prize of less than a hundred bucks. It wouldn’t be worth it. You need to go for the big one.”
