Page 75 of Late Bloomer
Chapter 25PEPPER
The past two weeks have actually gone…well. I know, I’m shocked too.
Opal and I have developed a sort of routine. She rises early every morning, meeting me in the kitchen with coffee mugs ready, ideas tumbling from those full lips and energy bursting from her seams.
I listen in quiet contemplation as Opal shoots out endless outlandish concepts for our design, our hands moving in sync as we harvest flowers.
Sometimes—when I feel like my chest won’t cave in and my voice won’t wobble—I talk about Lou. I tell Opal about her skills in the garden, how Lou seemed so in touch with the soil and this land, she could envision an entire season’s harvest by March. I talk about how she loved pink tulips but never particularly cared for the white ones. How she gave so much—her flowers, her time, her kindness—to other farms in the area.
We divvy up the yield, about a fourth of the flowers going in Opal’s pile to be hung to dry or pressed thin with an iron, a few of the sturdier stems being set aside in the floral cooler to keep them preserved, the rest designated for my wholesale florists.
With Opal’s encouragement, I’ve even started putting together my own bouquets, doing weekly deliveries to various markets and shops around town, and the additional (albeit measly) income stream is nice.
The competition is in three weeks, and we still haven’t settled on a design.
“I just don’t see why you rejected that so fast.” Opal pouts, her mood as gloomy as the thick gray clouds overhead.
“I don’t think anyone will get it,” I counter. We’ve been harping on this for a solid fifteen minutes.
“You really think people wouldn’t get a life-sized rendering of Jeff motherfucking Goldblum?”
“What does he have to do with love?”
“The man is a sex symbol!”
I bury my head in my hands. “It’s not happening, Opal.”
She clicks her tongue against her teeth, mumbling something about great artists not being appreciated in their time.
“I still like the Mother Nature idea,” I tell her after a few minutes. Opal had sketched up a giant head that we would construct from chicken wire and cover in moss, painting on some features. We’d then have the flowers blooming from the crown of her head like hair.
“It’s so safe,” Opal says.
“At least it’s something.”
After we finish pruning, I shake out a row cover, Opal grabbing the opposite end like she did at the plot before as we gently lay it over the plants like a white blanket.
“Not to be dense, but don’t flowers kind of need water?” Opal says, tilting her head up to the sky, the clouds swollen and gray with the pressure of the impending storm.
“The row cover still lets some of the rain in,” I say, adjusting it so the center rests on the wood stakes scattered through the row and it doesn’t crush the delicate tips of the foxglove. “It’s the wind I’m worried about. The mountains can tunnel in some heavy gusts.”
“Right, and a flimsy piece of plastic is the obvious defense against gale-force winds,” she says, giving the setup a dubious glance as I secure the corners with thin metal posts.
I stand, brushing my hands off on my thighs. “It’s the best we’ve got. I’m probably being overly cautious anyway. Flowers survived summer storms long before I came along.”
“You? Overly cautious?Never.”
I roll my eyes, turning away before she catches my smile. I lead us toward a row of pale pink ranunculi at plot six.
“Why don’t we ever harvest from here?” Opal asks, stopping in front of plot four.
My bruised heart sinks to my stomach, pumping a heavy flow of sadness through my limbs as I look at the chaotic patch of land.
Grief is a strange beast. It can lie dormant for weeks. Months. You can go through the motions of life and truly convince yourself you’re healed and fine and will actually survive the heartache of loss. And then, like the flip of a switch, it rears its head and snaps its jaws, hungry and ready to devour you whole.
I stare at the tangles of stems and leaves, the plot swollen with flowers ready to be picked, until my vision turns fuzzy. The memories are beautiful but their edges are jagged and sharp, cutting me over and over as they loop through my mind. I want to dissolve into that patch of earth.
“Pepper?” Opal’s usually booming voice is soft, gentle, and so is the touch she drops on my arm. “Are you okay?”
