Cougars. That’s what they call us these days. Older women who date younger men, insinuating women like me prowl the streets hunting for fresh meat. But hunting anything was the farthest thing from my mind then or at any time afterward.
Orchard Town was a typical New England beach town, busy with tourists in the summer and slow as molasses after the ‘leaf peepers’ abandoned the place at the end of October. It came complete with the requisite Cape Cod and Victorian, Federal and Farmhouse style homes in clean, sweet white amongst the ever present foliage. I’d been there three weeks, staying at my sister’s house a few blocks up from the beach where the town proper sat, with its tiny downtown comprised mostly of boutique and souvenir shops that catered to the tourists and maintained the townspeople through the long hard winters.
My sister grudgingly allowed me to stay at her house once I’d been released from the hospital providing quiet and serenity and someplace to regroup. A New England town is a small place and everybody knows everybody else from before they’re born and anyone who didn’t arrive on the Mayflower is ‘from away’ and rarely let into the family fold. From the day I arrived, the town split into two camps: those who ‘accepted’ me and those who didn’t. Pretty much all of them ignored me.
I’d kept my promise to myself and awakened early planning a morning jog along the beach. I headed toward the boardwalk and the tiny ‘business’ district, in reality one narrow street. The spring sky hung grey and misty and threatened to morph into full-on rain at any given moment. For some ill-fated reason I stopped in at the flower shop across the street from the boardwalk. Tiny tinkling of chimes rattled out as I opened the door. I moved slowly, browsing the card and stationery aisles until I ended up at the fresh cut flowers. I leaned down and buried my face into a bunch of Sweet Peas, tied together with raffia.
“Hi.”
I ignored the voice, sweet as it was, and inhaled the flowers’ perfume. Nobody here would be talking to me.
“Um, excuse me. Would you help me please?”
I looked up and then around to see who he was addressing. It couldn’t possibly be me—I always gave off loony vibes—I might be nuts but no angels had ever spoken to me personally.
He looked directly into my eyes and smiled like the sun breaking through storm clouds.
“Which do you think?” He thrust two armfuls of flowers at me.
I hoped my blank expression didn’t look too stupid.
“Uh, those. The daffodils.” I pointed at the bouquet in his left hand.
Good God, where did you get those eyes, I wanted to scream at him, but managed to clamp my mouth shut. Besides, I knew exactly where he’d gotten them—heaven.
“Yes,” I continued insanely. “I’m a spring baby and they’re the harbingers of spring. Very cheerful.”
“Alright, thank you.” He smiled once again and turned toward the cash register.
It didn’t matter. He wasn’t the first person I’d terrified by answering like the mental escapee I was. I watched him for a moment; some irrational resentment rising up in my chest. I’d come off an eight-year relationship that ended in a very public meltdown and unleashed my latent mental illnesses forcing a long stay in a ‘rehab’ hospital. Part of that meltdown, I felt sure, was due to the fact that in eight long painful years, I’d never received one blossom, let alone an entire bouquet. During those years I guess I figured if you were desperate enough for affection and attention, you could let a lot pass. Eight years without a flower from the man, not even on my birthday, was a lot.
