Flower Shop Camellias

Snapdragons

It was a soft Wednesday afternoon; the glowing warm light of the summer sun was seeping through the shop windows, creating shadows of the lettering on the front display windows--Altea Bay Flowers-- upon the speckled linoleum floor. More shadows like reaching fingers waved upon the floor; the black pictures of roses, carnations, asters, gerbera daisies, tiger lilies, snapdragons, chrysanthemums, and the hanging vines which fell silently from their perch in woven baskets. The murmur of a wind chime tinkled from it's position above the front door which Keith had propped open with a wooden chuck. The May wind blew in with the carefulness of a whisper, abounding in steady streams, through the misshapen black waves that stemmed off Keith's head, barely touching his shoulders. The sun had begun to set, making the sky look like an impressionist painting, with the swirls of paint in smudges of blues, purples, pinks and yellows.

Across the street was a diner, only beginning to hop with activity. On Wednesdays at Altea Bay, the diner owned by the Seidou family served half a pie free. Both the flower shop and the diner overlooked the glimmering expanse of the bay which the town was so famously named after. It was days like these when Keith was left alone to tend to the shop, his boss Kelli entrusting him till it's close at 7:30. He sometimes liked to think that the setting sun made the flowers smell more intense too; he would inhale and exhale as deeply as he could, feeling as full as he possibly could of the dizzyingly sweet smell. 

He was stringing together a bouquet of different colored strands of Snapdragons, tying them together in twine then wrapping them up in the paper packaging. Someone's grandmother had called the day before asking for them for her granddaughter's flute recital. 

No matter how much his cousin Shiro taunted him for it, there was nothing more that he liked than making the bouquets for his customers; more so, he liked reading the message cards even better. He made sure to take extra long while sticking the card in with the flowers after the customer had handed him back the little white rectangle.  He loved reading the scribbles of the handwriting, the humps and the flicks of the penmanship, his eyes countlessly tracing the words, "I'll love you endlessly" and "Happy Birthday" and "Congratulations". Even the messages painfully scripted, "Feel better soon" and "I'm sorry for your loss' made him feel the universality of it all. 

His phone buzzed beside him as he sat at the cash register, the screen illuminating a message from Kelli, reminding him to water the succulent gardens in the back of the shop before he left.  He caught his first whiff of apple pie for the night, hearing laughter from across the street as a group of four high school kids entered the diner. The wind chime murmured once more.  Keith was expecting the grandmother at 6:30. Absentmindedly, he twirled a wavering curl on the side of his head he had tilted towards the bay. Many times before it seemed to him like the water of the bay was rustling like leaves, winking like diamonds, movement never ceasing, striving constantly. Keith sighed, allowing himself to close his eyes just for a moment, the summer wind brushing up against his arm hair, sending tingles and little shivers to his body. 

"Oh, hello," a dreamy voice announced,

A bit startled, Keith opened his eyes upon the grandmother who had called earlier.

"I hope I didn't disrupt you," She smiled, more proud than disappointed.

"It's no problem ma'am." Keith returned, his voice sounding more sleepy than he had expected.

She looked like any other grandmother, donning a lavender sweater with a patterned skirt; her silvery hair was pulled into a low ponytail in the back. Walking up the the register, she eyed the bouquet that Keith had resting beside him, the pink, red, yellow and white snapdragons. 

"My granddaughter's favorite," She sighed, her eyes just as dreamy as her voice. "Their name is as whimsical as they look,"

Keith smiled back upon her, feeling sluggish and heavy with the soothing feel of the night. Behind the grandmother, Keith heard the familiar ring of a bicycle bell, the bell of the shop's delivery boy.