Phoebe's Performance

Pedro

Chapter 27

"Your favourite aren't roses then?"

I don't respond but Otto persists.

"Surely this isn't good feng shui and surely this house is now the epitome of good feng shui with all the new light bulbs, furniture rearrangements and breezy rooms? Fresh flowers can't go to the tip." Otto extracts the carefully cellophaned floral arrangement from where they've landed headfirst in the metallic office bin. "So a definite 'no' to roses."

A grunt expels from my chest like a foot has connected with my abdomen. "I prefer lilies to be honest."

Otto rests the bunch on the desk, his head darting, probably searching for a vase. I realise I'm sneering at the perfectly formed yellow petals. The colour's a symbol of how Ben feels about me. Apparently yellow roses indicate we're 'just friends'? Yellow flowers aren't going to make my intense anger subside. I begged him to be part of the band. I'd asked him for help because I'd really needed it. Yet he auditioned someone else. The arse!

"Flowers aren't really Ben's style," I eventually reply and brush the flowers hastily with my forearm. The arrangement topples back into the bin.

Otto swivels round from the mantelpiece which is cluttered with his various piano accolades and awards. He blows dust off a crystal urn he's found.

"They're not?" Otto looks somewhat surprised and I shake my head, and don't dare mention that Ben's usual apology comes in the form of erotic make-up sex. Or at least I thought the sex was erotic. Yet Ben thinks of me as a sister. Ugh. I feel sick. A sister!

"Ben's definitely not into gestures of grandeur like posies. His new girlfriend probably sent them. He's probably mad because the piano movers turned up to his place at eleven in the morning and he couldn't do anything about it."

I'd immediately arranged the piano removal and it now sits in Otto's music room.

For the second time, Otto retrieves the blossoms from the bin. Although this time he behaves like a territorial lion, observing my every move as he carefully removes the paper from the bunch. He's careful that the buds don't break. He buffs the side of the urn which looks suspiciously like some sort of cup he's won for a piano contest and individually places the stems inside.

"I need water."

"That's not part of my job description."

"Okay, okay." Otto barks a laugh. "Ben's sent an expensive looking bunch of the wrong flowers. But they're pretty and this place needs positive energy."

Otto removes the small rectangular envelope which probably contains a handwritten letter from Ben or from the florist. Otto proceeds to open the envelope and I snatch it from his grasp.

My eyebrows knit together as I read the cursive script, too neat to be Ben's – definitely the florists:

Dear Phoebe,

We need to talk. I miss you.

Love Ben.

My stomach clenches. He misses me. He has bloody cheek. I hurl the note violently toward the bin but the piece of paper sails like a recalcitrant paper aeroplane and lands outside the wastepaper basket.

Otto raises his eyebrows. "Remind me not to play rounders with you, ever."

"I'm a musician, not a softball type."

He smiles but his gaze slants towards the paper. "Someone's got to pick it up and while I'm there maybe I could...."

Being Otto's personal assistant I suppose nothing in his life is private so I guess the same applies with me. I shrug and Otto salvages cardboard note.