Forget Me Not

3. A Rose and Her Thorns

Tuesday morning comes by as slow as Tuesday mornings come after a long Monday. The flower shop received two customers within the span of my first four hours working there. The elderly man who visits every Tuesday just to smell the roses and the caretaker assigned to him from the nursery. It makes me almost hopeful for the day that just smelling the roses brings me enough joy to survive the week. To live each day with the anticipation that you'll smell the roses again. Sometimes those happy thoughts are interrupted by somber ones, like which week will be the last week I see Mr. Harington.

"Have a wonderful week Mr. Harington," I said as he prepared to leave again. I remember his caretaker, "You too, Mr. Thomas."

"Ah Rose, I will see you next week sweetheart."

Poor Mr. Harington's eyesight has gone, and he can't read my name tag in the slightest bit. So, either he truly believes my name is Rose or he's ignoring me and talking to the flowers.

Inigo comes about an hour after and settles into a chair behind the counter working on some sort of Calculus homework. He's serene in this moment, alone with the one beautiful constant in his life: mathematics. Where I see complex numerals and headaches, he sees familiarity and peace.

He says he wants to work at NASA. I think NASA is the dream that he's holding onto for when his grandparents die. Everyone wants to leave this town in the end and I think Inigo can make it out. He'd say I can live with him in Orsino, Florida and I'd smile and say that I'll be looking for the local florist shop. We'd laugh and then it'd get real quiet. The type of quiet where you can hear the little white lies in the air. They float there, uncertain if they're lies or not. But lies are still lies even if the liar wants them to be true.

I get paranoid that Inigo thinks I'm going nowhere and that he's somehow responsible for taking care of me because I'm his friend. I think that when he gets his high-paying NASA job he won't invite me to his house for a tea party, but because he feels obligated too. He needs to make sure that poor, depressed Miriam doesn't commit suicide. No one wants a friend's suicide on their conscious.

The door jingles open and both of us look up – jolted – to find Gemma in the entranceway, today with an orange sundress and her mop of hair pulled back to reveal many various piercings in her ear. Her grin is even brighter today as she sees the bouquet lying on the counter between Inigo and me. She walks towards us lightly, like she's tiptoeing on clouds.

"Beautiful day, Miriam! Did you remember me?" she leans against the dirt dusted counter even in her beautiful dress.

"Forget you I did not Gemma." I say unsure whether that joke warranted a smile or not. I simply turn to my friend and point at him, "This is my helper Inigo Cortes."

Miriam eyes shimmer as she looks at him, much like pools of melted chocolate. He tips his baseball cap at her suavely and smiles, "M'lady."

Gemma's lips tilt up mischievously, "Nothing doing, Mister Cortes. I'm merely here to pick up a friend." Her eyes return to the Forget Me Nots on the counter as she fishes out some cash from the purse strung over her chest.

"Say, we haven't seen you around town before," I say after glancing Inigo. "You new here?"

Her voice was soft and her drawl distinctly South-eastern, like if she wasn't from here then she'd be from some place pretty close.

"Nah, just visiting some of my folks from around here." Her eyes twinkle, "They have a tragically small amount of shrubbery."

I feel vaguely disappointed. I think some subconscious part of me believed that I could make another friend, some selfish backup for Inigo when he leaves me one day. I don't want to be in the same place I was before we were friends.

Inigo leans closer to the counter, "Would you like to have dinner with us at our apartment tonight? That may sound incredibly forward, but we're bored as shit."

Gemma's eyes dart between the two of us. "You two share an apartment?"

"Yep, and Miriam makes a mean lasagna."

"We're really good friends," I amend, addressing the real unasked question in her eyes. "And...I'll give you the flowers on the house."

She slaps thirty dollars on the counter anyways as she picks up her flowers, "I'll meet you two here at closing time then."

Inigo squeezes my shoulder when she leaves. "And this is how you make cool friends, Miriam."

"You're buying the groceries."