Buying Flowers

The middle aged woman in the produce section is pretty in an unfussy way. Her dark curls are barely constrained by the hair band she’s lassoed them with, and she has very large, very green eyes. She seems to have just come from the gym, and some leafy greens stretch out from her basket like they’re trying to escape. She walks toward me like an arrow and I see her eyes look into my basket with what seems to be a bit of wistfulness. I wonder if anyone has bought her flowers in a while. I hope so.

The young man in the Patagonia vest and tech-fabric chinos is talking on his phone loudly as he stands in front of the spice rack. He’s not from here. His hair has too much product in it. He says something about needing to IDL his NBR and to get it to Nelson before close. I don’t know what any of that means. Though he’s probably talking about a very important business deal, I imagine him talking to his mom and, in an effort to save face around another dude, making these acronyms up on the spot. I imagine her sitting in her Texas kitchen, fanning herself, and furrowing her otherwise perfect brow trying to figure out what in the devil (because she wouldn’t dare say “hell”) her son is talking about. I step in front of him to select a jar of sesame seeds, pardoning myself with a wave of my hand, which he returns. As I walk away, I hear him say, “Will you pick up a bouquet for Kelly?”

I hear a familiar voice calling my name as I’m deciding whether to buy a box of Larabars or a variety of them. I look up to see a former student of mine who works as a checker at this grocery store. He is a funny, awkward kid and I doubt very much that he will ever grow out of it. He will be a funny, awkward kid when he is 30, and when he is 50, and on his death bed, and I have always liked this about him. He asks me, impudently, who the flowers are for. Some babe? He says. Hot date?

No, I say, tossing a few Larabars next to the white lilies in my basket. They’re for me. He cocks his head to the side like a dog. I just like them. I say. And I do— just like them, that is. They smell wonderful, and they really light up a room. I don’t say that to him, though. Let him figure it out for himself, like the rest of us.