Allergies, Annoying, and Stubborn. Yes, I'm In Love With That.

“Barbara’s Flower Shop,” I greeted into the phone. “How may I help you?”

Yep. This was my part-time job. It was a great job too. The atmosphere was always relaxing and peaceful, and the smell was simply divine. Smells of roses, lilies, lavender, and other sweet fragrances floated in the air. Of course the pay wasn’t as good as Wal-Mart or some fast food place, but it wasn’t stressful, and that was more than worth it. The customers weren’t rude either because, after all, who comes into a flower shop in a bad mood?

“What’s the order?” My boss, Barbara, asked.

I looked down at the yellow pad and read off, “One dozen red roses for girlfriend Amelia. Ordered by Matt Smith.” I looked up from the pad. “He said he needed them by six tonight, so I told him to come around closing time.”

That was the majority of where our flowers went – relationships. Every so often we would have orders for funerals or the rare wedding, but mostly they were from boyfriends to girlfriends. I admit that it would be kind of sweet and romantic to get a beautiful bouquet of flowers from your boyfriend, but that wasn’t the kind of thing for me. I wasn’t in to that kind of stuff.

I crinkled my nose.

“Oh, don’t be doing that!” Barbara scolded me. “It’s sweet.”

“No,” I replied, leaning on the counter and watching her pick out the best roses. “It’s cheesy. And cheese stinks.”

She shook her head at me. “I just don’t understand you, Lily. You’re a beautiful, smart, talented young woman and are against anything that has to deal with relationships or love.”

“I am not,” I said defiantly.

“Yes, you are.”

I let out a frustrated sigh and ruffled my hair. “I’m not… Oh, I don’t know.”

Barbara laughed and smiled at me. “All you need is some guy to sweep you off your feet. Who knows, maybe he’ll walk into this place one day?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, he’ll walk in here looking for some girl to rescue and he’ll find me. My dream come true.” I earned another disapproving glare from my boss.

Barbara was a romantic. She was in her mid-thirties and currently single. She believed in love, true love, soul mates, and all that other make-believe crap. She has short, curly brown hair that bounced whenever she walked and make her heart-shaped face well-defined and soft looking. She had big blue eyes that made a person second guess whether they were looking into an ocean rather than eyes, and her body…well, she had a little extra which to her was simply “More to love!”

My view on love was simple: stupid and unrealistic. I believed that it did exist, but not just for everyone, including myself. I didn’t do relationships or anything of the kind. Why would you even want to love someone? That amount of trust was something I simply wasn’t willing to give easily. It took a lot for me to trust someone. So, as you can probably tell, there was no way in hell I was going to fall in love.

I refused.

“Oh, Barbara,” I said as something popped into my head. “I forgot to tell you that I can’t work tomorrow. School stuff again.”

She shrugged it off as if it were a piece of dust. “That’s fine. I already knew you weren’t going to be here tomorrow anyway. You never work Fridays.”

I nodded my head. Fridays mean football games, which I always had to go to. Why? You’re probably wondering. Well, I’m in the band. I’m an awesome, proud French horn player. Band isn’t just for nerds, you know. Of course there aren’t any of the “popular” kids in it, but that’s for the best. There are only fifteen of us, but we’re all normal and really good friends.

“Who knows,” Barbara said quietly. “Maybe you’ll meet some guy. He’ll buy you some popcorn and then beg to ride the bus home just to be with you.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, my first encounter with Prince Charming will be me in a stiff, bulky band uniform.”

“He’ll see past that.”

“And see what? My awesome personality?”

Barbara finished picking out the flowers and brought them to the counter. “Yes.”

I shook my head. “Look, I’m not interested in being in a relationship. I don’t want to find my Prince Charming, and I don’t want to fall in love. Now, let’s talk about something else.”

Barbara mumbled to herself before finally saying, “Your parents came back from Florida yesterday, didn’t they? Tell me about their trip.”

I smiled lightly. My parents were big workers, they lived for their job, but every once in a while it becomes too much for them. To relieve the stress, they usually go on a short vacation. Yesterday they just got back from their two week long vacation full of sunshine, beaches, and fun. They asked me if I wanted to go, but of course I said no. School was extremely important to me, as it should be for everyone.

“They’re orange,” I said, smiling at the memory of when they walked in the front door. “But great. They didn’t really tell me much though. I didn’t ask. Long walks on the beach and eating out in fancy restaurants were enough for me to quickly lose interest.”

She nodded and started searching for paper to wrap around the stems. “That sounds so nice. I wish I could go to Florida with a man I loved. It’d be so romantic.”

I just stared at her.

She picked out a frosty white paper and began wrapping the roses and small bits of baby’s breath. “There!” She held up the bouquet and grinned.

“Beautiful,” I stated. It really was. The Red roses were astounding and the tiny flowers of the baby’s breath added the perfect emphasis.

“Good enough for a proposal?”

“What? You don’t know if he’s proposing.”

Barbara’s blue eyes looked squarely into mine while her grin never faltered. “Oh, trust me. He is.”

My eyes left hers and wandered over to the flowers. Suddenly, they didn’t seem like simply roses anymore; they became more than that. It was almost as if they were love itself.

Love. How ridiculous.