Tulips, Two Lips
"Adele!! Get your ass over here now!"
I groaned. "Coming, boss," I called over my shoulder, setting down the armful of flowers I was carrying onto the back counter of the shop. Turning around, I tripped over an extension cord lying on the ground and knocked into a display of gladiolas. Luckily, I caught it before it fell over and caused damage. Unfortunately, the boss saw me. Wonderful.
"Adele!! Get over here now, before you cause any MORE trouble!"
"Shit," I muttered to myself. "This is just not my day."
~
Let me back up a little bit. I'm Adele, if you haven't noticed, and on this particular day I was in the middle of my twentieth year on the planet. I was going to college at the University of Florida, but my entire family lived in Orlando. So whenever I wasn't in school, I was there. My family didn't have a ton of money, so I had to work weekends at this flower shop just off of I-Drive. It wasn't very fun, but it sure helped out a lot.
Right now it was a week before Valentine's Day, and the store was completely jammed! Everybody wanted to buy flowers for somebody else. I wished I had some guy who went out to buy flowers for me…oh well, that's life. I could deal with it!
My boss was a real asshole. I don't know what his problem was that day…but then, he was like that every day. I guess, then, nothing was out of the ordinary. Not yet, anyway…
~
I hurried up to the front counter, where my boss was standing with his arms crossed tightly across his chest. "Yes, sir?" I asked, rolling my eyes to myself.
"Do you have any idea how many people are waiting to be helped?! Stop screwing around in the back, and start selling some flowers…now!" With that, he stomped off to the back room to unload some more roses we'd just gotten in.
I sighed and brushed a strand of chestnut colored hair from my forehead. Time to get to work. I walked around the front counter to stand behind the cash register. There was already a line of about five people waiting to place orders or pay for the flowers they'd already picked out.
"Hi," I said to the first person in line, a girl about twenty-five years old holding an assortment of flowers. "Is that all you need?"
"Yeah," she said, handing me the bouquet. I punched in a few things into the cash register and told her the total. While she was digging through her purse to find her wallet, the phone rang.
"Mike's Flowers, this is Adele speaking, how may I help you?" I absently asked into the phone while the customer handed me her credit card.
"Adele, I need major help!" I heard from the other end.
"Serena, honey, you know you can't call me at work," I said in a quiet voice. I ran the customer's credit card through the machine and tapped my fingernails on the counter as I waited for it to process.
"But Adele," she whined, "you're my big sister, and I need advice! What do you think I'm gonna do, go to Mom and ask her what to do in a situation like this?" Her voice was frantic. I handed the credit card back to the customer along with her receipt and waited for her to sign.
"Next, please!" I called to the people in line. Into the phone: "Okay Serena, what's the problem?"
The next person in line was an older man who looked like he was in his mid-thirties. I guessed he was on his lunch break from work, since he was dressed in a nice business suit. Armani, it looked like. Must be nice to be able to afford those clothes.
I raised an eyebrow at him, and he told me he wanted to place an order. I slid him a form across the counter and waited while he filled it out.
While I was waiting, I listened to my sister babble on about whatever it was that she found so important. "Okay, so I was gonna go out with Ben tonight, right? Well, ten minutes ago Samantha called me and told me that she saw him at the mall today…with Sarah! So I called him and asked him about it, but HE said-"
"Hold on a sec, sweetie," I interrupted her as my customer handed the form back to me. "Thanks, you can pick it up today after five," I told him. I turned around to place the form in the right basket. When I turned back to the counter, the next customer was already standing there. I immediately felt my cheeks flush, but I wasn't quite sure why. A guy about my age was standing in front of me. He had some funky hair going on, and I could see tattoos peeking out of his sleeves, but what really got me was his eyes. They wouldn't let me go.
"I'm sorry, can you hold on just one minute?" I asked him breathlessly. He nodded, a slight smirk on his lips. I turned a bit to the side and lowered my voice. "Okay, Serena, you can finish," I said into the phone.
"-anyway, HE said that it wasn't true. Ben told me that Samantha was just jealous because her last boyfriend cheated on her. So I don't know who to believe, and, and-" I could hear her start to cry softly. Poor thing, being a sixteen year old isn't as easy as it's cracked up to be.
"Serena, honey, it'll be okay! Listen to me, all right?" I told her, at the same time making sure I wasn't looking anywhere near the same direction as the handsome customer in front of me. "Ben is obviously no good for you. You're wasting your time on that scumbag!"
"I guess you're right," she sniffled.
"Of course, big sisters are always right!" I grinned. "Now look, I've got people waiting for me to get back to work, but why don't you tell that loser Ben to forget about it. You can come over to my apartment and we'll eat an entire carton of Ben & Jerry's and watch some cheesy horror movies. Sound good?"
"Adele, what would I do without you?"
"That's a good question," I chuckled. "I'll see you later."
Hanging the phone up, I turned back to the guy on the other side of the counter. His arms were crossed in a gesture of impatience, but the tiny smile and the twinkle in his eye told me that he was actually quite amused.
"Look, I'm sorry, that was my little sister. Always having some kind of a crisis," I babbled nervously. I noticed that I had been drumming my nails against the counter and immediately stopped. Bad habit.
"It's okay," he grinned. "I'm not in a hurry. Anyway, can I place an order for a dozen roses?"
"Sure," I said, my smile fading away. It figured. The good ones are always taken. I got him an order form and slid it across the counter to him along with a pen.
"Oh, and-" he squinted his eyes, reading my name tag- "Adele, that's a nice name. Adele, what's your favorite kind of flower?"
What the hell? "Um…" I stammered, "Tulips. White tulips." What was happening to me? I never got nervous around guys, but now I was acting like a schoolgirl with a crush. Weird.
"I would also like a bouquet of white tulips. Adele." He gave me a goofy grin. I rolled my eyes playfully, tucking my hair behind my ear. I waited while he scribbled on the paper, then took it from him. I was just about to place it on the stack of order forms when my boss yelled:
"Hey Adele!"
"Yeah?" I called back to him.
"Did I hear him say he wanted white tulips?" I nodded. "Well, we have some in the back of the store, if you want to get them for him now. And we just got some more roses in. So he doesn't need to place an order."
"Great!" I turned back to my customer. "Mr. -" I glanced at his order form- "McLean…"
"Call me AJ," he interrupted.
"Uh, okay…" I raised my eyebrows in an 'I don't wanna know' kind of look. "If you'll just hold on one minute, I'll run to the back and get your flowers. Mike, can you cover the register for me for a minute?" After getting a nod from Mike, I dashed to the back room to get AJ's flowers together for him.
While I was back there, I sat down for a few seconds to compose myself. Just being around this guy was getting me all flustered. "Adele, calm down!" I muttered under my breath. When I felt a little more put together, I walked back out to the front of the store with two bouquets of flowers in my arms.
"Here you go," I smiled at AJ, this time meeting his eyes. "What do you want me to put on the name tags?"
He dictated: "Okay, on the roses…I want you to put: 'Mom, happy Valentine's Day. Love, Alex.' " I tried to smother a smile when I heard this. So, he wasn't taken after all! I felt his eyes on the top of my head as I bent over the counter, printing his message on the tag. When I was finished, I put it back with the roses and looked up at him.
"And on the tulips?"
He thought for a moment. The pen in my hand hovered over the tag, ready to write down what he told me. "Okay," he said finally. I didn't catch the mischievous tone in his voice right then, though. "You can put: 'Adele, it sounds as if you're busy tonight. Let's have dinner tomorrow. AJ.' "
My head snapped up, and I caught him with a smile stretched from ear to ear. "Yeah, you heard me," he laughed. "Let's go out. The tulips, your two lips, my two lips. Is it a date?"
I chuckled quietly, looking out at him from under long eyelashes. Aw hell, why not? "In spite of that excessively corny joke…" I replied: "Sure, it's a date." After all, it could be fun, I thought to myself. Even if his sense of humor is atrocious.
"All right, then!" He searched through his pockets for a piece of paper. Finding one, he grabbed a pen and scribbled something on it, then handed it to me. "Here's my number. Do you want to meet somewhere?"
"Umm, I…" I started to answer, but a stammer came out instead. Luckily, AJ was so enthusiastic that he didn't wait for me to blurt out a complete sentence.
"Great, I'll pick you up. How does seven sound?" I could only stare at him, blushing furiously. He didn't wait for a response that time, either. "Cool, I'll see you then, Adele!"
He turned to leave, his mom's roses under his arm, but spun on his heel to face me for just a second. "Oh yeah," he added. "You can keep the flowers." He threw me a silly grin over his shoulder and kept walking, hips swinging, to the door, leaving me in a pleasant state of shock. I felt like my jaw was about to hit the floor.
My eyes followed him the whole time as I totally ignored the next person waiting in line. He walked out and let the door swing slowly shut behind him, the little bells hanging from it jangling cheerfully. I finally realized what had just happened, and I started to relax. A smile spread slowly across my face. I went back to work, the sweet smell of tulips hovering in the air.
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