This Summer Will Be Different(35)
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I love so much of it. I love the creative parts. I love working with flowers, but I don’t love everything that comes with it. Managing people, business strategy, more emails than you would think. I became a florist because I hated my desk job, but I’m finding myself behind one more and more.” I watch a satellite blinking its way toward the Big Dipper.
“Sometimes I worry that as I’ve got older, I’ve shrunk my world instead of making it grow,” I admit. “Picking flowers, making floral crowns, mucking in my aunt’s garden—those things used to be my hobby, but now my aunt is gone, and my hobby is my job, and work is my entire life.”
I feel his fingers twine around mine, and for a moment, my whole heart is held between our palms. He squeezes once, then lets go. I want it back immediately.
More, my heart says. Felix.
“Tell me about your farm.”
Your farm. Felix is the only person who knows about it, and I like how he makes it sound—like a real thing.
“There’s no farm,” I say, tipping my head to him. I haven’t fantasized about it in such a long time. It’s no use dreaming about things that will never be—there’s too much reality to contend with.
“Not yet. Describe it to me, Lucy.”
Felix can say my name a thousand different ways. A Lucy that vibrates in the back of his throat, gritty with desire. A Lucy that sounds like sun showers. A Lucy of smug amusement. A Lucy that’s more a sigh of relief than a name. A Lucy that’s all awe and wonder. This Lucy is a gentle command.
In one breath, it all comes back to me. The thing I’ve secretly wanted for so long—a cut flower farm.
“I don’t think about it much these days,” I tell Felix. “But I always pictured a greenhouse.”
“What else?”
I first imagined having a small garden, but it grew every time I envisioned it. It became a rectangular plot of nutrient-rich soil somewhere outside the city with enough flora to stock a farmer’s market stand through summer. Then a flourishing farm, with blossoms as far as the eye could see. Sunflowers following the light. Rivers of blue salvia. Delicate pink cosmos, swaying in the breeze.
I turn my face back to the stars, smiling up at them. “A field with rich soil. Sunflowers. Salvia. Cosmos.”
“Dahlias,” he says. It’s not a question. Felix knows.
“Dahlias,” I repeat.
“Tell me more, Lucy,” he says. “Tell me everything.”
17
Thanksgiving, Three Years Ago
I became the owner of In Bloom at 12:01 a.m. on January 1. Stacy and I threw a party at the shop, a New Year’s Eve open house, where friends and customers dropped in and out. At midnight she made a speech and concluded it by taking a bow, handing me her keys, and declaring, “What’s mine is now yours.”
I had hoped to return to Prince Edward Island in the summer, but I wasn’t confident enough to leave the shop yet. Bridget was dating Miles, so she brought him home with her instead. Not wanting to miss our girls’ trip entirely that year, she convinced me to join her for a few nights over the Thanksgiving long weekend in early October.
I’d never been to PEI in the fall before, and Bridget said to bring sunglasses, a hat, and my warm sweaters. It was a sunny autumn, but it could get chilly. As I rolled up my clothing, I couldn’t help but think about seeing Felix again. It had been a year and a half since I’d seen him, and I wanted to look good in an effortless, breezy way. Not that we’d be repeating what happened the last time I visited. I would avoid narrow hallways, looking at his hands, and steam-filled bathrooms. I would keep my clothes on—and my towel on, too—no matter how suggestively his eyes sparkled or what words came out of his hot mouth.
Besides, I had just ended a four-month thing with a firefighter, and for all I knew, Felix was seeing someone. What I did know about him from Bridget didn’t involve his love life. He had scored a cheap flight to Lisbon and taken off with a backpack. It was his first trip overseas, a short holiday before he and Zach began to work in earnest on the design plans for Salt Cottages. Our flight landed Friday morning, Felix’s that night.
Five minutes before Bridget and I left for the airport, I removed my nicest lace underwear from my suitcase, and then threw them back in again. Always good to have an extra pair. It had nothing to do with Felix. I was committed to rule number two—Felix and I would not be sleeping together again. This trip would not end up like the last one.
As soon as we stepped onto the tarmac, Bridget sprinted toward the bathroom. She had a bladder the size of an acorn and refused to use the toilet on the plane. While she waited in line, I went straight to the Cows Creamery cow, giving the statue a pat on its pink snout.
Ken drove us to Summer Wind. It was a postcard-perfect fall day. The roads were lined with pumpkin stands and the yellow and orange leaves that still clung to their branches shone in striking contrast to the sky. Most tourists to Prince Edward Island visited in the summer. They roamed Green Gables Heritage House, stuffed themselves silly with lobster, wiggled their toes in the sand at Cavendish Beach, bought tickets to Anne of Green Gables—The Musical, golfed. But early October was so stunning, I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful time or place. The colors of the island always astounded me—how green the grass, the neon canola fields, the rich rust of the soil and sand, the purple streaks of lupines. But under the bright blue fall skies, everything seemed more vivid. It felt like after the clammer of the summer high season, the island began to flat-out brag.