The order comes in at around ten in the morning. The voice on the other end sounds numb. I take a guess that he’s in his mid-fifties by the resignation in his speech. He spouts rapid yet calm English, not like the people who come through the store, yelling if I can’t understand them at first.
I try my best to enunciate the words over the phone. My head thumps from the night before. Too many beers and even worse lap dances. Henri, my older brother told me I was a loser for not hanging out at the strip clubs more often: that working in a flower shop and delivering them to rich English people was degrading. Not everyone is English I told my brother. I don’t know why I said it.
“Just send something nice\xe2\x80\xa6.like roses,” the voice on the phone pleads.
“What colour would you like?” I knew that he would say red before he did. I bet he didn’t care about the cheap baby’s breath either. He probably thinks they enhance the roses but they only cheapen them. Women hate baby’s breath.
“Can you send a card with the flowers?”
“Yes.” I heard the man take a sharp breath. The bells on the front door of the shop remained noiseless. It was going to be a slow day.
“Do you mind writing \xe2\x80\x98To Shirley, I should have told you earlier but I couldn’t. I will call you when I’m ready.'” Jesus. What an asshole. Red roses and the baby’s breath on a Saturday morning. I should have caught on earlier. Sainte-Agathe is rampant with cheating husbands in their new Ferraris, heading straight to the golf course. Henri tells me that they’re mostly Jewish but I’ve delivered to some houses where the woman answering the door wears a cross. Maybe it’s the housekeeper.
“Hello?” The man on the other end sounds impatient.
“Yes. 12 Rue de la Savane. I will take them right away.” Before he can say anything else I hang up the phone. I walk to the chilled room where we keep the best roses. This poor woman deserves something nice. I usually save the best ones for my mother, trying to leave the nicest until the end of the day when I know that I can take them home. Renee knows that I do this but he’s tired of telling me to give the customers priority because he likes to screw the English also, I think. Even if it’s only with a few flowers. Besides, in the past three years that I’ve worked here, I’ve only missed a total of five working days.
I’m tired so the room seems colder than usual. The red roses stand hunched in a corner. The long-stemmed batch came in this morning but a dozen were missing. I didn’t tell Renee, he left me in charge of the store today anyways. I go to the tub of flowers. I pick each rose reluctantly, trying to delay the delivery. I can just imagine it\xe2\x80\xa6an attractive woman, probably in her fifties also, coming to the door in the designer nonsense that the women wear here, even though we’re in the country. Her eyes will probably be puffy from crying over the idiot and she’ll look at me for help as though I could give a shit. But it’s that look that always has me feeling bad. My father would probably yell at me for looking twice, saying something about how I should be in university and not catering to rich people all day. That if I wanted to live in a house on Lac Manitou I would have to stop slacking off and go to Montreal. I was already accepted at the Universite de Montreal but I deferred for the year, claiming that I wanted to spend more time with Madeleine when really I was just lazy and scared to leave home. Madelaine never puts out and Henri told me to leave the prude but the word makes me cringe. Besides, I didn’t even know what I wanted to study. I checked the box off that said Philosophie et les arts humaines, but I just did it so that my father would stop bothering me.
I picked the roses out, one by one, and turned to leave the room. I don’t know why men sent women red roses at all. They were the most generic. They had no character. After red, the most popular request was for Champagne. I think that the men just liked the way the word rolled of their tongues. Nobody every asked for the petals with the yellow centres, outlined with the burnt orange that eventually turned crimson. My personal favourite, although Henri would laugh, were the white roses with the fuchsia trimming. They had personality.
I walked to the counter behind the register. As I was laying out the flowers the bells jingled. I looked up and a good looking couple walked in. “Est-ce que je peut vous aider?” They looked at me and smiled.
“Non, merci.” I knew that they were English because they were trying to sound Parisian and not French Canadian.
“If you need anything please let me know?”
“We’re just looking, thanks.” They walked around for a few minutes before contemplating an orchid. I knew they wouldn’t take it.
“How often do they have to be watered?”
“Not so much. It’s very important not to water them too much. Once every two weeks or something is good.”
The man picked up the orchid and brought it to the cashier.
“Thanks Daddy.” The woman had a smile that must have made him proud to be her father. He quickly kissed her on the forehead and started talking in a foreign language. It’s the language that’s been exterminated. Yiddish. Henri didn’t know that before I told him. Looked it up at the Caf\xc3\xa9 Internet. Henri said he didn’t give a shit.
After they leave I quickly finish wrapping the roses and walk out to the car. The delivery will only take a few minutes so I put the “de retour dans cinq minutes” on the door and step out. The humidity hits me in the face. We’re rarely happy with the weather in the Laurentians. The summer gets too hot and the winter too cold and long. The lake is just starting to warm up. Lazy sun. I get into my car, start the ignition and back up out of the driveway. I drive past the Cremerie and the Depanneur, a few restaurants and some bars. Sainte-Agathe is filled with people from the city this week-end. Saint Jean-Baptiste is coming up. Everybody gets a holiday in Quebec. I drive by a group of people I know and wave but they don’t see me. I turn left onto a newly paved road which will only remain smooth until the pothole season comes in. Then they’ll have to re-pave them all over again. Waste of time.
I turn off of Rue de Ville and get onto the roundabout that will take me towards the really big houses. The gravel becomes crumbly underneath my car and the first big house approaches. They only get bigger. It’s amazing to me that these houses live a few kilometers away from my little living space–and these people only use it for the week-ends and some vacations here and there. I really should go to school.
I am at 48 Rue de la Savane and the space between the houses gets larger. The lawns get bigger and the driveways more elegant. 36\xe2\x80\xa6.28\xe2\x80\xa6this is really going to be a nice one\xe2\x80\xa614\xe2\x80\xa612. I can’t even see the house from the road. The address is posted on the gates. I get out of the car and ring the buzzer.
“Hello?”
“Yes, I’m here to deliver flowers for a Mrs. Shirley Levine?”
“It’s Levine.” Oops.
“I have some\xe2\x80\xa6”
“Come in.” Click. Poor woman, I’m probably the last face she wants to see. *I’ve had women throw me out of the house before, both French and English, because they know that I’m the carrier of husband guilt-in-a-box.* I approach the house and notice a silver Lexus four by four parked alongside a Beetle. I ring the doorbell and hear:
“Jesus, relax, I’m coming.”
The door opens and there she is. Shirley Levine. Nothing what I expected. Her face is drawn tightly back like she’s recently been on a motorcycle. Her lips are distortedly large and so are her tits. The tiny body doesn’t seem big enough to support the head. The eyes are bloodshot and brown and messed over with red hair, like the kind my mother wants to have but can never get.
“Come in.” It’s more of an order and I don’t want to make the poor woman more upset than she already is. I notice a bar stuck to the side of the entrance doorway. This is a Jewish house. I’ve never been inside one, only stood on the steps. My dad doesn’t blame the Jews he said because they weren’t even on the Plains of Abraham but Henri disagrees. He sees them as being largely responsible for the Bloq’s failure to win the referendum in ’94. My father says my brother’s an idiot but I like to listen to him anyways. I think that it’s good we lost the referendum. I don’t want to separate from my country. I’m a traitor I think.
“So what do you have there?” She looks at me with a smirk and I notice a half-empty bottle of Vodka lying around in the foyer, on an antique table. She’s drunk. Her tight leggings and tank top are spotted with sweat in the cleavage area and around the belly button. Her eyes look at me with something like desperation. She definitely needs me. I’m loving it.
“Alright then, on peut parler Francais si tu veut.”
“No, I speak English. I have flowers for Mrs. Shirley Levine.” I make sure to pronounce it properly this time.
“Yeah, I know, I hear you already. Gimme them.” She grabs the box out of my hands and rips it open. She looks at me for a moment and says:
“Do you want something to drink? You look like you could use one. How old are you? Twenty, Twenty-one? My son’s eighteen.” That must be his car outside.
“No, thank you, I think I\xe2\x80\xa6”
“Do you want something with your Vodka or can you handle it like a man?” She says this last part with a wink. I start to feel uncomfortable.
“How old are you anyway?”
“Nineteen.”
“Don’t have enough money to go away eh? My loser of a son won’t do anything either. I guess it’s a generation raised on spoiled values and no ethics\xe2\x80\xa6.what would you say to that?”
“Mais, je\xe2\x80\xa6sorry, I just came to\xe2\x80\xa6”
“Sit down.” I don’t really want to but I do anyways. The lady is obviously upset. Maybe she needs company.
“Have you ever fucked a Jewish girl before?” She’s hardly a girl and her words are starting to slur. I look around, wanting to get up, but my feet are like lead. My heart pounds in my ear and I hope she can’t hear it. I try to be smooth and take the glass of Vodka that she hands me. I take a sip and the coolness stings my throat. I try my best not to make a face. She laughs at me. I notice that her tits are very round and defined. They are plastered to her chest and don’t move. I take another sip, this one longer.
“What’s your name?”
“Luc.”
“Luc what\xe2\x80\xa6don’t you know how to have a fucking conversation?”
“Listen, Madame, I don’t want to piss you\xe2\x80\xa6”
“These are fucking ugly flowers Luc\xe2\x80\xa6tell your boss or whoever over there that these are some of the fucking ugliest flowers I’ve ever seen.
She stands up and slides around the kitchen in her sweat socks, throwing each carefully picked rose all over the room.
“The bastard sent me baby’s breath\xe2\x80\xa6he knows I hate it. Fucker. Has everyone fooled but me.”
I don’t know what she’s talking about and from upstairs I hear the new U2 CD starting to play. Is that her son? I want to get the hell out of here. These freaky people should stay to themselves. They shouldn’t pollute my lake and my city. I feel really nervous now.
“He’s a fag.” She takes the bottle that she’s been carrying around and pours herself another glass.
“Pardon me?”
“My husband\xe2\x80\xa6he’s a fucking fag and he’s screwing his best friend. That’s why he sent the flowers.”
I’m not sure what she means but I guess the man really did have an affair, just like I thought. She stares at me with a grimace and waits for a response. I don’t have one.
“Don’t you know what a fag is?” I nod my head but have no idea.
“I would feel very sorry for me if I were you\xe2\x80\xa6.Luc, is it?”
“Yes, Madame, I am very sorry for you.” She finds this very funny because she starts spurting some sort of maniacal cackle out of the cracks of her mouth. I take a longer sip of the Vodka and start to feel the stinging in my stomach coincide with the dull dizziness in my head. Her diamond rings flash in my eyes and I get very nervous. I hear footsteps upstairs walking around and then a door slam. I stand up to leave but she grabs me and puts my hands on her tits. They are hard and round and not like Madeleine’s
“Ten thousand fucking dollars for these, you want to see them? Hmm? You want to feel them some more?” This last part she says in a mocking Quebecois accent. I’m aroused but humiliated\xe2\x80\xa6never a good thing. I take my hands away and look at her.
“What, you’re too scared to fuck? Hmm? You don’t like to fuck?” She starts talking more loudly and I’m worried that whoever’s in the room upstairs, listening to the CD, is going to come back down. I look around, thinking of how to get away.
“Why don’t you fuck? Are you a fag too?” She’s screaming now and I turn to run away but she comes up from behind me and puts both hands on my crotch.
“No wonder you don’t like to fuck. There’s nothing there. Get the hell out of my house.”
I rush out of the kitchen, into the marble floored front entrance and out of the door. Tears come to my eyes and I fight them back. My balls hurt. The application to the university flashes through my mind. I feel sorry for the husband. I should have told him, when I had the chance, to only send the baby’s breath.
