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The first day, it’s just a pansy.
I can spare one measly pansy from a hanging basket with tens of them. Who gives a shit?
And listen, I probably wouldn’t have recognized her the next time she passed my garden if she weren’t so hot. She’s tall and broad and blonde and not at all my type. She looks soft, the look in her eyes tender and ardent. I want to go out there and demand why she needs to steal from my flower beds when surely her heart is blooming plenty. I don’t.
I’m trying to learn to pick my battles. Instead, I just watch her gather a small bouquet of zinnias from the window over the kitchen sink. She walks away without a care, oblivious to my watching eyes.
It’s always on a Friday. By the third week my internal clock rings, alerting me to her presence. She comes early, which makes it all the more annoying. As I watch her help herself to a rainbow of chrysanthemums, chrysanthemums I grew, my blood boils. My skin grows pink from the heat of it and steam billows from my ears. I wonder about the recipient of my flowers. Is she pretty?
Does she think this thief is oh so charming, a flock of sparrows emerging from her heart in a flurry of feathers and love song?
After she walks away, I burst out the door to watch her retreating figure. She doesn’t turn around and that’s probably for the best. Once she is out of sight, I survey my garden, spinning in a slow circle. The truth is I have plenty of flowers to spare.
This garden is my labor of love. As I have grown this garden has grown with me. The Queen Anne’s Lace sprouted the day I bought the house. When I began to invest my time and energy into the garden, instead of my old self-destructive behaviors, the daisies bloomed. When I chose myself and cut off my truly wicked stepmother, a small herb garden shot up in previously barren dirt, the scent of dill tickling me awake the following morning.
The point is, my soul, my entire being, grows in the soil of this garden. So how dare some stranger come along and use this piece of me to woo some other girl?
I am already waiting by the kitchen window on her fourth visit.
I watch her run a soft finger over the petals of a patch of violets. A shiver runs up my spine, the ghost of a lover’s gentle caress. I wander if it will feel so soft when she runs her hands over the recipient of her upcoming bouquet. She doesn’t pick the violets and inexplicably that fact reassures me.
Still, she does not leave empty handed. Poppies seem to call her closer, even I can hear their whispering. Perhaps they are her paramour’s favorite. She takes four and leaves, none the wiser of my ire which follows her down the sidewalk leaving an inky black trail in her wake.
I watch her take these flowers and I say nothing. For an entire month I let this complete stranger rob me of the fruits of my labor. And then she goes too far.
My rose bushes are my pride and joy. Just babies when I brought them home, I have reared them as if they were my family. My sweat has hydrated their leaves, my beaming smile at their growth has provided enough light to grow them from tiny little twigs to strong, mighty bushes. She brushes her fingers over the lavender roses, I feel my heart pound, ready to beat its way out of my chest and tell her off itself. But she leaves them be.
My peace does not last long. The next think I know she is yanking at the dark crimson flowers the next bush over. And well, my heart and I, we can only take so much. I storm out before she has a chance to get away.
“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing exactly?”
She freezes, getting frost on my flowers just to add insult to injury, and her eyes go wide. “Uh…”
“You think this is all here for you? What does this look like, some kind of fucking u-pick flower farm?” I can feel my face heat with my ire, hot enough to thaw her frost. Still she doesn’t move. “Well?”
“N-no, I-“
“You know what? I want to see who all this fuss is over, hm? Who has you so head over heels that you would resort to stealing to impress her?” Without giving her a chance to respond I spin around, finding a pair of clippers. “Go ahead, get your damned flowers so we can go.”
She looks to the clippers, then back to me. Her jaw works for a moment before she manages to spit out, “This…feels like a trick.”
I roll my eyes just about as hard as I can manage. “What’s your name?”
“Uh…Adora?”
“Alright Adora, don’t be an idiot and cut the fucking flower. I just don’t want to watch you rip at my rose bush like some kind of heathen.”
She’s wary, but eventually takes them and clips two flowers. She hands them back and with a voice that flutters in the breeze says, “Thank…you?”
“Whatever. Let’s go, I want to see if this girl is pretty enough to warrant flower theft or if I’m gonna need to press charges.”
She must be an idiot, because the threat seems to terrify her. “I-I don’t-It’s not…not like that, I-“
“Yeah, I’ll decide what it’s like, thank you. Lead on MacDuff.”
She hesitates but nods and starts down her usual path. I cross my arms over my chest and promise myself I’m not looking at her ass. Even if it’s a very nice ass. She’s a thief and she has a love interest already.
“Listen,” she starts, a few blocks down the road. “I’m really sorry about-“
“Yeah, I don’t want to hear it.”
That shuts her up…for about a block. “What’s your name?”
I consider not telling her, names are powerful things after all. After a moment I relent. “Catra.”
“Catra.” She repeats, as if feeling the name in her mouth. “You have a really beautiful garden, Catra.”
I scoff at the compliment. “Yeah, I assumed you thought so. At least, if your pilfering of my flowers was any indication.”
She side eyes me and rubs nervously at the back of her neck. Her cheeks turn rosy, a pale impression of my flowers in her hand. “Yeah, I really am sorry. I didn’t think anyone would notice if I just took a couple. It really is amazing; I’ve never seen so many flowers in one place.”
The compliment flatters me by I don’t let it show. The only indication it landed well is the faint smell of fennel that follows us. “Yeah, yeah. Are we almost there?”
“Um, just on the next block.”
I look ahead. There’s no cafes on the next block, no movie theatre, no houses even. It’s a fucking cemetery.
“Are you shitting me? What kind of freaky-“
Her head tips to the side at my reaction. Her nerves have even my skin buzzing but the sensation softens as she processes what I’m saying. “Why don’t you just follow me.”
And I’ve made it this far, so I do.
We wind through headstones, some just plaques set into the ground and some large, ornate stone things. When we stop, it is in front of something in the middle. A moderately sized headstone with the name Mara Greyskull carved in. From the dates beneath the name, I can see it was an untimely death.
Adora clears her throat and I look up to her, realization slowly dawning. “Uhm, Catra, this is my cousin, Mara.”
“Crap.”
Her lips fight with a smile. “Yeah.”
“Well now I feel like an asshole.”
She pulls a face. “I mean, you didn’t know.”
“And you still stole from me.” I point out fairly.
“Yeah…have I said I’m sorry? Because I’m like, really-“
“It’s whatever. Just like…ask next time. And use some damn clippers. Tragedy or no, there’s no reason to torture my plants.”
The smile wins. “Right, of course. I will keep that in mind.”
“So, I guess I should leave you to it…”
The smile droops into a frown. “Oh. Yeah, I guess so.” I give a curt nod and ready myself to leave. “Catra?”
“Hmm?”
“Thanks. For the flowers.”
“Right.” I snort. “Like I had a choice.”
The smile is back, though it’s more like a smirk this time. “Still.”
With a shake of my head and an amused smile slowly spreading its way across my own face, I turn and walk home. I spend some time with the plants that night, listening to their chatter. They seem to like Adora.
The sixth time Adora appears in my garden, she has her own flowers. If the agitated rustling of leaves is anything to go by, the garden is a bit miffed by this fact. She walks up to the door this time and I wonder why. She seems to have come prepared, her bouquet far more elegant than the hastily gathered stems I’ve watched her carry away before. Surely she doesn’t need more flowers?
Her hand reaches out to the door but before she knocks, she catches my eye through the window. Her smile is downright bashful and her cheeks blossom with rose petals once more. She waves cheerily though and the hope in her eyes draw me to the door.
The moment I swing it open she thrusts her flowers toward me. I see lavender, yellow tulips, sunflowers and a few stalks of snap dragons. “What...?”
“A thank you! Kind of. Or like, repaying you? For the flowers I stole. Obviously they’re not the same flowers, I hope that’s okay. I just thought these were nice. They uh…made me think of you. So.” She clears her throat awkwardly and looks down to her toes. When she looks up again, she peers through her eyelashes. The look has a certain coquettish charm that makes my heart swoop. “Did you want to…take them?”
I reach for them slowly, trying to work her out. “Thanks…”
“Right. I mean, of course.”
“Do you want some tea?”
I hear myself say the words and am fully prepared to eat them, knowing the embarrassment embedded in them is sure to give me a sour stomach. Then she smiles. “I would love some tea.”
And so, I let Adora into my home. Before the door closes behind her, I see a dandelion emerge from the grass and release its seeds to the world. I think, perhaps, I’ll have Adora help me do some weeding. But first we have tea to drink, flowers to admire, and entire lives to catch up on.