"A dozen red roses, please."
Gloria looked up from the paperback romance she was reading. "Um, did you order in advance?"
The customer was clearly worth putting down her book for. He was anything but ordinary -- clear blue eyes beneath a riot of auburn curls, lips like a Raphaelite angel, and his clothes ... how could a Victorian velvet frock coat look so natural on a man standing in her shop in 1999?
"No, I'm afraid I didn't. This is a bit of an impulse, you see."
He had a lovely upper-class British accent. Something about the little apologetic smile made Gloria blush slightly. That smile made her truly sorry she was going to have to disappoint him.
"Sorry, but unless you have an advance order, we're completely out. It is Valentine's Day, you know. If you'd come in earlier in the day, I could have helped you. But it's almost closing time, and we're sold out, except for a couple of orders that haven't been picked up yet."
The customer sighed -- a deep, significant sigh that spoke of lovers separated by fate and unrequited passion. Gloria wanted to reach out and comfort him. But she knew that wasn't a reasonable idea. Guys this good looking seldom wanted to be comforted by short, pudgy shop girls with mouse-brown hair cut too short.
She wished she could just say, "Oh, I forgot, we've got just one dozen left!" But it wasn't true.
"Um, I think we've still got some carnations ..."
He shook his head sadly. "No, I'm afraid that just wouldn't be the same."
Gloria silently agreed. She was glad he wouldn't settle for carnations. Guys gave girls like her carnations. This one wouldn't be romancing a woman who would settle for carnations. Carnations were cheap. Carnations were ordinary. His lover would be a princess. She would have blonde hair down to her waist and eyes like emeralds.
"We have some of the unusual stuff left," Gloria said, not really thinking he'd be interested, but wanting to make him stay a little longer. "Not the kind of flowers you'd generally put in a Valentine's bouquet ..."
He looked thoughtful.
"Never let it be said I was afraid to be unconventional. What have you got?"
"Let me go look." She got up and went into the back room reluctantly, half afraid he'd be gone when she came back.
When she returned, he had picked up her book from the counter and was paging through it.
"'Love's Savage Fury.' Interesting," he said.
Gloria blushed. "Bubble gum for the eyes," she said, feeling a little embarrassed to be caught reading that sort of book.
"No, it's interesting," the customer said. "Though, I don't seem to have gotten to the savage and furious parts. So far, it seems a little bland."
Gloria suspected he was mocking her. He couldn't have read more than one or two pages while she was in back.
"Well, you can't read Proust every day," she said, reaching to take the book back.
"Just a minute," he said, moving the book out of her reach. "I want to see how it comes out."
"Sure, like you can't figure it out." She reached for the book again.
"Oh dear! Lynette Wynhurst seems to have lost all chance of winning Lord Brinley's love," he said, looking concerned as he flipped the pages. "Oh, that's good! It was all a misunderstanding. Hmmm, that's not right."
"What's not right?"
"The story is supposed to be set in the spring of 1817, and the author has Beau Brummel at court. He was in Paris at the time."
Gloria didn't know what to make of that. But, considering his costume, she supposed he might be a historical expert of some sort. He probably picked out the names as he was flipping the pages.
"These books aren't all that historically accurate," she said.
"They've got all the little details about the costumes and furniture and so forth spot on," he said with a bright smile, handing the book back. "By the way, have you?"
"Have I what?"
"Read Proust?"
"Yeah -- in college."
"I was fond of him," he said with a faraway look in his eyes. "Very principled man. He risked everything, you know, to support Dreyfus."
"I found his prose a bit dense," Gloria said. Surely, he means he's fond of Proust's writing, she thought.
"Well, it really should be read in French. But, you're right. It is challenging." He flashed her a smile.
Gloria felt a warm blush spreading down her throat and over her upper chest. "The flowers ..."
"Excuse me?"
"You wanted flowers."
"Oh, yes! So what have you got?"
"There's a little bit of this, a little bit of that."
"Maybe I should go in back with you and and pick out what I want," he suggested.
"But who will tend the counter?"
"You could lock the door for a couple of minutes."
Gloria hesitated.
"You can trust me," he said with another devastating smile.
Suddenly, Gloria wasn't sure she could. But she put that thought away as quickly as it occurred to her. Guys who looked like this one didn't make passes at girls like her. He was probably pouring on the charm to get a discount on the flowers.
"All right. But we'll have to be quick about it. There are still three more pickup orders here. Those customers could come at any minute."
She went around the counter and locked the front door, turning around the sign that said "Back in Ten Minutes" that she used whenever she had to visit the restroom when she was alone in the shop.
The walls of the work room were lined with glass-fronted refrigerators for the flowers. Most were empty now, but the one for the exotics was still teeming with color.
"Is this your shop?"
"No, I just work here. Mrs. Gladston went home early -- to fix a Valentine's Day supper for her husband. It's her shop."
"What did you study?"
"Excuse me?"
"In college."
"Classics, why do you want to know?"
"No reason. Just wondering how such an obviously cultured woman came to be working in a flower shop."
Gloria gave him a rueful smile. "This is the sort of job a classics degree prepares you for. I should have studied computer programming."
"Not you. You'd never be happy talking to machines all day."
She felt suddenly self-conscious. The flowers -- he wanted flowers. Remember what you're doing ... She brought several buckets of blooms out of the refrigerated case.
"Here's what you can choose from," she said.
"Hmmm... I don't know what to choose. Why don't you help me?"
"I don't know your lady friend. What does she like?"
"I'm not sure ..."
"Have you known her long?"
He shook his head. "Just met her, actually."
"Orchids are a pretty safe bet." Gloria pulled two pink and red speckled orchids from the bucket.
He picked up the flowers and examined them. "Yes, I think these are very nice. The color goes very well with your skin tone," he said, holding one of the orchids up next to Gloria's face.
She looked away, embarrassed.
"And some baby's breath," she said. "That will dress it up a bit."
He nodded, his eyes firmly upon Gloria's face. She could feel the weight of his gaze, and it made her uncomfortable.
"Do you have any daisies?"
Gloria's attention snapped back to the task at hand. "Yes, I think so. Let me look."
She moved away from him to go to the case where the daisies were kept. "Yes, we've got some."
"Do you like daisies?"
"Well, yes. But more importantly, will your lady friend like daisies?" Gloria said brusquely.
"I think she will," he said with a smile.
"Maybe I should be asking whether you actually have a lady friend?" she asked, a hint of suspicion creeping into her voice.
"I hope I do!"
Gloria turned her attention to the small heap of flowers on the work table, starting to arrange them into a bouquet. "Do you want ribbons?"
"Do you like ribbons?"
Gloria stopped what she was doing and looked the customer squarely in the eye. He looked back, the picture of innocence.
"Are you taking your lady friend to dinner tonight?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
"Are you free?"
Gloria froze. A little voice from her cautious side whispered: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
"If you've already got a boyfriend who is going to take you out for a romantic evening tonight, I'll understand," he said as Gloria hesitated.
She frowned. "You don't have to mock me," she said tightly.
"I'm not!"
"I find it hard to believe ..."
"You find it hard to believe that I'm far from home and lonely? That what everybody wants on this one day is a bit of romance? That I'd like a little of the same?"
"I think you'd probably choose someone more -- attractive than me."
"Attractive -- I'm not sure I understand what you mean."
He looked genuinely puzzled and Gloria had a moment of doubt. Could he be honestly attracted to her? No, her rational inner voice said. That isn't the way it works.
"Well, look at me!" she said, her throat tightening.
"I have been. I see a woman with kindly brown eyes; generous, rosy lips; smooth, fair skin that blushes a warm pink; and delicate fingers that handle the flowers she sells as if each were an individual life. A woman with an appreciation for the classics, who isn't too haughty to enjoy popular literature."
"You left out the big hips and butch haircut," Gloria answered bitterly.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," he countered. "You believe I must be trying to deceive you because you don't precisely match the standard of feminine beauty set forth by the commercial culture of this time and place. But why should I be influenced by pictures of skeletal women in magazine advertisements? As for hairstyles -- they change. That one may be the height of fashion -- in a year or so." Then his eyes twinkled just a bit. "Or not."
"Yeah? Well, it will have grown out by then. I think the hairdresser had it in for me yesterday." She nervously smoothed back the short hair that wasn't covering her ears. She could almost believe him. Almost.
"Gloria, won't you be my lady love, tonight?"
"How do you know my name? I didn't tell you that."
"You wrote it in the front of your book."
"Oh, yeah ..."
"All you have to do is believe."
"Believe? Believe what?"
"That romance is possible."
"Oh, I believe it's possible ..."
"But not for you?"
"Look at it this way. Just what are the chances that I'm going to see a slip of paper in the street, and pick it up and find that it's a winning lottery ticket worth millions?"
"I've got an easier one," he said, with a wink. "I have a coin here." He fished in his pocket and brought out a disc of gold metal. "Call it." He tossed it into the air and caught it, slapping it down on the back of his wrist and covering it with his other hand.
"Heads," Gloria said.
He peeked under his hand, then smiled and showed her the coin. Gloria wasn't sure whether it was heads or not, since it was like no coin she'd ever seen. It was covered with what looked like writing, but not in any alphabet she was familiar with.
"It's heads," he said.
"But there are only two possible outcomes for a coin toss," Gloria objected. "That's 50-50 and those are pretty good odds."
"There are only two possible outcomes when you see that slip of paper in the street, and there are only two possible outcomes if you come with me for the evening."
"How do you figure that?"
"In the case of the lottery ticket, it's either a winner, or it's just a piece of paper. If it's just a piece of paper, what have you lost? If it's a winning ticket, it's certainly worth the effort of picking it up and looking at it, isn't it?
"In the case of going out with me, I'll either show you a nice time, or you'll be disappointed. It's 50-50, and you said yourself that those were pretty good odds."
Gloria looked at him, not knowing what to say.
She was trying to find her voice to say yes, when she heard pounding on the front door of the shop.
"Um... Oh, I've got to get that. Stay put!"
A moment later, she was letting a rather disgruntled business man into the shop. She gave him his pre-ordered dozen red roses, and rung up the sale. As the customer left, she locked the door again and hurried back to the work room. It was empty.
Gloria sighed. He'd come to his senses, or her hesitation had put him off. Whatever the reason, he'd left by the back door while she was waiting on the other customer. And she didn't even know his name ...
She was about to go back and take up her station behind the counter again, when something on the work table caught her eye. The flowers she had been assembling for him were now in a simple glass vase. A card was propped up among the blooms.
"Gloria" was written on the envelope in a flourished script. She opened it with trembling hands.
The End