Special Delivery

By Tim Myers

First appeared in Woman’s World Magazine

“So, what did you get for Valentine’s Day?”  Kath, my best friend and helper for the day, asked as she climbed into the passenger side of my delivery van.

I pulled out of her driveway and headed for our first stop.  I also ignored her question.

She wouldn’t let up.  “Come on, Helen.  Come clean.  You and your husband own a flower shop, for goodness sake.  What did he get you?”

I shrugged, trying not to show my true feelings.

“We didn’t have time for anything personal this year.  Our shop is jammed with orders.  He even had to hire a college girl to help out in the shop today.”

Kath said, “Are you crazy?  Letting some young thing into your shop with your husband while you’re not there?”

I kept my eyes steadily on the road, watching the sun as it peeked up over the horizon.  The February air was chilled with icy breath, and the reddish orange glow of the dawn’s first light looked as if it had been painted on the sky with a giant brush.

I said, “Kath, I trust my husband.  I’ll bet he’s got something for me when we pick up our next load.  Now let’s get busy.  We can hit the high school first, that’ll take care of most of this delivery.  Can you believe how much teenagers spend on flowers and balloons?  I’m not complaining, mind you.”

Kath looked at me with a sad smile on her face.  “I can remember how much Paul used to spend on you.”

I couldn’t say anything as I drove through the empty streets of a new day.  It was true.  When we were courting, Paul had showered me with roses before every date.  He had a real love for flowers, and wanted to share them with me.  After we got married, we decided to take the plunge and open our own flower shop.  But as the bills increased and the working hours grew longer and longer, the personal attention I loved so much had slowly disappeared.

Kath and I got to the school just as the secretary was arriving.  “We’ve got a real load for you this year, Wanda.  Looks like young love is in the air.”  The school secretary and I had become good friends since Paul and I had opened the shop.

The heavyset woman smiled as we started carrying in load after load of brightly colored balloons, vases full of long-stemmed red roses, and assorted gifts wrapped in paper decorated with giant red hearts and Cupid’s arrows.

I had saved one particular vase for last.  Kath was unloading the final group on a table Wanda had set up just for us when I walked back to the van.  Retrieving a dozen of our finest roses, I carried the vase through the cool morning air toward the building.  Knowing how special this particular delivery was, I had picked and arranged the flowers myself.

I found Wanda searching earnestly through the cards attached to each vase and present piled high on the table.

I laughed once and held out my treasure.  “It’s right here.  I wanted to bring it in myself.”  Wanda’s face lit up as she saw the vase of flowers in my hands.

“He remembered.  I can’t believe it.”  I tried to hide my own feelings of insecurity as Kath and I got back into the van.

Kath said, “Did you see her face?  I’ll bet she looked twenty years younger when you gave her that vase.”

By ten, we finished our first load and headed back to the shop.

As I opened the back door, no one was working at the station where we prepared our arrangements, something I found extremely odd given what day of the year it was.

Then I heard Paul’s voice and a schoolgirl giggle from the front of the store.

When I walked up front, I saw that my husband was leaning over a beautiful young woman’s shoulder, showing her how to tie a bow on a vase of roses.

Paul looked embarrassed as I coughed once to announce my presence.  He even blushed as he muttered, “I was just showing Tiffany how to…you know…tie the bow the way we like it.”

Kath had come in behind me, and I turned toward her as I heard her approach.  Her eyes grew large when she saw my husband’s helper.  I knew I’d hear about that later, but I had other things on my mind at the moment.

I kept my voice level as I said, “Paul, do you have the next delivery ready?  We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

My husband stumbled past me toward the back room, leaving Tiffany up front to mind the store in case we got any walk-ins.

“She seems nice,” I said to him, keeping my voice calmer than I really felt.

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t know much about the business, but she’s willing to learn.”

Kath said, “I’ll bet.”

Paul looked at her oddly for a moment before he turned back to me.  “I’ve got quite a bit for you this time, Helen.  I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to have lunch together like we’d planned.  Sorry.”

I know my face was burning as I loaded the last flowers into the back of the truck.  I couldn’t trust myself to look at him, so I kept my eyes buried in other people’s gifts and asked, “Are you sure you’re not forgetting anything?”

He said, “No, I don’t think so,” and headed back inside.

For a change, Kath was silent as we got back into the van.  She waited until after our fourth stop before bringing up the subject.  “You know, he’s probably so busy with the business that he didn’t have time to do anything special for you.”

Great.  Now my best friend was making excuses for my husband.  My favorite day of the year lost its appeal as I delivered special reminders of love to everyone but me.  Kath picked up my mood, and we worked side by side in mostly silence through the rest of the day.  Even the bright faces of the recipients were lost on me.

By six that evening, we were out of flowers and finished with our last load.

I stopped in Kath’s driveway and said, “Remember, pick your favorite restaurant for dinner next week.  It’ll be my treat.”  That was the only payment I’d been able to get my best friend to accept when she helped me on my deliveries.  After a hard day on my rounds, she’d earned it.

“I don’t even want to think about food.  Right now all I want is a long soak in the tub and then bed.”

After I dropped her off, I drove back to the shop.  Surprisingly, the doors were locked tight and the lights had all been turned off.  It was just seven minutes after six, our regular closing time.

I couldn’t believe Paul had left the shop without waiting for me.

Walking quietly through the store, I noticed that there was a note on my desk, along with a huge vase full of two dozen red roses.  He’d remembered after all!

Then I read the note.

It said, “Had to run a few errands.  Hope you don’t mind dropping these off at the Morressy Hotel.  They go to the Smiths in the honeymoon suite.  See you later.”

Glumly, I loaded the last arrangement into the van and drove to the nicest hotel in town.  Stopped at a traffic light, I glanced back in the rearview mirror and spotted the overflowing vase I was delivering.  Looking at the beautiful arrangement just made me sadder, reminding me of what I wasn’t getting.  Unbidden, the tears started to rush out of me, and I had to pull the van over into an empty parking space to catch my breath.

Drying my eyes, I did the best I could to repair my damaged makeup, then started driving again.

I knew I was just feeling sorry for myself, but knowing it didn’t help.

I entered the lobby and headed for the front desk of the ritzy hotel.  The clerk, a tall slim man with a slight mustache, looked up as I approached.

I said, “I’ve got a delivery for the Honeymoon suite.”

I started to leave the arrangement on the desk when the clerk stopped me.  “I’m sorry, Ma’am, but all of our bellboys are busy at the moment.  You’ll have to deliver this to the bridal suite yourself.”

I nodded and picked up the vase.  A few more minutes wouldn’t matter to me.  The bridal suite.  Great.  Riding up in the elevator, I buried my nose deep into the blossoms.  They smelled heavenly, and I almost got tipsy inhaling their aroma.

I knocked on the door of the room, holding the flowers in front of me to surprise the lucky couple receiving them.

I couldn’t see who opened the door, but the voice was unmistakable.

“Come on in, Helen.  I’ve been waiting for you.”

It was Paul!

As I walked into the room, my husband took the vase out of my hands and set the flower arrangement down on a nearby table.

I said, “What’s going on?”

He had a schoolboy’s grin as he explained.  “I’ve been planning this for six months.  This is my Valentine’s Day present to you.  A night in the bridal suite of the best hotel in town.  We can order room service, ignore the world, and just spend the time together.”

I stammered, “But the shop…”

“Don’t worry about it, we’re sold out of just about everything.  Now let’s enjoy Valentine’s Day.”

As my husband wrapped me in his arms, I knew that I still had his love, wrapped with care and sent to me, Special Delivery.

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2011 by Tim Myers.

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this story may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.