La Petite Fleur

“What is your desire?” I asked the gentleman and lady who’d just entered my small flower shop. My business may not have been masculine or proper, but it was certainly more profitable than anything the rest of my family was doing.

The woman smiled, still clinging to her new boyfriend’s arm. She was a regular customer, but I didn’t recognize him. “I was hoping to show my friend your specialty flowers.”

I figured that was why she was here. It was a bit early for her, or anyone for that matter, but I suspected she just wanted to get her date over with before the crowds began flocking in tonight. Smiling and raising my eyebrows, I asked, “You know those are out of season right now?”

The gentleman turned to his lady-friend. “You said,” he began.

Simultaneously, we each cut him off with our own quick, “Shush.” Then, the lady continued, “I know, but I was hoping you had a couple in the back anyways.”

I smiled to her. “We just might,” I said, “Come.” Leading the couple through the large steel double doors and across the makeshift greenhouse, I opened the backroom door. It was cold and black, a small label on it that read, employees only. “Don’t go messing anything up, alright?” I told the pair as they entered the back room. Then, smile still on my face, I returned to the front desk. After all, I still had a shop to run. My friends in the back could take care of themselves. That’s why I’d hired them, after all.

A few hours and a single legitimate customer later, I saw the telltale sign of a problem walk in through the glass door to my flower shop. Three gentlemen, dressed to the nines walked in, and they were most certainly packing heat. Keeping one hand below the front desk, I smiled and asked the gentlemen, “What’s your desire?”

The two flanking individuals didn’t even look at me, instead pretending to be looking through my flowers. The one in the front, clearly in charge of the band, said, “We’re just here to collect, yeah? Taxes.”

“I pay my taxes,” I retorted.

The gentleman cocked his head at me. “See, a little bird told me you make lots of money. Too much for a flower shop, for certain. Made my boss wonder, what might you be doing on the side?”

I shrugged at him. “I’m afraid your bird is singing out of tune. La Petite Fleur ain’t nothing but a humble flower shop. We just happen to be the only one in the area not owned by one of you completely reputable businessmen types, so people like coming here. The French name doesn’t hurt, either.” A half-truth, to be sure, but God wouldn’t look askance at that one. After all, I couldn’t believe that God would want me to die, especially not at the hands of these cretins.

“Sure you are,” he said, “Then I’m sure you wouldn’t mind us looking around none?”

“Be my guest,” I answered, and on the rotary phone below my desk, dialed up our other landline, manned by Franklin the basement doorman. He always picked up immediately. So, after I finished dialing, I added, “Feel free to look around wherever you want. And if you break anything, I’m sure your boss can help me pay for it.” I smiled pleasantly as I hung up the phone. The call would tell Franklin that someone was looking for something, they weren’t being delicate, and so the basement should go into lockdown. Fortunately, finding the entrance to the basement without knowing where to look was near impossible.

While one of the gentlemen kept an eye on me, the other two walked into the small greenhouse behind the shop. The person who waited with me asked, “So, what is with your greenhouse?”

I smiled. “The customers like their flowers fresh, so I grow them on the premises.” With a chuckle, I added, “It makes the customers happy, which makes my wallet happy, which helps to make me happy.”

The man nodded. “I like the way you think.” His eyes wandered around the room again. His mind was clearly in another world entirely at the moment.

Seizing the opportunity for a new legitimate customer, even one with mob ties, I asked, “What’s wrong? You seem, well, distant.”

“It’s nothing,” he muttered, brushing me off. Clearly it was something.

I nodded. “I understand completely,” I replied.

He furrowed his brow at me. “What do you mean?”

I leaned forward, across the desk towards him, and whispered loudly, “You have lady troubles. I can see it, friend.” Then, standing back up straight, I added, “Don’t worry, I can tell because I’ve seen gentlemen with that very look and attitude before.”

It was his turn to lean. Elbows on my desk, he leaned across it himself. “Really? How often?”

I nodded along as he spoke. “Quite often I’m afraid. Lots of gentleman come in here, assuming a bouquet alone is enough to win a lady over.” I was taking a gamble on that one. It was one of two things, either his lady-friend was upset with him, or he had a crush on a woman who didn’t feel the same about him. I decided to put my money on the latter, because his socks didn’t match. That meant either he was out of clean socks, or he hadn’t been gifted a pair of socks in ages. Both of those options were indications of the bachelor lifestyle.

His eyes widened and he smiled. “Exactly. Wow, you’ve really got me pegged, friend.” With a sigh, he absentmindedly added, “I almost hope we don’t find anything here.”

I nodded. “You won’t. Listen, a bouquet goes a long way, don’t get me wrong, but you need to work your way up to one.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

I smiled. He was on the hook. “Well, see, if you walk up to a woman and out of the blue give them a full bouquet of flowers, what do you think they’ll see?”

“I don’t know, a romantic gentleman with flowers?”

I shook my head at him. “No, friend. They’ll see the strange man holding a bunch of flowers. First thing you want to do is you want to talk with them, right?”

“Alright, and?”

I smiled. “Then, you ask her out for a dinner. Someplace upscale and romantic. Preferably, without mobsters around, though as long as they aren’t obvious about the weapons, it should be fine either way.”

“Okay, talk to her, tell her how I feel, ask her to dinner.”

“No,” I said, “Just talk to her and ask her to dinner. She should get some idea of how you feel from the place you choose, but you want to save that for dinner itself.”

“So, talk to her and ask her to dinner, then what?”

My smile was wide enough to bridge the Mississippi. “Then, have a single rose ready during dinner. You get there before her, and you lay it across her plate.”

“I like it. Subtle, but romantic.”

I nodded. “Exactly the point. At dinner, you talk to her about your feelings for her. You take her home, you kiss her, then you leave.”

“What if she asks me to stay?” he asked.

I shook my head. “You say you’ve got an early morning and walk away. If she asks you to stay, you kiss her again before you leave, but either way, you have to leave her wanting.”

He looked confused by that but nodded. “Then what?”

“Then, the next time you see her, you bring the bouquet, and you tell her how much you’ve been thinking about her, and how you cannot wait for your next dinner together.” I nodded and added, “Trust me, it works every time.”

He raised his eyebrows towards me. “Truly? It sounds beautiful, but forced. Fictitious.”

I nodded along. “That’s the point, don’t you see? Everyone loves it when their lives play out like a storybook. You just have to make your lady feel like the only person in your life and the princess she’s always wanted to be.”

He sighed. “Alright. I’ll try it. If it doesn’t work though,” he began.

I shushed him with a finger. “Don’t talk like that. Don’t even think like that. It is going to work. Say it with me, it is going to work.”

“It is going to work,” he muttered.

I nodded. “Confidence is everything, friend. Be sure of yourself, and everyone else will be too.”

He smiled and nodded. “Yeah. Alright. It is going to work.”

I smiled and nodded to him as the other two returned. “There’s nothing back there besides plants and a lavatory.”

The man at the desk nodded. “I think I’ve found out why he’s making so much money. The man’s a genius.”

“No, friend,” I said, “I just help people find their inner romantic, give their hearts the voice they desire.” I patted him on his chest. Then, turning to the leader of the trio, I asked, “I do hope you didn’t break anything.”

He shook his head, grumpily. “No, I didn’t. Listen, you’re still going to need to kick us up something in taxes.”

I shook my head. “Part of my brand is my independence,” I stated, “If it came out that I was paying Tone protection, then Ronny would come at me for something too. I don’t want to start a territory war here.” I smiled on the inside. The whole reason I’d set up the shop here was that we were exactly on the border between Tone’s territory and Ronny’s territories. That meant that I got twice as many of these spot checks for illegal dealings, sure, but it also meant they stayed away from trying to ‘tax’ my store when they didn’t find anything illegal going on. However, despite my pleasure at my own cleverness, my face remained sad, and reluctant. “If you insist, of course I will pay.”

The man I’d been talking to turned to his boss, the fear of a war evident on his face to even the casual observer. The man in charge of this group nodded. “Well, I don’t think I’ll charge anything today. But I may talk to Tone, and if he insists, we may be back.”

I nodded. “And remember, you can come back anytime if you want to buy fresh flowers,” I said with a smile as they walked out the front door. Once they’d moved away, I dialed the basement once more. “All clear, Franklin,” I said.

“Alright boss,” he replied, “Thanks for the warning, though. Isaac’s been itching to leave.”

I laughed. “Of course, he has,” I said, “He’s tired after last night. Have him go out the back, just in case.”

“Got it. Will do.” And with that, Franklin hung up the phone. Franklin was a good man, a hard worker. He basically ran everything downstairs, even if I checked over the numbers occasionally. He could have been a bigtime accountant, if the idiot accounting firms here in Mississippi could get past the little issue of his heritage. But, unfortunately, that sort of thinking is baked into most people’s minds around here. Cracking my neck, I settled into the garden for the afternoon ahead. It was a Thursday, and that was one of the favored nights for the basement’s business. They had a live band on Thursdays. That meant I had a lot of flowers to cut in preparation. The people who came in always left with one or two flowers, a gift for their generous patronage of the basement, and a method of making them seem to be customers of expensive flowers. Receipts to be used so that the business couldn’t be stopped by tax fraud. All of our income was accounted for, after all. I just inflated the prices of the flowers for some customers. I got to work cutting the cheapest flowers in the back, for my evening guests. From the back, I could hear the small bells if any customer might wander in, but I suspected none would. Not for a few hours, at the earliest. People rarely frequent flower shops during the week unless they have done something wrong, and if that is the case, they generally come after work.

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