I sit surrounded by wool, leather and polyester. The bus smells of people and it's making me sick. I wish the day was over but it only just begun. My voice is hoarse, I wish I didn't have my period on top of my bus-sickness. I think about Jean-Luc, his soft brown locks, his brown puppy eyes and the sound he made when he was about to come. He is gone now, not dead, but caressing another woman. I take out my iPod, looking for a song to fit my mood but finding none, big surprise. My stomach rumbles, great cramps. I feel like throwing up. I hate having my period and stupid tampons up my coochie. The bus slams to a stop and we all rock forward. I see the flower shop. I get off the bust and with my third key unlock the door. I go inside and lock it again. What? We're not open yet. It's cold and I'm the first one in like always, well the first one who doesn't live there. I go to the back to small garden and back cafe patio. We share gardens with a cafe. Gwen makes the coffee, it also sounds like a blender when she grinds the beans. The aroma of coffee overpowers the flowers. Just like Jean-Luc's sweat overpowers his cologne and it's always a mixture of smells.
She looks up and says, "hi" in sign language. Another thing to add to my bucket list, great. As if there's isn't enough things. 1 Have two kids who don't hate me. 2, have a husband who isn't gay. 3 Go to France. 4. Go see the Pyramids. 5. Learn Sign Language. 6, Have my own flowershop. I only know how to say two words/phrases in Sign, so far: hi and "Damn it." "Lexleigh cut the flowers, are ya?" she asked.
"Yes, I'm going to cut the flowers," I said, as an attempt to correct her grammar but it never works. She's just 22, a kid who barely learning about life as far as I'm concerned. She was married to a man so he could become a citisen and then stayed for twelve years until she discovered he was gay and then had her children hate her and call her a homophobe when she wasn't and lived in one of the most liberal cities for gays: Boston and couldn't get a divorce so had to wait another ten years. I am talking about Richard, of course. Jean-Luc was the only man who seemed like loved me, he's the one I fell in love with. I cut white forget-me-nots on the cutting table and then tied them.Jean-Luc said to me once after sex, "you have this mark on your breast, so lovely, it's like a white rose in spring and your face. Ah c'est majesté. Très belle. You are so full of life." But not full of wealth and apparently love can be bought if you're young and stupid. I wrapped the flowers and then open the shop. Our first customer (or so I thought) came in. It was Miranda, the woman Jean-Luc left me for. She's in her 50's but looks thirty, perhaps it's plastic surgery or maybe it's just genetics, who knows. She has an old fashion mink coat and silk slip on. Red lips and $5,000 blue Prada heels and a leopard (hopefully faux-fur) purse.
"Oh Lexleigh, dah-ling, I didn't know you owned a flower shop!" she said. "It's so quaint!" She put the purse on the counter and sniffs the air and then removes the purse. She hates flowers you see. Quaint is a word wealthy people use to describe ugly and small.
"I don't. I just work here," I said.
"Really?" she said, not interested. "You are right next to the diamond boutique. Well, so long dah-ling. She leaves. I go to the bathroom and throw up. The owner, Georgia, Gwen's mother, comes over to me.
"Are you sick, I don't want you to make my customers sick. Perhaps you should go home. I don't want people to think I run a dictatorship as a business. Unlike corporations, I can't stand them, I can't stand them!" she said. "Especially on Valentine's Day. If you are sick, just call me and I'll have someone else come in."
"I'm fine, I'm just having my period, I get nauseous," I said.
"Well okay, then. But you should go home...looking like that, you look ill, bad im-age, bad im-age!" she said. So she puts me back on the bus and I go home to my cat. I have 34 messages from unimportant know-it-alls. My cat doesn't care who feeds him or pets him, just as long as it's done. He misses Jean-Luc as I do but we can't turn back time. Never can we go backwards, we must move forward and move on to create our happiness, which is why I'm going to Egypt to see the pyramids. I booked a ticket and everything. I'm going to live my life without anyone who hates me. Georgia supports my going. She even said, "You have to fit your life to you, not fit yourself to other people's lives. Live on your own."
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