A Good Marriage(94)
A small bell jingled when I opened the door. Blooms on the Slope was a narrow but chic shop, with an attractive older woman behind the counter, hair piled high and tied with a scarf. Her mouth was slightly upturned as she concentrated on an arrangement of all-yellow flowers. She was even humming contentedly. Watching her, I was overwhelmed by regret.
I’d imagined myself happy like her by now, with my dream job and Sam at my side, my past neatly wiped clean. And yet here I was, drafting email after email to my best friend from law school about what a disaster my life had become. Emails I was too ashamed to even send. Deep down I did know that these things—the secrets I’d kept, my marriage to Sam despite his problems, maybe even my getting sucked in by Zach—were not unrelated. Once this mess with Zach was over, I needed to reach out of my own darkness and at least tell Victoria about Sam’s drinking. It was reckless to live with secrets. After all, if I hadn’t kept so many, Zach wouldn’t be able to use them against me now.
“Well, hello there!” the woman behind the counter called brightly when she finally noticed me, then appraised me with an air of concern. “You certainly look like someone who could use a little floral harmonizing.”
I swallowed over the lump in my throat. “I’m trying to figure out who sent some flowers?” I began as I approached the counter. Though the shop did sell flowers, not guns. What type of records was I expecting them to keep? “I have a card, but it’s unsigned. I know it’s a long shot.”
She stepped to the counter, looking concerned.
“Unsigned?” she asked, reaching out for the card. “I’ve got a policy against anonymous flowers. A sister of mine was stalked mercilessly in high school. Bastard left roses for her everywhere. Last thing I want is my flowers making somebody upset.” She looked down at the card. “But it is one of ours, and this looks like Matthew’s handwriting. Hold on a second. Hey, Matthew!” she called toward the back of the shop. “Can you come out here for a second?”
A moment later a gangly teenage boy with considerable acne, all black clothing, and a disaffected air emerged.
“Did you deliver flowers with this card?” she asked, holding it out to him. “This looks like your handwriting.”
He hesitated for a long moment before finally reaching out and snatching the card. He looked down, shrugged. “Whatever. His wife was really mad at him. He came in and asked me to make out the card like it was from a secret admirer. He thought she would recognize his handwriting.”
“Thank you, honey,” the woman said, notably unfazed by his surly attitude. She turned back to me. “Sometimes we all have a hard time saying no to the people in this neighborhood. They can be, well, insistent would be a nice way of putting it. I hope the flowers didn’t cause a problem.”
“Could I show you a picture?” I asked Matthew. “To see if you recognize the person who bought them?”
“I guess,” he offered, in that brooding yet curious teenaged way.
I pulled up a screenshot of the rummage-sale photo on my phone and handed it over to Matthew. “Do you see him in this picture?”
Matthew immediately shook his head. “Nope. Not him.”
“Are you sure?” He’d answered so quickly it was like he hadn’t even looked. “This picture was taken a couple years ago. He could look different now.”
“That dude in the picture is a diamond,” Matthew said with absolute surety. “The guy who came in here was a circle.”
“Um …”
“He means the shape of the face,” the woman said. “Officially there are seven. But Matthew—”
“Mom, twelve,” he corrected sharply. When she raised an eyebrow at him, he shrugged again. “Whatever. But there are twelve.”
“Mathew has identified some new subclasses, too,” his mother said, smiling. “We had him tested when he was little—long story how we got there, which has everything to do with my opportunistic ex-husband—but he is officially gifted at facial recognition. If Matthew says it wasn’t that man in here, it wasn’t him.”
Mathew finally looked directly at me. “If you have other pictures, I could definitely pick the guy out. No doubt.”
I tried not to feel dejected as I approached Sarah’s house. Even if they had recognized Xavier Lynch at Blooms on the Slope, that wouldn’t be the same as having his fingerprint to compare. I’d probably be headed to St. Colomb Falls regardless.
Sarah’s brownstone had seen better days. As I made my way up the steps, I noticed the signs of wear and tear—the cracked facade, a slope to the stairs, peeling paint on the shutters. Nonetheless it was a Park Slope brownstone, a four-million-dollar home I could never afford, but I did wonder if its relatively ailing condition was a sign of Sarah’s need for money.
“Can I help you?” a man’s voice called up to me as I was about to knock on the door. I turned, feeling like a trespasser.
At the bottom of the steps, in a Brooklyn Nets T-shirt and dark athletic shorts, was a burly guy with saggy eyes and a warm smile, presumably Sarah’s husband. He had a pizza box in one hand and a six-pack in the other—at three in the afternoon on a weekday. Not a lawyer at a big firm, that was for sure—then again, successful people everywhere did play hooky occasionally. People other than me.