You Deserve Each Other(25)

“These are for you.”

When I don’t move, he hesitates fractionally and then starts depositing bouquets on the counter. Melissa’s face disappears behind a forest of green plumage and white petals.

The deliveryman leaves and still none of us have moved. I spot a white card sticking out and examine it. It’s supposed to contain a message like I LOVE YOU or SORRY I’M SO AWFUL AND WRONG.

It’s blank. But I know who these are from, and I’ve gotten his message, all right. He might as well have put it on a neon sign. HERE ARE THE FUCKING FLOWERS YOU NEEDED SO MUCH. ENJOY.

“What’s the occasion?” Zach asks.

My mouth is dry. “Just because.”

“This is … ah.” Melissa grasps for words.

“Excessive,” finishes Zach. “For a ‘just because.’”

“How lovely! What kind are they?” Brandy asks me this like they must be my favorite. I don’t have a favorite type of flower. I definitely have a least favorite, though.

“No idea.”

We safari through our new botanical garden, but there isn’t any information attached. Not even one of those little tabs they stick into the potting soil that tells you how frequently you’re supposed to water it.

“Looks kind of like oleander,” says Melissa warily.

Zach cocks his head. “Isn’t oleander poisonous?”

Suddenly the flowers make sense. It’s an assassination attempt. We all whip out our phones and start looking up pictures of oleander, and it’s true, I can see a resemblance. Five white petals, slightly pinwheeled, in clusters of greenery.

“Why would a flower shop sell poisonous plants?” I ask. “Is that legal?”

Melissa points out that we don’t know for sure these even came from a regulated flower shop. None of us can remember if the delivery boy was wearing a particular kind of uniform. He could’ve been anyone. Maybe Nicholas hired him off Craigslist. WANTED: MURDER ACCOMPLICE.

We give our fingers a workout with frantic Googling. My ominous delivery sure does look like oleander to me, but it also looks like a million other types of flowers. They all look the same. We discover it would be really easy to kill someone with this kind of plant, and according to IMDb that very plot happened in a movie with Michelle Pfeiffer. Michelle’s character used them to kill her lover, a man named Barry. I’m being Barry’d.

Oh god. I hear the pun and nearly faint.

“According to the language of flowers,” Melissa says, “presenting someone with oleander is a way of telling them to watch out. Like, in a threatening way.”

“‘Watch out’ like we’re gonna die, watch out?” My voice is exceptionally high.

“I’m freaking out,” Brandy cries, wringing her hands. “I’m freaking OUT, you guys. Are we sure it’s from Nicholas? I mean, he seems …” She cuts me a sheepish look. “I’m sure he’s nice.”

“Of course it’s from Nicholas,” Zach bites, “and no, he’s not nice. Dentists are monsters. He’s probably still pissed that I won every round of Clue. When you’re a monster, it takes nothing at all to trigger your dark side.”

“You yelling at him in the dentist’s office that one time could’ve been a trigger,” says Melissa, who needs no convincing. “That’s why you’re on his list.”

“And you’re his friend’s ex. You know how people are about their friends’ exes.” He points at me. “You’re a loose end. Maybe he’s cheating.”

“What about me?” Brandy asks.

“He’s got an insatiable taste for murder by now. You’re collateral damage.”

Brandy looks a bit disappointed that her demise isn’t more personal.

I should be alarmed that we’ve devolved into Nicholas is a cold-blooded killer this rapidly, but weird, melodramatic afternoons are our normal. When you never get any customers, boredom creeps in and conspiracy theories sprout out of any tiny event, which we pass around until mass hysteria takes over. Zach is always the instigator, and he always turns out to be wrong, but the hysteria still catches on every time. When he waves his hands to gesticulate, all wide-eyed and passionate, he can make any bonkers theory sound plausible.

“The oleander,” I whisper. “In the Junk Yard. By Dr. Rose. That’s what this is! It’s some kind of calling card, like all the big-league serial killers use. He’s the Clue Killer.” I inspect the blank message card again. No florist logo. It might as well bear Professor Plum’s demented smile.

“He wants to kill us all because he lost Clue?” Brandy says doubtfully. “This can’t be right.”

We dive back into our research.

A different website proclaims that oleander means enjoy what’s in front of you and leave the past in the past, which is a nicer alternative to watch out, but then Zach finds a site that looks pretty legit. It informs us that oleander is universally interpreted as caution in the flower language world. I hear the slow, somber bells of my funeral toll and hope someone competent does my makeup if it’s going to be open casket. It occurs to me that I’m a little bit morbid.

“Can you die just from being exposed to it through the air?” I ask. “Do you have to touch it or is standing too close enough?”