anne marie

The flowers died on a Monday.

He gave them to her Thursday, on the second day they met. Fresh flowers, neatly cut and neatly placed into a fresh vase. Daisies and sunflowers and some Queen Anne's lace, bought that morning at the farmers market, young and ready, only lightly fragrant. He commented on her drapes, as he offered his gift, on how they rippled beautifully in the kind wind of the summer day. He said the flowers had called out to him as he passed by the stalls and he just had to get them for her, as she sniped the ends and filled the tall glass with cool water, and weren’t they beautiful? Yes, they were very beautiful. He remarked to her how perfect her dress was, and the white matched so perfectly with the daisies, and how perfect she looked in it, with the yellow in her hair. She placed the flowers in the vase and left them there to be looked at. She gathered her pocketbook, a careful picture with pearls and few frills, and he gathered her arm in his and together they walked out the door with pride for what each had. 

The flowers sat prettily still on the parlor table when they returned from their outing— He knew a sandy spot down by the waterfall, and the tomorrow’s car show left the world around them to prepare parking places for the streets and early opening times for the cafes and slightly higher prices from the inns and tag sales at the vintage markets, and people to drop banners on it all. The rushing of the waterfall was a curtain of noise that blocked the sound of cars filing into town: all your classics, he told her, old 55 series Landcruiser, 1952 Deluxe Coupe, the 1960s Toronado, and all your other classics, of course. The beach was waiting for them, the birds were singing, the water was cool and the day lovely, but the sand was still bare. He laid out the checkered blanket, the cheese and jam, the farmer’s market’s fresh pears, and she laid out her legs on the blanket— smooth, thin, cream-colored. Isn’t this lovely, he asked her, and yes, it is very lovely. This cheese and jam is a delightful combination, and oh the pears as well. 

Next to the flowers, she laid her pocketbook as he closed the door behind him. The sun came through the window and lay golden on the sill and stretched like a cat far along the hardwood floors as it dipped into the late afternoon. Anne Marie, Anne Marie, today was just lovely, he said, and would she like to go to the car show with him tomorrow? 

“Oh, tomorrow is difficult, Ed. I'd love to, honestly, but I must visit my father on Fridays in the hospital where he's ailing.” He smiled at this in a knowing way and shook his head in sympathy. These flowers are so beautiful, and not a petal wilted. 

On Friday, the flowers flourished in the clear water and the vase, the car show rumbled through the town and men watched with their women on their arms and women watched with purses on theirs. Men nodded knowingly for the benefit of their women and women listened as the men pontificated upon the history of each model for the benefit of their men. Anne Marie was at the hospital, with her ailing father, of course, as Ed told all his friends. He was sad to miss her and slightly sheepish to be without a girl, but he felt vaguely satisfied and proper, he stood a little straighter. To visit her ailing father, to visit her ailing father of course! Fathers and daughters have such special relationships. On the parlor table, the fresh flowers opened larger and their colors grew ever more vibrant; the pure whites, the delightful yellows, and the lush greens glowed.  

In the hospital, Anne Marie’s father waited in silence, staring at the ceiling. His small room had blanched-green curtains and mustard shades to block out the sun, and a window that would not open. The room had a cloud of stench that wafted from his bed, of must and sprouted beans in a moldy drawer. Her father had grown fat and sallow in his old age, and his jaundice-tinted skin melted off of him, piling on the hospital cot in heaps. When he sat up, which was not often, he first took time to gather up the wrinkles and folds of his scabbing paper and fat to haul them up with him. Anne Marie’s father was waiting in silence, staring at the ceiling for the attendant to arrive and give him his mash and change his catheter. Anne Marie would not come, and she had not come for a long time. 

On Saturday, they went out again, this time Ed had offered bowling and Anne Marie gracefully accepted. They arrived at the alley and entered in their slacks, aviators, polos, and linens, respectable skirts, and freshly curled hair. There were some other people there too, vaping, making out, and eating the onion rings. Ed purchased the bowling shoes and the onion rings and they found a table. 

“Well Annie— if I can call you Annie, he said, Annie, you just let me know when you want to bowl and we’ll get right to it.” She did not touch the onion rings, Ed did not notice. 

Anne Marie’s nose had put on small delicate crinkles as she glanced around the room, and her petite lips turned down in a small delicate frown. 

“Ed, are we sure this is the best place around? Isn’t there perhaps another alley with less…” Anne Marie didn’t say the word ‘poors’ at all.  Anne Marie was a lovely lovely girl with delicate senses. 

“I’m afraid this is the best place in Connecticut,” he said, “it's not like the city at all.” She simply sighed and said nothing. Ed was nervous. 

Anne Marie was not laughing along with him. Anne Marie was not asking him to teach her how to bowl, Anne Marie was not. She waited patiently. He finally said— “What do you say about this, Annie, why don’t we just go for a drive, just like they used to in the old days?” She smiled at him, gathered her pocketbook, and they left the onion rings and bowling shoes in their stall. As they got into his car Ed felt only slightly ill. Must’ve been from the onion rings. She said, Gosh, I just can’t stand to hang around that sort of crowd.

When they got back in the evening, the flowers were beginning to wilt slightly.

On Sunday, she and Ed stayed home, and cooked together. Anne Marie was the perfect cook, and she taught him how to make her late mother’s recipe for oven baked chicken. He brought a red bottle from his father’s cellar and poured it into her crystal glasses and they danced together and laughed in the kitchen. Yesterday was all forgotten, as the record spun in the player and she twirled in her cute white dress. Ed was a poor cook, he told her, but she assured him it would be alright, she could cook well enough for the both of them, and so she did, requesting his help only for those tasks she would be helpless for without him, carving the chicken and opening the pickle jar.

She played classical music on her father’s record player and started to drink her second glass. They set the table and the centerpiece of flowers looked even more perfect than they ever had before, and as Ed fetched the cutlery and lit two candles in silver holders, Anne Marie carefully plucked off the wilting flowers and dead leaves, refreshed the water, and applied a layer of lipgloss. The pretty flowers knew their place perfectly at the table. 

“This music,” Ed began as they seated themselves before the ready meal, “is delightful! Where is it from?” 

“Oh, Sergei Rachmaninoff, isn't it wonderful?”

“Yes, quiet! I particularly appreciate the woodwinds, which often go unnoticed in pieces like these, so heavy on strings, but that flute is just faultless.” 

“Certainly. Goodness, this wine is delicious, isn’t it? Could you please pour me some more?”

“Of course, of course darling. It's amazing the record has lasted so long unscratched.”

“Yes, it's my father’s. He takes very good care of them. I am in love with this wine!”

“My father’s too, actually, ages for decades in our personal cellar. Your father— you saw him Friday, didn’t you?”

“Goodness, this wine is wonderful, isn’t it?” Ed’s brow furrowed as he poured her some more, and then excused himself quickly to go to the bathroom. Pausing in the hallway as he returned, he saw Anne Marie also up, glass empty once again, opening the fridge and the pickle jar and helping herself to another pickle, her dainty fingers as ill-mannered chopsticks. She resealed the jar, returned it to the fridge, filled her glass again and sat prettily back down. His brow furrowed further as he returned to the set table and stared at the wilted flower Anne Marie’s careful pruning had missed. 

“Ed, Ed! How are you liking the chicken?” 

“It's good, good, of course.”

“My mother spent so much time perfecting the recipe, gosh how I miss her.” Anne Marie glanced at Ed.  

“Yes, yes, I’m sure.” He glanced back down at his meal, eyes torn away from his intent stare at the bouquet, then shook his head. Oh how the poor young lady must feel, cooking her mother’s recipe! What a lot of life she has had, yet she comes out of it so beautiful, so unblemished and unscathed. How I wish I could protect her forever. He shook his head again, then looked at her and started, 

“You know Annie, I’ve been telling my family about you, and they are so excited to meet you. My parents would welcome such a sweet young lady like yourself as if you were their own, truly. Your father— how is he doing?”

Anne Marie let out a sudden laugh. “Oh god, my father. I know I told you I visited him, but please, I must confess.” She laughed again. It was displeasing. “I would have no idea. To be honest, I don’t know the last time I actually visited him.” 

Ed first felt surprised— a girl like her, so swell, so beautiful with the white in her dress and the yellow in her hair, shouldn’t be speaking like this. How much wine had she had?

“It smelled so disgusting in there I could hardly stand it. You have no idea how the room smelled, truly it was shocking. Like sprouted beans in a mouldy drawer.” 

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right. He wanted her to stop. He wanted her to just shut up. 

“Really, I mean it. I certainly intended to, but yester— oh gosh Ed! Hah! Yesterday the racetrack was unmuffled so one of my girlfriends’ fiances has a straight piped Corvette and—”

The anger came out of nowhere, and was violent, like the microbursts that hit Connecticut. There at once brilliantly, fierce and confusing. They take hold of the air and drive it cruelly at whatever stands in their path. He wanted to clasp his hand around her mouth and make her take it back. 

“So naturally I went with her to the track and my father—”

Ed was a good one, well-bred, a gentleman. Ed took his fine, lightly tanned hand and brought it swooping down to the tall glass that held the flowers, the whites and yellows sitting prettily and young, and smashed it into the far wall, where it shattered into pieces. The flowers scattered on the hardwood floor, the glass still in the pool of clear water reflected the parlour’s light in small shining fragments, and Anne Marie was silent, eyes cast to the table. She was ugly and repulsive in the low light, the flickering shadows on her face highlighting every unsightly crease she laboured to erase. 

Ed moved for more, but he did not know what he wanted more of. It was all destroyed. His hand was before him, slightly bruised. His blood rushed in his ears, his heart beat quickly. Stood still in the parlor, his breathing that had grown heavy and forceful began to slow. He gathered his coat and things, and left the room wordless, hotly ashamed. How had he gotten so angry? He could hardly believe she had made him do that. A man like him would have never done something like that. He got into his car silently, started the engine, and drove home. It's a shame, it's a real shame, he shook his head. I guess she's not the one. 

On Monday, the flowers died.