Mathilda had been sitting on the bridge for hours. No one had even glanced at her flowers. The late afternoon sun had grown long, and golden. The stool she sat on had begun to dig into legs. She shifted position again, and tilted the stool back balancing on two legs. She leaned her head back resting it on the cool metal. She could hear the river far below her pushing water through the roots of the trees clinging to the bank. Closing her eyes, she let the last of September afternoon warmth soak into her eyelids.
The buckets of flowers emitted a heady aroma. She could pick out lilies from the roses. If the breeze shifted, she could smell the chrysanthemums. She knew the names for each flower, and if you wanted a bouquet with a particular message, she could build it for you. She loved her job. The smell of life seemed to seep into her clothes. She always smelled like flowers. Too bad it didn’t always pay the bills. Her stomach grumbled and reminded her there was no food at home.
She let her stool fall with a clank and braced herself to end another day without a sale. She heard an odd dragging noise before she saw the woman. It sounded like a box sliding across the floor interrupted by a rhythmic thump. Turning towards the sound she saw a woman all in black dragging a red suitcase behind her. She was on the far side of the bridge approaching Mathilda. The closer she got the more it sounded like she was crying.
All Mathilda’s thoughts of closing and food had vanished. She tried to stare in the general direction of the lady without blatantly looking at her.
With each rhythmic thump the lady got closer to the flower stand. Her hair was dark, falling loosely past her shoulders. Her olive skin was clear, but her cheeks were streaked with black mascara. Her mouth was full from crying and her nose was red. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but Matilda decided she was striking. Matilda tried to look busy the closer she got. She was shuffling a bucket of Irises when she heard a thick feminine voice ask, “How much for all of your flowers?”
“Um, excuse me?”
“How much for all of the flowers?” the woman asked her again. Brushing a piece of hair from her face. Matilda could see that her eyelashes were still wet from crying. Her eyes were a golden brown like Mathilda’s grandmother’s Tiger’s eye brooch.
“Um, everything?”
“Yes.”
Matilda quickly calculated the cost of all her flowers. “That would come to 200.00, for everything.” She tried not to stare into the woman’s eyes. They were sad with a gravity of their own. She felt pulled toward this woman.
The woman with tigers’ eyes reached into the top pocket of her red bag and pulled out a wad of money. She peeled two hundred dollars from the roll. Then she peeled off one more hundred. She replaced the money in the pocket she pulled it from. With long delicate fingers she handed the money to Mathilda.
“Um, this is too much.” Mathilda tried to say.
Without saying anything the woman began tossing the bucket of flowers over the bridge. One after another there was a cascade of color and cool water rushing past Mathilda’s head. Mathilda clutched money in her hands as every bucket of flowers landed in the river below. Just as quickly as it had started the flurry of flying flowers stopped. Her table was clear. The woman with the tiger eyes was walking down the bridge again. Soft sobs filling-in where the dragging click of the bag left off.
The air had gotten cooler. The last bits of color were drifting down river. Roses, lilies, and irises were caught in tree roots.
Frustrated Hedonist 