I look over her shoulder and raise an eyebrow. “There is?” I didn’t put up a help wanted sign.
She nods, and then shrugs. “It looks old, though,” she says. “It’s probably been there a while. I was just out for a walk and saw the sign. Was curious, is all.”
I like her almost immediately. Her voice is pleasant and her smile seems genuine.
My mother’s hand falls down on my shoulder and she leans in and kisses me on the cheek. “I have to go,” she says. “Open house tonight.” I tell her goodbye and watch her walk outside, then turn my attention back to Allysa.
“I’m not really hiring yet,” I say. I wave my hand around the room. “I’m opening up a floral shop, but it’ll be a couple of months, at least.” I should know better than to hold preconceived judgments, but she doesn’t look like she’d be satisfied with a minimum wage job. Her purse probably cost more than this building.
Her eyes light up. “Really? I love flowers!” She spins around in a circle and says, “This place has a ton of potential. What color are you painting it?”
I cross my arm over my chest and grab my elbow. Rocking back on my heels, I say, “I’m not sure. I just got the keys to the building an hour ago, so I haven’t really come up with a design plan yet.”
“Lily, right?”
I nod.
“I’m not going to pretend I have a degree in design, but it’s my absolute favorite thing. If you need any help, I’d do it for free.”
I tilt my head. “You’d work for free?”
She nods. “I don’t really need a job, I just saw the sign and thought, ‘What the heck?’ But I do get bored sometimes. I’d be happy to help you with whatever you need. Cleaning, decorating, picking out paint colors. I’m a Pinterest whore.” Something behind me catches her eye and she points. “I could take that broken door and make it magnificent. All this stuff, really. There’s a use for almost everything, you know.”
I look around at the room, knowing full well I’m not going to be able to tackle this by myself. I probably can’t even lift half this stuff alone. I’ll eventually have to hire someone anyway. “I’m not going to let you work for free. But I could do $10 an hour if you’re really serious.”
She starts clapping, and if she weren’t in heels, she might have jumped up and down. “When can I start?”
I glance down at her white capris. “Will tomorrow work? You’ll probably want to show up in disposable clothes.”
She waves me off and drops her Hermès bag on a dusty table next to her. “Nonsense,” she says. “My husband is watching the Bruins play at a bar down the street. If it’s okay, I’ll just hang with you and get started right now.”
• • •
Two hours later, I’m convinced I’ve met my new best friend. And she really is a Pinterest whore.
We write “Keep” and “Toss” on sticky notes, and slap them on everything in the room. She’s a fellow believer in upcycling, so we come up with ideas for at least 75 percent of the stuff left in the building. The rest she says her husband can throw out when he has free time. Once we know what we’re going to do with all the stuff, I grab a notebook and a pen and we sit at one of the tables to write down design ideas.
“Okay,” she says, leaning back in her chair. I want to laugh, because her white capris are covered in dirt now, but she doesn’t seem to care. “Do you have a goal for this place?” she asks, glancing around.
“I have one,” I say. “Succeed.”
She laughs. “I have no doubt you’ll succeed. But you do need a vision.”
I think about what my mother said. “Just make sure it’s brave and bold, Lily.” I smile and sit up straighter in my chair. “Brave and bold,” I say. “I want this place to be different. I want to take risks.”
She narrows her eyes as she chews on the tip of the pen. “But you’re just selling flowers,” she says. “How can you be brave and bold with flowers?”
I look around the room and try to envision what I’m thinking. I’m not even sure what I’m thinking. I’m just getting itchy and restless, like I’m on the verge of a brilliant idea. “What are some words that come to mind when you think of flowers?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. They’re sweet, I guess? They’re alive, so they make me think of life. And maybe the color pink. And spring.”
“Sweet, life, pink, spring,” I repeat. And then, “Allysa, you’re brilliant!” I stand up and begin pacing the floor. “We’ll take everything everyone loves about flowers, and we’ll do the complete opposite!”
She makes a face to let me know she isn’t following.
“Okay,” I say. “What if, instead of showcasing the sweet side of flowers, we showcased the villainous side? Instead of pink accents, we use darker colors, like a deep purple or even black. And instead of just spring and life, we also celebrate winter and death.”
Allysa’s eyes are wide. “But . . . what if someone wants pink flowers, though?”
“Well, we’ll still give them what they want, of course. But we’ll also give them what they don’t know they want.”
She scratches her cheek. “So you’re thinking black flowers?” She looks concerned, and I don’t blame her. She’s only seeing the darkest side of my vision. I take a seat at the table again and try to get her on board.
“Someone once told me that there is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things. That stuck with me, because it’s so true. We’ve all got a little bit of good and evil in us. I want to make that our theme. Instead of painting the walls a putrid sweet color, we paint them dark purple with black accents. And instead of only putting out the usual pastel displays of flowers in boring crystal vases that make people think of life, we go edgy. Brave and bold. We put out displays of darker flowers wrapped in things like leather or silver chains. And rather than put them in crystal vases, we’ll stick them in black onyx or . . . I don’t know . . . purple velvet vases lined with silver studs. The ideas are endless.” I stand up again. “There are floral shops on every corner for people who love flowers. But what floral shop caters to all the people who hate flowers?”
Allysa shakes her head. “None of them,” she whispers.
“Exactly. None of them.”
We stare at each other for a moment, and then I can’t take it another second. I’m bursting with excitement and I just start laughing like a giddy child. Allysa starts laughing, too, and she jumps up and hugs me. “Lily, it’s so twisted, it’s brilliant!”
“I know!” I’m full of renewed energy. “I need a desk so I can sit down and make a business plan! But my future office is full of old vegetable crates!”
She walks toward the back of the store. “Well, let’s get them out of there and go buy you a desk!”
We squeeze into the office and begin moving crates out one by one and into a back room. I stand on the chair to make the piles taller so we’ll have more room to move around.
“These are perfect for the window displays I have in mind.” She hands me two more crates and walks away, and as I’m reaching on my tiptoes to stack them at the very top, the pile begins to tumble. I try to find something to grab hold of for balance, but the crates knock me off the chair. When I land on the floor, I can feel my foot bend in the wrong direction. It’s followed by a rush of pain straight up my leg and down to my toes.
Allysa comes rushing back into the room and has to move two of the crates from on top of me. “Lily!” she says. “Oh my God, are you okay?”
I pull myself up to a sitting position, but don’t even try to put weight on my ankle. I shake my head. “My ankle.”
She immediately removes my shoe and then pulls her phone out of her pocket. She begins dialing a number and then looks up at me. “I know this is a stupid question, but do you happen to have a refrigerator here with ice in it?”
I shake my head.
“I figured,” she says. She puts the phone on speaker and sets it on the floor as she begins to roll up my pant leg. I wince, but not so much from the pain. I just can’t believe I did something so stupid. If I broke it, I’m screwed. I just spent my entire inheritance on a building that I won’t even be able to renovate for months.