sonic_siren (sonic_siren) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-05-03 17:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | black canary, lady |
Who: Laura and Valerie
What: A meeting in a flower shop
Where: Petal to the Nettle
When: Now-ish
Warnings: None
Petal to the Nettle was a smallish florist's shop, nestled between two larger stores in a nicer part of the city. A striped, forest green and cream fabric awning covered the area in front of the shop where a sturdy wooden table had begun to hold an assortment of potted plants on the nicer days. The awning also helped to shade the front window, where the shop's name had been professionally painted directly on the glass. The front door had recently been painted a dark turquoise, the full-length window with a card bearing the shop's hours tucked in the bottom corner. A sign was currently flipped to show "OPEN", and a small bell rang every time the door was opened.
The inside of the shop was mildly humid and held the scent of green things and flowers. There were dark buckets on many surfaces, filled with water and pre-cut flowers, ready to be placed in arrangements. Other surfaces held more potted plants, ranging from tiny African violets to a massive ficus tree in the corner. Color was everywhere, the most prominent being every shade of green. While the shop was filled to the point of almost seeming cluttered, there was obviously some sort of method to the madness, or else the owner would never be able to find a thing.
A counter at the back of the shop held an old-fashioned register, its display electronic, but a simple green-on-black light display. It looked like it had gone out of date over a decade ago, maybe more. Next to it on the counter were two books, one holding carbon-copy invoices for special orders, and the other open to a ledger listing of numbers. Each appeared to be well-kept with a neat hand. Behind the counter was an open doorway to another room, covered by a curtain that was half pulled to the side to keep it mostly open to the shop itself. Through the opening was just visible an old sink, several large wooden tables that nearly match the one in front of the shop, a battered old couch, and a desk with an ancient-looking computer.
Laura was in the back room, humming to herself in contrast to the soft murmur of the talkshow on the radio. She wasn't visible from the front of the shop, working with a finicky pot of ivy at one of the tables and trying to lose her thoughts in the greenery.
Valerie reflected on the last few months with a kind of wonder at her own daring--or maybe just at how desperate she was, if the lengths she was willing to go to stay with Orin Monarch were any indication. She wasn’t sure if she could resolve the masked man with her husband-to-be, wasn’t sure if she wanted to, because she’d revealed too much of herself there, and she knew it. If it was indeed the same man, she was considering killing him.
Not really.
But almost.
She was far overdue for a distraction, and she had the money for it thanks to Orin’s spending budget. Valerie knew that it wasn’t just Orin’s money she needed, but a dependable income, and so she couldn’t cut and run like he seemed to expect her to. She wasn’t going to pass this chance at stability up, and she knew she would outlive Orin--if she wasn’t killed first.
Operation Distraction ended up with Valerie, trailing two bodyguards, one of which was burdened down with several bags and packages, because one insisted on being able to act if they were attacked. She left them right outside the door of the flower shop as she stepped inside and took in a breath of bleach water and greenery.
Laura heard the bell over the front door chime with the entrance of a customer, and she sighed. For as much as she loved the shop, and as much as the money kept her in business and able to survive, sometimes she wished that she didn't have to deal with the customers. Needs must, however, so she called out to the front. "Be right there!"
She trimmed a few withering leaves from the ivy before turning off the quiet radio. She wiped her hands on the front of one of the aprons she wore while working, and slipped past the curtain to the front of the shop. "Hello?"
Valerie had been looking at the health of the various offerings to get a feel for how well this small, independent owner moved their goods. She was by no means an expert on flowers or plants. She had never been much of a gardener regardless of how many bouquets she had received over the years, and they died faster than the glimmers she used to keep herself going. Sometimes she wished she could be more romantic about flowers and less nostalgic.
Valerie looked up from her inspection of one shelf and watched the tall blonde approach. She recognized her immediately from the poor pictures and videos of her argument with Orin, as Valerie had a good head for faces and voices. The woman moved with control and power that Valerie knew she didn’t have; her beauty was in strength and confidence. It was a humbling experience, and one Valerie probably could have taken with more grace. “Hello.”
The customer looked up when Laura slipped into the shop proper, and the face confronting her was vaguely familiar. Laura didn't have the same sort of memory for faces, especially not after just moving, so she simply smiled her usual 'customer smile' and aimed for a sale. "What brings you in today? Something specific or just looking?" She caught sight of the two hulking men lingering outside her shop door, one laden with bags, but tried to ignore them. With as many packages as the one was carrying, if she could convince this woman that she needed flowers, there might be a handsome sale in her future. Or at least a foot in the door with the wealthier residents of Seattle - one that wasn't Orin.
The woman was currently lingering near a blooming pot of hyacinths, which made Laura smile. They'd just started to really kick in, and the shelf of pinks and purples was one of her favorites at the moment. She'd moved them nearer to the door, hoping to draw someone in. She tried a friendly approach. "You found my favorites there..."
Valerie had lived too long to hold grudges. and she suspected whatever had caused the ‘lover’s spat’ (paparazzi words, not hers) was probably solidly Orin’s fault. She put her envy of the other woman’s figure aside and turned back to the flowers. Laura was in luck, because Valerie was in the mood to spend Orin’s money on flowers arranged by Orin’s ex. It had a nice ring to it. “They are pretty. I don’t know very much about flowers, if I bought some are they hard to care for?”
Laura crossed the shop, smiling as the scent of the hyacinths enveloped her. “These aren’t too bad, but you do only get the flowers in the spring. And the rest of the year you still have to care for them. So I wouldn’t call them easy to care for. More... a step above easy.” She paused, looking around the shop at the other shelves. “If you’re looking for something potted though...” She took a few steps, reaching out an arm to beckon to the woman. “I have a pretty large supply of some easier plants.” The area she settled in had wide varieties of violets, christmas cactus, and aloe plants. “These you mainly just need to remember to water every once in a while.” Offering the woman a bright smile, she picked up a small violet in a delicate looking lavender pot. “Something like this is usually pretty popular if you’re just starting...”
After a pause, she laughed quietly. “Of course if you’re looking for something more temporary, then you can take your pick of just about anything.” She gestured toward the many buckets of vibrant cut flowers.
Valerie looked at the tiny little flower in the pot. It seemed as though it was trying too hard, but from what she could tell it was prospering. Doubt flickered on her face. She wasn’t sure she’d be very good at caring for another living thing, and she tried to hide the fact that it frightened her quite a bit, failing at it. “Maybe. Show me your cut bouquets, instead.” She glanced back at the violet. It was so small. It couldn’t be that hard...
Valerie turned away decisively and moved toward all the flowers in the buckets. “Do you arrange them?” she asked the woman, curious as to what kind of skill was involved, if any.
Laura watched the doubt flicker across the woman’s face, and smiled, laughing to herself on the inside. She’d seen that sort of look on the faces of other people in the past. The look that said they were doubtful about taking care of even a small plant. She guided the woman toward the buckets of flowers and nodded. “I do all the arrangements myself. I try not to keep pre-arranged bouquets on hand, because everybody deserves their own special creation. Something more than just a few roses and some baby’s breath. I usually start with a favorite color or flower - a price budget - and build from there.” She looked over, hoping that an arrangement was the choice of the day.
Valerie decided an arrangement was safer, and Valerie liked safe. She nodded slowly, and then with more enthusiasm. “That sounds lovely. I like violet; the color violet, you know. It’s soothing and energetic at the same time.” She didn’t glance up to see if Laura thought that was stupid; undoubtedly Laura heard all kinds of things.
Laura simply nodded, taking the comment in stride. She did hear a wide variety of reasons for favorite colors, and very few of them actually made her stop and react. Instead, she glanced again at the violet that they’d set aside, and searched for flowers that matched its color as close as possible. When she found some, she added a few lighter choices, like the light lavender of the violet’s pot, then snagged some greenery and a few other things before heading for the back room. “I’ll be right back out! Just have to put these together for you.” She paused, glancing back over her shoulder. “Did you have a vase at home? Or should I find one for you?” If she was being honest, Laura hoped that she would be able to choose her own. The thought of what some people went home to put their flowers in made her shudder sometimes.
Valerie thought. “...No, I don’t think he has any vases. No. I’ll probably need to pick one up.” Valerie was very sure that Orin would hate whatever vase she chose and be annoyed at the space the flowers took up, but she didn’t care. “If you have one that’s clear glass, that would probably be best.” Maybe she cared just a little bit. She still felt like she was living in someone else’s home, and he could make it very unpleasant for her to be there if he wanted to.
Even with the mention of “he”, Laura still didn’t make the connection between this customer and Orin. She knew he was engaged (obviously - it was hard to avoid if you read any of the Seattle newspapers), but she simply wasn’t expecting his fiancee to come into her shop. She nodded in response to the request for a vase and smiled. “Clear is always the best if you don’t have another at home. You can use it in the future if you need. ...Make him buy you more flowers.” Even not knowing who “he” was, she always suggested the purchase of more flowers. If nothing else, they often helped to brighten people’s days. “I’ll be back out in a minute!”
She slipped into the back room, laying out her selection of flowers and greenery. After looking at them for a moment, she grabbed a nearby vase (clear), and began cutting and arranging. It wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary, figuring that her customer seemed more traditional, and so staying safe as a first arrangement for her. It didn’t take her too long to finish, and she carried the vase out to the front so that her customer could see it before it was packaged up safe to carry home. She set it on the counter and smiled. “I hope you like it.”
Valerie wasn’t planning on clearing the air with the rock on her left hand, not a bit of it. She didn’t need any more enemies than she already had, thank you very much. It did make her wonder at Orin’s type, however, which ran to tall and athletic, of which she was neither. It was a strangely depressing thought, and she felt abruptly lonely. It was a familiar sensation. She dismissed it as Laura returned.
Valerie was very traditional, secretly, on the inside. She tried to be as modern as possible, but it was a conscious effort, like choosing the too-sweet modern perfumes over her beloved powder-soft Guerlains. She smiled fondly at the arrangement. “Oh, that is very lovely. I like this.” She touched a long stem, and then looked up at Laura. “Do you take very large orders?” She looked around; it was a small shop.
Laura was more than satisfied with the smile on the woman’s face as she looked over her arrangement. She nodded at the question. “I do. I require a fair amount of notice, of course, so that I can do most of the work on my own. For very large orders, I’ll need to find a temporary employee to help out.” Which meant she would have to find a temporary employee here in Seattle, but she figured that shouldn’t be a problem. “The cost would be reflected in the final price, but I could draw up a quote if it was something you were interested in.” She continued to move as she spoke, finding a carrying box to place the vase in, and packaging it securely. Once that was done, she wrapped the upper part in clear cellophane to protect it from the elements, and tied it off with a bit of turquoise ribbon that matched the color of her front door. The final touch was a small sticker with the name of her shop, placed on the side of the box.
Valerie drifted to the corner of the shop where they’d first come, where the little violet sat on its shelf, and she still had a fairly decent view of what Laura was doing, more out of curiosity than anything else. “It hardly counts as notice, I suppose, but I have a wedding coming... at some point in the near future, and I wanted to look at arrangements for the tables, and possibly the wedding party. Perhaps you’d be good enough to put together some designs?” She wouldn’t force poor Laura to go to the wedding, of course, but it was Orin’s money and Valerie would spend it as she chose.
This was the sort of break that Laura had been hoping for. She still didn’t know who her customer was, but she seemed easy enough to work with and with a fair amount of money to be able to spend. A wedding for someone like that would be huge for Laura, and there were very few reasons that she would turn it down. None sprang to her attention, however, so she grinned widely and nodded. “I have a portfolio of previous weddings I’ve done when I had my shop back east. If you’d like, we can schedule a time to sit down and look over them. Any place and time that you’re comfortable.” After a pause, she smiled even wider. “Maybe you can convince your fiance to come along if you’re interested in his input.” She laughed softly, knowing that many husbands-to-be couldn’t care less about the flowers.
No, he wouldn’t. He would probably care if this particular woman was involved, however, and Valerie knew it. She hadn’t known until that moment that she was a particularly jealous woman, and as she leaned against the calendar and ignored the awkward shifting of the guards outside, she realized that after nearly a hundred years, she didn’t know herself very well. Valerie sighed. “I doubt that. In the interest of full disclosure, Orin Monarch doesn’t care very much about the niceties of the ceremony.” She didn’t say it to barb, just to inform in as delicate a manner as possible. She also wasn’t quite able to keep a wee bit of resentment for the man out of the sentence.
Laura had begun to reach for her order book, both to write up a receipt for the current arrangement and to begin making notes for the wedding, but her hands froze in mid-air at the mention of Orin’s name. She looked back up at the woman and finally recognized her as the figure standing next to Orin in so many tabloid pictures that she’d done her best to skip over. She saw a similar sort of recognition on the other woman’s face. While she didn’t appear happy, there wasn’t the sort of rage that might come from a jealous fiancee, not that this woman had anything to be jealous about. The woman was beautiful and poised, and with an air that Laura wouldn’t have thought Orin would necessarily settle down with. But what did she know about Orin Monarch? Apparently not as much as she’d thought at one point. So she grabbed the order book and a pen and tried to continue with an awkward smile. “No, I don’t suppose he would.” She couldn’t help the edge that came out with the words, but she tried to push it away in the name of being professional. “...but that at least gives you the opportunity to have the wedding your way, I would imagine.”
She wasn’t quite sure how to address Orin’s fiancee (what was her name? Laura knew she’d read it at some point), other than to offer her sympathies for getting involved with such an awful man, and that was probably not the best idea. She was still hurting over his last comment on the forums, and had no idea what would push this woman into a wedding with him, but she set all of those thoughts aside as she reached for a calendar as well, forging on with the planning. “We can set up a time today, or you can call me once you have a chance to look at your schedule. We’ll make it a beautiful wedding for you...” Not for him. “...Valerie.” There! The woman’s name finally popped back into her mind as she offered another smile.
Valerie watched the play of emotions over Laura’s face with close attention. She enjoyed making Orin squirm, and if it would accomplish that end she would be more than happy to employ Laura. However, she also didn’t want to sign herself up for more trouble, and if Laura would either be so petty as to sabotage the wedding or be truly uncomfortable taking part in any way, Valerie didn’t have it in her to risk it. She shifted on an expensive heel the color of ripe plum flesh and assumed a pensive expression. “You’re sure?” Valerie knew very well that Orin and Laura had a history and she wanted to make it clear that there wasn’t any wool over her eyes in that department.
Laura took a moment to think about it before replying, but ended up nodding. “I won’t say it isn’t a strange situation, but I can’t imagine he’s much into the wedding planning. If I’m working just with you, I think we can organize something very nice.” She paused. “I can’t promise I won’t shout at him if I do have to deal with him, though. But...” She shrugged and laid the honesty out there. “I do have some experience shouting at him. And I usually manage to keep it to places where cameras can’t see it. I know how to play nice for the press... most of the time.” She smiled at Valerie, this one going a little wicked. “Plus, this way I can overcharge you horrendously and not feel that bad about it.” She laughed softly, mostly joking about the charges.
Valerie grinned a not very nice grin at that. There they were in agreement. “You won’t need to deal with him at all, I should think, not about this.” Valerie had some very good reasons for keeping Laura and Orin in two separate places, particularly considering the other woman’s amazing figure (what did she do, run? lift weights?). “You won’t even have to attend unless you want to. I’m looking for table arrangements, so nothing you need to see him for.” She smiled and put out a credit card for the flowers Laura had put together for her today. After a short, uncertain hesitation, she added, “Can you give me the little potted one too, and some instructions?”
Laura returned Valerie’s grin, and for a moment wondered what the situation was there, if she was so gleeful about overspending Orin’s money. The situation didn’t look like love, that much was certain. She supposed it was none of her business, though, and took the card that Valerie passed over, pulling up her old-school credit card recorder from under the counter. She lined up the card and the carbon copy receipt as they continued to talk, running it through with two quick movements of her hand. Nodding, she gestured to where the tiny pot was still sitting on the shelf. “Go ahead. I could see before that you wanted to. I’m glad it’s found a home.” She spoke about it like it was a pet being adopted.
After she added the sale to her register and ledger book, peeling off a copy of the receipt for Valerie, she reached under the counter again for a large folder box filled with care instructions. It took her just a moment to find the pamphlet for African violets, and she passed it over with the receipt. “She’s a hearty little thing. Just needs some sun a bit of water now and then. If things start looking too droopy, you can give me a call.” She grinned as she passed everything over.
Valerie took all the paperwork seriously and looked through the pamphlet to see if she had any questions before she left. It was fairly complete, however, and she thought she might be able to find a book or something on the internet, though she was pretty terrible with computers, and preferred the library. “Alright. Thank you,” (she glanced at the card for the shop included with the pamphlet), “Laura.”
“You’re welcome, Valerie.” The woman wasn’t at all what Laura had expected when she first heard Orin was engaged, but after meeting her, Laura was surprisingly pleased. Maybe this woman would be able to figure out a way to get him to be less of an ass. There was at least a faint hope of it. If nothing else, she was certain that she would be able to easily work with Valerie to produce a gorgeously overpriced wedding.