“Will you have dinner with me?”
Her eyes slightly widened.
The fear that she would reject me gripped me so hard, I couldn’t move. The moments began to tick by. It seemed as if an eternity passed, but surely it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. Before she could answer, the other girl working at the store returned. Willow jerked away.
“I’m done repotting your cactus,” the girl announced, a bite in her voice.
“Thank you,” I replied, turning towards her, trying to keep my attention on the white ceramic pot she’d transferred the plant into. I remembered Marie’s other requests. “I’ll need pebbles and pompoms to go with those.” Hopefully, searching out those things would take her away for a little while more.
“Come over here to the counter and you can choose your own,” she said instead.
Before I could even respond, Willow spoke up. “Please … go ahead. I’m nearly done here. I’ll finish it and bring your arrangement over to the counter.”
Foiled again.
Frustrated, but unable to do anything else, I followed the girl. I glanced back at Willow and she had her head bent towards her work. Another man would have thought her preference was to remain as acquaintances and walked away.
Not me. I could never accept that. It only meant my next round of effort would be aggressive enough to convince her to see me as something more.
I chose the pebbles and pompoms without too much thought, and by the time I was done, Willow was walking over with the finished bouquet.
“It’s beautiful,” I said with genuine appreciation.
She placed it on the counter, and for a heart-stopping moment she tilted her head and looked at me … as if she recognized me, but then she shook her head, gave me a polite nod, and went on her way. I watched with longing as she walked towards the back of the shop.
The other girl’s voice brought me back to the reality. I dragged my eyes away from Willow, and refocused on the transaction at hand.
11
Willow
The pot slid out of my hand and dropped to the floor. I stared at the mess on the tiles.
I had taken over repotting plants for the afternoon, because I needed to have my hands and mind completely occupied, but thus far it had been disastrous.
Sandra looked up from the packets of flower food that she had been taping onto a bouquet, and yelled at me. “Another one? What’s going on with you?”
“I was trying to put it on the table,” I said, wrinkling my nose at the broken pieces on the floor.
“And you missed? Ten minutes ago you tripped over that massive fertilizer bag and almost broke your neck. Where is your mind?”
“I’ll clean it up,” I muttered.
I had just bent down to pick up the shards of broken ceramic when a pair of feet encased in leather flats stopped in front of me. I looked up to see Sandra standing in front of me.
“Where’s your phone?” she asked.
“Why?”
“Just give it to me,” she groaned, and bending down proceeded to search in the pockets of my apron.
“Hey!” I protested.
But she took no notice. She pulled it out with a triumphant smile. Moments later however, she had gained access and was punching in something that was written on a small piece of paper.
My forehead furrowed. “How do you know my password?”
“Oh, please,” she mocked. “How long have we been friends?”
She handed the phone back to me, and I looked at what she had done. She had added a contact, and when I saw the name I felt my heart start to pound.
“Caleb?”
I jumped to my feet. “You asked him for his number?”
“You left him hanging, Willow.”
I was perplexed. “Wait, did you ask him for it or he gave it to you?”
“I asked him for it,” she answered.
I was horrified. “Why would you do that?”
“It’s a small store, Willow, and I could see the both of you clearly. It was almost uncomfortable to watch.”
“What do you mean?”
Her chin jutted forward. “Are you trying to play dumb? I’ll be offended if you are.”
“Why?”
“I told you I was attracted to him from the beginning, but you acted as though you weren’t.”
“Well I wasn’t. I mean I’m not. I mean, I don’t know.”
“Okay. If that’s true then contact him, and go on a date. You’ll get a great meal out of it, perhaps some good conversation, and then you can decide never to see him again. I don’t know what’s holding you back, but I feel like I have to remind you of this; a date is not a marriage proposal. You can still come right back and forget it ever happened.”
I sighed, because with him it felt like it would be a marriage proposal. There was something so absolute and life-and-death about him in my mind, but I just couldn’t place my finger on what it was.