The summers were long and hard for me, by far, more difficult to traverse than their counterparts, the school year. Grad school kept me busy and kept my mind occupied, but the respite between each year meant leaving the cool air and holidays of snowy walkways behind and returning home to the city I knew like the back of my hand. I could walk through Embarcadero with my eyes closed, and had been shotgun in far too many cruises through Potrero Hill. I loved San Francisco, so much so that despite being rather horrible with directions, I could tell you how to get almost anywhere from Excelsior to Presidio or back down to Lakeshore. It was where I had grown up, where my roots were, and why I seemed to come gliding back in, much like I'd never left.
I grew up in Seacliff and since I can remember, even since I was a little girl, I spent summers in my mother's shop. Andi Niehaus was the most coveted florist in upper San Fran, and as her daughter, it became almost tradition for me to come around that time every year. There were some people who would go nine or ten months without seeing me and when I resurfaced, it was as if I'd grown eight feet to them. I still felt just as small. I yearned for the days when I could break the mould, venture to a place that I couldn't navigate in my sleep. I had everything and yet, I possessed nothing to show for it.
My father always hassled me, insisting that by spending my summers back home, I was depriving myself of the zest life had to offer. My first couple of years, I had dismissed it as him just wanting me to go out and be a kid for once in my life, but slowly, I came to see his point. It almost felt routine anymore, to come back around, to sit behind the counter, my allergies only stifled by the Zyrtec I made sure to pop each morning. It was just a piece of the puzzle and it was getting to a point where I realized that perhaps the piece that was missing was to a picture I no longer desired to look at. Perhaps this would be it then, I'd told myself time and time again before that summer. Maybe that would be the last summer I spent flipping through text books and essays, greeting customers with my all-too-friendly smile. If there was one thing that could put your teeth on edge about working in a public venue, it was most certainly customer service. Most times, people were genuine; they came in to pick up flowers for a birthday, a show of appreciation, or even for a spouse, and they did so with a smile and a kind word. There were people, however, who were doing nothing more than running errands and accomplishing thorn-in-the-side like tasks. It varied from day to day and while it was overall easy to field, some days were worse than others, but on the opposing side, some days… Well, some days were far, far easier than most.
I can still remember the first time I saw her; it was that summer, the summer I had thought to be my last in Seacliff. The sun was still low in the sky, having not reached even the peaks of the towering buildings that dotted the city and the air was still relatively cool, though nothing like the bone-chilling breeze that seemed to snake over the city most nights. Before the soft clack of her short heels hit my ears, the sweet scent of lavender and thyme rushed in, carried on the back of a soft, gentle gust of wind, causing my head to snap up, eyes darting for the door to identify the source of such a heavenly aroma. She sauntered in, her jeans clinging snugly to her legs, her boots coming half way up her calf. A long cardigan hung off of her small frame, but she hugged it closer to her body, as if to ward off the iciness that the morning breeze had to offer. The ends of her blonde hair rustled on her shoulders, held in place by the beanie that slouched toward the nape of her neck.
"Good morning!" I offered brightly; the almost-completely-gone cup of coffee that sat to my left on the counter top had been a bit of a counter balance to the joint that I had smoked on my walk down to the shop.
She seemed to be the slightest bit caught off guard, her eyes widening a bit in surprise. "You're not Andi," she stated, her face puckering almost instantly, as if the words had been sour on her tongue.
"I'm not," I agreed with a warm smile, tilting my head inquisitively.
"I'm not— I didn't—" The woman paused, inhaling sharply, the gears turning behind her bright blue eyes, as if she was working to recalibrate the rate at which words were traversing from her brain to her mouth. It was almost amusing, the way it was outwardly obvious that she was inwardly fumbling. "She didn't tell me she'd hired anyone new, so it was a surprise to see someone who… Well, wasn't her." She cleared her throat, adjusting the bag on her shoulder, and offered me an embarrassed smile.
"She didn't. I'm her daughter. I just came home from grad school for summer. It's kind of tradition that I spend my break lending a hand." Slowly, I could see the tension ease and ebb out of her, her posture beginning to slack more.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so…"
"Tactless?" I offered with an encouraging laugh, as to imply that I was joking.
She hesitated a moment, but then grinned sheepishly, shrugging her shoulders. She was trying to play it off, but there was something about the soft pink on her cheeks that suggested she wasn't caught off guard by there being someone new, but maybe by the fact that it was… well, me. Is that completely vain of me? Maybe.
"That bad, huh?" she questioned, her left brow arching slightly, accentuating her humbled smile.
"Nah, not at all. It's still early, so I have to start having my fun at some point. You just happened to be my first innocent victim." I pushed my glasses up, first starting for the bridge and then second guessing myself in my sudden need to appear far less nerdy than I would had i been alone, instead pulling them up by one of the arms. She had finally crossed the seemingly impossible amount of space between us, finally arriving at the counter mere inches in front of me. "How can I help you?"
She began to rummage through her bag, pulling out a ticket and her wallet, doling out a couple of twenties. She forked the ticket over, though her serene, kind smile never once wavered on her pretty features. I took the ticket and glossed over it, searching for the order number. "A dozen roses, half red half pink, yeah?" I posed, just to double check and avoid any possible confusion. She nodded her head and I pardoned myself to the back cooler where I searched through arrangements my mother had put together late into the previous night, clicking my tongue as I thumbed through the tags, finally coming across the correct one. I snatched it from the shelf and resurfaced through the doorway, presenting the flowers to her with a grin. "Here you are. Do you want a card? Sorry, she didn't write if you did or didn't on the ticket."
"I do, actually," she responded, though she was scrolling through her phone, as if she were looking for something. After a moment of silence, she lifted her head, realizing that she had not fully answered my question. "If you could, 'To my dearest Dahlia, happy five years and hopes for many to come.'" Though her eyes never left mine as she spoke, I could feel my back stiffen, as if creating an incline inside of me, causing my stomach and heart, and possibly every other organ, to slide right down to my feet. It was a strange feeling, one I developed an instant loathing for. It was too fucking early for this. I wanted to grumble, to be angry with the physiological reaction my body seemed to take upon itself to have, far before my mind could ever grasp the fullness of this stranger's words.
What was it about this woman, the words she said, that had caused such disruption to my process of thought? It was, as I recognized it in the moment, absolutely ridiculous. Perhaps it was the rush of thinking that someone was gorgeous, and entertaining, even for a second, the idea that you maybe had a shot with them. There was no logic behind it, no science of understanding it and yet, I was rapidly trying to figure a quick fix to letting it go.
"Of course!" I managed as brightly as I could, perhaps coming off excessively generous, which was the least of my concerns at the moment. I was far too focused on how hot my ears were and how I could practically feel my temples throbbing in time with the hammering in my chest. I was never one who did too great of a job when it came to embarrassment. And what was there to be embarrassed over? It wasn't like she had a direct line to the inside of my every thought, right? So why was I getting so damn wrapped up in something that didn't even exist outside the expansion of my mind.
I turned every last ounce of my focus outward, channelling it all toward writing on the card with a steady hand.
"How's that look?" I asked, holding it up for her to approve or veto. She gave me another charming smile and nodded.
"It looks perfect. Thank you so much."
I stuffed the card in the plastic holder and slid it into the bouquet, pushing it closer to her. "That's gonna be forty five seventy six."
She doled out the cash and thanked me again, gathering her things and shoving her wallet back into her purse. I assured her it was my pleasure and watched, perhaps a little sadder than I was when she arrived, as she turned to leave. However, she stopped short and turned around, shifting to cradle the bouquet against a hip.
"You're gonna be here often, right?" she asked, to which I instantly quirked a brow, the corners of my mouth twitching up slightly.
"Yeah, why?"
"Well, if that's the case, I'm probably going to need something better than 'Andi's daughter,' to call you." Her tone felt like warm spring air felt on the skin, but to my ears.
"My name's Cosima."
"It's so very nice to meet you, Cosima."
At that, she turned back around and started to leave, but my jaw went slack and I stammered out some strange noise that sounded relatively close to a cat accidentally being stepped on. Her chin turned toward her shoulder and she caught my eye, grinning.
"Not fair!" I cried as she neared the door, like I were a child who had been denied their afternoon snack.
"Just ask, then," she prompted me, a coyness threading sweetly through her tone.
"And who, exactly, are you?" I asked, perhaps more mystified than I cared to let on.
"I'm Shay."
And without another word, but with a flourish of her hand, she was out the door and my eyes were latched on to the very spot where her figure vanished beyond the swinging glass door.
She had told me her name, but she was nowhere near answering my questions.
What I did not know was that the long, hard summers were drawing to a close. Instead, they were going to be replaced with something whimsical, something sweet, something… utterly and absolutely mind bending. What those summers would evolve into was something I had never known before, something I had never permitted myself to know before, and there was something so infinitely magical about that.