Author's Note: I had a lot of research to do about flowers and their meanings for this chapter and I must say I have even more respect now for Cam and his job. You're the man, Cam! Here, have some tom yum goong on me. Phew! Here's the chapter. I have another little surprise for you as we move forward with the story and this time, the name of the surprise isn't Courtney. It's name is. . .


She was a real metropolitan type of woman. I'd seen enough of them during my time in the city to be able to figure that out. Her hair was long, chestnut brown, super glossy, and looked like it belonged in a shampoo ad. Her eyebrows were perfectly arched, as if she spent a great deal of time on maintenance to get them to look just right as they sat above her light gray eyes. The eyelashes above those eyes were so voluminous that I was certain she didn't come by them naturally. And while the dress she was wearing seemed sensible enough, the very high heels she was wearing certainly were not. I could certainly dress up when I wanted to, especially since I'd done just that more often than not while I lived in the city, but I was a casual small-town girl at heart and my style tended to reflect that on a daily basis now that I was back home.

"She's nothing like me. She's like. . .the exact opposite of me," I said as sat at a secluded area of the mountain with Willow by my side.

This had been a favorite spot of ours since way back in the day. It was far off the main road and hidden by bushes so we were confident about our current privacy. Keiko was helping Makoto in his father's orchard for the day and Colby was visiting the town closest to Bluebell and Konohana. It was a place called Buena Vista. It was a colorful little town built right next to a lake so huge that it gave a real seaside feel to the place. A long time ago, the town cut off ties with both Bluebell and Konohana when they heard about the big feud. They didn't want to be drawn into the drama. Now that the two towns were friendly and peaceful at last, the relationship with Buena Vista had started back up as well. Diego, Raul, and Enrique loved to go there whenever they could and the school there was where the children of Konohana and Bluebell started attending when I was a kid.

"I thought he told you that the two of them were through?"

With a woeful sigh, I decided to lay on my back and look up at the big fluffy clouds that were in the sky today. "That's what he said, but apparently she didn't get the memo."

"Well, phooey." Willow joined me as I looked up at the clouds, our hair kind of mixing together as we just stared. "She's pretty."

"Yeah."

"I don't think she's as pretty as you. She's more polished, perhaps, with all these bells and whistles. If you wiped all that makeup off her face, though, I wonder if she'd look like a completely different person. Maybe like a troll who is supposed to live under a bridge. And that's just false advertising, you know. She should get sued for that."

I burst out into laughter at that and I had to wipe a few tears away from the corners of my eyes. "I love you, Will," I declared as I squeezed her hand.

"I know. I love you, too."

We were quiet for a few minutes when she hit me with "Do you think a woman like her will catch Zhen's eye?!" She literally hit me. She smacked me on the arm as the words came out her mouth.

"Wait, what? No, Willow. I'm pretty sure Zhen prefers to look elsewhere."

She seemed to visibly relax at my words and got back into staring back up at the clouds. Willow was petite and delicate looking, but she was not to be underestimated if she felt threatened. Anybody who tried to set their sights on Zhen would find that out the hard way, I was sure.

I watched a bird fly up above and it almost seemed to be soaring toward a cloud, almost as if it made its home there. I knew that was impossible, but for some reason it struck me as a positively lovely notion.

"Do you ever think that big, fluffy clouds like these kind of look like castles in the sky?"

"What?"

"Castles. Big pristine, untouchable palaces where sky royalty lives." As I stared at them, I could make out the shapes I needed.

Willow shook her head and smiled. "You're an artist, Violet. You see the world differently than most people."

"You know," I said as I looked at her out the corner of my eyes. "Zhen is an artist, too, of sorts. I guess that means he sees the world differently, too."

"I guess so," she said with a little smile that suddenly made me envious. Keiko had Makoto. Willow was determined that she was going to have Zhen. Colby was off visiting Buena Vista because her boyfriend, a guy named Ignacio, lived there. All of my female friends were paired off and I was the odd duck out. I'd never really felt compelled to have a guy in my life. Yes, I'd certainly had boyfriends, but I'd never felt out of place without one before.

A couple of days later, it was time for one of the days my father looked forward to all year. It was Flower Day. It was also a special day because my mother insisted that it was during this day, way back before I was even born, that the relationship between her and my father really got its start.

"He was so cold and frustrating before that," she said as we cleaned in the barn that morning. "I mean, he would look straight at me and then proceed to ignore my very existence! And when he had no choice other than to acknowledge me, he would give me this cold stare. Oh, he made me so mad, Violet. I often wondered how somebody could be so handsome yet so off-putting at the same time."

I laughed because I found it hard to imagine a time when my parents weren't the lovey dovey couple they'd been my entire life, no matter how many times I heard about it. Since I'd heard this exact story so many times, I knew what to say to lead my mother to the next part of it. "So you finally had your fill of that behavior, did you?"

"Oh yes," she told me as she finished with her rake and leaned it against a wall. She put both hands on her hips and for a second there I wondered if she was going to stomp her foot, too, for effect. That was something Willow probably would've done, now that I thought about it. "I couldn't take it anymore so after I bought my flowers that day, I went right back and confronted him. We had our first real conversation that day, you know? And he even gave me a flower at the end of it. To this day, I still keep it pressed between the pages of a book."

I finished up what I was doing and saw her standing there with a nostalgic look on her face as she thought back. "That took guts, mom."

"There is a lesson to be learned from this story, you know," she spoke as she snapped out of her thoughts and headed toward the doors.

"What's that?" I asked as I followed her out into the sunlight.

"Sometimes people don't know that you're feeling a certain way or that you're agonizing over something. Your father, for example, had no idea how his behavior was making me feel until I told him. Sometimes, you have to bite the bullet and let a person know what's going on in your heart and mind. If you don't, then there's a chance that they are never going to figure it out on their own. If I hadn't told your father, then there's a good chance that we would've stayed in that same pattern and never would have found our way to each other. Then you and Oliver wouldn't be here. And that, I'm certain, would be a tragedy. That's why I think it's good to be honest with people and get things off your chest."

I applied what she'd said to my own situation and realized that Colby had said pretty much the same thing, only with significantly fewer words. I should have told Akito how I felt. Now, with Courtney's sudden appearance, it was painfully obvious to me that I had missed my window of opportunity. I was, as the saying goes, a day late and a dollar short. The currency around these parts was different, but the saying still applied to my situation.

My mother sent me on my way then, saying that she could finish the rest of the work on her own. I was due at my dad's shop so I could help him get ready for the influx of customers that we'd already spent days preparing for. It was a weekday so Oliver had school. He'd tried to convince our mom to let him miss the day to help, but she wouldn't budge. She reminded him that Konohana's Flower Day fell on the weekend this year so Oliver could help then since the residents of Konohana came through the tunnel to buy flowers from the shop.

Kana was out in the pasture of Georgia's shop when I was coming through and he spotted me on my way through.

"Lillian Jr.," he teased. It was something he'd called me from an early age. "Save all the best flowers for me, 'kay?"

"Will do," I told him as I leaned against the fence. "Listen, I know it was Grady's birthday the other day. How is Georgia holding up?"

Kana stood there looking to the side with his fingers on his chin as he considered his answer. "She's hanging in there."

We exchanged a few more words before I started back toward the flower shop. I felt like I should do something for Georgia. My mom told me that she loved fried rice. I made a plan to cook some and take it to her some day soon.

The shop was conspicuously devoid of one Cam Drayton when I arrived so I figured there was only one place he could be. I entered the cafe and there was no sign of Laney. I did hear movement upstairs so I figured that was where Howard was. The door to the storage room my father had been using since long before I even came into the picture was cracked open. I pushed it open the rest of the way and stepped inside. There stood my father with a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, staring down at a clipboard. When I cleared my throat, his eyes rose and zeroed in on my location.

"Here I am. Violet Drayton, reporting for duty sir," I declared as I gave him a little salute. It earned me a thoughtful frown before the smallest hint of a smile gave him away.

"Just in time. I was just about to take these last few flowers out there and finish setting up." I wasn't surprised that he was already so close to being done. He'd gone in early today and had been working the entire time.

"Do you want me to carry them?"

He came over and gripped my upper arm. "Hmm. . .I feel a few muscles. You should be strong enough, I think. Go ahead."

"They're flowers, dad," I laughed as I picked them up and headed for the door. I stopped in the doorway and saw him checking something off his list before putting the cap on his pen and following after me. "If I can't lift flowers then that would just be sad."

"It would, wouldn't it." It was a statement, not a question.

Wow, my father must have been in a fantastic mood if he was joking so much. The man had always insisted that he couldn't tell a joke, but those words were never to be believed because he certainly had just made one. Behold the power of Flower Day! I could say that he was looking forward to the financial gain he was about to experience, but I knew my dad better than that. His happiness came from getting to see the joy his flowers brought everybody in town during the course of a single day. He just genuinely loved his job, and especially on Flower Day.

He caught me staring at him and I saw his eyebrows furrow as he rubbed the back of his head . He took off his reading glasses and tucked them into the inside pocket of his vest. "What?"

"Nothing," I said. "I just like watching you work, is all."

"You sound like your mother."

"If she's said that to you, I'm pretty sure she means it in a different way than I do," I teased, throwing in a little wink for good measure.

I managed to illicit a scowl and a blush at the same time before he turned his back on me altogether. I noticed he was tugging at his hat. "More work and less talk from you." I knew my father well enough to know that the scowl had shifted to a smile, even if he still had his back turned to me.

The shop was bursting with flowers, even more than usual. I'd noticed that on my way into the cafe, but it was even more impressive when I came back out and took a better look. People gave out a lot of flowers to each other on Flower Day and more bouquets than usual as well. It was simple economics. Supply and demand. Akito had explained the concept to me. It was something he'd learned during a Macroeconomics class he took and there I was thinking about Akito again! I shook my head to dispel him from my thoughts and saw my father looking at me curiously, but he made no comments. He searched around for a minute for something he apparently hadn't brought out, so he took off walking toward the cafe to retrieve whatever it was.

"Excuse me, ma'am," I heard somebody say. I looked up and there were the bright green eyes of Jackson. While my father's could be described as emerald, his were more of a peridot green.

I decided to play along and be the dutiful shopkeeper. "Yes, sir? Happy Flower Day. Can I help you? Here at Cam's Flowers, we strive to meet all of your flowery needs."

He chuckled at that and I felt warm inside. "Well yes, yes you can. I realize I am burdening you since you still have about ten minutes before you open, but. . ."

"Well, I can make an exception. I'll have to charge you extra, but I'm sure you can afford it."

He broke character as he said "Struggling musician here, Vi."

"Well aren't artists traditionally supposed to be struggling as well? But I'm still going to buy flowers."

"Touche." He acquiesced with a nod of his head before he got back into character. "Anyway, I'm going to need a bouquet. Oh, and I'll need about eight more flowers."

"Sure thing. What kind of flowers will you be needing?"

He stroked his chin and said "You look like a woman who knows her way around flowers. I'll let you decide."

"Oooh. Flattery will get you everywhere, mister," I said as I turned around and started looking through the other flowers since the ones on the table didn't appeal to me in this case.

"Really? I wish I'd known that years ago," he mumbled so low that I could barely hear him.

"Hmm?" I asked as I started working.

"Oh, nothing."

I took the meaning of each flower into careful consideration as I selected them on Jackson's behalf. When I turned back around I had a white bouquet of calla lilies ready for him, which I guessed must have been for his mom. I chose white freesias for the extra flowers he'd requested. I even threw in a yellow rose with the freesias that he'd notice later and realize was from me.

"This looks great Vi, thanks. You are the master at this."

"Don't let my father hear you say that," I laughed, suddenly wondering what was taking him so long in the cafe.

"Keep the change," Jackson said as he sat some money on the table and started walking away. He stopped for a second, though, and looked back at me before saying "You know, you need it since you're a struggling artist and all."

With that said, he hurried off and left me shaking my head with an amused smile. Musician and artist or not, neither one of us were actually struggling and we both knew that.

My father finally came back and brought the red roses with him. Every year, he made my mother a special bouquet of red roses and sunflowers. Sunflowers were her favorite flowers and red roses had a special meaning for the two of them so she loved that. In case you're wondering what the special meaning was, my dad gave her a red rose back when he finally confessed his feelings for her. As for what he liked to give me, he always grew a special batch of violets and managed to keep them alive for Flower Day even though they weren't in season then. He always gave me violets because he thought it was clever how he'd named me 'Violet' for my eyes, but also managed to name me after a flower, too.

Within a few minutes of my father's return, a line had formed and we were kept busy. I'd been so preoccupied that I hadn't noticed the person steadily making his way to the front of the line until he was upon me.

"Hey."

My head shot up and there were Akito's golden eyes making me feel extremely caught off guard. "Hey."

"Good morning," he directed toward my father.

"Good morning," he replied before he looked off to the right with a frown. I followed his eyes and saw Oliver in the town square on his way toward the shop. My father let out a conflicted sigh and closed his eyes, touching his fingers to his hat out of frustration before heading toward my brother. I was pretty sure Oliver was about to be on his way back to school because my father sure wasn't going to risk my mother's wrath on Flower Day.

I directed my attention back to our customer and wished for a second that Oliver could be the one working the shop at that moment instead of me. I had a feeling I wasn't going to like where this conversation was going to end up, especially since Akito looked a little uneasy. "I, um. . .I thought you were living in Konohana so. . ."

"Well I am, but I'll always be a Bluebell guy at heart. So I thought why not participate in both days."

"Your mom will like that," I pointed out the obvious.

"Yeah, so will. . ." he trailed off awkwardly and cleared his throat.

"Courtney?" I asked, pulling myself together and acting calm and collected like I wasn't even the least bit impacted by her existence. "What kind of flowers will you be getting for her?" I did my best not to sound like I'd had the wind knocked out of my sails

He seemed a little nervous for some reason and looked at my father momentarily as if he'd rather be making his flower requests to him. "I want to get her a red bouquet made of roses."

I felt like somebody had hit me with a bulldozer. Somehow, I managed to school my features and didn't let him see how I felt about that. I had no clue how I was able to pull that air of nonchalance off. Perhaps I dug deep and tapped into some mysterious pool of inner strength. "Nice. What else will you be needing?"

"I think. . .I'll need another bouquet made of white carnations. My mom loves those. I also want five more of those carnations and. . .a daisy."

"A daisy?" I repeated. Daisies happened to be my favorite when it came to flowers. Daisies didn't shout at you to notice them, but they had a certain simple beauty about them that I appreciated.

"That's right," he told me with a grin.

It didn't take me long to have everything done and I added up the total for him. I threw in a blue salvia, free of charge, that was from me. I didn't like how blue salvias looked clustered together, but individually I thought they were pretty. The meaning of the flower was also something I took into consideration when I selected it to give to him. It said 'I think of you,' something that I did often when it came to Akito. There were other flowers I could have selected, other things I could have said secretly through the language of flowers. There were some things, though, that I just couldn't say to Akito even through flowers. There were some things I couldn't admit to him in any language.

"Wow, Vi. These look great," he told me with a broad smile as he slipped the money into my hand and took the flowers. "You've obviously not lost your touch."

"I'm glad you think so," I replied as I watched him handle the flowers carefully so he didn't mess any of them up. "Good luck. I hope those bouquets go over well."

"Hey, uh. . .Here you go," he said as he handed the daisy back to me. "This one is for you."

"Thanks," I told him happily, smiling with warmth because he still knew what my favorite flower was. Then I ruined the moment by thinking about those red roses he was going to give to Courtney. I didn't let that show, though, since I was still doing an admirable job of holding myself together. I added the daisy to the pile of flowers I'd received throughout the day. My plan was to make them into one big bouquet later on and putting them in the vase in my room.

With another smile, Akito took his flowers and headed out. Nobody else had been in line behind him so I suddenly found myself not busy. My father was still preoccupied with Oliver so I sat on the stool behind the table that my father never used and tried not to completely lose my composure. "Red roses. . ." I said quietly as I thought about Courtney's bouquet. "They mean 'love.'"

Was that how he felt about her? Did he really love her? Then again, there was a chance that he didn't know of the exact significance of red roses. As far as I knew, Akito had never really taken an interest in knowing the meanings of flowers. Take that blue salvia I'd just given him, for example. I was pretty sure he didn't know the name of that flower let alone the meaning of it. Still, though, I couldn't be sure. After all, red roses were mainstream. They were well-known. I couldn't be sure if he knew or not.

I sat there on the stool trying not to feel the way I felt because I had zero right to feel that way.

"Are you okay?"

I looked up and there was Jackson again with a concerned look on his face. It was then that I realized I must have been doing a lackluster job of keeping my composure now that Akito was gone.

"Oh yeah, I'm. . .I'm fine. What's up, Jack?"

He studied me in silence for a second. "I needed another flower."

I pasted on a smile and started to get up. "Alright. What kind?"

He put a hand on my shoulder and said "I'll get it."

I watched curiously as he came behind the counter and looked through my father's flowers. It was probably a good thing my father was busy lecturing Oliver because if he knew Jackson was back there he would not be pleased.

Jackson found what he was looking for and said "Close your eyes."

"What?" I asked, turning toward him on the stool as I tried to figure out what he was up to.

"Close your eyes, Violet," he insisted again.

He was looking at me so expectantly that I finally did as he asked and closed them. I felt him brush my hair back from my ear and slip something behind it.

There was the distinct sound of money being deposited on the table and then there was nothing. After about ten seconds I asked "Can I open my eyes now?"

When I didn't get a response, I peeked one open and Jackson was gone. I reached up and felt my ear and there was definitely a flower there. After searching through my rucksack, I found the small mirror I always kept inside. I pointed it toward my left ear and saw a single beautiful gardenia. Gardenias, I knew, were used to tell people they were lovely. Like in the case of Akito, I couldn't be sure Jack knew the meaning, but either way it brought a genuine smile to my face.

"Oh Jack," I whispered, wishing he'd stuck around to hear my words. "Thank you."

My father came back then, took notice of the gardenia, and said "Putting flowers in your hair now? The meaning suits you." It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him Jackson put the flower in my hair, not me, but then he spoke again. "Pay attention if somebody else gives you a gardenia, though. It has another meaning."

This piqued my interest. My father had taught me well, but he definitely knew more flower meanings than I did. And at the moment, I wanted to know what else a gardenia could be used to say. "Really? What, dad?"

He rubbed the back of his head and looked to the side rather thoughtfully before he answered me. "They can represent a secret love."