"This place is starting to look like a mortuary."
Luxsolaria blatantly ignored her husband's comment as she took yet another bouquet of flowers from the messenger at the door. "Thank you," she told the young woman.
"You're popular these days, ma'am," the messenger said.
She laughed. "You'll be running flowers the other direction here soon enough, I imagine." She closed the door and turned, stepping deftly over the little house driod that was vacuuming the floor.
"You're going to send flowers back to all these people?" her husband asked, walking up to the closet and grabbing his coat.
"Yes," Luxsolaria told him. "I can't just leave them hanging."
"How does not sending flowers leave them hanging?"
"I already told you," she tried hard to tempter her voice. "Each basket means something."
"Yeah, yeah, 'I want to be your friend'. I think you're taking this secret language of flowers a little too far."
She glared at him. "I don't. Why do you think I'm getting all these flowers now?"
Seven days after the party she had attended with her brother, and she was still receiving flowers and personal invitations to people's houses. When she got the first one, her first thought was that her husband had bought her flowers to apologize for his appalling attitude as of late. But when the card read that they were from a Mrs. Andila Senzans, she almost let her jaw drop. Almost. She was a lady, after all, and ladies did not drop their jaws at anything.
Mrs. Andila Senzans was Senator Senzans wife. Granted, Senzans wasn't her senator, so she wasn't sure what she could do for his wife. She had had to wrack her brain to remember what each of the flowers meant, it had been so many years since she'd used floriography to communicate. She was not particularly fond of this type of social communication, preferring the direct approach of actually going up to someone and stating her business.
That was not, apparently, how the socialites on Coruscant worked.
"And they aren't for me," she reminded her husband. "They're for Uri."
"Then they can send them to Uri," her husband said.
"That isn't how it works." She enunciated each word as she spoke.
Her husband waved a dismissive hand at her as he reached the door. "You think what you want. I'm going to work." He gave her a sidelong glance. "Someone has to."
"Would you like me to get more contract work?" Luxsolaria put the basket of flowers down.
"No," her husband said. "You have to deal with all these flowers. I'm sure that will take up too much of your time."
"Go to work," she said, crossing her hands in front of her chest. "I don't know what bee buzzed in your cap, but don't take it out on me."
He muttered something she didn't catch before the door slid closed behind him.
As soon as he was gone, she felt a weight relieve itself from her chest, like a breath she was holding and didn't realize it. She was good at calming people down and even better at reading them. Having a special talent for that came in very handy. But whenever she reached out to touch her husband with her mind or her heart, all she found was anger and contempt. She had stopped trying to find out what it was she had done to deserve them a long time ago.
She turned back to bevvy of baskets, all of them having to do with Uri, she was quite sure. Most of them contained alstroemeria flowers, which meant that the giver intended friendship between she and Sola. A few contained periwinkle, which meant that the giver wanted more of an alliance than a friendship. Those, she knew right away, weren't really meant for her, even if she was going to be the messenger.
It had not crossed Sola's mind that going with him to the party would make them become a social unit. Normally, Uri's wife would be the one to receive these encoded messages from the women of high society, but since he didn't have one, it apparently was going to fall to Luxsolaria.
She didn't mind at all.
She hadn't spent the last twenty years help Uri get where he was now using her Force-senstive talent only to be shunted to the side now that he had arrived there. And to think everyone thought it a useless talent to have. She smiled to herself, her little secret that she had left on Astarrax. Coruscant was unaware she had that on her side.
And she meant to keep it that way. If for no other reason than to keep her and Uri safe. She knew damn well what happened to Force-sentitive individuals on Coruscant. They disappeared without a trace. She had no intention of disappearing at all.
Her personal communicator buzzed on the other end of the table. She fumbled through the flowers to grab it, pressing the button down. "Hello?"
"Who is the most beautiful woman in the world?" came the reply on the other end.
She laughed. "Did you break something of mine, Uri?" she asked.
"I did not," her brother replied. "I got a free minute and decided to call my big sister. Is that so bad?"
"No." She sat down at one of the chairs in the living area. "It isn't bad at all. You know, I have at least eight people who want to do something with you."
"Something fun?"
"Uri!" she admonished. "I mean, I'm getting invitations and communiques on your behalf. What do you want me to do with them?"
"What do you mean?" he asked. "Why wouldn't someone just send an invitation to me?"
"They're flowers," Sola said. "From people's wives."
"You mean like mother used to get? The flowers that mean something?"
"Yes." Her son came out from down the hall and poked his head into the living area. She waved at him and smiled. The fifteen year old smiled back and then disappeared back down the hallway.
"So you get to my wife?" Uri asked with a laugh on the other end of the comm.
"It looks like that," Sola said.
"Then I guess see what the people want and report back to me," her brother told her. "It will give you a reason to come visit."
"It will," she agreed, looking at the empty spot that her son had occupied just a moment before. The kids were getting older…they didn't need her anymore. "It will get me out of the house, too."
"Since when do you need an excuse to get out of the house? You have a million waiting for you."
"Since this one means something," she quipped.
She heard speaking in the background of Uri's com. "I have to go, Sola. I love you."
"I love you, too," she said, but she wasn't sure if he caught it before he ended the communication.