He was ready for her barrage of questions about the shop and handed her a few printed pages of what transpired while she was gone. “I knew you’d want to see these. I thought this would be the best way.”
She took the pages after she opened the back door. The air outside was cool and damp, with the pungent aroma of garbage waiting to be picked up from the restaurant next door. In an hour or two, the smells from cooking would overpower it. Now she hurried inside and was immediately embraced by the smells of new plants and potting soil they kept in large quantities in the back storeroom.
She glanced at the sales figures on the sheets Sam gave her, but they didn’t really matter. Her heart was already home as she walked across the squeaky heart-of-pine floors and opened the door into the main body of the shop.
Peggy loved this time before the customers started coming in, before anything was moved or spilled. It was a quiet balm for her soul. Plants she’d started from seeds or cuttings stretched out new tendrils in the gauzy white sunlight coming in from the wide front windows. The oak rocking chair sat squarely on the multicolored rag rug, the display ready with plants and everything a gardener needed for spring. She sat down in the rocker and sighed.
“Orange spice tea?” Sam asked, smiling at her contentment.
“That would be perfect.” She rocked the chair a little. “Now. Tell me how things went while I was gone. Don’t leave anything out.”
EMIL BALDUCCI WAS CLEANING off some bird droppings from his shop window at the Kozy Kettle Tea and Coffee Emporium just across the courtyard from the Potting Shed when Peggy came back from lunch. “Hey, Peggy! Good to see you! That boy you left in charge while you were gone doesn’t have a brain in his head!”
She joined him in the cobblestone courtyard. Emil always had some complaint about how things were done when she went away. She took a deep breath and smiled at him. “Good morning. How are you? How is Sofia?”
“She’s fine. I’m fine. You have to fire that boy. Find someone more reliable. I have a nephew, Christo, Sofia’s brother’s son. He would do a good job for you. And his father is a widower. He’s still got his hair and teeth. He’s got plenty of money, too. You could sell this place and marry him.”
Not daring to laugh, she asked, “Are you talking about me living with Christo or his father?”
Emil took a moment to curl the ends of his heavy gray mustache that he oiled every day. “You make jokes, but it’s a hard life for a woman alone. Ask Sofia. She had an aunt who tried to live alone. Three years she was without a man. The first salesman who stopped at her door married her. She was desperate. Now she’s happy.”
Before she was married off to Sofia’s brother or his son, Peggy got to the point. “What did Sam do this time?”
“He got dirt on the stones in the courtyard when he was working with the big flower pots. He came back after a while, when he felt like it, and cleaned up, but three customers noticed the mess. Then he sent people to that new bakery up the street. It’s not bad enough I have to compete with Dilworth Coffee House, now I have to worry about my pastry being better than theirs.”
“I’m sure he had a good reason, Emil. I’ve known Sam for years and so have you. He’s a hard worker, and I trust him. I’ll have a talk with him and let you know what happened.”
“Oh! You’ll have a talk with him.” Emil shrugged and shook his head. “I’m sure that will take care of the problem. Especially since what he really needs is a boot in his rear. If you had a husband, like Sofia’s brother, Angelo, he’d know what I’m talking about.” He continued ranting in Sicilian as he walked back toward his shop.
Peggy thanked him, not sure what else to say, then hurried into the Potting Shed to get away from his tirade. With her back against the door, she looked up to find Sam and her shop assistant, Selena Rogers, who’d come in for the afternoon, staring at her.
“What happened?” Selena asked. “You look like someone chased you in here.”
Peggy took off her heavy purple jacket, unwound the red scarf from her neck. “Mr. Balducci wants me to hire his nephew to run the shop.”
“Does he want you to marry his brother-in-law again?” Sam laughed, his even, white teeth gleaming against his darkly tanned face.
“Of course. I’m sure one day I’ll have to meet him.” Peggy picked up the mail and looked through it, tossing away some ads for life insurance. “How are you, Selena? How did it go while I was gone? Any strange requests?”
Selena shrugged her thin shoulders, her blond hair sliding against her neck. “It was about like February. It’s cold outside. It’s hard for most people to think about planting yet. But there was this one guy. He wanted to plant a whole yard full of stuff right now.”
“Oh yeah.” Sam zipped up his jacket. “I forgot to tell you about him. Mr. Crawford. He offered me a thousand dollar bonus if I could get enough plants in his yard to make his wife think they were there already when the house was built. I think it’s one of those treeless wonders from over in Pineville.”
Peggy stopped opening her garden catalogues. “What did you say to him?”
“It was hard, but we both said no.” Selena looked at Sam. “First of all, none of those plants would survive right now. How happy would he be after his wife pulled up into a yard filled with dead plants? It was a crazy, desperate idea.”
Sam shook his head. “I offered to plant anything that might live, but none of it would have tons of flowers and green leaves. Apparently Mr. Crawford told his wife, who was still out of state, that everything blooms here all the time and their yard was filled with flowers and trees.”
“If there had been any way at all,” Selena finished, “we would’ve shared that money. It would’ve made the Potting Shed’s bottom line skyrocket for the month, too.”
“It’s just as well you didn’t do it.” Peggy put down the mail and picked up the phone. “It would’ve ended in disaster. And we all know he would’ve blamed us. So I guess we’ll have to do something the old-fashioned way to remind our normal customers spring is closer than they think. Pull up the customer list on the computer, Selena. Let’s come up with a sales flyer to send to everyone. By the way, I love your hair.”
The younger woman smiled and fingered her new, shorter cut. “I was mostly trying to get that awful blue color out I put in over the summer when I went to that pool party. I’m thinking about going darker. Dark hair is really popular right now. What do you think?”
“I already told you what I think,” Sam responded as he picked up a hundred pound bag of bulbs from the floor like it was a child’s toy. “You don’t have the coloring to go dark. Unless you’re going to dye your lashes and brows. You’d just look spooky.”
“Okay, Thor. Thanks.” Selena turned to Peggy. “I meant what do you think?”
“I agree with Thor, I mean, Sam,” Peggy replied with a laugh. “Sorry, honey. Let me make this phone call, and we’ll talk.” She dialed the number of one of their local distributors and ordered two fifty pound bags of Jerusalem artichokes.
Selena and Sam were still bickering about Selena’s hair color when Peggy got off the phone. She ignored it. The two were good-natured, even when they disagreed. “Thanks for taking over for me, Selena. I feel like I haven’t been home in a month. And I promised Steve I’d get Shakespeare from him before dinnertime.”