This was it. Today was the day. The boys would be separated from the men... or... however that expression went. Andrea gulped quietly, trembling hands grasping the few forms she had been asked to fill out a week ago. God... a whole week had passed by so very quickly... faster than she had expected, actually. From behind her glasses, her eyes squinted, she was apprehensive of this visit... mainly because what she did and how she acted would determine her future employment at the fine establishment that was the corner stone Floral Market.
With a deep breath and a nervous, shaky sigh, she reached out and grasped the door handle. With a soft push, the door opened and she moved inside- jumping slightly as a bell hung above the door jingled softly. She closed the door and turned, heading further into the shop, her eyes lingering on the vast assortment of plants and cut flowers that adorned the walls and various tables. Before she had the chance to call out a greeting, or wander off to find her soon to be Boss (hopefully), The woman glided out of a backroom and greeted her with a wide grin and open arms.
“Andrea, my dear! Come in, come in!” Blinking, she found herself quickly swept away from the doorway and into the very same small room where she had been given her first interview.
“Please, make yourself comfortable.” Andrea nodded and sat in the offered chair, finding herself marveling once again at the woman’s strong, yet beautiful Russian accent.
“So, Andrea, how have you been these last few days?”After fingering her papers for a moment, she smiled at the woman and stilled her fidgeting. “I’ve been great Mrs. Dos... Dosto...Uh...”
“Please, call me Alisa.”Andrea nodded, fidgeting in her seat again with a small laugh. “Sorry, Mrs. Alisa, I’ve been itching to get back here and get to work, you know?”
The older woman chuckled and held her hand out for Andrea’s papers- which were handed over quickly in return.
“So eager to work, I like that in my Employees.” The woman shuffled through her papers, eyeballing Andreas chaotic handwriting, before she tapped the forms on her desk to align them, and set them down, peering over her glasses with her eyebrows arched.
“Of course, with this being your first job and all, i will have to see first hand if you have the... knack needed for this line of work. Follow me please.” She stood swiftly and maneuvered her way around the tidy room, exiting with Andrea in two to move across the room and behind the counter.
“Now, I handle the cash register dear, so you really have no need to worry about such things unless we are having a busy day, mostly Holidays.” She patted the old, worn cash register with an aged hand before moving off towards another back room. Andrea followed quietly behind, her hands clasped before her. Alisa stopped just after entering the room to wave an arm about,
“This, is the preparation room. We make all of out arrangements back here, as well as use that cooler over there to store our products.” Andrea nodded, eyeing what the room held. There were racks on the walls filled to the brim with an assortment of ribbon and what looked to be tool, Cabinets that were most likely the housing places for vases and other such containers, and drawers that probably held cutting tools such as shears and scissors and clippers. She could remember vaguely her mother’s greenhouse, and how certain instruments were only to be used to do certain things... she had been scolded many a time for using the wrong kind of shear to clip dead foliage from her mothers rose bushes.
“Now, here is the catch my dear...” Her attention slipped back to the older woman, who was wearing that of a wolfs smile, in Andrea’s opinion anyway. She raised an eyebrow from behind her glasses and nodded to let the woman know that she indeed had her full attention.
“The catch, is that before I will hire you, I want to see what you can do on your own.” She turned and pointed to the cooler,
“In there you will find an Assortment of Single stem roses, as well as filler flowers and greenery. Do you know what all of that is?”Andrea nodded, though it took her a moment to recall which flowers were considered filler flowers and which were not... the Websites she had gone to hadn’t been all that specific. Alisa’s smile widened and she continued on,
“Good. Now, I want you to go in there and pick out any two flower that you like, grab some greens and some other flowers that you think compliment your roses. Then, i want you to come out here, and arrange them in this-“ She moved to one of the cabinets and withdrew a tall, thin vase.
“Once you are done, I will judge how well did, and we will go from there, got it dear?”With a gulp, Andrea nodded. Alisa nodded to her as well and stepped out of the way, taking a seat across the room. With her hands entangled in front of her, Andrea made her way over to the cooler and popped up onto her tippy toes, peeking in through the large plastic window the cooler door held. As Alisa had said, there were a large number of buckets and boxes adorning the coolers shelves- filled to the brim with flowers galore. She slipped past the door, into the chilly frozen air, and began to sort through the roses. One of the main problems she had learned to suffer with over the years, was the inability to see color in living things... something had changed in her head- or her eyes- shortly after her second ability had manifested itself. So... which rose was red... and which one was white? Or pink? She stood there for a moment, chewing on her lip nervously. She could see a subtle difference in shades between the buckets, one was filled with rather dark roses, where as the next was filled with rather light roses. She could only assume that the dark ones were red, and the light ones were white. Her eyes caught sight of a light colored batch of
roses that had a dark tint to the tips of each petal. On a whim, she snatched up two and turned to stare down her next challenge.
The filler flowers. The first thing she saw was a
fluffy white bunch of flowers, almost branch like in how all of the small buds sprouted out from one large stem. She eyed it for a second, before moving onto the next bucket. A chaotic mess of shades met her eyes- she could only assume that among red and white, half of the rainbow was mixed within. She reached out and plucked a few stems of a dark colored flower, turning finally to face the greens. With a frown, she took what looked to be a few stems of
fern and made her way back out of the cooler. Alisa glanced up from a crossword that she had picked up from somewhere, eyeing Andreas choices quietly before she dropped her eyes back to the puzzle.
Once she had set her flowers down, she glanced at the vase- which Alisa had already filled with water. It was rather tall... so she probably wouldn’t need to cut too much off of the stem. She found a small pair of clippers had already been laid out for her as well, so she palmed a rose and slowly began to clip away at the many leaves it did not need. She clipped away a bit from the base of the rose and dropped it into the vase, snatching up the filler flower she had found to add around the lone rose. With a tilt of her head, she gazed at her half finished creation and frowned- not being able to see color was a serious downfall, but she would have to make the best of it. She clipped the ends of her greenery and added it in, before realizing that she had forgotten the last rose. As she was picking it up, Alisa looked up at that moment and cleared her throat.
“You should take your gloves off to handle the flowers, my dear. Nimble fingers make the most beautiful arrangements...” Andrea shot a worried look over her shoulder, opening her mouth to spurt out any number of excuses as to why that was an impossible thing to ask- but the look her future boss shot her was enough to stop the words in throat. That look surely stated that if she didn’t do as she was told, she would be jobless forever. With a sigh, Andrea carefully slipped her gloves off, picking up the rose once again and clipping a few leaves off carefully.
It was then, that Alisa noticed what her future employee was actually doing to the flower by touching it. She set her puzzle down and made her way over to the counter, staying Andreas hand as she moved to drop the discolored rose into the vase.
“Wait...”Before her eyes, the color of the stem darkened, and then lightened into dull gray color. Andrea watched Alisa watching the rose, and blinked in surprise when the older woman grabbed the bottom of the stem and tugged until Andrea was holding the bud, cupped within her palm. She tilted her head around the same time Andrea did, and when the rose was nearly completely stone-ified she stated for Andrea to set the flower down.
“What-...” Andrea winced inwardly and tugged her gloves back on, watching in apprehension as Alisa picked up the Rock hard rose and studied it. The older womans expression did little to set her nerves at ease. They did the opposite in fact, forcing panic and depression to flare up in her chest.
“...what and Amazing Gift...” Now, while she was old and possibly on her way to being senile, Alisa was smart and knew a great idea when she saw one. Two words popped to mind when she gazed at the flower that Andrea had created,
‘Eternal Love’.
"...Imagine, a rose- a real rose- that will never die, never wilt?" She brought the rose to her nose and sniffed, it still smelled like a rose even! Aside from the fact that it was colorless, it was a masterpiece! Every single petal was just as it had been before it had changed... She brought her gaze to Andrea, a grandmotherly smile tugging at her lips as the girl withered under her gaze.
“Andrea, my dear?”Oh god! This was it! She was about to get fired even
before getting hired!
“Andrea, throw that hideous mess of pink and yellow behind you away and go grab a bucket of red roses, they’re the ones on the left side of the cooler- top shelf. You’ve got the job dear, and if you have time, today is going to be your very first day.”What had just hit the floor? Oh yes, that was her jaw. After picking it up and regaining her composure, she stammered for a moment before collecting her thoughts enough to get out a coherent question. “...What? How did you...? Why would you...? I-....don’t understand...”
Alisa just smiled and waggled the stiff rose at her,
“You have the job, child. It doesn’t matter that you can’t put things together well yet- you will learn with time, nor does it matter that you are color blind- or might as well be if you think that shade of pink goes with that color of yellow.” Andrea winced, snatching her chosen flowers back out of the vase quickly, Alisa only chuckled again.
“Either way, this talent of yours is very unique, and I do believe there is something more to this than simply solidifying a rose. Go get that bucket now, we’ve got a lot more of these to make before the day is done!”With a numb nod, Andrea dropped her handful of flowers in the trash and scooted back into the cooler, removing the bucket that she had been instructed to before reemerging into the warmer room. Almost as soon as Alisa caught sight of her, the older woman let out a mirth filled laugh and took the bucket from her arms.
“These are purple, dear. I will label the buckets for you later, yes?”With a groan, Andrea turned on her heel and slinked back into the cooler. Though she was still a bit nervous and more than a little overwhelmed, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment. She had a job now, steady income and the freedom to buy her own things...with her own money!
Alisa didn’t miss the happy little dance the Green, mossy skinned girl was doing in the cooler. She shook her head, and laughed.
“...strange child.”
