Page 16 of Dear Ripley

“Do you actually want me to murder you right here? Nobody would see.”

She laughed like that wasn’t a genuine threat. I mean, it wasn’t, but she didn’t know that. I had resorted to hiding in a bush. Who was to say what else I would resort to? Desperate people did desperate things.

“Oh, actually,” she said, looking out the bush at Alicia again, “if you’re talking to Harlow, that means I’m free to talk to Alicia, so I can ask about that jacket. I take it back. I love this plan.”

“Nobody’s stopping you from talking to her in the first place,” I complained, louder than I wanted to be—or should be given that I was hiding in a bush.

“You spotted her and dragged me into a bush with you, so you kind of are stopping me from talking to her.”

“Feel free to leave at any time…” I gestured to the street beyond the bush, feeling only mildly betrayed by my supposed best friend in the entire world. Trading me in for a jacket of all things.

“She’s at your store, by the way,” she said lightly, as if her words didn’t make my head swim and stop my brain from functioning properly.

“She’s… at… what?”

I followed her finger where it pointed out of the bush and down the street, and, sure enough, there was Alicia, outside Petal and Pebble.

Objectively, I’d known she’d have to pass it. That was how the street worked. But I hadn’t expected her to stop, to look at the flowers. And I really should have known how much I’d burn with wanting to know what she thought of the display, but that hadn’t occurred to me either—I’d been too busy ignoring the possibility of her seeing the place.

But there she was. Alicia Burton. Outside Petal and Pebble. Looking at the flowers.

At least the store was locked. She couldn’t go inside. She couldn’t be in my space. She couldn’t buy anything. And she wouldn’t want to anyway. This entire plan of avoiding her hinged on her buying nothing from the local florist. She wasn’t even going to be here long enough to see them through their lifespan. What would be the point of buying them?

No, Alicia did not need flowers, and I was not going to sell them to her. She was just looking, momentarily, at the pretty displays. Then, she was going to leave and never think about the place again.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the universe seemed to be listening.

After only a few moments, Alicia looked away from the store and carried on walking, her mom and Joel barely even registering her slight delay.

I wasn’t usually in the business of wanting people to be uninterested in Petal and Pebble—survival rather depended on thembeinginterested—but I found myself absolutely delighted. If she’d lingered, as if waiting for me to return, I’d have been stuck in this bush for the foreseeable future, and I had too much work to do for that.

“Come on,” Morgan eventually said, standing up and holding out a hand to help me up too. “She’s gone now, and I need to get back to being the very busy and important person I am. And you need to get back to being a productive member of society.”

“I’m a perfectly productive member of society, thank you very much.”

“Mm. Yes, because the most productive people are the ones hiding in bushes on a Thursday morning.”

“They might be. You don’t know they’re not.”

“I absolutely do.”

I rolled my eyes, walking a little too quickly back to the store, eager to be off the street and back to safety. Morgan kept pace until we made it to the store, made a snarky comment about my continued efforts in running away from Alicia, and wandered back to her place at a much more leisurely pace.

Filled with panic as I was, I almost locked the door behind me before realizing that would be counterintuitive to business—the one I’d worked hard to cultivate and keep.

Alicia always had messed with my head and my heart and my ability to breathe. I was pretty certain I’d preferred it before the divorce.

But, with some effort, I picked up with Edith’s arrangement, and the familiarity and rhythm of flower arranging soothed my whole body. I fell into the comfort of it, tuning out the world around me, lost and safe in the activity, and moving from Edith’s arrangement and onto other projects seamlessly, the time ticking by without me even noticing.

So, when I was crouched behind the counter, looking for the perfect ribbon, and the doorbell tinkled, I didn’t bolt as I might have earlier in the day.

“Sorry, I’m back here,” I called towards the front of the store. “Welcome to Petal and Pebble. What can we do for you today?”

The rush of breath leaving someone’s body was audible in the quiet of the store and immediately started up the terror in my system again. I rose slowly, shaky and steady at the same time, terrified and already knowing.

Eight years did nothing to erase the sound of her breath from my memory. She’d be inscribed there until the day I died. Maybe after it, too.

And there she was. Frozen before me. Something better than a memory; worse than it, too. Beautiful, horrified, confused, and complete.

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