Page 73 of Just Come Over
Roses that lasted never had much scent, but the jasmine and clematis made up for it, their honeyed fragrance mingling in a gorgeously strong perfume. She’d cut the snowberry and clematis from her own garden, and the jasmine and maidenhair fern from Rhys’s, which meant that she’d got all the greenery she’d needed, more than anybody would have had for sale in the markets. The arrangements were huge, drooping, and extravagant, and they looked as little like something from a floral service as an Indian banquet did from her mother’s Sunday dinner of roast chicken and two veg.
If you were the same as everybody else, why would anybody choose you? Besides, she needed to express herself, to allow herself this burst of sensuality, and to offer it up to her clients like a gift. She was taking a chance again, as usual, as always, because otherwise, what was the point of having your own business?
Paying the mortgage, that was what. Doing the flowers as distinctively and as high-end as she could possibly manage was a business decision, that was all. She needed to be making good decisions now, because the rain had started bucketing down on her way home from taking Rhys to the airport three days ago, like having him wrenched from her was as bad as it felt, and it had kept doing it in fits and starts ever since. The bucket in her bedroom was filling faster, she could swear. There were probably leaks she couldn’t see, drenching her Pink Batts, filling her crawl space with mold, and winter was coming. She needed to buy the van before she did the roof, but she couldn’t.
She set her palms on the table and breathed in and out as the panic tried to set in. She’d wait two weeks, after another couple rounds of payments had come in, and do the roof on a credit card, that was all, so she had enough for the down payment on the van. And she’d do an extra arrangement for Jenna, she decided, and deliver it today. A surprise. Two of the Supreme subscriptions and one of the Deluxes had been from WAGs. She owed Jenna for that, and besides, you rewarded your customers for referrals.
The only solution to money worries was to keep moving.Thatwas the point of owning your own business: that you could always do more. You didn’t have to ask for more hours, then figure out how to get enough daycare to cover them. You could justspendmore hours. Hours of shoving pink flyers under windscreen wipers in the carparks of day spas, along side streets in tony Parnell and fashionable Ponsonby, in an effort that might yield eighty dollars extra that week for ten hours of trudging, but she’d needed that eighty dollars, and she hadn’t had money for ads.
She wasn’t sticking flyers under windscreens anymore, and that was progress. She was good. She wasfine.She put together Jenna’s arrangement, and was adding some extra roses to it when her phone rang.
“Zora’s Florals,” she said, because she couldn’t identify the caller.
“Hi,” a woman’s voice said at the other end. “I’m calling from Metalcrafters Roofing.”
“Sorry,” Zora said. “Not interested.” She’d checked them out already. In fact, she’d had them out to give an estimate six months ago. They were the best, especially if you went with a metal roof, but they were too pricey.
“It’ll last you at least twice as long,” the bloke had said. “Well worth it on a per-year basis. Barely more than half the cost, looked at like that. The resale value on a metal roof is eighty-five percent. Which means spending four thousand, and getting...” He’d hauled out a calculator, and Zora had thought,Isaiah could have done it in his head by now.Of course,shecouldn’t have, but she wasn’t selling roofs. “Thirty-four hundred back when you sell,” he said. “Approximately. Very cost-effective on a per-year basis, metal roofing.”
Which was all very well and good, unless you couldn’t afford to think of it on a per-year basis. If you had to think of it on a how-much-can-I-spend-now-oh-my-God-not-nearly-that-much basis.
Now, she said, “I know I asked for an estimate. I told your representative when he rang up, though, that it was out of my price range.” That should get rid of the caller fast.
A short silence on the other end, and she pulled guard petals off roses and didn’t hang up, because theyhadgiven her that estimate. And maybe they were having a thirty-percent-off sale. A woman could dream.
“I’m a bit confused,” the voice finally said. “I’m calling to select colors and schedule your install. We’d like to start on Wednesday, since there should be a break in the weather. Two or three days, and we’re done. I gather next week is convenient for you, as you’ll be away from home anyway.”
“I think there’s been a mistake,” Zora said. “I don’t have the money to install a new roof, period, at the moment, and I don’t have the money to install a metal roofever.”
“Ah,” the woman said. “Huh. We have a credit card on file, so that’s all taken care of. Hubby didn’t let you know, maybe? Or maybe it was meant to be a surprise?”
Who gave a new roof to somebody as a surprise? Anythinglessof a surprise would be hard to imagine. A bit difficult to ignore a team of blokes taking the cover off from over your head.
“Whose credit card?” she asked. Only one answer, really. Her parents. She should maintain her independence, probably. Pity she wanted a metal roof so badly. In mid-gray. Was itverybad if you accepted a roof? Did it give them room to criticize her life? She’d have to ask Hayden. She was very much afraid that the answer to that was “Yes.”
“Ah...” There was some rustling of paper. “Rhys Fletcher.ThatRhys Fletcher? Wait. Zora Fletcher. Sorry. Your—brother? was, ah, always a favorite of mine. Nice of him to shout you a new roof.”
Rhys got the call when he was in the hotel gym with Finn. Or, rather, he realized he’d missed the call, and rang Zora back.
She didn’t bother saying hello. She said, “I’m driving. I’m probably going to crash now.”
He said, “What? Put the phone down.”
“Nah. You’re on speaker. Rhys.” She was laughing. He thought. Sort of. “I’m gobsmacked. I’m also telling you no. You can’t buy me a roof.”
“Why shouldn’t I buy you a roof? You need a roof. Isaiah told me so.”
“When?”
“First night, in the van. What does it matter when?”
“When you sleep with a woman,” Zora said, in a too-reasonable tone that promised objections coming up, “you send her flowers. It’s a lovely gift. Anormalgift. A gift a woman knows how to interpret. It says, ‘I would like to continue this relationship, because I find you attractive.’ Which would be why it’s customary.”
“I couldn’t send you flowers, though, could I? You’re a florist. I call that unreasonable. What do today’s look like, by the way? You could send me a photo.”
“Today’s what? Flowers? You do not want to see a photo of my flowers. And how do you know I’m doing them today?”
“It’s Friday. Residential deliveries are on Friday. And yeh, I do want to see a photo of your flowers. Your flowers are dead sexy, and my work laptop’s got some sort of filter on, so I can’t get the good porn. I’m getting desperate here.”
