A Writer's Fairytale

Mary: And Then What Happened

I walk out from behind the counter and saw a man looking at a beautiful selection of sunflowers. “They are beautiful flowers, not many people know the array of different species of sunflowers that there are.” 

He turned around. My hand had to go up to my mouth to prevent the gasp that I was sure was going to leave my mouth. “Which is your favorite species of sunflower?”

I was shocked. The words that were in my head weren’t coming out of my mouth. All I could do was look at him. Stop this I kept telling myself. He is just a person, a person just like you. The only difference between you and him is that he is gorgeous and you are not. “I. I. I.” That seemed to be all that would come out. I will not droll over some pretty face I finally told myself. “I like the traditional ones. There is something about a classic look that I really enjoy.” I began to think about the words that had come out of my mouth and they didn’t seem like words that should come out of anyone’s mouth let alone mine. It was the truth, but they felt like some poor home and garden show, not a girl talking about flowers, a girl that had grown up in this shop talking about flowers, a writer who grew up in this shop talking about flowers. It just didn’t feel right, maybe it was too forced, or maybe my shock put me into a moment when I needed a stock answer, maybe, just maybe the shock took away my filter and just for a moment I spoke how I felt. 

“I have to agree with you,” he said somehow his voice sounded calmer than it was the night before and I didn’t think that that was humanly possible. He had to have been a robot. He had to have been, was all I kept thinking. There was no way that he was human. He couldn’t be human. 

“May I help you with something, or did you come to admire the sunflowers?” I asked. I felt my sarcasm slowly reentering my body. I could feel my brain slowly cooling from the almost melt down that it had just experienced. I just wished that it would have happened faster. I needed to return back from planet him and reenter back into reality as quickly as humanly possible.

"You may be able to help me,” He began. He paused in-between the words to make my heart start leaping again. “See, I met this spectacular girl last night and she stood me up today. I want to get flowers that say I won’t give up that easily.” His smile was bright and it reminded me of a star. 

“You know I am not an expert on these things, so I think that you should talk to my grandmother,” I said, slowly inching toward the door. I didn’t want to be there. I was sure that the flowers not getting to me until 20 minutes prior to this was a blessing in disguise. I didn’t want to be conflicted into going out with him or not. I knew from prior experiences that there was always more to the story even if the story at this point in time seems perfect. There was something that would show up and it would be less than perfect and everything would come crumbling back to reality, I have written too many of those stories not to be aware of that. 

 “You seem like a smart girl; I am sure you can help.”  He called to me, just as I was about to exit the door.

I didn’t turn around, didn’t look behind me, but I also wasn’t looking in front of me. I was trapped in my own mind. I was reassuring myself that I was making the right move. I was outside of the flower shop the door was still open when I ran into something. I looked and I saw, but I didn’t like what I saw. I retreated back into the flower shop. Michael followed suit. Michael was the person who took over for his father’s barbershop. He had black hair darker than night itself. His ice blue eyes could freeze the sun and his ego could smother it. He was short, but his mind had never seen it.

One time I saw him try to take on a man that was twice his height. He would have lost too, if his friends wouldn’t have come to his rescue. I use friends loosely. Friends are people who have your back because they want to, they are not people who have your back because you pay them to. “Hey, Mary haven’t seen you around in a while,” he said, cornering me against a wall. 

I gave a fake smile that a clown would have said was awful. “I have been helping my GRANDMOTHER a lot lately,” I said, hoping that my grandmother had got the hint, but it wasn’t my grandmother that came to my rescue.

"Why don’t you give the girl a little breathing room?” said the man that I had just tried to avoid. He was something else. I had just stood him up not once but twice and yet there he was still defending me. What was with this guy? 

“What’s it to you?” Michael paused squaring himself against the other man. The only problem was the man was at least 4 inches taller if not more, and Michael was staring at the guy’s shoulder blades. 

I regained my composure quickly and stepped into the middle of the pissing match. “Leave him out of this Michael this is between you and me,” I said, pushing the man a little. His rock-hard abs didn’t give at all. If I had been in any other state of mind, I would have probably lost my bearings, but I wasn’t about to do that, not with Michael present.

Michael pushed me out of the way. “He made himself involved.” 

The man went to my side the minute Michael pushed me. “Don’t push a lady.” I quickly brushed him off of me. When I looked at Michael again, I saw a face that I only saw when he was ready to throw a punch. I knew what I had to do it. I went to block Michael’s punch and forgot how bad he was at aiming. He hit me right in the eye.

There was a moment of pure shock that struck each one of us. Then with dignity and pride Michael said, “Maybe this will make you prettier. We know that it can’t make you any uglier.”

 With those words the man left my side. He stood up. I was trying to stand up, but my knee kept giving out on me. I was sure that a fight was about to break out, then I began to hear humming. My grandmother came out of the back room humming something vaguely familiar. Her ignorance quickly faded as she saw me on the ground and the men ready to go fist to cuffs. “What on God’s green Earth is going on in here?” She screamed. She ran to my side. “Are you alright sweetheart?”

“I am fine,” I said, trying to lift my body from the ground. Then with a thud I fell back down. The man came back to my side. “I am just having a hard time standing up.” I then turned to Michael. “You best go home Michael I see no more damage that you can do, unless you want to punch the other eye.”

Upon hearing those words my grandmother straightened herself and came face to face with Michael. “Did you do this Michael?”

Michael’s face went red. “I only did it because I was trying to protect her.” His voice was weak and strained. He had been trying to act tough, but no one could be as tough as my grandmother was.

My grandmother flattened a loose piece of hair back to her head. “Protect her from what?”

Michael quickly lifted his finger and pointed to the man. “There is something about him that I do not like Mrs. Parker. He is up to something.”

“He did nothing you threw the first punch,” I called. I had no idea why I was protecting him, but it could have something to do with the fact that I hated Michael. I hated Michael more than I hated the other man. I didn’t know the other man very well, but I knew Michael, and I knew how terrible he was.

My grandmother turned away from Michael. I was surprised that she didn’t throw a punch herself. “Excuse me sir would you help me take my granddaughter into the back room,” she said, keeping herself perfectly straight.

He picked me up again. I turned to my grandmother. I would have turned to him, but I tried that last night and it didn’t go like I had wanted it too. “I can walk,” I called to her, but my words fell on a deaf audience. She led him into the back room and told him where to put me.

………………..

 “Then what happened?” Rebecca asked fully entranced in the story. I threw another shirt into my luggage.  

“What do you mean then what happened?” I asked, walking back over to my dresser.

“I mean what happened after you got into the back room,” she said, grabbing the shirt that I had just thrown into the luggage and folded it.

“Nothing. He said he had to go and he left.” I saw her face go sad. “I know it wasn’t the ending you wanted. Do you want me to write a better one? Maybe something where we fall madly in love and end up getting married.”

She laughed. “No, I can handle the sad ending. I know this is a strange question, but did you ever figure out what your grandmother was humming?”

“No,” I said, throwing a pair of pants into a suitcase. “I have been trying to figure it out since I got back here, but I can’t.  It bothers me that I don’t know what it was.” She grabbed the pants and folded them and then put them back into the suit case.

“Maybe if you hum what she did I will be able to tell you what it was.” I hummed only a little bit before a smile went a crossed my friend’s face. “It’s the wedding march.” I laughed. My grandmother would be humming that I thought.