(no subject)
The sun rises, wearing something short and lovely, and walks into their store at 9:00 in the morning. She makes things brighter, hotter, more exciting - she’s been everywhere in L.A., she has stories about going clubbing and meeting celebrities, stories from a world beyond Skid Row. She banishes the shadows of robberies and tobacco smoke and no customers and bums on the sidewalk. You can’t look directly at the sun - you catch a soft smooth belly or the curve of a breast out of the corner of your eye. When she’s gone she leaves you drained and needing and desperate for her to come again.
Seymour is watering the potted plants. Audrey is reading People, leaning her weight on her elbows against the counter. He can see the ridges of her spine through that thin green shirt. He can’t see a hint of her bra - does she ever wear one?
Mr. Mushnik slams the phone down after successfully ordering some orchids (two other suppliers turned them due to late payments). “You’re going to ruin your back if you sit like that,” Mushnik tells her. He has no objection to her reading at work. Of course.
Audrey sits up straighter. She catches Seymour’s gaze with her own and rolls her eyes. Seymour grins, his stomach jolts, and-
-- This is very odd, because he was holding it just fine a second ago, but suddenly his fingers can’t grip, they don’t work-
CRASH! The watering can spills over the floor.
“Seymour! What in God’s name happened now?” Mushnik comes out of the back, stares at the mess he’s made. “One day! Lord, is one day without a calamity too much to ask?”
Seymour gets to his feet to move to the supply closet, only to see Audrey coming out of it, roll of paper towels in hand. “Oh, please don’t yell at Seymour, Mr. Mushnik,” she says earnestly. “I’ll help him clean up before any of the customers get here.”
Mushnik and Seymour stare at her. Please don’t yell at Seymour. No one has ever said that before.
Mushnik hesitates to turn the full force of his anger on Audrey and casts about for something else to rail against. “That should give you plenty of time.” He waves her dismissively over to the mess.
Seymour takes a swath of paper towels from Audrey. “I can do it, Audrey. You should-should go back to your magazine.”
“No, it’s my fault, I distracted you.”
She bends down to start wiping up - she’s all curves under fabric that’s much too thin and much too small - suddenly all of Seymour’s protests get clogged in his throat. He feels like a character from Looney Tunes, like he’s going to grow a wolf’s head and just hoooooowl, or his jaw will drop and his eyes bug out with an “AOOOOGA!” He forces himself to crouch down and focus on the spill, fully aware that he’s not being a polite young man. God, he’s grounds for a sexual harassment suit, he’s sure of it.
“Thank you,” he says once they’re done.
“No problem.”
“But, still, thank you-” For telling him not to yell at me. It means so much to him he can’t get the words out.
It’s too raw, that second thank you, too intense for an everyday interaction. Audrey looks at him, expectant but lightly baffled. He can’t tell her. It’s so stupid. God, everything he says is so stupid.
He shuts up, gives a lighter and quicker, “Thanks,” and slinks over to the other side of the store.
He can feel Audrey watching him go, but doesn’t turn to look back.
*
Every Saturday evening, Seymour goes to the wholesale flower district and then to the library. Everything is open later on Saturdays.
One time, almost a year after Audrey was hired, Seymour forgets that his library card needs to be renewed. That requires fifteen dollars which he doesn’t have. He hopes he can wheedle some money out of Mushnik and practices his groveling in his mind as he walks.
“Spare some change, kid?”
“Not this time, Bill.”
“Jesus loves you, kid.”
“Thanks.”
He gets to the store - after his eighteenth birthday Mushnik gave him a key - and goes in. Mushnik’s probably downstairs watching TV.
He isn’t. He’s in the middle of the store with Audrey, who should have left for home a half hour ago. Mushnik looks surprised, but it’s Audrey that captures Seymour’s attention: her eyes go wide, she drops her gaze to her purse, a flush starting under her bronze cheeks.
“What are you doing here, boychik?” Mushnik asks.
“I need some money. For my library card. I didn’t, uh, expect to see you here, Audrey.”
She makes a little squeaking sound that breaks his heart, then mumbles, “I-I was-”
“We were discussing her career options,” Mushnik says.
“Yeah,” Audrey seconds softly.
There’s a strange vibe between all three of them; Seymour looks at Audrey and glances at Mushnik, Mushnik looks at Seymour and glances at Audrey, and Audrey for whatever reason can’t look at either of them. The radio plays Lionel Richie’s ‘Just for You’ (truth was truth / and lies were lies / and we thought love would never die / but the world moved on / my illusions gone / and I don’t know who to blame).
Audrey breaks the moment, and Seymour loses his chance to hunt down the reason for their strained silence (if he ever could).
“I’m going to get back now.” She says this like it’s a question, slipping her gaze up and to the side to Mushnik. It darts from him a moment later.
“We’ll talk about this another time,” Mushnik tells her. He emphasizes ‘another time’.
“Sure.” She hurries off, digging into her purse and she walks. Like she’s digging for Kleenex. Or, hell, she could be digging for bus tickets for all Seymour knows.
As he watches her leave, a previously ignored detail intrudes on Seymour’s consciousness. The blinds are pulled down. Mushnik usually keeps the windows bare once they’re closed, in order to show the empty cash register. Why would the blinds be pulled down?
“What kind of career options?” Seymour asks, hoping Mushnik will give him some clue.
“It was a private conversation,” Mushnik growls at him - more irritated than an interrupted discussion would warrant, Seymour thinks. “And don’t bother asking me for money, I don’t got any. Now get outta here, you putz.”
He tosses the information about in his mind - but it’s turned to Teflon, nothing sticks. He can’t connect it with anything. It’s inexplicable.
He watches Audrey closely the next day. She’s shyer than usual, says, “Oh, yeah,” instead of talks about her day, stumbles over the greeting when people call in. After two days of this, Seymour can’t stand it anymore. After work, he slinks downstairs and asks, “S-sir, you’re not going to fire Audrey, are you?”
Mushnik stares at him. It’s the kind of stare that makes Seymour feel like he’s eleven and staring at a test that says ‘15%’.
“Where did you get a crazy idea like that?”
“She’s so distracted lately. I thought maybe your talk about her career options meant you were gonna fire her. But obviously you think it’s crazy, so-”
“Will you shut up? I’m trying to watch this show!” Mushnik waves him away and turns the volume up.
Seymour does shut up, but he doesn’t stop thinking. Why is Mushnik so irritated about this? Is he unsatisfied with her job performance in some other way? It sounded pretty serious, if he needed to bring it up with her again.
Unless…that talk was cover. Once he hits that simple fact new vistas open up, all of them dark and murky. Cover for what? What could they have to hide from him?
Why is there a ‘they’ at all?
Suddenly the possibilities seem too dark to be explored. He doesn’t want to think anymore about it. He forces himself not to - and yet, he doesn’t get to sleep easily that night.
*
Seymour has to wear a cheesy Santa hat every Christmas. Audrey wears an elf hat - it’s smaller and doesn’t produce as much sweating. Seymour takes his hat off whenever he can.
“Put that on, I paid good money for that!”
This is always the response when Mushnik notices.
“Psst!” He looks behind him.
Audrey is looking at the back room. From her position, she can see whether Mushnik is busy or not. She motions to Seymour to take his hat off. Seymour looks at her gratefully as he does, then continues screwing off the burnt out lights on their fake Christmas tree. A florists having a plastic tree strikes him as wrong on some fundamental level, but who could afford a real one?
He examines the fake needles with their fake snow, gathering his courage. “Audrey, I-”
“Seymour,” she speaks - and she’s so close to him he jerks around, nudging the tree, causing an ornament (plastic, fortunately) to clatter to the ground.
“I got you something for Christmas,” she continues, seeming not to notice his reaction, as she hands him a square package.
“I got you something too!” Seymour says, pleased. He slips downstairs and brings up her present.
Audrey looks at hers, bouncing up and down a little in excitement. “We can open ours even though Christmas is a few days away, right?”
“Sure!”
His is Growing Roses for Beginners. Seymour grins. This book has colour diagrams and everything!
“Audrey, this is great,” he says. “Thank you. Thanks so much.”
“Oh, you’re welcome. I remember you said how you’d love to have a rosebush or two of your own.”
Hers is a jewelry box in the shape of a chest, the wood painted sapphire blue with light green vines laden with purple grapes. The inside is (imitation) velvet, with five partitions for different types of jewelry. The top had a small vanity mirror, but it was cracked and would've cost too much to replace, so he removed it. A lock is built into the box, pewter that Seymour painstakingly polished, with a small key he taped to the top of the box.
“Oh!” she breathes, staring at it, then turning it over to examine the detail. “It’s beautiful. It-how’d you know this was my favourite colour?”
“You told me a while back.” Seymour could never remember answers on tests or quizzes. He thinks now that it was because he never cared. Audrey is a reason to care.
“Thank you,” she says.
She hugs him. For just an instant those golden arms wrap around him, those breasts push against his chest and he can wrap an arm around her shoulder. Heaven must be like this, his brain babbles, when of course heaven isn’t, it’s peace and love while this is excitement and terror and lust but beautiful in its own way.
Seymour wishes they’d put up mistletoe.