Carnations

An English class project written as a ‘sequel’ to the short story ‘A Crush’ by Cynthia Rylant.

Dolores had been receiving the flowers for a few months now, and where time had not been so kind to the ones that Ernie had been leaving at the store, new ones would take their place. Neither she nor Dick had any idea as to who could be leaving these petaled attractions in front of their door since that one Wednesday morning in the summer. And like clockwork, they kept arriving on every Wednesday thereafter.

Like clockwork. Like seasons that came and went but would always come back. Like Ernie and Jack going to the Big Boy on Wednesday mornings. Like Ernie crossing the street to leave his affections at the door of Stan’s Hardware where he hoped Dolores would find them.

And like clockwork, she always did.

At some point, there came a surplus of empty Mason jars without any flowers to fill them that Dolores decided to leave one outside the door on a Tuesday evening when she closed the store, putting just a bit of water in it and a scribbled note underneath for the mysterious flower person to find.

“I think she wants you to put the flowers in the jar,” Jack explained when Ernie stood frozen with the jar in one hand and the note in the other, reading the words in Dolores’ barely-discernible handwriting: PLEASE FILL ME.

Ernie, though with some reluctance, did as Jack had suggested before running to hide in their booth at the Big Boy. For the next half hour, Ernie had been restlessly waiting and watching the store from his seat, his legs bouncing up and down and his fingers drumming anxiously on his lap until Dolores came, picking up the flowers with a practiced ease, giving them a sniff.

Ernie was sure he could see a hint of a smile on her lips before she turned to unlock the door, Mason jar around one arm.

“You should leave her a note next time,” Jack suggested.

It seemed like a ridiculous idea to Ernie at the time, but as winter grew closer and the air felt colder, he knew he could only leave flowers for so long before they would die in the weather.

His days were numbered before the first snowflake would fall, properly signaling the change in season, and so he decided he would muster up the courage to give her his first words since summer.

The first note he’d left hadn’t been anything spectacular or romantic in nature; it was only a simple ‘hello’ followed by a compliment on a dress she worefrom last week. And as he left more and more, he became bolder in what he wrote, and in time, she finally learned his name. To Ernie, there was nothing that set his heart beating faster than seeing his name spelled out in the messy strokes of the ink from her hand. It was the closest thing to hearing her say it with her voice, a sound he’d only thus far imagined.

That was, until he found another note from her underneath the Mason jar she had now regularly left.

Dolores wanted to meet him.

Jack, ever so supportive of his friend, began to coach him through what would be their first meeting, practicing scenarios in case he might get overwhelmed. Ernie, though terrified, wanted to do his best to impress the lovely woman who had only grown lovelier and lovelier in the months since he first saw her. It was only right that he would present the best version of himself.

He hadn’t slept a wink come the Wednesday after he had received the note from Dolores. He awoke Jack already in his dark brown corduroy jacket over a simple white button-up that Jack had helped him pick out from the thrift store last weekend. He had never been more excited for anything in his life, not even when he cut the first flowers he’d ever grown, though this was similar in nature — after months and months of pining, he would finally see his efforts blossom.

And yet, fate seemed to have other plans for him when Jack’s car refused to start in the garage. Ten minutes turned to fifteen turned to thirty until it had been an hour, and Ernie was already clenching his fists anxiously at the thought that Dolores might have already arrived at the store and found no signs of Ernie or the flowers. Had she thought he’d stood her up? Had she thought he’d hated her? The thoughts made his stomach churn uncomfortably as he paced around the living room of the house, Jack watching him from the couch as they waited for the mechanic, offering soothing words to help calm him down.

The guy from the auto shop hadn’t arrived until a little past ten, by which point, Ernie had already locked himself in his room, hidden underneath a mountain of blankets, while the bouquet of flowers lay miserably on the ground.

The next couple of days had been difficult, and even Jack couldn’t get Ernie to come out of his room if it weren’t mealtime.

He finally budged when Jack told him the Big Boy would be serving his favorite breakfast meal : a stack of waffles with butter and maple syrup along with a side of bacon and eggs, with twice the waffles tomorrow. Which, coincidentally, happened to be a Wednesday.

That didn’t seem too bad a deal.

He felt strange, sitting in Jack’s car on a Wednesday morning with no flowers in hand. Jack must have noticed, because he kept talking about food the entire drive, perhaps to try and distract him from his thoughts of the woman across the street from the Big Boy.

He tried not to look at the store once they pulled up in front of the restaurant, instead keeping his gaze fixed on the ground. He knew that if he so much as moved his head a little to the right, he might catch a glimpse of her, and he wasn’t sure what he would do then.

“You go on ahead, I’ll just unload something from my car,” Jack insisted, gesturing towards the door of the Big Boy. Ernie no longer had any qualms about going in alone like he did the first time Jack brought him here, so he did as he was told with a short nod and nothing more.

Once inside, he made a beeline for their usual booth though he still kept his eyes on his shoes, observing the way they moved one after the other until he was sure he had arrived at their spot. But as he lifted his head, he saw the figure of someone sitting with their back turned towards him. In his seat.

He took a few steps forward and was partway through opening his mouth to try and reprimand the stranger when he saw her face.

Dolores greeted him with a small but warm smile. She was wearing a bright red dress that seemed to grow even brighter as the first rays of sun shone through the window beside her, the same window he used to watch her from.

“You must be Ernie.”

On the table, there was a bouquet of flowers held together by a rubber band — white carnations, almost like the color of the first snowflake to fall outside.