Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin Page B

stare.
    â€œDeath, birth, or you got a girl?” he said.
    â€œGirl,” said Vincent.
    â€œYeah,” said the florist. “How much you wanna spend?”
    â€œLots,” said Vincent.
    The florist disappeared into a back room after looking at Vincent in a way that made it clear he dealt regularly with emotionally turbulent men who knew nothing about flowers. Vincent himself knew very little. About all he knew was that his Aunt Lila had once bred a hybrid rose and named it after her cleaning woman, Mrs. Iris Domato. The florist returned with a huge bouquet of tea roses, snapdragons, and stock.
    â€œUsually you wanna spend this much, you have a fight with your wife,” said the florist. “You have a fight with your wife?”
    â€œGirlfriend,” said Vincent.
    â€œFlowers help sometimes,” said the florist. “And sometimes they don’t.”
    Vincent was almost sure Misty did not like flowers, but he wanted to bring her something huge and showy. A gesture of affection and hostility was just the sort of thing she might appreciate.
    It was Friday night. Walking down Misty’s street, Vincent thought he heard a violin. It was followed by an oboe and a flute. For a moment, Vincent thought he was hallucinating. As he walked, the music got closer. He passed a brownstone with open parlor windows. A girl with a violin in her hand looked out into the street. Behind her, Vincent could see a group of musicians tuning up. A plaque on the brownstone read: The New York Little Symphony Society. The girl in the window smiled at Vincent. She pointed to his flowers and smiled again. Then she picked up her violin and began to play the opening bars of the Kreutzer Sonata.
    Vincent smiled and waved at her. He felt moved and foolish. How many other men were walking around the streets wearing fresh shirts and carrying huge bouquets of flowers? He sighed. Love put you under a yoke, the same yoke all lovers walk under like oxen. Love, he reflected, was not at all like science. It seemed unfair to him that there was nowhere one might research except to go to the thing itself. These thoughts brought him to Misty’s door. He rang the bell and waited for her to ring back and let him in.
    Misty’s apartment was rather like her office, except that there was slightly more to see. She was neither tidy nor untidy. She was simply casual. She claimed not to be sentimental about possessions, and Vincent could see that this was true. She had an old blue couch, a blue chair, and a three-legged stool. In her bedroom was a plain bed with a blue and white spread and an oak desk. Most of the walls were taken up by bookshelves. The only decorative objects were a glass photograph of two stiff-looking people, a platter embossed with an ear of corn, and a little glass vase.
    â€œThese are for you,” said Vincent, handing her the bouquet. She took them without a word.
    â€œDo you have anything to put them in?” he said.
    â€œProbably not,” she said. They walked into her kitchen, where on the top of a shelf Misty was too short to reach without a chair was the small glass vase’s taller brother, covered with dust.
    â€œThat’s an awful lot of flowers,” Misty said. “Now what am I supposed to do with them?”
    â€œIt is common practice to put them in water and then place them attractively on a surface,” said Vincent.
    The vase was washed and filled with water. The flowers were arranged. Misty looked at them suspiciously.
    â€œWhat attractive surface?” She looked over to the table in the corner of the living room which was set for two. “They’re too big for the table.”
    Vincent took the vase out of her hand, carried it into the bedroom, and placed it on a low bookshelf across from her bed.
    â€œWhen you wake up in the morning, you can think of me.”
    â€œFat chance,” said Misty.
    For dinner Misty gave Vincent pot roast and potato