Blind Flowers
“If our spirits were all flowers, what flower do you think you are?”
“That’s an odd question,” Thom said following the ring of the coffee cup rim. They were sitting in a dark bar, the buzz of music adding to the blushing heat of alcohol. The other couples around them whispered and laughed, but they sat in serious silence. He picked up his Irish coffee to take another sip, but just kept it in his hand.
“What flower would I be?” he blushed as Caitlin nodded her head up and down and gazed at him expectantly. “I don’t know,” he said rubbing the back of his neck nervously and breaking from her gaze. He tried to enjoy himself, but her gaze and seriousness were starting to make him nervous. He vowed never to take another blind date again.
“Well, no one can know,” she said smiling gently, melting the tension. He couldn’t help but smile back. She put her hand on his and started massaging gently. “If you’re feeling uncomfortable answering that question, you don’t have to.”
He watched her bone-accentuated hands gently relax the muscles in his hand, but didn’t catch her gaze.
“I guess I’m a calla lily,” he said at last as the noise somewhat died down. “Simple and ugly.”
She laughed and dropped her hands. “From what I’ve seen, you’re not simple and calla lilies aren’t ugly.”
“So that was the wrong answer?”
“If there is a wrong answer.”
He thought for a moment and watched her in the haze. She sipped her drink quietly, gazing into the flame of the candle meditatively. The fire caught her hair in a blaze of passionate red and glowed like a new penny never could. Her freckles had disappeared off of her pale skin in the dim light, except by her nose where the candle illuminated her skin playfully. Her green eyes reflected the light like a cat and he could almost see the emerald green shadows on the table from their metallic shine. Yet, she sat perfectly and simply still, not making a single move to touch him besides the small hand massage she had finished earlier.
Thom thought about how he had gotten there. His friend, Jack, had called him up (something Jack never did) and told Thom to prepare himself for a date the following evening. “You need to get out and about,” he had said before hanging up the phone on Thom’s protests, “you need to find yourself a mate.” That was the last of the words on the matter, but Thom was not one to leave someone out alone at a bar waiting the whole night, so he showed up. Caitlin was quite a beautiful girl, thin as a flower stem with poppy-bright hair and she was incredibly outgoing. After analyzing drink orders and telling him speculative stories of other people in the bar, she had started the conversation about flowers. Such outgoing spirit, was not what Thom had expected from this shy-looking lady and had set his mind racing with emotions for hours.
“Maybe I’m a rose. There are so many layers to me and so many different colors. The center is small and really never ending, but the outer petals are large enough to hide the inside.”
She nodded as if she knew the answer all along.
“What do you think I am?”
He shifted nervously and took a sip of coffee.
“Probably a zinnia,” she frowned as he continued, “the core of your spirit is so easy to see and there are so many different parts to the whole. Every uniqueness is easy to spot and without them, there isn’t much.”
“Without the other parts, I’m just a core on a stem.”
He paused and followed her gaze to look at her hands. “Look, I’m sorry about this date, thing. I was never really good at getting to know people through small talk. It always seemed so superficial and…I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I just…I’ve never done a blind date, either and I didn’t really want…”
They looked at each other and Thom stood up, extending his hand towards hers. “Let’s start over and do this differently.” He grabbed her coat and helped her into it. “Would you like to go out to dinner with me tomorrow night?”
She smiled and left the glow of the candlelight beside him. They walked out of the smoke into the cold, clear night sky. “I’d be delighted.” She smiled again and signaled for a taxi. “Would seven o’clock do?”
“Perfect,” he said. “At O’Malley’s Restaurant down the street from here.”
The taxi pulled up to the curb and she opened the door. “I look forward to seeing you.” She closed the door behind her, spoke to the driver, and waved out the window at him as the car pulled away.
Thom took a deep breath of fresh air and started walking back to his small flat on the eastside of the city. “Well, seven o’clock it is then. That’s bowling night and isn’t Jack going to be surprised.”
