But this is the first moment I’ve had to even take a bathroom break, and after looking at myself in the mirror just now, I kind of want to cry. I’m splotchy, I have carrots smeared across my shirt, my nail polish has been chipped since, like, January.
Not that Atlas expects or wants perfection. It’s just that I’ve imagined running into him so many times, but not one of those fantasies starred me bumping into him in the middle of a hectic morning, half an hour after being the target of an eleven-month-old with a handful of baby food.
He looked so good. He smelled so good.
I probably smell like breast milk.
I’m so rattled by what our chance encounter might mean, it took me twice as long to organize everything for the delivery driver this morning. I haven’t even checked our website for new orders today. I give myself one last look in the mirror, but all I see is an exhausted, overworked single mom.
I make my way out of the bathroom and back to the register. I pull an order from the printer and begin making out the card. My mind has never been more in need of a distraction, so I’m glad it’s been a busy morning.
The order is for a bouquet of roses for someone named Greta from someone named Jonathan. The message reads, I’m sorry about last night. Forgive me?
I groan. Apology flowers are my least-favorite kind of bouquets to assemble. I always end up obsessing over what they’re apologizing for. Did he miss their date? Did he come home late? Did they fight?
Did he hit her?
Sometimes I want to write the number for the local domestic violence shelter on the cards, but I have to remind myself that not every apology is attached to something as awful as the things that were attached to the apologies I used to receive. Maybe Jonathan is Greta’s friend and he’s trying to cheer her up. Maybe he’s her husband and he took a prank a little too far.
Whatever the reason for the flowers, I hope they mean something good. I tuck the card into the envelope and stick it into the bouquet of roses. I set them on the delivery shelf and am pulling up the next order when I receive a text.
I lunge for my phone as if the text is about to self-destruct and I only have three seconds to read it. I shrink when I look at the screen. It’s not from Atlas, but rather from Ryle.
Can she eat French fries?
I shoot a quick response. Soft ones.
I drop my phone onto the counter with a thud. I don’t like for her to have French fries too often, but Ryle only has her one to two days a week, so I try to make sure she gets more nutritious foods when she’s with me.
It was nice not thinking about Ryle for a few minutes, but his text has reminded me that he exists. And as long as he exists, I fear that any type of relationship, or even a friendship between me and Atlas, can’t exist. How will Ryle take it if I start seeing Atlas? How would he act if they ever had to be around each other?
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.
I stare at my phone, wondering what I should say to Atlas. I told him I would text him after I opened the store, but customers were waiting before I even unlocked the door. And now that Ryle has texted, I’ve gone and remembered Ryle exists in this scenario, too, which makes me hesitant to text Atlas at all.
The front door opens, and my employee Lucy finally walks in. She always seems so put-together, even when I can tell she’s in a bad mood.
“Good morning, Lucy.”
She flicks hair out of her eyes and sets her purse on the counter with a sigh. “Is it?”
Lucy isn’t at her friendliest in the morning. It’s why my other employee Serena or I usually work the register until at least eleven, while Lucy puts arrangements together in the back. She’s much better with customers after a cup or five of coffee.
“I just found out our place cards never arrived because they were discontinued, and it’s too late to order more. The wedding is in less than a month.”
So much has gone wrong leading up to this wedding, I have half a mind to tell her not to go through with it. But I’m not superstitious. Hopefully she isn’t, either.
“Homemade place cards are in style,” I offer.
Lucy rolls her eyes. “I hate crafting,” she mutters. “I don’t even want a wedding now. It feels like we’ve been planning it for longer than we even dated.” That’s accurate. “Maybe we’ll just call it off and go to Vegas. You eloped, right? Do you regret it?”
I don’t know which part of all that to address first. “How can you hate crafting? You work at a flower shop. And I’m divorced; of course I regret eloping.” I hand her a small stack of orders I haven’t gotten to yet. “But it was fun,” I admit.
Lucy goes to the back and starts on the rest of the orders, and I go back to thinking about Atlas. And Ryle. And Armageddon, which is what the two of them in my brain at the same time feels like.
I have no idea how this is expected to work. When Atlas and I ran into each other, it was as if everything else faded away, including Ryle. But now Ryle is beginning to seep back into my thoughts. Not in the way thoughts of Ryle used to occupy my mind, but more in a way that feels like a roadblock. My love life has finally been on a straight path with no bumps or curves, basically because it’s been nonexistent for well over a year and a half, but now it feels like there’s nothing but rough terrain and obstacles and cliffs ahead.
Is it worth it? Of course Atlas is worth it.
But are we worth it? Is us potentially becoming a thing worth the stress it would inevitably bring to all the other areas of my life?
I haven’t felt this conflicted in so long. Part of me wants to call Allysa and tell her about seeing Atlas, but I can’t. She knows how Ryle still feels about me. She knows how he’d feel if I brought Atlas into the picture.
I can’t talk to my mother because she’s my mother. As close as we’ve become lately, I’d still never freely discuss my dating life with her.
There’s really only one woman I feel comfortable talking to about Atlas.
“Lucy?”
She appears from the back, pulling an earbud out of her ear. “Did you need me?”
“Can you cover me for a while? I need to go run an errand. I’ll be back in an hour.”
She makes her way behind the counter, and I grab my purse. I don’t get a lot of alone time now that I have Emerson, so I occasionally steal an hour here and there during the workweek when I have someone to back up my absence at the shop.
Sometimes I like to sit in my thoughts, and it’s impossible to do that in the presence of a child because even when she’s asleep I’m in mom mode. And with the constant flow of traffic at work, it’s rare that I can find a stretch of peace without being interrupted.
I’ve found that being alone in my car with my music on, and occasionally a slice of dessert from the Cheesecake Factory, is sometimes all it takes to sort through the knots in my brain.
Once I’m parked with a clear view of Boston Harbor, I lean my seat back and grab the notepad and pen I brought with me. I don’t know if this will help as much as dessert sometimes does, but I need to release my thoughts in the same way I’ve done in the past. This method has helped before when I need things to fall neatly into place. Although this time, I’m just hoping it helps things not to fall completely apart.
Dear Ellen,
Guess who’s back?