A Study in Daffodils

“Two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, sevent—”

“Hey!” Her shout cut through my counting, and I could feel the way my eyebrows knit together. “Hey!” she said again, this time softer. She was walking closer to me. Her gait was too slow to be a jog, yet aggravatingly too fast to be a stroll. I stopped walking, my fingers itching to keep walking and counting, but I took a deep breath instead.

Dr. Thomas said I needed to practice. Practice, as she put it, “allowing life to exist.” Which I, frankly, thought was an idiotic turn of phrase. Life exists whether we allow it to or not.

“Do you have a need?” I forced myself to ask, not meeting her eyes. They were green, I had observed as she had approached. Her hair was a flat, greyish-blonde color. I estimated that she was of Finnish descent.

“Yes!” She chirped, too brightly. “My name is Audrey. I run the flower stand right there, and I need to know why you walk by my stand every single morning at 7:19 a.m. Exactly then.”

“Because I get off the bus at 7:17 a.m. Exactly then,” I explained, wondering if this was a social need she was referencing or something perhaps sinister.

“You’re an odd fellow,” she observed. “What happens if you’re late?” she pried.

“I’m never late.”

“Not even once?”

“It’s impossible. I have a strict routine. I get exactly where I intend to go exactly when I intend to be there.”

She pursed her lips and cocked her head to one side, hands on her hips.

“If that is all…” I started, mentally calculating how long we had been standing there speaking.

“No, it’s not all!” she said with what I assumed to be playfulness in her voice. “I finally got you to speak to me after three months of walking past every single day!”

“I was not intentionally ignoring you,” I responded, looking at the sleek, black watch on my wrist. If I carried on my way now, I would have three minutes less time than usual for my observations.

“I know, I know!” She pressed on, twirling a flower between her fingers. A daffodil. In Victorian flower language, it was known to represent beginnings. I didn’t like that her interruption felt more like an ending. “You are always very focused on getting to the coffee shop five doors from here.”

I felt a jolt in my chest at the mention of the coffee shop. How did she know of it? Well, that was a silly question, I chided myself. Of course she knew if she worked on the same street. But what did she know? Did she know why? She couldn’t. I was always perfectly precise. Seven minutes for my observations, and then the return home with my black coffee that contained three sugars and five swirls of cream.

“Speaking of,” I bridged, “I must be going. Good day to you,” forcing the politeness through my tone.

“Here, before you leave and keep counting primes, take the daffodil from my stand.” She extended her hand to give it to me. My eyes narrowed.

“I’m not a fan of daffodils,” I confessed.

“Then give it away.”

“I do not have anyone to give it to,” I said, studying the cracks of the uneven sidewalk under my tightly laced black dress shoes.

“Give it to that handsome doctor you’re always ogling,” she said with a little giggle.

My face grew instantly hot, and I coughed in surprise. I was never surprised. “I do—” I took a steadying breath. “I do not know what you are referring to.”

She giggled again. “Yes, you do! His name is John, by the way. The handsome one that works at the hospital in Midtown. You arrive at the coffee shop exactly one minute after he does and leave exactly one minute after he does. Shopkeepers talk, my dear.”

I didn’t know how to respond. So I didn’t.

She smiled, not unkindly, and placed the daffodil in my empty right hand. “Three months is a long time for staring. I think it’s time you let life make a little magic possible for you.”

“Magic is simply science unexplained.”

She nodded slowly. “That may be so. How will you ever know what’s possible if your experiment is the exact same every time? You’re a scientist. Act like it.”

“I’m not a scientist. I’m a personal investigator.”

“Now, that is interesting. You have the mind of a scientist, though, do you not?”

“Hm,” was all I allowed myself to say, especially as I heard the scrape of sneakers on the sidewalk close by.

My eyes shot up, and I saw him.

He beamed at me. His dark brown skin looked almost golden in the sunrise light. His black curly hair was contained by a bandana, and his jacket was open, showing his matching purple scrubs. He was carrying two coffee cups.

“Locke, isn’t it?” he asked me, still several feet away.

I nodded simply, my brain frustratingly both blank and spinning.

“I got worried. You are always there at the same time every day. I—I thought, well, I worried something may have happened.”

“He was detained,” the flower shopkeeper informed him with a smile. “Couldn’t decide on the best flower to present to you.” She winked.

I blinked rapidly at her. “I—well, I—” I stuttered.

John’s smile widened, if that were possible. “Daffodil? I love daffodils!”

I cleared my throat, eyes still on the sidewalk between us. I extended my hand with the flower, and he took it reverently. “Daffodils meant new beginnings in Victorian flower language.”

He laughed a little, the sound making the tips of my fingers explode in pins and needles. “I didn’t even know there was a Victorian flower language!”

I nodded curtly. “It was quite the practice. Many types of messages were often sent with flowers alone.”

Audrey smiled. “Which is why he was late! Normally, he is as punctual as pie, but the decision and what message to send with it had him in a bit of a tizzy.”

“That is false,” I corrected. “I do not… tizzy.”

John grinned. “Either way, I like it. Here’s your coffee. I remembered how you ordered it. Three sugars, five swirls of cream.”

“Thank you,” I responded stiffly, the collar of my shirt feeling extremely tight. Maybe I was having an allergic reaction to the flower.

“Maybe…” John started slowly, “maybe tomorrow we could arrive early? Both of us? Maybe have the coffee together. If you’d like to, that is.”

I nodded again. “I would like that. As of now, you arrive at 7:20 a.m. I arrive at 7:21.”

“How about we both arrive at 7 then?” he suggested.

My fingers twitched. Seven itself was a prime, but 700 was not. I took a deep breath in through my nose and exhaled through my mouth. “7:00 a.m. I shall be there.”

Dr. Thomas said that a lack of precision wasn’t deceit. If I arrived at 6:59 a.m.—659 being a prime number—well, nobody would know the better.

“I really look forward to seeing you!” he said brightly and turned a bit to face the still-rising sun. “Well, I do have to keep going. Patients won’t heal themselves. I’ll see you tomorrow, Locke!”

I nodded once again and turned back toward the bus stop, not looking at my watch. I certainly would have a lot to tell Dr. Thomas during our afternoon meeting that day. I’d tell her that I was late and that I had a sudden affinity for daffodils. And maybe I would tell her that this ‘letting life exist’ thing wasn’t as dichotomous as I had first thought.

The End.