The Flower Arrangement
Ella Griffin
Top 10 Best Quotes
“I am the lover's gift; I am the wedding wreath; I am the memory of a moment of happiness; I am the last gift of the living to the dead; I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow. -Kahlil Gibran "Song of the Flower XXIII”
“She could go on asking herself why roses had thorns or she could be thankful that thorns had roses.”
“The small pergola that Michael had built was covered in loops of jasmine, and Lara's flower beds were blazing with color. Blowsy white peonies, dusky purple irises with golden stripes, pale orange poppies with sooty centers. The first tea roses of the year were budding. Elinas, pink petals tipped with crimson, and the ivory Jeanne Moreaus that smelled faintly of lemons. Lara wanted to pick one and put it on the breakfast tray, but Michael hated cut flowers. She went back inside and began to set the tray. Her mother's blue Venetian glass dish filled with raspberries. Orange juice in a white jug. A honey pot with a wooden dipper. Sunshine streamed in through the window, warming the terra-cotta tiles beneath her bare feet. She could not have cut flowers in the house so she had pictures of them instead. Two huge framed Georgia O'Keefe poppy prints. An apron with a pattern of climbing roses. A wooden clock that Phil had given her with a pendulum in the shape of a red rose.”
“The creamy millefeuille roses had arrived from Holland yesterday and been left in the warm kitchen, where they were opening like tulle ballerina skirts. The pale pink peonies were in the coolest corner of the shop downstairs so they wouldn't go over. The wildflower man would be in at 6 a.m. to deliver the cornflowers and foxgloves. Every flower in the bouquet had a special meaning for the bride. She had known exactly what she wanted, Lara remembered, and had turned up at the shop with her own color swatches and mood boards and Pinterest links.”
“She began to scroll through her Pinterest board. Flowers blossomed on the screen. The golds and ochres first. Golden peonies, apricot honeysuckle, saffron, poppies the color of amber.”
“I follow her into a storeroom at the back of the shop and catch my breath when I see the bouquets she has made for the shoot. I've seen a lot of wedding flowers, but nothing like these. There are soft apricot roses with dusty-blue delphiniums, creamy-white peonies with miniature pink alliums. Waxy green orchids with deep purple irises. A phone rings in the shop and she excuses herself and goes back outside to answer it. I bend down and pick up a pretty tumble of glossy green ivy and pale purple bells on slender stems. The flowers have a delicate scent, something elusive between hyacinth and freesia.”
“As if in answer to her question, an odor of decay seeped through thee doorway from the darkened shop. Senescence, she thought. A beautiful word for what happened to all living things as they progressed toward death. Petals fading, leaves falling, stems beginning to rot.”
“Agapanthus and peonies in June. Scented stock and sweet peas in July. Sunflowers and sweet William in August. By the time September's oriental lilies and ornamental cabbages appeared, she wasn't hiding upstairs in the workroom anymore. She was spending more time in the shop, answering the phone, dealing with the customers. One Sunday she spent the afternoon at an allotment belonging to a friend of Ciara's, picking lamb's ear and dusty miller and veronica for a wedding, and didn't think about Michael once, but she kept remembering a Patrick Kavanagh poem she'd learned at school, the one about how every old man he saw reminded him of his father.”
“They shared a platter of meze and dips and, for dessert, summer berries dipped in four kinds of melted chocolate. Lovers' food, Lara thought, watching Phil feed Katy a strawberry. When she was married, she had made special trips to obscure ethnic supermarkets for Vietnamese rice pancakes and soba noodles. She had bought extra-virgin olive oil online from a tiny estate in Sicily. She had discovered celeriac and plantains and Jerusalem artichokes. She had sautéed and ceviched and fricasseed and brûléed.”
“Then she got into her van again and headed on to Foster Avenue, taking the long way along the Goatstown Road so she could see her favorite tree, a rare magnolia Genie that had taken over the entire garden of a suburban house. The tree was ugly in winter, a tangle of twisting branches like scrawny limbs, but in March it was covered in heart-stoppingly lovely pink and cream flowers the size of teacups.”
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Book Keywords:
food-love, wedding-bouquet, i-am, reminiscing, flowery, breakfast, autumnal, death, garden, tree, bouquets, bright-colors, fading, decor, golden, magnolia-blossoms, meaning-of-flowers, pinterest, flowers, wedding-flora, decay, monthly, senescence, gratitude, wilting































