FUNNY WHAT FLOWERS CAN DO TO A DAME.

April would have sent the flowers back with the note scribbled in the green ink across a card stuck inside the wrapped up bunch of irises, but she couldn’t be bothered. What the heck if the guy wants to waste his money on me who am I to complain; besides he’s married the schmuck. Who’s he take me for; he’s not that good-looking, not enough to wrestle his damned wife for that's for sure and those eyes of his are too dark and deep like Nietzsche’s were.

April unwrapped the irises, plonked them in a white vase, put them in the window, stood gazing at them, and sighed. Why couldn’t that Joey on the lower floor buy me flowers? Eh? He’s got a body to die for and eyes to dream of in your deepest dreams and he’s single, well apart from that girlfriend of his with the goofy teeth and the nose as if it’d been broken. God he plays sax too and rides that damned bike like Brando.

She stared at the irises; sniffed them; closed her eyes; pretended Joey had bought them and he was going to take her out to a meal and afterwards he was going to…No, daydreaming again; that gets me nowhere, depressed as hell. Then I don’t eat or I eat too much and can’t get into my clothes and my mom says you’re getting fat and lazy and that gets me up on my heels and my back gets all uppity and I scream at my image in the mirror and all because some schmuck buys me flowers.

She picked up the flowers, plonked them in the garbage bin, shut the lid on them, stood, stared at the lid and the bin, and sighed. She waited a few minutes and then she got out the irises and plonked them back in the vase. They looked god-damned awful and lifeless and she tore up the card and spat on it. Then she laughed and she cried and went to the window and looked across to the apartment where the schmuck lived with his wife and stared at it with all the ill will she could muster and hoped to hell the irises died before morning so she didn't have to see them no more and she could throw them away with a good conscience and tell him they were fine. Yes, she’d see him that night and yes, sure, if he wanted to he could come over and put on some jazz…She hated the flowers; she hoped they’d die and the schmuck got piles and couldn’t sit for months.

She smiled. Funny what a bunch of flowers can do to a dame, she said to herself, sitting on the floor, gazing at the flowers, sniffing the air for the scent and their soon to be dying. Like her; like him; like them all.