I turned just as she was adjusting something in one of the pots, her golden hair falling across her face like a carpet. When she turned to look at me, I felt my heart skip a beat.
Fuck, man, you’re in trouble.
I whistled and turned my attention
back to the wondrous world around me. “Not bad is an understatement,” I said.
She smiled at that and looked around her. “Took a lot of work, too.”
“I bet,” I breathed. “How much did this whole thing cost?”
“Well, let’s just say I need to deliver flowers to Chuck every day if I want to eat,” Ashlyn grinned.
“My delivery idea doesn’t sound all that bad right now, does it?”
Ashlyn laughed and shook her head. She walked past me, beckoning me to follow her. She led me down rows of plants and flowers, stopping momentarily at some to let me know what they were, watching me for a reaction. I must have been a disappointment, though, because I had no fucking clue what the half of it all was. Still, it didn’t faze me from admiring the greenhouse as a whole. It was like she had created her own little rainforest here.
“The flowers are further down at the back,” she said. “But I don’t think we need to go all the way there. I mean, you see most of them at the motel anyway.”
“Ashlyn, I am seriously impressed,” I said. “I have never seen anything like this.”
She frowned. “I’d expect you moved around the country a lot, surely this isn’t that great.”
“Are you kidding?” I asked. “Just the sheer devotion to it is impressive. Something like this must take a lot of time and effort. I can never remember to water the plants in my place. If it weren’t for Pauline, they’d all be dead.”
“Pauline?”
Watch yourself, I thought, cringing that I had so casually mentioned my maid in a conversation when I should have been trying to remain inconspicuous.
“My sister,” I lied, wondering if there would ever come a time when I would have to explain why I didn’t have any pictures of my imaginary sister.
Ashlyn nodded. “Well, tell Pauline that I appreciate her efforts,” she said. “I hate it when someone buys a plant and can’t take care of it.”
“It’s not a pet,” I said.
Ashlyn looked at me with wide eyes and slapped a hand against her chest in mock shock. “How could you, Mr. Sabbatical?” she gasped, giggling just a second after, unable to keep up with the façade. “In all honesty, though, if you actually thought of them as pets, you’d probably act differently around them. They’re alive, too, you know?”
“If it can’t play catch or purr when I scratch it, then it’s not a pet,” I chuckled.
“Okay, you know what? Get out of my greenhouse,” she laughed, pushing me playfully back to the large double glass doors.
“Hey!”
“If they could react to what you just said, we’d both be dead right now,” Ashlyn said. “That’s enough disgrace for one day.”
“Alright, alright,” I laughed along with her and let her push me back into the bright light of the afternoon.
She invited me for a glass of iced tea, and we spent most of the afternoon on her porch, laughing and drinking and talking about nothing at all. It was probably the best couple of hours I had ever had in my life, and when the sun began to set, we both agreed that it was high time I get back to the motel.
“Don’t want Chuck to worry,” I joked.
She drove me back, the ride mostly silent except for a few instances when she would ask me a question I’d reply vaguely to. When she dropped me off, she went to the back of her truck and pulled a pot out from under the tarp, handing it to me.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Consider it a little welcoming gesture,” she said. “You know, so you can remember Ludwig when you go back to your big city.”
“What is it?”