A Bouquet of Love Read Free Page A

wrinkles on her cheeks even more pronounced. Standing against the oversize door of theshop, she looked disproportionately petite. Yet she always commanded respect, tiny or not.
    â€œBabbas wants you inside, Cassia,” Yia Yia’s words were more instruction than suggestion. “Come, child.”
    I cringed at the word child and fought the temptation to respond with, “He always wants me somewhere .” No point in hurting my grandmother’s feelings. She’d given birth to the man, after all.
    I stepped inside the shop and closed the door behind me. There would be plenty of time later to ponder the realities of pizza parlors and mobsters, flower shops and handsome guys on trolleys. Right now I had work to do. And when a good Greek daughter had work to do, well, she didn’t waste any time smelling the flowers. She got right to it.

2 The Boy Next Door
    You know you’re Greek when your father spends so much time with his forehead creased that he looks like he has a unibrow.
    T here’s something about the phrase “Everything’s coming up roses” that always makes me smile. When I think of roses, my heart wants to sing. They’re closed one day—barely a bud—and opened wide the next, ready to drink in the sun. Ready to show off their beauty. And the scent! Nothing could compare. That’s why, when faced with the opportunity to work with flowers every day of my life, I longed to jump on it like a june bug on a daisy.
    1-800-PETALS4U. I’d memorized the number that could change my life forever and hoped to put it to good use. But how? Babbas had other plans for me. To show him disrespectwould be wrong on many levels, not to mention dangerous to my survival. I knew in my gut he would nix the flower shop job idea without giving thought to my wishes or dreams. The man had no time to stop and sniff the roses. Still, how could I pass up the possibility of working with roses . . . and orchids . . . and lilies . . . and a thousand other flowers I loved? And at a florist shop that turned out to be just down the street, no less? Seemed like the ideal position for a girl like me.
    If only I could manage to convince my father.
    Mental note: Cassia, you ’re twenty-three years old. At some point you really have to untie those apron strings.
    I couldn’t stop thinking about the words on the sampler in Yia Yia’s bedroom: “God makes all things beautiful in his time.” Was this the right time? Only one way to know for sure.
    With courage mounting, I decided to take my chances. I would apply for the job at the flower shop—maybe pick up just a few hours a week—and continue to help my parents at the family business as well. And I wouldn’t tell my father until I knew for sure the job was mine. Somehow it would all work out. I knew it.
    First things first, though. I needed to figure out a way to sneak away for an hour or so without drawing attention. Once alone, I would head to the flower shop to hand over my résumé. And I would do it all undercover. Like a spy.
    Very rarely had I done anything without running it by my father first. Strange, I know, being in my twenties and all. But when you’ve got different dreams than the rest of the family—say, you want to venture outside the family business to do your own thing—you don’t dare ask for a parent’s opinionon the matter for fear they’ll give it. No doubt Babbas would consider me a traitor to the family for wanting to follow my own dreams.
    And so I set out on my own Wednesday afternoon, claiming I wanted to take a stroll down the Strand to check out the tourist shops. Babbas was so busy installing the new stove that he barely noticed, anyway. I walked down the lovely old street, captivated by its Old World charm. The turn-of-the-century buildings had survived the Great Storm of 1900. Surely the area could survive a wacky Greek sandwich maker in a