Although he must have walked past it many times before, because he walked home the same way every day, it was the first time he noticed the plant shop. It was a troubling moment that made him wonder if he was as perceptive as he considered himself. But the store was undoubtedly there, plants hanging in the windows and spilling out the front door.
As far as he could tell, plants were green and they sat in your house and sometimes you watered them. He had little time for plants.
Given that, he was surprised to notice that, while his fellow commuters continued down the sidewalk, he now stood motionless in front of the store. The crisis it had caused, by going unnoticed all this time, made him determined to be doubly observant in this moment, to observe the store completely, as a kind of retribution. It was a small store, painted a now-faded blue, with chipped white trim and large paned windows, through whose warped glass could be seen a wall of green. On the pavement rested a welcome mat, its cheery “Come in!” worn and dusty. His gaze crossed the threshold and followed white honeycomb tiles to a sturdy wooden counter at the back of the room. Behind it, a woman bent over an elaborate bouquet. Surrounding her was what he could only call a jungle. Plants hung from the ceiling above her, suspended by elaborate knotted hammocks and slings, around which leafy tendrils draped, falling toward the floor. The tiles at the counter’s base and at the room’s edge were obscured by pots and planters of every conceivable size. From each one a different plant rose, bold limbs reaching upward to the dangling foliage above. He couldn’t have named a single one.
Sliding across this lush wall of plants, his gaze suddenly landed on a pair of eyes; the woman had noticed him and was watching him through the open door. Abruptly, he turned on his heel and strode away. As he turned, he glimpsed a small green pot on the countertop cradling a cluster of leaves and a long stem embellished with a single white flower. Then it slid out of sight.
A bright “Hello!” greeted him as he swung open the apartment door. She was sitting on the red couch with a book in her lap.
“Hey,” he responded, distracted by his key, which refused to leave the lock. “This key,” he grunted, twisting and turning the stubborn key, “is a piece of garbage.”
“I know,” she said. She put down her book and joined him at the door. “Sorry about that—that’s why it was my spare. Let me try.”
Stepping back from the door, he dropped his bag, pried off his shoes with his heels, and made his way over to the couch, where he sank into its cushions, eyelids drooping.
“There we are! Oh—would you?”
He opened his eyes; she was standing awkwardly by the door with the key in her two hands. She glanced down at his bag, slouched by the entryway.
“Oh,” he said. “Yes. Right.” He pushed himself onto his feet and walked back to what she had called the “entryway storage area, for coats and bags and hats, etc., etc., you know, that sort of thing” when she gave him what he thought was a very unnecessary tour of the place. It wasn’t like he’d never been there before, and it didn’t need to be explained that the place where all the coats were was, in fact, the place the coats were supposed to go. Nonetheless, it had been surprisingly difficult for him to remember to use it in accordance with its obvious purpose, and he still wasn’t in the habit of putting his satchel neatly on the shelf or his shoes on the shoe rack, as she did with her own things each day, before pulling on her house slippers. Most of the time, like today, he was prompted by a pointed look.
Having put his things in their proper place, he returned to the couch, where she had picked back up her book. He let his gaze wander around the room. He noted the books and old water stains on the table. The apartment wasn’t spacious, but it was cozy, and it had three windows overlooking the street, which he liked. She’d had it since they first started dating, while he was still jostling between apartments and roommates. When his lease was approaching its end, and she suggested he move in with her, the decision was easy. He’d always hated moving into a new place, the uncertainty of choosing which corner of the room to put the bed, which he could never visualize how to do correctly, only having the sense to tell, after the fact, when it looked wrong. And, of course, there was her, and the way her wide smile revealed a row of slightly crooked bottom teeth, those fuzzy socks she liked to wear on cold evenings. Two months later, he arrived at her doorstep with a single bag and a towel draped around his neck like a scarf. But sometimes, like now, when his eyes scanned through the rooms that were, ostensibly, his home, he could not find a trace of his presence.
He turned his head towards her; she looked up, smiled.
The next day he went to the gym. At the gym he always rode the stationary bike, which he thought was biking stripped down to its purest form. If someone said they liked to bike, he’d ask why, listen attentively, and then, regardless of their answer, tell them that the stationary bike was biking stripped down to its purest form. It wasn’t about where a bike could take you, he’d say, the vistas you could admire from its saddle, or the sensation of the wind whipping past—biking was about legs pumping like pistons, aching quads, the whir of the metal wheel spinning. Although the person would typically respond with something like, “I suppose that’s true,” he left each conversation with the nagging sense that they hadn’t been convinced.
In reality, the opposite was equally true: the bike reduced him to his purest, basest form. The pedal’s relentless turning rendered him thoughtless, mechanical.
But today, only minutes into his biking, something out the window caught his eye. A distant glass skyscraper loomed over its older neighbors. He could see entirely through the corner apartments—through both sides of the floor-to-ceiling windows to the flat gray sky behind. In one of these empty rooms, a silhouette paced. The dark form crisscrossed the barren space, marking a tempo against the clouds. As he watched, his legs slowed, then stopped. The figure halted, turned. Featureless air surrounded its small shape. The gym throbbed with whirring bikes and heavy panting. He perched motionless on the bike’s sparse metal frame. Abruptly, he slipped from the saddle and out of the room.
“Can I help you?” If the woman recognized him, she didn’t show it, which he appreciated. He already felt uneasy in this strange, verdant place with its damp air.
“Yes—I’d like that one.” His finger pointed to the green plastic pot by her elbow.
“Good choice,” she said, as she took his card. He felt pleased—proof of good instincts, he thought—and he signed the receipt with extra flourish.
He felt himself an odd figure as he walked home, in his athletic shoes and shorts, glancing down at the delicate flower clasped against his sweatshirt. At stoplights he tended carefully to the stake supporting the stem’s weight or prodded the soil gently with his fingers.
At home, once he had wrestled the key from the lock, he positioned the planter on the coffee table and stepped back to consider his work. After a moment’s thought, he picked up the few books spread across the table and moved them to the bookshelf in the corner. “Much better,” he thought. He sat down on the couch, admiring the long, slender stem with its single white flower. For the first time he took note of the paper label poked into the dirt. “Orchid,” it read.
Just then, the door opened.
‘Hi there,” he said, looking up from the couch with a satisfied smile as she appeared from behind the door, arms piled high with books.
“Hi!” He got up to help, taking the unsteady pile from her arms and placing it on the table. “Thanks—oh wow! What’s that?” She had caught sight of the new addition.
He sat back down on the couch. “It’s an orchid,” he said.
She sat down next to him. They looked at the orchid. It sat demurely across from them, its white petals catching the sunlight flickering in through the windows. He wondered what she was thinking.
“I thought you didn’t like plants.”
He paused. “I like some.”
They sat for a moment in silence.
“How long will it live?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, does it have like… a life expectancy? Like a dog?”
He thought for a second. “I don’t know. It’s a plant. Don’t they just live until you cut it or something?”
“I don’t know. You’re the one who got it.”
He looked at her, appalled. Could such a flimsy-looking plant outlast even them? He faced the orchid and rubbed his earlobe.
“Well,” she said, pushing herself up from the couch and interrupting his rumination. “I think it looks good. It’s a nice touch to the room—I’m a bit surprised it never occurred to me before.” She disappeared around the corner into the kitchen. “You want a beer?”
“Yes.” Reaching forward, he rubbed a stiff, green leaf between his fingers before getting up and following her.
The curved, willowy stem was drunken and ominous. From their vantage in the living room, the pale, ghostlike flowers peered into every nook, following him as he moved about the small apartment. At night, through their bedroom door, he could see the petals gleaming, their white shapes hanging in dark space. Walking home, he hurried past the plant shop, turning his head to avoid seeing the woman within. Even the bike offered little refuge. With each grueling pedal, he whittled himself away—leaving ever more space in his mind for the orchid to flourish.
He did not tell her this; she had embraced the orchid completely. She regaled him with each new thing she had learned about its care, bought orchid food, felt the soil obsessively, monitoring its dampness. Sometimes, during dinner, he felt her gaze shift past him, into the living room. When he was home alone, he often sat on the couch, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, staring at the orchid, taking in every minute detail. As his eyes bored into the yellow pit of its center (it had some complicated anatomical name, which she had excitedly told him, but he had immediately forgotten), it seemed to mock him with the indisputable fact: he had been the one to bring it into his home.
Then, one day, he entered the apartment to find two white orchids sitting on the coffee table. He froze. Slowly, he closed the front door and walked into the room, circling the orchids with hesitating, deliberate steps. He scrutinized the jaunty figures, their lightly bobbing heads. How could they be so entitled—to his home, his water, to the very sunlight beaming through his windows? They expected and needed everything. His thoughts grew more furious with his circling. He wanted to smash their smug little faces. He wanted to see their fine, arched stems ragged and broken on the floor.
He picked up the orchids, one in each palm, and held them before him. He was clueless before his own rage. He walked over to the open window and, for a moment, paused, before extending his arms.
His eyes scoured the twin flowers’ pale, spotless faces. They returned his gaze, conceding nothing.
“Why does she love you so much?” he asked their blank expressions.
“What the FUCK.”
His head jerked toward the door—she stood there, shocked—and then back to the window, as the orchids tumbled from his hands. Desperately, he grasped after them, but was left bent over the windowsill, watching them fall. Their supple limbs bent and bowed in the rushing air. The leaves rippled; a petal was torn from the stem and swung back and forth in the empty air.
She rushed to the window and looked down. The flimsy green planters lay broken and splintered on the sidewalk below, surrounded by a halo of dirt. The thin stakes had loosened; one had snapped and rested among pieces of green plastic. The other rolled, languidly, into the street. Although the orchids must have been badly damaged, first by the tearing wind and then the crushing impact, somehow, they seemed untouched. A woman in a bucket hat examined the flowers, then looked up searchingly. Quickly, they pulled their heads inside the window.
“What the fuck,” she said again, facing him. Reluctantly, but unflinchingly, he met her gaze.
“Don’t buy any more orchids,” he said, and turned away, exhausted.
A week later he brought home a tall lamp, which he placed in the dark corner by the bookcase. Now, when his eyes wandered, they alighted peacefully on the lamp, and he thought about what a nice lamp it was, with its muted orange lampshade and sleek metal stand, and how well it suited that corner. Maybe he was better at interior design than he thought—why was it he’d thought otherwise? Then he nodded solemnly and returned to his book.
She didn’t buy another orchid. But one weekend a loud banging woke him from his late-afternoon nap. He found her in the bathroom, carefully hanging a crisp new botanical print over the toilet. After briefly appraising her work, she turned and left, squeezing his arm as she passed. He moved in, closed the door, and lifted the toilet seat. His urine emerged at a trickle. His gaze met the orchid’s yellow jaws. ▩
