Archive of Our Own ^beta

Now

When Joe first saw Nile, she was standing next to an astrolabe. It was his astrolabe, actually – well, not his in that he’d made it, but the piece he’d chosen to do a flower arrangement on. It had appealed to him in every way – the challenge of making a flower arrangement that represented something that was, at its most basic, a tool, designed to fulfill a purpose. But also, the lines; the precision of each crossing circle, the exactness of its make required – no, demanded – by its function. And ultimately, the history; Joe always thought that if he’d lived in that time, he would have been an explorer. Or maybe some kind of merchant. Either way, he would have known how to use an astrolabe without having to google it.

But this isn’t about that. This is about the first time Joe saw Nile, standing in front of the astrolabe, frantically typing on her phone with a furrowed brow and a look of concentration so fierce it could turn men to stone. She was wearing a fitted camo-print jacket with giant pockets she’d clearly sowed on herself (not badly, just with black fabric and florescent green thread and it actually looked pretty neat the more Joe looked at it) and black jeans ripped at the knees and black boots. Anatomically incorrect flowers had been embroidered onto the back pockets of the jeans and the phrase “make good art” had been bedazzled down the leg facing Joe. Yeah, Joe thought; she could definitely turn a man to stone in just a look.

But he still needed at that astrolabe before the bags of dirt started leaking.

The dais for the arrangement had already been left next to the astrolabe, so Joe walked up to it and set the bags of dirt and flowers on the ground next to it. Nile looked at him, at the flowers, at the dais, and at the astrolabe.

“Uh, can I ask what you’re doing with that many flowers in an art museum?” she asked slowly. It sounded like she hadn’t heard of the Art in Bloom project; maybe she was a freshman at the university?

Whatever the reason, Joe never passed up an opportunity to talk about his passion. “Sure! I’m making a flower arrangement for the astrolabe for the Art in Bloom festival.” Joe looked around the wing, thinking he could show her another artist’s arrangement, but it seemed he was the first to show up. “The museum does it every year, local designers are invited to pick an artist and make a flower arrangement interpreting it.”

“Oh, that’s really cool!”

“I’m Yusef,” Joe said, sticking out his hand. “But everybody calls me Joe.”

“Like the artist,” Nile said, pointing at the plaque with the maker’s name: Umar ibn Yusuf ibn ‘Umar ibn ‘Ali ibn Rasul al-Muzaffari.

Joe laughed. “Yeah, sort of. Technically, his name’s Umar, but –“

“Yeah, of course,” Nile quickly agreed. “I just thought it was a fun coincidence.” Joe smiled at her. The conversation lulled and he thought she might leave; she probably had better things to do than talk about floral arrangements. But she lingered, eyes glancing over the flowers. She was curious; he could tell.

Joe never passed up an opportunity to share his passion. “Do you want to help me set up? I can always use another pair of hands.”

Nile beamed. It took Joe a fraction of the time he’d expected to set up. Nile was a fast learner, good with details, and a great multitasker; Joe knew that if he quizzed her on the names and origins of all the flowers they’d talked about, she’d have aced every question – better than him, probably, given he could barely remember what they’d talked about in between his efforts to set up the arrangement. Nile was patient every time he had to stop and problem solve or trailed off mid-sentence trying to remember how to set up the donut-shaped stand.

They were almost done when Joe asked Nile about herself – her major, her classes, her free time. She was a Junior art student, born and raised in Chicago. She mentioned she was looking for a job. Joe could use an assistant. And that’s the story of how he got one.

On Nile’s first day of work, she learned three things.

First, the flower shop smelled really good. Like, really good. And it was warm, which was a huge relief in the unseasonably cold spring weather. She smelled lilac, roses, a little bit of pine, a half-dozen other smells she didn’t recognize. There were plants everywhere, in the foggy windows, on the wire selves that made informal aisles, vines spilling over from hanging pots and cacti sitting fat and happy under red sunlamps. Nile had never seen so many plants in the same place indoors.

Joe was nowhere to be seen.

Nile wandered to the back of the shop, checking the aisles but finding nothing but plants. They all looked perfect, healthy and green and…well, happy, she supposed.

She reached the back of the store without having found Joe. There was a single door with an “Employees Only” sign on the back wall; someone had doodled cartoon flowers next to it. Nile squared her shoulders and pushed it open.

The back room was full of dirt, watering cans, trowels and hand rakes and other miscellaneous tools. The floor was covered in dirt and woodchips and trimmed sticks and dried leaves. Joe was in front of a worktable that ran the length of one wall, and he looked up in happy surprise when Nile burst through the door.

“Nile! You’re early!” She was, nearly 15 minutes, but better early than late. “Fantastic.” Joe wiped his hands on his jeans – already brown with dirt – and walked toward the door. Nile stepped out of the way to let him through. “Let’s get started.”

The second thing Nile learned on her first day of work was that Joe was an unshakable optimist. Nile was a junior in college; optimism wasn’t in her vocabulary anymore and she normally found the forced glee of the “happy-go-lucky” types exhausting – but there was something about Joe. There was an authenticity to his optimism; his joy in the world was genuine and sincere and deliberate, instead of the empty platitudes the happy-go-lucky normally sported. He was just a nice, down-to-earth guy.

He wore off-brand Adidas sneakers and jeans stained from years of dirt. His Henley, though, was in nearly pristine condition and he wore a burnished iron pendant shaped like Africa on a black leather cord. He had a leather jacket hanging on the coat stand next to the door. He told Nile to hang her coat there and leave her backpack in the back room and put her to work.

There was a watering schedule for every individual plant; even plants of the same species had different schedules based on their health, size, if they’d recently been transplanted, the kind of soil Joe had potted them in, how much sun they were getting, how close to the door they were.

“I put the hardier plants next to the door because they can take the fluctuations in weather from people coming in and out, but remind people not to stand in the doorway. All my regulars know this and most everybody else just wants in and out but if you catch anyone chatting in the doorway, invite them inside, just tell them it’s bad for the plants. Everybody understands.”

The floors were swept twice daily: after lunch and just before closing. The cut flowers were free after five days; there was a white board in the back that Joe kept track of the bunches on. The water in the bins was changed every morning. Certain flowers were rotated out from under the sun lamps throughout the day, even throughout the week.

“They’re not all flowers,” Joe corrected her once. “Take the purple heart, for example. It’s a vine, but isn’t the color so beautiful? Plants are beautiful things – but they’re also living things. They all have unique needs like each unique person, and we have to be responsible. We have to take care of them.”

The first time he said it, Nile thought he seemed a little like a hippy, but the more he talked about it, the more Nile understood. This wasn’t some vague “feel the energy” weirdness like the hippies Nile read about in her sociology class on counterculture movements. Joe was specific about the responsibilities he had to the plants under his care. It was actionable, as Nile’s business major friends would say.

“You’ve put a lot of thought into this,” Nile told him after he explained it to her.

Joe smiled. “The Quran tells us every living thing is in a state of worship. After you accept that, the rest follows naturally.”

Nile smiled back. “The pastor at my mom’s church used to say the same thing.”

“Then you’ll be a natural,” Joe laughed.

Nile smirked. “I didn’t say I listened to him.”

Joe’s smile didn’t change, but there was a mischievous glint in his eyes. “We both know that’s not true. Come on, let me show you something else.”

The third thing Nile learned on her first day was that Joe’s good will had limits.

“As soon as the weather warms up, and it should be any week now, I’ll need your help with a personal project,” Joe said as he led them to the backroom. Trays of seedlings lined one of the metal shelves opposite the workbench; a glow light was hung from the shelf above.

“I’ll pay you, obviously, but it’s a little different. In the meantime, make sure you water these every three days; you can use the excess water from the drip pans to water cut flowers, it’ll be full of nutrients from the dirt.”

“Wait, wait, wait, you can’t just tell me that and not tell me what the project is?” Nile begged.

Joe smiled, but there was something different about that smile. “The city lets me plant them in the planters along the street. Nicky’s allergic to them.”

Then

Nicky worked across the street. He was a theology major by training and a tattoo artist by trade, and his iconography art was actually pretty cool – but that’s not the point.

This is the story of how Nicky was kind of an asshole.

In his defense, it was nearly eight years ago, now, and he hadn’t known Joe was behind him at the time. Joe had just moved into the empty storefront across the street. It had used to house a bookstore, one of the last independent bookstores in town and Nicky had been very attached to it, and he was very sad to see it close. So he was not predisposed to like whatever replaced it to begin with. And then it was a flower shop.

Nicky didn’t like flower shops. You buy some overpriced roses, and they wilt away in two days. They were full of pesticides and kept alive with wasted and stolen water. He truly did not understand the romanticism of giving people dying plants. Sure, they were beautiful enough when recently cut, but wouldn’t it be more beautiful to give someone a rose plant they could put in their backyard – and therefore not kill anything and, in fact, have roses every year! The gift that kept on giving!

And he was just trying to explain this to Andy after she’d commented on how nice it would be to have a locally owned flower shop across the street – and yes, locally owned, fine, whatever; he wished the owner the best, he truly did, he worked in a small business he understood how hard that was – but still, a flower shop? Really?

And he was going on and on because, yes, okay, he could get a bit self-righteous at times, and Andy got this funny look on her face, kind of like she found something funny, but her eyes were very wide and her lips were pressed very tight together, and Nicky suddenly became very aware that someone was standing behind him and staring at him, and of course, of course it was the owner. And he was holding a cardboard cup full of dirt with one of those tiny cacti plants in it, and yeah it was kind of cute, and yeah okay the plant wasn’t dead or dying, and yeah the owner was, uh, not exactly bad-looking himself – but still it was the principle of the thing…

Anyway, when Nicky went to apologize a few days later, he actually went into the store and found it was…not exactly what he’d thought it was. Most of the plants were actually plants and there was a bucket of cut flowers labeled “FREE – 5 days old” next to the register and yeah, okay, maybe it was exactly the opposite of what he’d thought it was. It was still replacing his favorite bookstore.

So he handed the owner – who’s name was Yusef but he called himself Joe, Andy had told him – an apology card, and he’d drawn some nice black-and-white flowers on it and written a short apology statement acknowledging how rude he’d been and welcoming Joe to the neighborhood, and Nicky handed it off and said he was sorry and told Joe he looked forward to getting to know him for real. And Joe nodded politely and thanked him for his apology and Nicky said his awkward goodbyes and left. That should have been the end of it; he should never have seen nor spoken to Joe again. Which was a small shame because he was, honestly, way more gorgeous than he had any right to be. But it was all for the best.

And then that spring, the planters along Main St. changed.

Every year, the city planted some shitty marigolds or something and planted a stick in the mud and called it a tree. The city budget wasn’t that big even with the university, and what they had was spent on areas that prospective students and their parents would actually see, which did not include Nicky’s two blocks of Main St., just east of the ‘real’ downtown area.

Sure, Nicky saw plenty of students pass through the tattoo parlor, but they were almost universally juniors spending the leftovers of their first real summer internship (if they were lucky enough to get paid) or seniors celebrating the nearing end of that particular branch of hell that was undergrad academia. Not fresh-eyed, optimistic freshman and their hovering mothers and fathers.

So Nicky’s two blocks of Main St. had shitty flowers, dying trees, two-hour street parking, and potholes, but it suited him just fine. And then, the spring after that ridiculous flower shop opened, Nicky showed up sleep-deprived and grouchy on a Monday afternoon to planters that were gorgeous. They had the usual stick-thin trees in the center, but these trees actually looked healthy with deep green leaves and a full, robust look to their branches.

Below them, the dead leaves, twigs, and trash had been cleared from the concrete planters and dark, dark brown dirt had been added. In that dirt, were at least a half-dozen different kinds of plants; even Nicky’s untrained eye could see that. Towering, thin things that looked like mini skyscrapers, bunches of wiry stems and stringy leaves, bushy plants with clusters of leaves and topped with big green bulbs that hadn’t flowered yet. Every other planter was edged with short woody vines that draped over the edges of the cracked concrete. Nothing was blooming yet and the street was a sea of various shades of green, but even Nicky couldn’t deny it was the nicest the planters had looked since he’d started working at the tattoo parlor.

Spring turned to summer, the trees bloomed early in pale pink and red blossoms, like the warning before the storm. Because that summer, everything bloomed, and Nicky’s hay fever went crazy. The flowers were beautiful, that was undeniable even by Nicky. The tall ones bloomed with tiny purple dots at the top of their towers; the wiry ones were white like daisies with bright yellow centers; the bushy ones were wide, fat yellow and orange flowers that Nicky actually recognized as chrysanthemums (people requested them in tattoos often); and the vines grew like weeds to cover the entire pot with tiny white flowers. But Nicky wouldn’t walk down half a block without feeling like he was going to die. He took to parking in the back of the building just to stave off the worst of it, but even that only helped a little. Andy still propped the door open on his days off, so the parlor was filled with pollen when he came in, and even if it wasn’t, his workstation was right next to the door; every customer that came in brought a wave of fresh pollen with them. The trees flowered, and the flowers wilted, and apples started growing in their place. Which was great but lost its appeal quickly as the sidewalk became littered with the sticky, rotting stuff. The vines overgrew their planters and started spreading all over the sidewalk. The place was a mess. A flowery, pretty mess, but a fucking mess.

But not Joe’s side, of course. Despite Nicky never seeing him out there, on his side the vines were trimmed before they cannibalized the entire sidewalk, the wilted chrysanthemums were cut off before they could rot in the planter, apples were picked before they could fall and ferment. And that was when Nicky realized what Andy and Quynh had realized three months prior: it was deliberate.

Which was totally unfair. Nicky was the first to admit that yes, he had been rude to Joe before they even had the opportunity to meet, and if he could, he would go back and just keep his stupid mouth shut and his dumb opinions to himself, and hell, he might have even misjudged Joe based on his one and only visit to the shop. But he’d apologized. And he’d been sincere. Really. There was no need to be mean about it.

But Nicky was trying to tread more lightly and not be so quick to judge, so he didn’t say anything and suffered in (mostly) silence (except when Andy made some offhanded remark about his hay fever that they both knew was an invitation for him to complain for five minutes about how much he hated fucking flowers). He figured Joe would have his summer of revenge and either get over it or decide keeping his own side trimmed and tidied was too much work and they’d all just move on and Nicky could eventually forget about the dumb guy who ran a dumb flower shop and had stupidly pretty dark eyes.

Summer turned to fall and fall turned to winter and Joe cleared his side of the street in preparation for the change in weather, and Nicky’s side of the street got snowed on with vines still all over the sidewalk and decomposing flowers in the planters. It snowed and snowed and Nicky almost forgot about Joe’s dumb prank. Eventually, winter melted away and the ground thawed and the apple trees started budding and Nicky started thinking maybe he’d clean up just the vines to make the place a little more appealing; and one Monday morning Nicky showed up at work with a sleep-deprived headache and there were flowers in the planters; the same flowers as the last year.

And then it was on.

Now

Andy liked Nicky. She’d liked him 12 years ago when she’d hired him and she liked him now, 12 years later. He was a very different person now – quieter, calmer (or at least he acted calmer), less quick to anger (though still angry); he’d even taken the edge off some of his opinions, or at least he was less likely to judge a person or situation for going contrary to them.

She thought the change was for the better – not necessarily because she valued calmness over anger (Andy could get pretty angry herself when the situation called for it, it was one of the reasons she’d hired Nicky in the first place; he wasn’t scared of angry) – but because Nicky seemed happier. More relaxed, less neurotic and on-edge all the time. Even his vices had lost their edge; if he drank, it was socially, if he smoked, it was from stealing hers. It suited him, this calmer, more centered version of himself.

Andy was none of those things. Andy was 5’10” of whoop-ass and righteous anger and calmer wasn’t in her vocabulary – nor did she want it to be. She liked leather jackets and colored cargo pants and in her free time she got vodka-drunk and wrote angry letters to stupid politicians (which was most of them; most of them were fucking morons).

She liked rap music and alt rock and punk and when she had enough money, she bought a really nice speaker kit and set it up in the tattoo shop. This was, of course, after she bought the shop from its previous owners. It had two, at the time: one was old and wanted to retire, the other wanted to go do something “normal” and ended up working in finance or something boring like that, and Andy thought he was a fucking moron for doing it. She loved her job. She’d fallen into it by accident, a classics major in the 90s who immediately learned she hated academia and was looking for something else. She’d had 50 bucks to her name and a sketchbook full of white marble statues she’d recolored the way she thought the Greeks would have, and she applied for the job on a whim. She had no tattoos when she started and had only pierced her ears three years prior. Now, she had two full sleeves and was working on a back piece, and she let Quynh put half a dozen holes in her face and she loved it.

Her apprenticeship was filled with ink-stained hands and drawing the same flowers over and over until she got them right the first time and taking Red Cross blood safety classes with safety pins stuck through her ears.

It wasn’t always like that. Owning her own business was hard, and she had to learn new skills, like managing the bills and keeping track of who paid her and how much it cost to keep the lights on and which licenses were one-time deals and which needed to be renewed and when the health and safety inspector was coming because they always needed to be hand-held for some reason. And sometimes she regretted buying an outfit in a midwestern university town, but she liked the students (most of them anyway) and Quynh already worked there, which at the time had been important.

Quynh leaving was hard, though. It had been a complete surprise to her; she’d thought they were happy – and Quynh was quick to assure her it wasn’t about Andy, but even if that were true (and to be fair, Andy had no reason to believe it wasn’t), it was still happening to her, and that subtle difference didn’t really make her feel any better.

Nicky was very supportive. He did the books when she forgot and made sure the lights stayed on and took her clients when she was too hungover and still gave her half the money from those jobs – which was just way too generous, and she told him that one day and he just shrugged and refused to take the money back.

And really, that was Nicky. He was always generous – extremely generous – first to his friends and later to everyone, and if Andy was proud of anything he did, it was that. That sort of…expanding of horizons, or whatever it was. She knew his story, she knew why he was the way he was, and yeah, she was proud of him for thinking a little bigger, keeping an open mind, being flexible enough to change.

But this story isn’t about any of that. This is the story of the day Quynh came back.

Andy had stayed late at the shop because she knew if she went home, she’d crack open that new bottle of whiskey Booker had given her and be useless the rest of the night and she had clients coming in next week she still hadn’t sketched for and she needed to get that shit together. She tugged on her lip piercing as she worked, an old habit she did every time she got stuck. Her lip piercing had been her first piercing – the first time Quynh had touched her face, so to speak. It had been a celebration; Lykon had officially agreed to make her his apprentice and Quynh, who was already working out of the same shop, offered to give Andy her first piercing for free.

“You’re a body mod virgin!” she’d laughed over drinks the night before. “I just wanna introduce you into the community.” Quynh winked. She was blatantly flirting, and Andy was extremely into it. So the next day – because Quynh wouldn’t pierce drunk and Andy appreciated the rule – Andy let Quynh pick the piercing – “I defer to your vast experience.” “Hah!” – and Andy started working for Lykon with a gold ring in her face. And Andy had been tugging on it ever since.

There was a knock on the studio door, but Andy waved them off without looking up. They could come back tomorrow; the sign door clearly said ‘closed.’ It was nearly midnight, why someone was knocking on her door, she had no idea. The thought was strange enough to make her look up out of curiosity and what she saw nearly knocked the breath out of her.

Quynh was standing in the glass doorway, hair long and smile bright, a bag over one shoulder and a new tattoo shining on her neck in the neon light from shop sign. Andy nearly jumped to her feet and went to the door. She unlocked it and yanked it open and there was Quynh, standing on her doorstep.

Quynh’s smile was big and bright in the neon light and her piercings glittered like raindrops on her face. “Hey, Andy. Long time, no see.”

Andy looked like a fish out of water with wide eyes and a shocked face. Quynh put on her best smile and kept it there, but she was nervous. She hadn’t seen Andy in over eight years and she had no idea if Andy still wanted to see her. The seconds ticked on, three, four, and her anxiety grew. Their breakup had been amicable, if not mutual, but they hadn’t kept in touch. That was mutual, at least.

Andy blinked and it was like her momentary confusion was gone in that instant and she stepped out of the doorway. Quynh stepped inside but hovered near the doorway. Andy shut and locked it and looked back at Quynh. She looked good, Andy; tall and thin with Medusa on her right arm and a harpy on her left surrounded by a labyrinth. She was very proud of those tattoos; she’d designed them and Lykon had inked them. She’d stylized the art to lean to his strengths and it showed. They were some of his best work.

The awkward silence lingered until Andy stuttered out, “When did you get back?”

“An hour ago,” Quynh said. “You’re my first stop.”

They’d promised they’d keep in touch; they didn’t. Neither of them had tried hard enough. Quynh had felt guilty and frustrated at the same time; guilty for leaving, frustrated Andy couldn’t – or wouldn’t – try to understand. She’d been doing the same job in the same state in the same region her whole life; she needed to do something different. She’d submitted the application on a whim, but when she actually got the job? There was no way in hell she could turn that down.

Andy’s face was inscrutable; she had the meanest, coldest poker face Quynh had ever seen – and that included that card shark she’d met in Ulan-Ude. She didn’t like the silence, so she looked around the shop, casting about for a subject, to remark on how similar or different it was than when she’d been there. In some ways, it looked exactly the same; in others, completely different. Quynh frowned.

Andy had switched out most of the art. Quynh remembered it as a haphazard mix of prints of street art, photos of forgotten moments in history – like unknown musicians in forgotten concerts, unremembered activists marching in streets, or famous moments from forgotten angles – Andy’s own art, reinterpretations of ancient and classical cultures; and prints of more famous punk artists that Lykon and Andy had liked.

All that was gone now; instead, there were only prints of photographs, most of people, some of animals; one of a sunrise that Quynh would have called boring if it weren’t for the kids in the foreground, waiting to catch a school bus dressed in traditional Inuit parkas to keep themselves warm in the winter wind. She remembered talking it: she’d gotten permission to go to their school and take pictures of the facility – it was for a piece her friend was writing on disparity in Inuit communities in Canada – and she’d been freezing her ass off with them while they waited. One of the moms had let her shake for less than a minute before coming out and draping her in her husband’s parka – made of seal fur and the warmest thing Quynh had ever worn. She still lost feeling in her feet, but she after she took the picture of the kids she was able to stow her camera and tuck her arms in her armpits to keep them warm.

The kids just thought she was silly, and their parents thought – politely, but undoubtedly – that she was a bit of an idiot, but the picture, and the subsequent ones of the school, were good ones. Ossie Michelin had guest-wrote for the magazine that issue and had done – in Quynh’s estimation – an excellent job discussing the tension and conflict that existed between the traditional and western worlds.

“You bought my pictures,” she said, dumbly, staring at them. Andy had bought prints of nearly all of them – she got all the good ones, at least; the ones Quynh was particularly proud of.

“I–yeah.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“No, but I wanted to,” Andy countered. Quynh walked around the studio, taking in each print. One from the Hong Kong set; two from the Mongolia set and yeah, she liked those too; several from the Ho Chi Minh set, clustered tightly together near Andy’s workspace, most of them places Andy and Quynh had visited on that first trip they took together. Quynh raised an eyebrow at Andy, who shrugged.

“Reminded me of you. I knew how happy you’d be to be back there.”

Quynh knew if she didn’t lay her cards on the table, Andy probably wouldn’t either. No matter what, she’d always been able to be honest with Andy. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to be reminded about me.”

“Of course I wanted to remember you,” Andy insisted, walking closer to her. She didn’t say it like it should have been obvious, or like she was angry Quynh didn’t know. She said it like she meant it, with her chest and heart and soul in it.

“I missed you too,” Quynh said, with her whole chest.

About six months after starting at Joe’s shop, Nile discovered the café across the street, next to the tattoo parlor. Joe brought her coffee from them after their first weekend misadventure, as an extra thank-you, and a chocolate croissant that was definitely the best she’d ever had.

“An old friend of mine runs it,” Joe had said when she asked. “Sebastián Booker, but we just call him Booker. He likes old books and can make the best pastries you’ve ever had. He gives me his compostable garbage and I give him free cuttings of whatever herbs I’ve got around.” Joe chuckled. “He’s a good guy, but his thumb is about as green as the asphalt under your feet. He tried to work for me for about a month and it really didn’t work out.”

Nile laughed. “Sounds like he found his calling, though.”

Joe shrugged and shook the last of the mulch into the wheelbarrow. “Honestly, I don’t think Booker knows what he wants to do. But he’s been running the café for about two years now and it hasn’t gone under yet, so I think this one might stick.”

It took Nile another month to try it for herself; anything that tasted that good had to have a matching price tag. But when she passed her midterms with mostly flying colors, she decided she deserved a treat, and headed downtown an hour early to hang out at the coffee shop before work.

She wasn’t sure what to expect; the outside was the same brown brick as the rest of the block, but the windows had been painted over from the inside to look like a European street – Nile assumed in Paris. It was stylized like an oil painting done as an impressionist piece, and depicted a rainy, glittering scene with warm shop windows and a foggy blue sky, one of the towers of Notre Dame half-hidden in the background, next to the door of the shop. The top quarter of the windows were left unpainted to let light in, and all Nile could see through them was a yellowed plaster ceiling. She pushed the door open and was immediately assaulted by the smells of expensive coffee, warm butter, and cooking bread.

The inside of the café was brightly lit in yellow light from old-fashioned wall lamps made up to look like fancy streetlights. The linoleum floor resembled cobblestones – but without the tripping hazard – and the tables were all decorative wire creations exactly like Nile would expect to find on some Hollywood movie set for Paris. She’d been assuming Booker was French himself, but maybe he simply liked France.

The store was mostly empty, just one customer in the back, a man brooding over a truly ancient-looking book with a French press and a teacup. A woman was behind the counter, long black hair tied up in a bun, wearing a red sweater with the sleeves still rolled up to her elbows, flower dusting her bare arms. She had a truly impressive number of piercings and a tattoo that was probably half-finished on the inside of one arm. She looked up as the door closed behind Nile.

“What can I get for you?” she asked.

Nile tore her eyes away from the women and searched for a menu. “Uhhh…” The wall behind the bar was empty, just the same white-panel wallpaper as everywhere else. Then she spotted a chalkboard on the counter near the register. She stepped closer to get a better look. The French names of different kinds of coffee were scrawled in nearly-illegible cursive next to prices – this Booker really committed to the whole French theme, Nile thought. She had taken a couple years of French in high school because it was required – but only a couple, a long time ago.

The woman behind the bar took pity on her and smiled. “Do you want black coffee, or coffee with milk?” she asked.

“With milk,” Nile half laughed, relieved.

“And sugar?”

“No thank you.”

“Here or to go?”

“Here.”

“Perfect.” The woman rang her up and Nile paid, and then found a seat near one of the painted-over windows. The insides had been nearly plastered with old posters from the French cinema scene; Nile recognized two or three from her cinema studies class the previous semester.

A moment later, the woman brought out Nile’s coffee in an oversized teacup and saucer, and a pitcher of steamed milk. “Just pour what you want into the coffee, and let me know if you need a refill. Your first one’s free.”

“Thanks,” Nile said earnestly, smiling up at her. She smiled back, her piercings glittering in the light.

“You’re welcome.” She started to turn away, but Nile had one more question.

“Hey, do you know who painted the window?” she pointed at it. The backside was actually a rather cool abstract interpretation of the front; it would have been customary to paint the back some nondescript color just to cover up all the work and fill in holes, but the artist had left it open. Nile could see just a bit of their process in the layers: which colors and figures went down first, what was layered on top of them, how highlights were created before and shadows after. It would not have been an easy piece and Nile was impressed.

“Uh,” the woman hesitated and glanced at the man in the back, who had looked up from his book. “Andy did it, right?”

“She applied it,” the man agreed. “Nicky designed it.”

The woman laughed. “Figures.” She turned back to Nile. “They’re the tattoo artists next door,” she explained, jerking her thumb at the wall.

“Oh,” Nile said, mildly nonplussed. “I didn’t know you were friends of theirs.” As soon as she said it, she realized they might not be friends; it might have just been a commission. But still, she wouldn’t have expected Joe to frequent the place.

“Andy’s my fiancé,” the woman said, beaming. “She and Nicky and Booker go way back, too.”

“Not that far back,” the man at the back table muttered into his teacup. Nile laughed despite herself. The man – Booker – looked at Nile. “How do you know them?”

“I don’t,” she said, then shrugged. “I work for Joe.”

“Oh,” Booker said, and the woman laughed.

“Joe tell you their history?” the woman asked.

“Not in so many words…”

“They go way back.” She laughed to herself, then added, “Enjoy your coffee,” and walked away.

Proposing to Quynh had been as obvious as breathing, as inevitable as the sun rising in the morning. Andy had no idea if Quynh would say yes, wasn’t entirely sure what their standing was now that she was back – but Quynh had spent the last four months sleeping on Andy’s sleeper couch and eating meals with her and hanging out at the studio complementing people’s tattoos and bickering with Nicky, just like old times, and something about it made Andy’s heart ache out of happiness.

She’d never really forgotten what it was like having Quynh in her life, how could she? But the details had faded, gotten soft around the edges and fuzzy in the middle, like an old tattoo that had seen too much sun. She remembered only the shape and color of what loving Quynh was like but had forgotten the details. Having her back was like stepping out into the sun; it was warm and bright and made her feel alive and blissful and she didn’t want to lose it again.

Quynh told her it had been fun, travelling the world, seeing places and cultures she’d only read about online. Finally being a professional photographer.

“I’d been a piercer since I was 17, ya’ know? I just needed to know if I could do it,” she told Andy the first night she was back. Andy had ordered sandwiches and they ate in the studio, talking while Andy finished her work. It wasn’t news to Andy; she didn’t know if Quynh remembered, but she’d said all the same things before she left. Andy didn’t begrudge her the story; it was just wonderful to listen to Quynh talk again, and for the next few months, Quynh regaled her with stories from places Andy had never gone, but had read about in every article Quynh’s pictures appeared in. It was obvious how much she’d loved the experience.

One week in, Andy asked the inevitable question: “When are you going back?”

Quynh went still, then shook her head. “I don’t think I’m going to.” At Andy’s look, she shrugged. “It wasn’t all fun and game. I slept on a lot of airport floors and lousy beds.” She nodded to herself. “I got what I wanted: I proved I could be a professional photographer and I saw some of the most interesting corners of the world. I’m ready to sleep in my own bed and not be jetlagged for a while, now.”

She’d been back in Andy’s life for a week at that time – she hadn’t even gotten her own apartment yet, it was a totally inappropriate time to propose. Andy wasn’t rude; she knew that. So she waited. She told herself she could be patient and to see if Quynh felt the same way she did. And when it happened – well, it had been four months at that point. That was slightly more reasonable. And besides, she hadn’t planned on it or anything; it just sort of…happened.

This is how it went down:

It was about four months since she’d gotten back, and Quynh spent the day complaining (again) that all of her favorite lunch places had gone out of business in her absence, so she and Nicky spent the day searching for new places to try. Andy was only half-listening while she worked, so when Nicky took off early and the last customer left, she asked Quynh if she wanted to go try one of those new places. Quynh, of course, said yes, and picked one two towns over: a mom-and-pop place in an old tackle shop on a lake. It wasn’t really a restaurant; it was a miracle it showed up on google at all. It was more of a dive to Andy; at best a diner and at worst a fast-food joint – but it was local and organic and they hadn’t been there before, and that was what they wanted. Quynh was always ready for an adventure, and Andy was more than happy to accompany her.

They took Andy’s beat-up old truck and rattled along alternating between classic Dixie Chicks – just The Chicks, now, Andy reminded herself – and their new favorite kpop songs, shouting the lyrics out the open windows into the wind and corn fields as the sun sank lower and lower behind them.

The town was even smaller than Andy’s, just a main street, a post office, a gas station, and a hardware store. They didn’t even have a big box store, which was really saying something. It was the kind of small-town, middle-of-nowhere Andy liked to visit, but didn’t want to live in. Her little university town was small enough, and she said so to Quynh.

“I passed through a lot of places like this overseas,” Quynh commented in response. “Even more remote, and a lot of them indigenous. I was there to take pictures for stories, obviously,” she waved a dismissive hand, “but in a lot of ways, they weren’t that different from this place.”

“If only they knew,” Andy murmured. Quynh hummed in agreement.

The mom-and-pop place was outstanding. The fish was perfect, fresh, flakey, drowned in lemon juice and homemade tartar sauce. The potato pancakes had a golden crust, sharp and crusty, with steak fries and vinegar ketchup. Andy and Quynh split it and still didn’t have room for dessert.

They ate on the pier with their feet in the water and watched the setting sun light up the trees across the lake in brilliant rusty reds and burnt oranges, their thighs touching to balance the styrofoam box between them. Boats rocked quietly against their moorings, people chatted distantly near the shop, wind rustled the trees along the lakeshore. Quynh was warm and comfortable next to Andy and the bumped shoulders casually and affectionately as they ate.

I don’t want to do this without you, Andy thought. I never want to do this without you again. In that moment, she decided to ask. No more messing around, no more maybes, just a yes or no, and a future.

Andy waited until they were done and had wiped the grease off their fingers. The sun had set and the only light was the party lights strung up at the dive behind them and the stars above them. The Milky Way was a dark purple shadow across the sky, highlighted by the dense string of stars draped over it. The lake reflected the party lights and they looked like they were dancing over the gently lapping the water.

“This was a good idea,” Quynh hummed, kicking her feet in the water and causing the reflected party lights to twitch and jump. She looked up at Andy. “Thanks for joining me.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Andy quickly answered. “You know I like spending time with you.”

Quynh smiled at her, then turned back to the lake and stared out across the water. Andy swallowed her heart.

“I missed you while you were gone,” she said quickly. Quynh stared across the water. “It’s…it means a lot to have you back around. And I’m proud of you, and I’m glad you’re proud of yourself; I’m really happy for you. But I realized I missed being a part of your life, and I missed you in mine. And if-if you agree, I don’t want to make that mistake again. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” Andy shifted to face Quynh more properly; Quynh turned toward her, a small smile on her face. “You are the most incredible person I know, and I’m lucky to call you my friend. Will you be my wife?”

Quynh’s small smile broke and she grinned a face-splitting smile, brilliant and soft in the yellow light. “Yes – of course, Andy. A thousand times yes.”

Andy let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding and leaned forward. Quynh met her halfway and they kissed, Andy wrapping her arms around Quynh’s shoulders and head and Quynh wrapping hers around Andy’s waist. They broke apart for air and Andy rested her forehead against Quynh’s temple and giggled. Her heart was in her throat again, but in a totally different way. She was unspeakably happy.

“You doofus,” Quynh laughed. “I was going to ask you in a month.”

Andy laughed, leaning back. “Really?”

“Yeah! I just thought I oughta wait.”

Andy laughed short and breathy. “Got tired of waiting,” she said and leaned back in and kissed Quynh again, slow and sweet and perfect.

Then

After the second year of those shitty allergy flowers, Nicky knew he had two options. First, was write a complaint to the city; second, was deal with this himself. Obviously, he chose the second option. Someone told Joe he had allergies, and Andy had a small but growing collection of succulents and flowers on the half-wall between booths. He talked to her before work one day.

“You talk to Joe,” he said.

She didn’t look up from where she was prepping for her first customer of the day. “He’s our neighbor, of course I talk to him.”

“You told him I have hay fever.”

Andy pursed her lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Nicky rolled his eyes. “You talk to him, so tell me: what’s he hate?”

“What?” That got Andy to look up.

“Everybody has something they hate, little details that just drive them insane for no reason; what does he hate?”

Slowly, Andy smiled sly and sharp. “Anatomically incorrect flowers.”

Nicky just nodded and walked away. He could use that. It had been a long time since he’d graffitied anything, but he still had all his gear. All he needed were a few cans of paint and he’d be set.

He started with a bouquet of flowers: iris, roses, those star-looking-things whatever they were called; all very recognizable and all drawn very wrong. He did his best impression of a stylized, cubism-inspired design, breaking each flower down into its basic shapes and shades and then distorting them slightly so nothing was in the right place. Reds, blues, purples, black roses with white highlights, yellow and orange irises. When he finished the bouquet and there was still room, he added a backdrop of trees. Apple trees with square fruit, large circular cherry blossoms, towering redwoods with triangle pinecones the size of his head. He hadn’t meant to cover the whole wall, but he was enjoying himself and things may have gotten a little out of hand. By the time he was done, the entire back wall was a chaotic collection of shapes and colors, barely recognizable as flowers and trees in their abstraction, and he was out of green paint.

The ground was covered in a fine mist of every color, and his hands and shirt were ruined. He was sure his bandana and hat were, too. It was worth it, though; even if Joe was able to ignore it, it was actually pretty cool. He may have gone a little overboard with the abstraction, but the overall effect was actually quite good. He couldn’t resist and pulled out his phone to take a picture – just one, so he’d have a record for when Joe inevitably painted over it. Maybe he should graffiti things more often.

Now

“You’re a really good artist,” Nile told Joe one afternoon. It had been a slow day and it was just the two of them in the store. Nile was repotting baby aloe for the second time that week (there were just that many) and Joe was checking the store for spider mites. Someone had reported an infestation and he was concerned.

“Thanks,” Joe said with a small but puzzled-looking smile. “But what makes you say that?”

“The art on the back of the building. The cubism? It’s really cool.”

“Oh, I didn’t do that,” Joe responded lightly. Nile looked up.

“Oh?”

“Nicky did.”

Nile blinked at him. “Nicky as in your rival Nicky?”

Joe nodded casually. “The one and only.”

“Then why leave it up?”

“Because it drives him crazy.”

…or so Andy told him. Joe hadn’t spoken to Nicky in years. Despite that, the man occupied a disproportionate amount of Joe’s thoughts. It wasn’t all bad; Andy said Nicky was different, now – about anything except Joe, that was. Joe didn’t mind. Any genuine anger he’d had at Nicky’s comments had evaporated a long time ago. He believed Andy when she said Nicky was genuinely sorry. He could have stopped at any time – with the city planters, the plants for Andy, the mint in the parking lot, the bake sale. But at a certain point, Joe found he liked it. He enjoyed the unspoken prank war their game had turned into; he liked having a rival, it made for great stories when he called back home.

It was a ridiculous prank war, really; not at all like you saw in the movies. Their so-called “pranks” were so tame as to barely be pranks – though, he would admit, the mint in the parking lot was pretty evil, he almost felt bad about that one. But other than that, their pranks were positively mild: allergens in planters, graffiti on the back of the building, even the bucket of paint had washed out of his hair without too much effort – and, really, that was the thing, wasn’t it. They were all bark and no bite, more entertaining than annoying. 

So no, Joe didn’t mind; he liked the prank war.

Then

The pollinators from hell – as Nicky had taken to calling the flowers Joe planted – remained all summer. Nicky refused to rip them up just to kill them and had nowhere to transplant them to (he’d checked the rest of the city; the planters were either full or nonexistent), so he begrudgingly left them. He checked the back wall of the store for a month before he realized his prank hadn’t been nearly bad enough. By the middle of the second month, he started brainstorming a new one.

There were the classics, ranging in severity from buckets of water on door jams to superglue on toilet seats, but most classics were designed for roommates, or at least people with a certain level of access that Nicky lacked. More elaborate pranks like building rooms around doorways involved more people than Nicky had friends, and Andy had already pleaded neutral. So he had to come up with his own.

He knew it was a fine line. Joe was simply being a pain, an annoyance, like a neighbor whose leaves fell in your yard, and Nicky wanted to make sure he responded in kind. That was why he graffitied the back of the shop and not the front, and one of the reasons he wasn’t going to just murder the plants in the planters, no matter how evil they were.

After a week of thinking and growing impatient, he came up with an idea that wasn’t completely terrible. He drew a small comic on printer paper and after he locked up for the night, he crossed the street and taped it to the front door of Joe’s shop. He took a picture of it there for shits and giggles and went home.

Andy opened the next day, so Nicky was sleeping when he got a text from her just before noon.

Why is there a comic on our front door?

Nicky was half-asleep when he replied:

It’s on Joe’s front door.

Nicky put the phone down and expected to roll over and go right back to sleep, but less than 30 seconds later, his phone trilled again. Nicky groaned; convincing Andy to learnt to text had been a terrible, terrible idea. Alternatively, if he hadn’t, they’d be having this conversation over the phone which, arguably, would be worse. He rolled over and checked his phone.

Not anymore.

She’d sent him a picture, and Nicky squinted at the bright screen.

The comic Nicky had drawn was a stylized version of himself dramatically ripping the plants out of the planters with the threat “Us next year if you’re not kinder to my nose” written underneath in cursive. The comic Andy had sent a picture of was a more realistic version of Nicky apparently shoveling the dirt back into a raggedly looking planter with his hands, Joe hovering over him like a watchdog. The words, “Don’t count on it, Sweetheart” were underneath it.

Nicky groaned aloud and planted his face into his pillow. Not only was Joe unfortunately cute and ecofriendly; he was also, apparently, a talented artist. Goddamnit.

That night, Nicky taped a comic that depicted a man in a mask taking a sledgehammer to the city planters. The next morning, Andy found a plastic planter on their doorstep, filled with purple flowers that had golden centers. She kept it in the shop for only an hour after Nicky came in for work before he was sneezing nearly nonstop with a runny nose and watery eyes. He was stuffy for two days after that. Andy took the flowers home.

Nicky knew the comics weren’t cutting it. He needed to leave a more substantial present for Joe, so he went back to the drawing board. Ultimately, he gave into temptation and bought a can of environment-friendly green paint. He stuck it in a plastic bin and strapped the bin to a hinge strapped to Joe’s roof and hooked it up to a string tied to the handle and hoped for the best. He wrote sorry in sharpie on the bottom of the bucket.

After that, Joe planted mint in their parking lot. Nicky only knew this at first because Joe drew another comic, this time in color. Joe, hair dripping paint (courtesy green sharpie) was spreading seeds from a bag labeled “mint” in a corner that was unmistakably their parking lot, complete with the half-finished graffiti Nicky never quite got back to. For a few months, nothing came of it, and the planters were still evil, but neither one of them did anything else and Nicky almost thought the prank war was over. Then the mint sprouted. And kept sprouting. And sprouted down the alley behind the shop and sprouted down the street when it reached the end of the alley. And just kept sprouting. And the lady two doors down started calling the shop to complain about how “their” mint was taking over her grass yard. Nicky almost bought another can of paint.

Now

The end of Nile’s Junior year, Joe asked her if she wanted to stay on full-time. Her friend – Dizzy – was doing research for the biology department that summer and was looking for a third roommate, so Nile said yes. They negotiated a raise, healthcare, benefits, and Nile started fulltime the first week of June. Her Momma wasn’t thrilled Nile wasn’t going back to Chicago for the summer, but she was happy she’d found a good job and nice roommates, so there wasn’t much to complain about and she got used to the idea quickly enough.

Her first week fulltime, Joe showed her the flier for the annual bake sale. A few blocks of Main St. – including theirs – held it the last week of June to raise money for the local Children’s Hospital; they had established a fund for local families that couldn’t afford to pay for their child’s medical care. Locals donated all year round, but the bake sale was a time to raise money as a community and donate together. They closed those couple blocks of Main St. and rented a speaker system to play music and every storefront would put out a table and baked goods and there was a competition for whoever had the best baked goods. It was only partially based on taste.

“What do you win if you raise the most?” Nile asked, skimming the flyer. It had clearly been designed by a kid with crayons – and not in that fake way some people did, where they pretend it was a kid, but it was actually a professional graphic designer. It made Nile happy.

“Bragging rights,” Joe said with a smile. He pointed to the bulletin board that hung behind the counter. Nile looked up to see another child’s drawing – in marker instead of crayon this time – of someone with a truly unreasonable amount of curly black hair holding a giant cookie in one stick figure hand, and a gold medal (done in yellow maker, of course) in the other. “That’s what I won last year.” Joe’s smile was huge; the kid’s depiction of his victory was clearly a delight, even after a year.

“How many years have you won?”

“The last two,” Joe said. “I’m going for three.”

“How can I help?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. It’s strictly volunteer-only –“

“I want to,” Nile assured him. “What can I do?”

The bake sale was the last Sunday of the month. Joe spent the first and second weeks of June using Nile as a taste-tester. Every morning he brought in something different and they talked about what worked, what didn’t, if it needed more or less of something. Nile learned more about baking in two weeks than she had previously known her entire life. She also learned how Joe Americanized his old family recipes.

“I usually just find American substitutes, to adjust the flavor palette. Sometimes I add more sugar.”

“I feel like using ancient family recipes is cheating, Americanized or not,” she laughed, then a thought occurred to her. “Wait, how come Booker doesn’t just win every year?”

“He’s disqualified automatically,” Joe explained. “Or he would just win every year.”

“So does he have a table and just not compete? Or what?”

“He’s the judge. He goes around and tastes everyone’s ‘best pastry’ and ranks them. It’s how we decide who wins.”

“I thought it was only partially based on taste?”

“It is. He’s not always the, uh, most impartial judge.” Joe laughed. “But it’s all for bragging rights, so it doesn’t really matter.” Nile shook her head and took another bite of the almond sesame pastry.

The morning of the bake sale, Nile biked to work and found banners hanging from stores, plastic tables like the kind found in church basements set up in two rows along each sidewalk for blocks. It was early and the road hadn’t yet been blocked, so store owners’ cars were parked haphazardly in the street parking with their flashers on unloading truly impressive amounts of baked goods, colorful tablecloths, and decorated stones to weight things down.

Nile brought her bike to a stop in front of Joe’s spot, where he’d already left two giant cardboard boxes. She hopped off her bike and walked it down the alley between the next building and strapped it to the utility pole next to the alley. She yanked the back door open and went looking for Joe. He was in the main room.

“So you get any sleep last night?” she joked, then paused at the look on his face. He was smirking at his phone. “What?”

He looked up, smiling with squinted eyes. “Andy just texted me. Apparently Nicky tried a new baklava recipe.”

Nile smirked. “Has she tried it yet?”

“Not yet.” Nile just shook her head. Together, they picked up the cooler and waddled outside with it. Joe had told her he always brought a couple jugs of milk and handed out free servings with any purchases because it helped cut the honey. “And just, you know, the sugar in general,” Joe said, gesturing broadly to the array of doughnuts powdered with sugar and various spices in front of Nile. She’d laughed at the time, but after trying one of each, she was definitely grateful he’d brought some for her.

They set the cooler in the shade under the table to help keep it cool, and then started unpacking. The bake sale was always held Sunday so participants could spend Saturday baking if need be. That was exactly what Joe and Nile had done, and now Nile laid out the dozens of squares of baklava – adapted from Joe’s family recipe; Nile had been sworn to secrecy, especially from Nicky – all individually wrapped in pieces of parchment paper – “to be fancy,” Joe had said with a smile. The bambalouni and yo-yo – different types of traditional Tunisian doughnuts, Nile had learned – were relegated to ziplocks. Joe had briefly considered doing a type of makroudh from a recipe his grandmother had mailed to him direct from Tunisia, but he and Nile had decided that would likely take too long, and they had settled on just baklava and doughnuts.

Nile unpacked the signs and their stands last. Joe had made little signs for each that listed the proper name, the American name, and what it tasted like in progressively smaller font. He’d decorated the cards with cartoons of each dessert on the sides, quickly adorned with colored pencil. She found a larger sign face down in the bottom of the box. She picked it up and saw a list of prices next to each pastry, as well as deals (doughnuts were buy 2, get 1, for example). He’d decorated it with a semi-realistic portrait of her, rolling out the dough for the baklava the day before, hair done up in Bantu knots, flour up to her elbows, eyes squinted shut as she sang along to Frank Ocean.

“You drew this?” she asked Joe dumbly, turning to show it to him. He nodded. “This is incredible.”

“Thank you, Nile,” he said with a soft smile.

Nile set it up on its stand like the others, but turned it ever so slightly so that she could see it while she manned the table. She didn’t think it was vanity; she was so struck by it she was nearly breathless. She’d been drawn what must have been a hundred times in art school, but this one was different. Joe was such a good artist.

Across the street, Andy and her crew had begun to set up. Andy, Quynh, and Nicky each baked their own thing. Andy always made some type of cookie, the good old-fashioned American classic; Quynh had told Joe at the café that she was making bánh bò, which she’d explained was a type of Vietnamese sponge cake her mother made; and Nicky, of course, was making baklava, because he was a jerk, Nile thought to herself.

“You could have tough competition with Quynh’s bánh bò,” Nile commented as she watched the three set up. Joe followed her gaze.

“Maybe. She’s been getting a lot of practice at the café.”

“Oh shit, I didn’t even think of that.”

Joe frowned mildly at her. “What were you thinking of?”

“She also has a family recipe,” Nile explained. “It’s like magic; family recipes always taste better.” Joe just laughed at her. “That’s how I know Nicky is never going to beat you,” she added.

“You’re right about that,” Joe agreed with a wink.

Not long after, the cops blocked off the street and someone set up a speaker system and started playing kid-friendly dance music. The bake sale had officially begun. Families came out together with kids in wagons and dogs on leashes, slowly meandering down Main St. perusing what each storeowner had brought that year. But, Nile noticed, several people made a beeline straight for Joe.

“I buy his baklava every year,” an older woman told Nile as she handed over her cash. “It reminds me of the kind my grandmother used to make. Her recipe came from Greece, of course, so it was a little different; but nothing else had even come close until I had Joe’s.” Not everyone had a story, of course, but nearly everyone stopped and got some; or their kids begged for doughnuts and the parents complied “just this once”, since that was the whole point of the day.

They’d been at it for about half an hour when the heckling began.

“If you like Joe’s baklava, you should come try mine!” A man – Nicky, of course, Nile immediately knew with surprising confidence given she’d hadn’t even met him yet – shouted from across the street. Joe had warned her about this; it went on every year. They shouted mild and half-hearted insults at each other all day, constantly insisting their baking was better, urging each other’s customers to come buy their pastries instead. The kids got really invested in it, and the two of them always egged the kids on, so at least that part was all in good fun; the parents all thought it was a bit, and Joe never corrected them. Nile knew that, whatever her personal feelings about Nicky, Joe found the whole thing almost as amusing as the customers; he’d never said as much, but she could tell the instant his eyes crinkled just a little more when Nicky’s voice first rang across the street. Nile looked back across the street at Nicky and saw the way he kept blowing his nose – from Joe’s planters – but still had a crooked smile when he shouted about how his baklava was clearly the best ever.

“My grandmother made this baklava before you were even born!” Joe yelled back. “I have a tried and true recipe!”

“You have an antiquated recipe!” Nicky shouted.

“Hey you in the white shirt!” Nile yelled at a man in front of Nicky’s side of the table, her mouth deciding to join in before her brain could stop her. “Do you know that’s the first time Nicky’s ever made that recipe?”

“That’s not true; I made it last week!” Nicky protested with exaggerated outrage, Nile’s participation not throwing him at all.

And so it went, until Booker showed up.

Their block was always the last one Booker did, which Joe said was likely intentional. The afternoon was half over by the time he approached Andy’s table – he always did Andy’s first, apparently. He talked to each of them, tried all three desserts – even Andy’s cookies, though she made a great show of insisting he not bother. Andy never baked to win, according to Joe, just to help raise money. Nile watched Booker carefully as he tried Nicky’s baklava, and he nodded approvingly while he chewed. He was very complimentary of Quynh’s cake, which Nile had to admit, looked outstanding.

When he was finished, he crossed the street to Joe’s table.

“What have you got for me this year, Yusef?” he asked, rubbing his hands together.

Joe pointed at Nile’s end of the table. “Baklava as always,” he said, and Booker mock-eagerly picked a package and unwrapped it. He took a careful bite, one hand held under his mouth to catch crumbs, and nodded appreciatively as he chewed. Nile waited, staring, as he swallowed. But she smiled, so that made it less creepy, right?

“Wonderful as always, Joe,” he said, and accepted the paper cup of milk Joe handed him. “Really fantastic.”

“Better than Nicky’s?” Nile asked, because she knew Joe wouldn’t. Booker chuckled as he swallowed.

“I can’t tell you that; that wouldn’t be fair,” he joked, then winked. Nile didn’t know Booker well enough to know if that was a hint. “What else have you got?”

Joe went through explaining the two types of doughnuts, which Booker studiously tried and politely complimented. If he was taking notes, Nile didn’t see him write anything down. When he was done, he wished them good luck and walked to the next booth.

“So…what now?” Nile asked as soon as he was out of earshot. Joe laughed at her again.

“You take this competition thing very seriously, don’t you?”

Nile made a dismissive gesture. “I have a little brother; it’s required.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “He finishes the rest of this block and then he gets on the PA and announces who won. He’ll say ‘there were lots of strong contestants this year’ and joke ‘you should all come work for me’ yada yada yada.” Nile laughed.

“And then he’ll say, ‘Joe’s baklava is the best, and always will be’,” Nile finished.

“You’re probably right,” Andy said, and Nile suddenly realized she was standing in front of their table. She hadn’t seen her walk over.

“And how was Nicky’s baklava this year?” Joe asked politely, but while he did, he picked up one of his own and handed it to her.

She took it from him, smiling, and held it up to her nose, inhaling deeply, clearly extremely satisfied. “It was good,” she said. “Definitely his best so far,” she smiled broadly and slowly, delicately unwrapped the pastry in her hands. “But not as good as yours.”

Nile pumped her fists in victory and Joe laughed broadly at her, head thrown back and eyes closed and a huge smile on his face. No one except Quynh saw Nicky watching them across the street, small, crooked smile on his face and his eyes soft and crinkled in the corners.

Forty-five minutes later, Booker finally got on the PA to make his announcement. “There were so many wonderful desserts to choose from,” he said. “You should all come work for me.” Everyone laughed the obligatory laughter; he knew the joke had become a joke unto itself, but he didn’t mind. “Unfortunately, only one of you can win the highly coveted ‘Best Baked Goods’ prize, and this year it is – drumroll please!” he asked the kids all crowded in front of him. They stomped their feet and slapped their hands against their thighs, and he waited a few seconds to give them a sense of suspense, then shouted “Quynh Ngo’s bánh bò!” The crowd cheered; Booker just hoped he’d pronounced it correctly.

In the far back block of the street, he saw Quynh squeal in delight and Andy wrap her arms around her shoulders and smack a kiss to her forehead. Nicky hugged her, and the surrounding storeowners came to shake her hand, all smiling. Joe, of course, with them, but she blew past his hand and bear-hugged him, and he hugged happily back. Nile was right behind Joe, and even from two blocks away, Booker could see her smile.

A few days after the bake sale, when Quynh’s prize had been delivered along with a card signed by some of the kids in the hospital and she was still flush with her victory, Nicky taped another comic to Joe’s door after he closed up the studio. Joe had been a very gracious loser, but Andy had mentioned – offhand, while she was making fun of Nicky’s attempts to make better baklava – that he’d really wanted to win.

It wasn’t a consolation prize, because Nicky didn’t feel bad for him or anything; of course not. Nicky didn’t even like him. Sure, Joe was an excellent cook and a wonderful artist and a kind person and a successful small business owner and extremely handsome to boot, but none of that mattered! Because Nicky didn’t like him! Nicky couldn’t like him because Joe, he was sure, still hated him, no matter how polite he was!

So anyway, he made a comic that definitely wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart and taped it to Joe’s door. He’d drawn a cartoonish version of Joe in a battle stance, armed with his fancy, wrapped squares of baklava, facing off against Quynh, who was likewise posed with her bánh bò cakes, with the words “For the honor of Main St!” dramatically scrawled above them. In the bottom corner, he’d written, “I’ll get you next time.”

The next morning when he opened the shop, he found a small succulent in a tiny ceramic pot on the outdoor sill of his window – that is, the storefront window, that just so happened to be in his booth. Joe had drawn a small doodle of a flower on the ceramic on one side, and the letters “Thx” on the other. On the bottom of the water-catcher, Joe had added, “Allergy safe.”

Then

Joe had taught himself how to draw as a kid. He’d spent a lot of time hanging out around strip malls and cramped suburban parks and busy movie theaters waiting for something to happen, so while he waited, he sketched. Badly, at first, but over time he improved, developed a sense of style and found a particular form that he liked. He stuck with pencils, occasionally colored pencils, and wasn’t very adventurous with different types of media; it just never interested him. Later in life, he’d sketch everyone. The Aunties on Fridays, the artificially wrinkle-free politicians on TV, the overworked minimum wage employees at the soulless retail stores. After high school, he interned for the National Park Service and sketched plants and landscapes and animals. That was where he learned he had a green thumb.

Eventually, opening the flower shop became his dream, and he was so enthusiastic even Nicky’s comments that first afternoon couldn’t ruin his mood – at least, not completely. He’d been disappointed, certainly, to learn his enthusiasm to join their block was not shared. Nicky apologized the next day, with a handmade card, and it still seemed a little chilly, but Joe was a polite man. More polite than Nicky, at least.

A few weeks later, he officially met Andy. She came by with her girlfriend Quynh, with a small cake he immediately recognized from the only halal grocer in town, and Joe found some plates and asked if they would share it with him.

He learned Andy owned the tattoo studio and Quynh was the piercer and they’d been dating almost as long as they’d known each other. Andy seemed angry about almost everything and just kind of grumpy in general, but she was nice, and always had a broad smile for Quynh that lit up her face. He learned Quynh was the adventurous one and wanted to travel the world and was an amateur photographer. It wasn’t particularly surprising when he learned, just before his one-year anniversary of the store opening, that she’d left to do just that.

Andy took it hard, and he didn’t see much of her for the next year. He spent his time building the store up, making a name for himself, building a new life in a new town and calling his grandmother once a week to assure her all was well. But every morning he’d open the shop and look across the street at the tattoo parlor and hope they were well.

The planters, that first summer, where a whim. Quynh had mentioned, off-hand he’d thought, that Nicky had terrible hay fever. Joe hadn’t spoken to Nicky since that chilly apology and he thought, perhaps, a little revenge was in order. He could play dumb if anyone asked, and besides: the rundown concrete planters with their shitty, stony dirt and weeds were driving him insane. Might as well have fun with it.

Quynh thought it was hysterical. Almost every day she’d text him some new complaint Nicky had or Italian swear he’d unearthed from his immigrant bones. Joe enjoyed both Nicky’s almost comical raving, but also Quynh’s enjoyment – and her enthusiasm made him wonder if perhaps it hadn’t been such an off-hand comment as he’d thought.

The summer after Quynh left, when Andy seemed lost in the fog of her heartbreak, Joe replanted the planters with the same flowers – what he’d started thinking of as the Hay-Fever Mix. He thought it would be an amusing distraction: Nicky could rant, Andy would laugh. Joe hadn’t spoken to Nicky in over a year, so it wasn’t like there was a relationship there to lose.

It seemed to work. Once a week or so, Andy would text him some funny thing Nicky had said or done, and Joe was beginning to be impressed with his creative ability to swear. He started gifting Andy plants; mostly just tiny succulents that he had too many of, or flowers that hadn’t sold in the year since he purchased the seeds. She sent him pictures of them lined up along the half-wall around her workspace. Sometimes Nicky was rolling his eyes in the background. It would have been cute if he weren’t so unpleasant.

Then, July happened. Joe pulled up behind the shop one morning and the back wall was completely covered, ground to roof and corner to corner, in color. Bright reds, vibrant purples, black like velvet, yellow like the sun, greens the colors of his healthiest plants… Joe sat in his car and stared. It was all shapes and colors, but he could still recognize roses, irises, cherry blossom trees, towering trunks almost the exact color of the California Redwoods. He had never seen anything like it in his entire life, and yet the geometric style was intimately comforting to him, reminding him of the art and architecture he’d grown up around.

Eventually, he got out of his car. He took a picture – capturing only a fraction of its true scale and majesty on the tiny phone camera – and sent it to Andy without comment. She sent back the emoji with two eyes and no mouth and that pretty much summed up how Joe felt about it, too. It was a work of art, in Joe’s opinion, and Nicky had created it on the back of Joe’s store with spray paint in the middle of the night.

That was when he decided maybe Nicky wasn’t a complete jerk after all.

Now

Nile was able to put off going back to Booker’s café for a month after the semester started before her tastebuds gave in and sent her back. She justified it by saying she’d met the first major milestone in her thesis project – which was to say, she’d picked a thesis project. She’d told her professor she was going to do a series of photorealistic oil paintings of items that were both tools and art simultaneously, like a Stradivarius or an illuminated manuscript or Education City Mosque, which was by far the coolest religious architecture she’d ever heard of. Anyway, it had taken her ages to decide what to do, and now that she had, she figured that was as good an excuse as any to treat herself, and she’d really been craving it.

Nile pushed open the door and the already-familiar scent of butter and coffee washed over her like a warm blanket. Today, she also smelled cinnamon and chocolate, and she took a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth in a blissful sigh.

Booker was behind the counter, his back to her. He was wearing a black apron that was nearly gray with all the flour it was covered in, even the ties. He didn’t appear to notice Nile had walked in, so she walked up to the counter and said hello.

“Hey Booker.”

He turned, covered in flour up to his elbows, and Nile saw dough on the counter in front of him. When he turned, she could read his apron, which was printed with the phrase “YOUR OPINION WASN’T IN THE RECIPE”. She snickered. “Nice apron.”

“Thanks,” he said, with just a hint of an accent. “Just a second.” He walked two steps to the right and turned on the sink with his elbow. “You’re Nile, right?” he called over the running water. “Joe’s assistant?”

“Yup!” she agreed brightly. She perused the lines of baked goods in the display cabinet while they talked. The chocolate croissant was calling her name and she was trying to decide how many pushups were attached to it. She thought about it like a challenge; eat well, exercise well.

“That means you get the friends and family discount,” Booker said, shutting the water back off with the opposite elbow. Nile looked up.

“You don’t have to do that.”

Booker shrugged as he wiped his hands on a towel and threw it over his shoulder, walked to stand opposite Nile across the counter. “Joe, Andy, and the lot of them are basically my family. You working for Joe makes you like a second cousin. Or at least a friend. So..” he shrugged again, “friends and family discount.”

“Thanks,” Nile said, and she meant it. Booker nodded his acknowledgement, then nodded at the display.

“What can I get you?”

Nile got the croissant and reclaimed her previous spot by the window. A minute later, Booker brought out a cup of coffee and a pitcher of steamed milk and told her it was on the house and asked what she was reading.

“It’s called Craft: An American History,” Nile told him, showing him the cover. “It’s about the history of craftspeople and artisans in America.”

“Is it for a class?” Booker asked, and gestured at the chair across from her as if to say, ‘may I join you?’

“Please,” Nile said, gesturing at the chair, and Booker sat down. “And sort of. My thesis project is on what I call ‘applied art’ – like, objects that serve an everyday purpose, but are masterpieces of art at the same time. So I thought this might be insightful.”

Booker hummed thoughtfully. “I don’t have a lot of experience with visual art, but I’ve done a lot of writing in my time,” he commented. “Did you know letter writing used to be considered an art form?”

“No,” Nile said. She pulled out a notebook and retrieved the pencil from behind her ear. “Really?”

They talked for nearly an hour, interrupted only by customers coming and going, but even then Booker would shout commentary from behind the counter at Nile as thoughts occurred to him in between mixing coffee and ringing customers up. Nile thought he’d forgotten about his dough, and asked, but he assured her it needed to rest anyway, and rejoined her at the table with his own cup of straight black coffee. He was a wealth of knowledge about the European history of the written word, particularly between the 16^th and 19^th centuries. Every once in a while, he would say something about how hard it was to write with a particular style pen or ink, or have some obscure opinion about the plate design of 1862 bank notes, that made Nile wonder why he knew what he did, but she didn’t ask. The mystery was amusing, and besides, her Momma had raised her not to be rude.

It was almost time for her to leave for her shift at Joe’s when the door opened with three new customers. Quynh, Andy, and last-but-not-least, Nicky, walked in, preceded by loud voices. It sounded like Andy and Quynh were having some kind of argument.

“I don’t care what the guy at the store said, those two colors are identical, and the man is just trying to sell you something by implying otherwise.”

“Andy, you can literally see what they’re made up with and it’s not the same; they are not identical –“

“I don’t care what the sheet says, they’re the same thing –“

“You’re a tattoo artist for god’s sake I can’t believe you can’t tell the difference between two colors –“

“That is not the same thing, don’t be fucking rude –“

“What are you two arguing about?” Booker interrupted as they wandered into the store; all three stopped and turned to face him. Andy rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips while Quynh spread them out in exasperation, pieces of paper in one hand.

“Andy’s colorblind,” Quynh declared. Booker cackled and Andy slugged Quynh in the shoulder, scowling furiously. “She can’t tell the difference between ‘peach blossom’ and ‘American sunrise’.”

Booker made a face. “I don’t blame her,” he laughed, then looked at Nile out of the corner of her eye. “Why don’t you ask Nile,” he suggested, pointing his thumb at her over his shoulder. “She’s an art student.”

“Bold of you to assume that disqualifies me from being color blind,” Nile quipped and Andy snorted. She snatched the papers from Quynh’s hand and walked over to Nile’s side of the table. She folded the papers in half and dropped them in front of Nile and pointed.

“Are these colors the same or different?” she asked, pointing at the squares of color on the paper. Nile picked them up and examined them more closely.

Nicky walked over to Booker’s side of the table. “Fifty bucks she can’t tell them apart,” he said, pulling out his wallet and dropping the cash on the center of the table.

“Nicky, no,” Andy warned him, but there was no real malice to it, mostly just amusement. Nile raised an eyebrow at him. Booker grinned and pulled out his own wallet.

“All in,” he said, dropping his own cash onto the pile. He winked at Nile and she smirked at him. She got the sense this was a common occurrence between the four of them.

She looked back at the papers. They appeared to be reproductions of some kind of cloth, both a pale peach color. Nile held them up so the light behind her lit them properly. They were extremely close in hue, but the one on the right seemed a little more pink and the one on the left was a little more orange. But only just. She switched them, squeezing her eyes closed and opening them again as a sort of visual pallet cleanser, to see if she wasn’t just imagining things. Nope.

“I’m guessing this,” Nile pointed to the one on the left, “is ‘American sunrise’ and this,” now the one on the right, “is ‘peach blossom’.” Andy threw up her arms and Booker howled in success. Nile smiled, dropped the papers back on the table, and laced her fingers behind her head, leaning back and smirking. The other man – Nicky – smiled at her and nodded, and she knew there were no hard feelings.

“I told you,” Quynh was laughing at Andy, who was shaking her head with her hands up.

“Yeah, yeah, alright, whatever.”

“What is this for, anyway?” Booker asked, tucking the cash back into his wallet.

“Apparently these are the most popular colors for wedding linens in America,” Andy said, retrieving the pieces of paper and showing them to Booker, who just raised an eyebrow first at them and then at Andy.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Andy agreed to whatever unspoken communication they had.

“I’m not sure he really understands what we’re going for,” Quynh said, grabbing a chair from one table over and joining them. Andy and Nicky followed suit, and their little table was suddenly crowded. Nile made an effort to shove all her books and papers into one pile in case anyone else wanted a sliver of table, but Andy waved her hand over Nile’s stuff in a sort of ‘forget it’ gesture, and Nile relaxed, leaving her notes where they were.

“He definitely does not understand what we’re going for,” Andy affirmed.

“Who is this guy?” Nile asked. She didn’t really know these people, but they’d joined her table; she felt invited to the conversation.

“The man at the event planning office,” Quynh said. “They’re supposed to help you arrange the details of your event, like the linen, the dishes, they manage the caterer for you, etc., so you don’t have to worry about any of that day-of.”

“But he’s a little too much ‘white picket fence’,” Andy complained, throwing one arm over Quynh’s chair. Nile felt safe assuming they were talking about wedding planning.

“Well, what color do you want your linins to be?” Booker asked. Andy snorted.

“I don’t fucking know. I don’t even have napkins that match in my own house.”

Quynh rolled her eyes. “We can’t even pick a theme. All I know is I don’t like his ideas.”

“Sounds like you need a new wedding planner,” Nile pointed out.

“That’s what I said,” Nicky agreed, “but apparently they’re the only place in town.”

“Seriously?” Nile asked.

“Unfortunately,” Andy sighed. She stole Booker’s coffee and took a sip.

Nile hummed. She pulled out her phone to google wedding planning websites but saw the time on the lock screen. “Oh fuck I gotta go,” she hissed, jumping up and grabbing her backpack. “I work in sixty seconds.”

“Since you mention it, I wanted to ask you something about Joe’s baklava –“ Nicky started as Nile was shoving papers indiscriminately into her backpack. She didn’t have time to properly insult him for asking, so she hit him on the head with her book as she squeezed between him and the window.

If that wasn’t enough, Andy added, “Nicky, don’t harass the part-time employee,” and kicked him under the table. Nicky tried to kick back as Nile left, rolling her eyes and laughing to herself. Joe didn’t mind that she was late and listened with amusement as she explained what had kept her.

That night, Andy came to talk to Nicky before she left. Quynh had already gone out the back, and Nicky hadn’t even realized Andy was still there, but she said she needed to talk to him. She said it in what Nicky called her ‘business tone of voice’; the one that meant she was serious. He put down his pen and looked up at her expectantly.

“Nicky, you’re one of my best friends,” she paused and made a face. “Well, you’re one of my only friends. And your friendship’s very important to me.”

Nicky had no idea where Andy was going, but he didn’t want to interrupt, so he just smiled at the compliment.

“I want you to stand with me at my wedding,” she said, “as my groomsman, or brides-man, or whatever.” She waved her hand, dismissing the words that weren’t large enough to encompass what she was trying to say. “Point is, I want you to be part of it.”

For a moment, Nicky couldn’t speak. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, really – he and Andy had been friends for a decade – but he’d never even thought about it. “Andy, I – would be honored,” he finally managed to sputter out. Andy smiled softly at him.

“Damn straight you will be.” He laughed. She took a deep breath and continued. “I’m also going to invite Lycon and Atticus,” she told him, and Nicky nodded. He’d never met Atticus, but he knew they were friends in college and they’d kept in touch. “And Joe,” Andy added. Nicky wasn’t particularly stupid, but in the past five minutes he’d already demonstrated he didn’t think things through. Obviously she was going to invite Joe; they were actually friends.

“I promise I won’t make things awkward,” he said, and Andy nodded.

“I know you’re not going to make things awkward because you’re gonna go over there and patch things up,” Andy said. Nicky blinked. “That’s non-negotiable.”

“Andy –“

“Nicky, it’s not hard. Just go over there, say you’re sorry, ask if you can put this whole thing behind you. It’s not rocket fucking science.”

“I tried that already.”

“Yeah, like eight years ago. Try again,” Andy prompted. Nicky sighed. “I insist.”

“Fine,” Nicky agreed. “I’ll do it.”

Andy stared at him for a moment, then said, “Thank you, Nicky,” in a voice that said she knew exactly how little he liked what she was asking him to do. “Good night.”

“G’night.”

Andy left through the rear shop door and the studio descended into silence. Nicky stared out the front window at the flower shop across the street – now dark – and tried to figure out what the fuck he could possibly say.

Quynh had already started the car when Andy climbed in. She was skipping through songs on her phone while she waited for the Bluetooth to register. Andy climbed in and slammed the door shut and sighed just as “Big Sky” by that queer cowboy came on.

“Went that well, huh,” Quynh remarked as she put the car in drive.

“Yeah, that great,” Andy said.

“Do you think it’ll work?” Quynh asked.

Andy sighed exasperatedly. “I have no fucking idea.”

“And you’re sure Joe likes him too.”

“Yes, Quynh, I’m sure Joe likes him too.”

“Okay, okay!” Quynh help up one hand in surrender. “I’m just asking.”

“You’re worrying is what you’re doing.”

“I’m reaffirming.”

“Just drive,” Andy groused. “I’m starving.”

“Whatever you say, Andy.”

“Shut up and drive.”

A week after Quynh and Andy complained about their wedding planner, Nile biked down to the flower shop early for her shift, locked up her bike in back, and went to the tattoo studio for the first time. It was a little before noon and they weren’t technically open, but Nile frequently saw one or all three of them working inside before they officially opened, and she wanted to talk to them about personal business anyway, so she figured it was fine.

She pulled on the door handle and it didn’t open. From inside, she heard Andy bellow “We’re closed!” Nile knocked on the door. Through the glass, she could see Quynh come out from the back, and Nile waved. Quynh blinked at her for a second, then recognized her and waved back. She said something to Andy and walked to the front door.

“Hi Nile.” She opened the door all the way and stood aside so Nile could walk in.

“Hi Quynh. Hey Andy,” Nile called back to Andy’s booth.

“Hey.” Andy had stood up and was leaning on the half-wall around her booth. “What’s up?”

“I come bearing gifts,” she said, brandishing a small stack of papers she’d printed out at school. Printouts of the services offered by different wedding planning websites, articles about how to pick a theme, a venue, a menu, a timetable. “I don’t know if you’ll like them, though.”

Quynh took the stack from her and flipped through the pages. Andy jerked her head, inviting Nile to join her inside her booth, and handed her a soda as she sat down on the bench along the wall. She’d never actually been in a tattoo parlor before, and she looked around Andy’s workspace curiously. It was pristine; a long, low chest of metal draws lined the wall opposite her, the top clearly scrubbed clean. Wooden cabinets were hung above it; the one that was open was full of paper towel rolls. Andy sat back down in her rolling stool and pushed her tablet, also resting on a rolling, tilted tray, to the side. A mini fridge was tucked in the corner between the metal chest and the half-wall. The majority of the space was taken up by a large leather chair that looked like a fancy dentist’s chair.

“How goes the wedding planning?” Nile asked while Quynh read.

“It sucks,” Andy complained.

“We fired the old guy,” Quynh explained without looking up. She was leaning on the half-wall from the opposite side.

“That bad, huh?”

“We weren’t compatible,” Andy said with a shake of her head.

“Are these self-guided?” Quynh asked. She was about halfway through the stack.

“Some of them,” Nile told her. “Some of them are professionals you can hire, but online. I thought at least one of them might be more your speed.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Andy told her, pointing in Quynh’s direction with one finger.

Nile shrugged. “It’s your wedding; it’s supposed to be a good experience.”

Andy snorted. “I’m beginning to wonder if it’s worth the hassle.”

Nile frowned. “What do you mean?”

Andy made an expansive gesture. “The whole planning and ceremony and reception. I’ve never planned a goddamn thing in my life. Every birthday party I’ve thrown has been a surprise one because I drove to Party Central and bought balloons and paper plates the hour before it was supposed to start.”

“I remember that,” Quynh added, still not looking up. Nile laughed.

“Your birthday happens every year, it’s old news by the time you’re an adult. Weddings are much more rare.”

“You’re a hopeless romantic,” Andy laughed at her. Nile smiled and cracked open her soda.

“Well, what about something small? Booker can make you a cake, Joe can put together a couple flower arrangements, I’m sure Nicky can color coordinate some paper plates.”

Andy laughed. “If only,” she said with a grin and took a drink of her own soda. But Quynh had finally looked up from the packet and was staring at her.

“Well, why not?” She asked. Andy and Nile looked at her. “You’ve got, what? Three people you’re inviting?”

“Excuse you, I’m inviting six,” Andy rebutted in mock annoyance.

Quynh rolled her eyes and waved her hand through the air. “Yeah, if you count Nicky and Booker and Joe. But I’m only inviting, what? Six? Seven? Only half of those will probably show up.”

“So?”

“So why do we need a big reception? Or even a ceremony? We’re going to have to do a big one when we go back to see my parents anyway; why can’t this one just be, you know, small? We go to the courthouse, sign some papers, and then just hang out.”

Andy stared at her. “That sounds a lot more appealing.” They stared at each other and Nile sat back and sipped her soda. “You serious about this?”

“Fuck yeah,” Quynh agreed enthusiastically. “Why not?” Andy just shook her head and shrugged. Quynh smiled. “Of course, you’re gonna pay for it. Weddings are a big deal in Vietnam.” Andy burst out laughing. “They won’t make you do everything, but we’re gonna be doing at least half of it,” Quynh continued, also laughing.

“All the more reason not to do anything right now,” Andy decided.

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Nile agreed, and Andy cheers-ed her drink from across the booth. Nile raised hers in return and took a sip – and if she had slipped in an article into the stack titled “How to know if you shouldn’t have a massive wedding ceremony”, well. That wasn’t worth mentioning.

Two weeks before the wedding, Joe came into the studio to talk to Andy about flowers. Nicky was in the middle of a piece – sea turtle on the back of the calf and Nicky wasn’t sure if the customer was in the zone, sleeping, or dead; she hadn’t moved in 20 minutes. Since he was in the middle of a job, it was easy to ignore Joe, though he kept half an eye on him anyway as he and Andy went over pictures of flowers and arrangements and sketches he’d made based on her request.

He wrapped up the turtle and completed the paperwork and the customer left with a “Have a nice day!” Nicky wasn’t sure about that. He cleaned his booth methodically, maybe a little slower than he needed to, wiping down every surface at least twice. Only when he’d run out of excuses to keep busy did he wander over to Andy’s booth and lean against the half-wall.

“I hope you picked different flowers than the ones he puts in the planters outside,” he said. He could have been joking, he could have been picking a fight; Nicky wasn’t even sure which way it went. Andy’s instructions to make nice rang through his head.

Joe smiled; Nicky couldn’t tell if it was real or fake. “I would never purposefully sabotage the best man of someone’s wedding reception.”

“Yeah, sure, unless that someone was a good friend of yours and you knew she’d get a kick out of it.” The words were out of Nicky’s mouth before he could stop them, but that was a joke at Andy’s expense, not at Joe’s, so that probably made it okay.

True to form, Andy grabbed the nearest available object and swung it at his head – in this case, a roll of paper towel. Nicky ducked anyway and danced away. She slammed the paper towel onto the tray next to her and kept one hand on it even while she went back to staring at Joe’s sketches. Nicky creeped back to the half-wall and snooped over her shoulder to see them.

They were good, as he’d come to expect from Joe. Very realistic. He could put them in a college botany book and blend right in. Or maybe one of those 19^th century folios, like something Darwin would have drawn. The arrangement itself was pretty impressive, too; he’d drawn up three, and without reading the label Nicky immediately knew which ones represented Andy and Quynh.

Andy’s was long, golden wheat and sweeping grasses and craggy pussy willow branches. Quynh’s was colorful, like her photographs: bright blues, jewel reds, sunny whites, regal pinks, all cut at different heights to give them the same sense of long, sweeping stature that Andy’s had. The third design was less striking; a more leafy, sedate pot, round instead of oval, with blue star-shaped flowers and white bunches of tiny blossoms that almost looked like floating snowballs in Joe’s delicate hand. Nicky decided to tell him so.

“They look beautiful,” he said. Andy looked up at him knowingly.

“They do,” she agreed, and looked back to Joe. “I think they’re perfect.”

“You sure?” Joe asked. “You don’t want to make any changes?”

“Nope. Quynh’ll love them; they’re exactly what we were looking for.”

“Fantastic,” he said with a smile. “I’ll get the flowers on order.” He gathered up his papers and said his goodbyes to Andy. He smiled at Nicky as he walked by, probably just out of excitement. Nicky’s eyes absolutely did not follow him as he walked by. Andy was staring at him when he turned back around.

“What?” he whined at her. She just held up her hands and shook her head. “What?!” he repeated, but she refused to say anything and just turned around.

One week before the wedding, Nicky was sleep deprived and falling asleep at two in the afternoon, so he told Andy he was going for coffee and went next door to Booker’s. When he pushed open the door, Booker was nowhere to be seen, but Joe was standing in front of the counter, looking down at the pastry display. He looked up as Nicky froze in the doorway.

Nicky had never run into Joe in the café before. This was as much luck as it was design – but it had been intentional. Joe hated him, and for years Nicky certainly hadn’t been Joe’s biggest fan, either, so not going to the café at the same time saved them a lot of awkwardness.

But Nicky was fixing things now, so instead of turning around like he might have done a few years ago, he walked in and stood next to Joe. It was awkward.

“Booker’s in the back,” Joe said, breaking the silence, but not the tension. “He gets me a deal on Turkish coffee beans.”

Nicky laughed. “Sounds like Booker.”

“Yeah,” Joe laughed back.

Nicky took a deep breath as the silence descended again. Better now than never, he thought. “Listen. I’m really sorry.”

Joe was looking at the pastries when Nicky started talking, and he started to looked up straight ahead, frowned, and turned to Nicky. It would have been comical if it hadn’t been mildly alarming. “Sorry for what?”

Nicky stared at him. “Wha – for what I said.”

Joe was still frowning. He hesitated for what felt like ages before asking, “What you said eight years ago?”

“I – yeah.” Before Joe had the chance to say anything, Nicky added, “I was incredibly rude, and also wrong, and I apologize.”

Joe wasn’t frowning anymore, but Nicky couldn’t figure out what the new expression on his face meant in the slightest. He stared at Nicky wide-eyed and open-mouthed. They both jumped when Booker slammed the kitchen door back open.

“Finally found them, grains de café à chier –“ Booker stopped talking mid-sentence when he saw Nicky and Joe standing next to each other. They three of them stared at each other for a moment before Booker stomped to the counter and dropped the five pound bag of coffee on top of it. Nicky stepped back so Joe and Booker could complete their business with some privacy and pretended to find something on his phone suddenly fascinating. Joe left, Nicky ordered his coffee, and Booker made it without any comment.

Then Nicky walked out of the café and nearly jumped out of his skin when Joe said his name from just behind him.

“Sorry,” Joe said after Nicky had cursed the Virgin Mary in three languages.

Nicky let out the breath he was holding (from fear, nothing else; it was adrenaline, that was all). “I thought you’d left.”

“I wanted to talk to you,” Joe said.

And here Nicky had thought he’d gotten away with it. “Yeah?”

“I’m not mad at you,” Joe said, and wasted no breath doing so. “I haven’t been in years.”

Nicky stared at him. His eyes were already starting to water. “Then what’s with the fucking plants?” he asked, pointing at the godforsaken planter next to him.

Joe smiled. “I think it’s called a prank war.”

Nicky barked a laugh. “Oh, is that what this is?” he asked, but he was joking; he could feel the smile on his face. “Oh, it’s on now,” he promised Joe. Joe was laughing wholeheartedly now, shoulders shaking and face tilted back in the sun. It made Nicky’s chest ache. He probably could have been angry if he wanted – his nose would be stuffed for the rest of the day now that he’d spent so long next to the planters – but he just wasn’t. Instead, it felt like a weight had been lifted off his chest. Joe didn’t hate him. That was nice.

Joe sent Nile home early that evening. She was stressed about her thesis project and stressed about midterms and stressed about some lab for some class. Joe got the impression college was just stressful all around, so if sending her home early would give her time to work on one of those things, that was fine with him.

It gave him time to think while he closed up the shop, and when he was done thinking and the last plants had been watered and the door was locked and alarm set and floor swept, he sat down at his workbench in the back room with the shitty overhead florescent on, and made another comic. This one couldn’t wait until morning, he felt.

It took him five tries to get it right, and the floor was littered with crumpled paper by the time he was done. He folded it in half, switched off the light, locked up the back door. He dumped his backpack in the car but walked down the narrow alley between buildings to Main St. Across the street, he could see Nicky still working on an older man’s tattoo; Andy and Quynh were sitting in the back corner of the shop with their heads together. Joe crossed the street and went to the back of the tattoo parlor and tucked the comic under the windshield wiper of Nicky’s car and left.

It was Andy’s turn to close, so as soon as Nicky finished sanitizing his booth, he said goodnight to her and Quynh and headed out the back. He unlocked the car and threw his bag across it into the passenger seat and climbed in after. Then he noticed the white square on his windshield. He got back out of the car and picked it up; it couldn’t be a ticket, this was their fucking property –

It was a comic. Nicky stared at it for a long time before he felt ready to get back in the car. When he did, before he even closed the door, he reached across the seats and tucked it safely into his book so it wouldn’t get crumpled in his bag.

It had been a comic of Joe, in his signature style, planting flowers in the planters along Main St., tightly clustered bunches of tiny purple flowers, each colored with several dots from a purple sharpie. At the top, it read, “Next year –“ and along the bottom, “Purple Hyacinth means forgiveness on both sides.”

The morning before the wedding, Quynh went to work. She opened the back café door with keys hidden in the space between the brick wall and the concrete alley, underneath the mint, and turned on the lights. She stowed her purse and put up her hair washed her hands and put on the spare apron. She was pretty sure one of Booker’s wedding presents was a proper apron of her own, with some dumb joke on it, when she caught him looking at them online. He’d claimed he needed a new one, but she knew better.

She started the coffee and individually wrapped the two-day old leftovers in cling wrap. Booker would come pick them up and drop them off at the local high school before the first bus arrived and kids the school had decided “qualified” could have them for breakfast for free. She expected him to pull up to the front in about two hours.

She hooked her phone up to the speaker system and blasted The HU and washed her hands and pulled out the pastry dough that needed to rest overnight from the proofing oven and started kneading. An hour later Booker tapped her shoulder and she screamed.

“Sorry,” Booker shouted over the music, but he was laughing too hard for the apology to really seem sincere. Quynh almost hit him with the rolling pin but decided against it at the last moment.

“What are you doing here? You’re not usually awake for another hour,” she finally asked when he turned the music down for her – so she didn’t get dough on her phone.

Booker shrugged. “It’s the day before your wedding, I thought I’d help out so you could leave early.”

“It’s not a big deal,” she said, going back to what she was doing. Booker shrugged again and went to wash up.

They worked in quiet for the next hour, taking turns picking music, then Booker drove the old pastries to the school and Quynh opened the café. Booker was back just in time for the morning rush. They sure as hell weren’t Starbucks, but they had enough loyal customers that the morning rush hour was busy enough to require two people.

When things started to slow, Booker went back to baking and finished out the day’s pastries as Quynh set out the ones fresh from the oven. By late morning, the café was basically empty and would stay that way until halfway through the lunch hour. Booker made a pot of French press coffee and steamed a pitcher of milk and he and Quynh sat down in one of the café chairs.

“Are you nervous?” he asked as he poured. The question needed no clarification.

“No, not really.” Quynh shook her head. “It’s nothing special, just a party.”

“Yeah, it’s what comes before the party that’s the special part.”

Quynh grinned. “Andy would call you a ‘hopeless romantic’.” Booker just shrugged. They lapsed into companionable silence while Quynh thought about Booker’s question. “I’m not nervous. I’m just happy. Just so, incredibly happy.”

Booker smiled back at her, soft and sincere and perhaps the most sentimental she’d ever seen him look. “Perfect.”

After the lunch rush, Booker and Quynh bickered mildly about when she was leaving and if she was leaving early, and eventually Booker blurted out, “I can’t make your wedding cake while you’re still in the café!”

“You haven’t made our cake yet?!”

“Of course I haven’t; what, do you want it to be stale?”

“Booker! There’s not enough time!”

“There’s a perfect amount of time if you just get out of my store!”

Eventually he texted Andy and she came and got Quynh and Booker was able to finish the cake in peace.

The night before the wedding, Nicky told Andy he would close up the shop and sent her home early. He had no idea what you were supposed to do the night before your wedding, but he guessed it involved a little bit of alcohol and probably a lot of really good sex – or at least it would for Andy and Quynh. Normal people were probably panicking because the cake wasn’t ready or the caterer forgot the vegetarian option or some other trivial nonsense. There were definite advantages to just having a small celebration, Nicky thought, but his oversized Italian family would never go for it in his own life.

He was wiping down the last few surfaces in his booth when he noticed the lights in the flower shop across the street were still on. Joe hadn’t left yet. Unbidden, the image of Joe’s comic from the week before came to Nicky’s mind. He hadn’t spoken to or even seen Joe since then, but he’d started to think…

It was crazy. Until a week ago, they’d been at each other’s throats – or at least Nicky had thought as much. He’d apparently been wrong. And the purple Hyacinth seemed a lot more like an olive branch than an apology, somehow. Or maybe…

He couldn’t even think it. It wasn’t bad, far from it; just…totally foreign. The idea that he cared about Joe – or god forbid that Joe cared about him. Nicky looked away from the window and sighed and finished what he was doing. He turned off all the lights in the studio and set the alarm, but went out the front door instead of the back. He locked it, turned around, stared at the shop across the street with it’s lights still lit. The planters started to make his nose itch.

He crossed the street. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d been in Joe’s shop; he was pretty sure the answer was once. He had spent years of his life thinking about that place and the man who ran it; it was surreal and almost uncomfortable to be in it now, like he was trespassing on some kind of sacred and forbidden ground. Well, that, or he was uncomfortable for completely different reasons.

A windchime jingled as Nicky pushed the door open and Joe, with his back to the door, didn’t turn around, just shouted, “Sorry, we’re closed!” politely over his shoulder. He had Andy’s planter on the counter in front of him, clearly just putting the final touches on it before the wedding. He would turn around in a minute and see it was Nicky, but before he did, Nicky could just look at him. Broad shoulders, brown skin, curly hair, the gentlest hands. God, Nicky was in deep. He’d been drowning for years and he’d never even realized until last week.

Joe hesitated, clearly realizing whoever came in never left again, and he turned with a confused look, but the instant he saw Nicky he smiled. It was a smile with his whole face, eyes crinkling, mouth open.

“Hi Nicky.”

“Hi.” It was all Nicky could get out. He probably looked like an idiot compared to Joe’s perfection, mouth open like a fish. He certainly felt like one.

“What’s on your mind, Nicky?” Joe was asking. Nicky swallowed and tried to force himself to get his thoughts together.

He suddenly realized he didn’t know how to start it. So he blurted out, “I have to tell you something.” Joe inclined his head and turned completely around to face Nicky properly, bracing both hands on the counter edge behind him. He was waiting. Nicky licked his lips.

“I, uh. I –“ He couldn’t get the words out. Nicky forced himself to take a deep breath. He was starting to regret coming, but he was there now and he owed Joe that much. If he was going to do this, he might as well do it. “I think I’ve fallen in love with you.”

It fell out of his mouth like a stone to the ground. What was the phrase? Like a lead balloon? He felt silly, but at least it was over with. Joe was polite; he’d let him down gently.

Joe was very still. No smile, not even a sad sympathetic one. Nicky couldn’t interpret his expression at all and it was suddenly terrifying. Then Joe opened his mouth.

“I love you too.”

Nicky blinked. Barely after his brain had processed the words, his mouth said, “Really?”

Joe laughed lightly, just once, and smiled, and the tension was eased, if not eliminated. “Yeah. I think I started to fall in love with you when you graffitied my wall.”

Nicky laughed. “That long ago?”

Joe’s smile grew, soft and good and with his eyes again. “Yeah. I didn’t realize it, but yeah; I think so.”

Nicky stared at him, trying to absorb that information. “I think I’ve been falling in love with you for eight years. I didn’t realize it until last week, though.”

“The comic,” Joe immediately knew. Nicky nodded. Joe nodded to himself. “I almost didn’t give it to you.”

“I’m really glad you did.”

“I’m really glad I did, too.” Joe smiled. “You know, I still have every comic you ever gave me.”

“Oh god, please tell me that’s not true,” Nicky groaned. They’d been exchanging comics for half a decade. His early ones must have been vile.

Joe just laughed. “It’s true.”

“Whatever I said, I didn’t mean it,” Nicky joked. Joe looked at him then, with a look in his eye that reminded Nicky of the look on his face when they’d been shouting at each other at last summer’s bake sale.

“Is that a fact?” Joe asked and started walking toward Nicky. The tension in the room had been slowly decreasing, but as Joe crossed it, it skyrocketed again in a completely different way.

“Swear to god,” Nicky said as Joe stopped barely a foot away from him.

“I think you should prove it to me,” Joe said, and his invitation was obvious. Without a second thought, Nicky crossed the space between them, talking a half-step toward him and leaning forward. Joe met him in the middle and their lips crashed together a little more enthusiastically than Nicky had intended but god, it was good.

Joe’s mouth was soft and warm and skilled, and Nicky couldn’t help moaning into it. He stepped closer to Joe again until their bodies were pressed together and wrapped his arms around Joe’s shoulders, one hand on the back of Joe’s neck, the other against his back.

Joe responded eagerly, wrapping one arm around Nicky’s waist and pressing their bodies together hard and cupping Nicky’s face with his other hand. He was warm and strong and solid and Nicky wanted to wrap himself around Joe in a hug and never stop.

The tattoo studio, the flower shop, and the café were all closed that Friday. Andy and Quynh slept in until mid-morning, tangled around each other and the sheets in the bed. They had a lazy lunch before getting dressed. Andy wore a white button-up shirt but skipped the top four buttons, with dark maroon leather pants and black heels. Quynh picked a white blouse with tiny blue flowers and matching blue pants that flared out extremely dramatically at the bottoms. Her white heels were just an inch taller than Andy’s to make them a little more even in height, but she still had to stand on her tiptoes to peck Andy on the cheek.

They drove Andy’s pickup to the courthouse where everyone was already waiting. Nicky and Booker were their witnesses, and everyone else waited outside – the clerk had said something about not wanting the courthouse to get too loud, which made Booker chuckle and agree. The small party provided many hugs and excited well-wishes, then ushered Quynh and Andy inside where Booker and Nicky were already waiting. Booker wore the same thing he always wore, complete with a smudge of flour on his cheek that neither Quynh nor Andy mentioned.

“You ready, boss?” Nicky asked with what Andy knew was his happiest smile. She smiled back and looked at Quynh. Her fiancé was already looking at her, face split in the biggest grin. Andy took her hand and squeezed.

“Always,” she said.

A half-hour later, the four of them emerged from the courthouse brandishing a regular piece of paper with the judge’s stamp that proclaimed them married. Everyone cheered. Nile started shouting “kiss, kiss!” so Andy wrapped her arms around Quynh’s waist and dipped her into a dramatic, passionate kiss, and the small crowd cheered louder. Someone had made a sign that said, “Honk at the married couple” with two cartoon wedding cake toppers that had been turned to face each other like they were kissing. It had been stuck into the median and nearly every car obliged with gusto, but the small party was still louder than the honking horns.

They stayed on the large grass lawn in-front of the courthouse until the officer assigned to it came out and told them they were making too much noise. They drove back to their little block of Main St. whooping and hollering, the cans tied to Andy’s undercarriage making an unholy racket on the pavement. Andy made Nicky get under the car and cut them off when they got to the tattoo studio.

Joe brought out a half-dozen of the planters he and Andy had designed together, and loaned Booker his cooler to store the pieces of cake in while they drove to the lake. It was the same place they’d become engaged, and Quynh liked the symbolic symmetry of it. The planters got loaded into the back of Andy’s pickup, the cake into the trunk of Booker’s jeep. Lycon, Atticus, and a few of Quynh’s friends road with Booker in his jeep. Nile took the passenger seat of Andy’s truck and stole the Aux cord from Quynh. Nicky and Joe climbed into the back of the pickup to keep the planters from falling over, and the two-car caravan set off for the lake.

Nicky and Joe leaned against the cab of Andy’s pickup, listening to Nile blast 80s pop over the roar of the wind, and stared at each other as the cornfields sped by. Joe had a goofy grin on his face and Nicky kept lightly punching his arm, which only made it worse. When they lost Booker at a red light, waving goodbye across the intersection while Booker flipped them off, Nicky barely waited until Booker’s car was out of sight before leaning over and kissing Joe.

They’d tell everyone, after the honeymoon, but there was no rush. With the wind in his hair, “Don’t Stop Believing” blasting over the noise, Joe’s hand in his, Nicky was perfectly happy just the way he was.