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It's all over. Nothing can make life good again. Lisa just told him that she loves Mark. Lisa, the love of his life, now in love with his best friend, despite every thing that Johnny did for her--the job, the dress, the love and care. None of it ever mattered.
Johnny goes up to his bedroom, their bedroom, where they used to make love. There's a gun that he keeps by the bed, and he intends to use it. He intends to end this whole tragedy of a story.
Forget the party, forget the people downstairs.
None of it matters.
Suddenly, Johnny hears the phone ring. Out of habit, he answers it.
"It's Johnny, what do you want? I'm having a horrible day. My future wife betray me, there's nothing worth living for in this world!"
"Sorry to catch you at a bad time..." the voice over the phone says. It sounds familiar, but he can't place it. "It's Eileen, the girl from the flower shop. You left your sunglasses here. I kept them for you in case you wanted them back."
Oh...she did? That was nice. "I do want them back," Johnny says over the phone.
"Great! Well, I'll have them for you the next time you come by. And if I'm not here, tell the associate I'm putting them in the top right drawer of the desk in our back room. You can pick them up whenever you're ready." Top right drawer...
"Thanks," Tommy says, then hangs up the phone. Now he has to think back to his Oakleys...did he truly leave them at the flower shop? He remembers having them on when he left, but he was so focused on getting a bouquet for Lisa that he might have left them there when he went to pay.
He gives himself a quick patdown.
Nope! No sunglasses here. He must have left them.
Johnny goes back downstairs and brushes past all the people without a word. He doesn't give a second glance to all the balloons and decorations. None of them matter anymore. They'll be gone when he gets back.
---
Johnny jumps in his car and drives to the flower shop downtown. He is lucky enough to find a parking spot this time, one the police won't ticket him for. When he gets inside, Eileen is waiting for him.
"Johnny! It's so good to see you! Here are your sunglasses." She holds them out for him to take.
"Thank you." Johnny takes the sunglasses and then turns around to leave.
"Wait!" At the sound of Eileen's voice, he turns around. "Won't you stay a little bit longer? You're always in and out so fast. And you didn't sound so good over the phone. I'm here if you want to talk."
Johnny doesn't know if he wants to talk. Eileen has made advances on him in the past, and he always had to turn them down, telling her that he was with Lisa, but Lisa isn't in his life anymore. He could go back, but what does he have to do that's better than talking with a flower shop owner on his last day on Earth?
Johnny sighs, letting all of the air leave his body like a deflating balloon. "It's my future wife, Lisa. She left me this morning for my best friend. I suspected something for a long time, but I always told myself that she was loyal. It's the end of my world."
"It's not the end of the world," Eileen says. "Do you know how many customers I see each day picking up flowers for the person they think will be the love of their life, only to have them come in a month from that same day buying flowers for someone else? Love is seasonal, fleeting, until it stays around for longer."
"Do you believe in true love?"
"I believe in temporary love. For the longest time, my crush has been on you, but I never thought you would give me the time of day. It's always 'I want flowers for Lisa.' 'That'll be eighteen dollars.' 'Here you go, keep the change. Bye!'"
"But I was in love with Lisa."
"And now you're not."
"No, I still am."
"Well, she doesn't love you back, so you need to move on."
"I'll never have what I had with Lisa."
"Maybe not, but you might still be able to have something special again. Here, let me deal with my last few customers, and I'll close the shop. I have something I want to show you."
So Eileen does. Johnny stands by the greeting cards while Eileen rings up the last few customers. They all buy beautiful bouquets of flowers, but not red roses. Obviously, they're not as romantic as Johnny.
Johnny shifts his weight from one foot to the other and checks his watch. He doesn't like waiting. He would rather be on the move, but he is curious to see what Eileen has to show him.
Eventually, she finishes, and they walk towards the door. She turns off the lights in the shop, flips the little sign that says 'OPEN' on the door to read 'CLOSED,' and then locks up. She reaches for Johnny's hand, but Johnny pulls it away. Eileen doesn't seem plussed.
"Follow me. We're just going down the street."
Johnny and Eileen walk around the corner, to where a greenhouse is sitting in the shadow of a larger abandoned building. Eileen unlocks the door, and they walk in.
"What is this?"
"It's our nursery. A lot of our specimens we get from gardens around the area, but some of them we grow ourselves."
In front of her, Johnny sees a shelf with dozens of pots arrayed on it, all filled with soil and plants in various stages of growth, but none in bloom.
"If love is a flower, remember that flowers have to be planted. We have to plant the seeds to watch them grow. Some seeds may bloom into flowers, some wither and die. But the more we plant, the more possibility we have of them becoming flowers."
Johnny thinks this is very deep.
"So my love with Lisa, my ex, was like a flower. But now that that flower is gone, I just have to plant a new one?"
"Exactly!" Eileen says. "It's never too late to start again. So...do you want to go out on a date?"
"Not yet. I have some business to take care of at home first." Johnny leaves the greenhouse without a second look back.
---
Before meeting Lisa, Johnny had thought that he was the problem, but maybe he's not the problem. Maybe all he needs to do is plant new flowers, and get the old people out of his life: Lisa, Mark, Mike. If he's going to plant new flowers, he needs room to plant them after all.
He goes home, and the party is winding down. There are less people around than there were at the beginning, but it angers him to see that people are still standing around chatting nonchalantly after he wrecked a lot of the furniture in the living room and dining room.
"Does nobody care about me and my distress?" he shouts.
After that, he goes up to the bedroom to fetch the gun that he almost used to kill himself. He comes downstairs with it, shouting.
"Get out!"
He shoots the picture frame next to Mike's head where Mike and Michelle are feeling each other up on the couch. "Why are you in my house having sex? I don't even know you!"
He shoots the ground by Mike's feet, and he and Michelle scamper off.
Good. Two to go.
"What are you doing, man? This isn't you," Mark says as the rest of the people run around scared.
"Get out of my life, Mark," Johnny says, aiming another shot at the ceiling. The plaster crumbles, and some of it falls down in between them. "Get out of my life!"
"Okay!" Mark acquiesces. He leaves, and Lisa leaves with him, grabbing his arm, looking back fearfully at Johnny.
"You bitch, never come back in my house again!" Johnny shouts. "And everybody else, you leave too!"
There is a bottleneck at the door as everyone else scrambles to leave--Peter, and a lot of other extras that Johnny doesn't remember the name of.
"Can I stay?" asks a young voice. Johnny drops the gun.
"You can stay, Denny, but come back later, when everything not so crazy."
Eventually, everyone leaves, and Johnny is left alone.
He dials the number of the flower shop on his cell phone. "Hello, Eileen? How about you meet me at café? I'm done with business. I need girl in my life to fill gaping hole."
"It would be my pleasure, Johnny. After all, you're my favorite customer."
END