Shellie Zacharia

Petals

In the late afternoon sun wash, the wrangle and roar of traffic is reaching a feverish hum so that Miami's air is thick with heat and insult, men in their cars loosening their ties, women peeling down pantyhose and cracking cramped toes, kids in the backseats shouting songs, truckers popping tallboys in paper bags, and strit-strutting among the stopped cars, smiles pasted to their sunburned faces, are Lydia and Yvonne, the flower sellers of US1 and Ludlum. Lovely ladies, harsh in their supposed loveliness, in their short shorts and cheap sandals, their tank tops and push-up bras, they smile and parade the space between cars, holding bundles of carnations, pinks, whites, an occasional yellow, frail petals limping in their hands. They try to meet heavy-lidded eyes, to sell a bouquet or two. They watch the light, red to green, and they hurry back to the sidewalk and drop their bundles in the water buckets, sigh, wait for the next light change.

Across the street, a man sells doughnuts. He carries boxes stacked atop each other, a dozen glazed doughnuts to take home for dessert, for tomorrow's breakfast, to eat on the long drive home. At the green light, he sits down in a canvas chair he has placed on the sidewalk; he leans back and tilts his chin to the sky.

"He is beautiful, no?" Lydia asks Yvonne. Lydia is in love with the doughnut man who is there across the intersection on Tuesdays and Fridays. He is far too young for her; she is full and heavy from hard living and this man is just a boy not too long ago done with high school, but still, he is handsome, and Lydia at thirty is lonely, and Lydia can dream.

But Yvonne will not let her. Yvonne who is younger, who is only twenty-two, speaks, "Muy guapo."

Yvonne is pregnant and has yet to tell her boyfriend Paul, for surely he will shout and maybe hit her, drive off in his car and never return. She pauses, squints through sunglasses that shield tired-red eyes, and then she continues, "He is better for me. He is too beautiful for you," and the way she says it, with scorn and cat scratch, it is mean and ugly and Lydia turns to look at her cousin with surprise.

"Too beautiful for me?" Lydia says. She holds her drink away from her lips; she notes the half-chewed straw before she stares at Yvonne's face.

Yvonne knows she has said a mean thing, but still, it is a truth. Lydia is too old and not very attractive. So Yvonne just says, “Lo siento. I'm tired, I'm sorry.”

But Lydia will not have it. No, no, no, she puts her drink on the sidewalk; she straightens and shoves her hands on her big hips. She spits. "Pregnant little whore. That man wouldn't want you either," Lydia says. The words come out before she has truly thought about them, as if the heat of the day has forced her words. They exhale, collide with car horns and blasts of loud music. They slap Yvonne across the face.

Perhaps it is true. Yvonne has not told Paul about her pregnancy because it may not be his baby. It could be George's baby. Maybe. But little whore? How dare Lydia. And how, Yvonne wonders, does Lydia even know about the baby? She has not said a word, not a thing to her cousin, although they have shared many stories in the past. "At least," Yvonne shoots, "at least, a man will sleep with me."

The light changes, and the women stay where they are on the sidewalk. The cars pull to a stop, the drivers sighing and swearing, and Lydia and Yvonne glare, forcing furrowed brows and wrinkled, tightened mouths. Finally, the two women reach down into the water buckets and pick up their bundles of flowers. Across the intersection, the handsome one is weaving in and out of lanes. He is smiling, his teeth so white against his tanned skin, his jeans low on his slim waist. He glances at the flower ladies, and maybe, he smiles at them.

"Little whore," Lydia says again, and she smiles her widest smile toward the handsome one.

"Ugly virgin," Yvonne says, and then smack, she slaps Lydia across the face with her bundle of carnations.

Oh.

Lydia swings back and there are flowers, flowers in flight, petals soaring and sailing and the air thick with color and scent and the women flailing, retreating and attacking, and the tattered stems like whips across their arms and cheeks, and the ground littered with floral confetti. And then, Yvonne feels herself weaken, she feels the ground rising up to meet her, she feels herself falling to meet it, she feels her knees buckle, and the sun pushing her down, the world pinpointing from blue to white to black; she wishes for the handsome man to rescue her, and she falls.

"No, no, no," Lydia says, and she drops her stems and falls to her knees and puts her hand to Yvonne’s forehead, "Dios, I am bad," she chants, and while she is invoking prayer, while she is thinking she is the worst woman in the world, the ugliest, meanest woman in the world, she looks up and there, dodging cars with doughnut boxes in his hands, is the handsome one. He is rushing toward them, his face shows his love, and for just the briefest moment, Lydia thinks that he is coming for her. She begins to cry, and her hands sweep the ground, gathering up petals.

Shellie Zacharia teaches in Gainesville, Florida. Her stories have appeared in Swivel, Hobart, Backwards City Review, The Pinch, juked, Vestal Review, Flashquake, and elsewhere.