Previously: Rose offered a perfect bouquet before hearing her first visitor and sent the woman away. When given another chance, Rose waited while the visitor chose one stem herself. After closing, Rose and Gerbera found a thirty-year-old florist’s order slip stamped “Paid” but never delivered.
A second sign appeared on the Editorial Room door the next morning.
One stem is enough. You may come in before you have decided.
“It’s even longer than yesterday,” Gerbera said from the top of a stepladder.
She was reorganizing the entrance shelf into three groups: bright, calming, and flowers that required few words.
“Please don’t sort flowers into three moods,” Rose said.
“Four, then?”
Before Rose found an answer, a man in office clothes stepped inside. It was 12:12. He held a paper shopping bag folded into a small square.
“I have to be back by one. A colleague is leaving today. I want to give her a flower, but everything I choose feels dishonest.”
Rose almost began with, “For a farewell—” She stopped herself.
“What choice would feel the most dishonest?”
He looked at the floor instead of the flowers.
“Everyone is saying, ‘Congratulations on your new beginning.’ She isn’t leaving because she wants to. She has to care for someone in her family.”
Gerbera climbed down.
“Would a bright flower feel like telling her to be cheerful?”
“Yes. But a quiet color would feel like deciding that she is tragic.”
A white-and-green bouquet, a small arrangement that would be easy to carry, and flowers with little fragrance all appeared in Rose’s mind. Each was professionally reasonable.
She did not say any of them aloud.
“Apart from the flower, what do you want to say to her?”
The man thought without looking at his watch.
“That she helped me learn the job. And if she ever wants to come back, her desk may be gone, but I’ll still be here to have lunch with her.”
“Then the flower doesn’t have to say everything for you.”
For the first time, he looked at the shelf.
The color editor placed three stems on the worktable: reddish orange, pale yellow, and muted pink. All three were gerbera flowers—the same name as the person arranging them.
“There isn’t one correct color. Which stem makes your own words easiest to say?”
He reached for the yellow stem and stopped. He considered the pink one. Finally, he lifted the reddish-orange flower.
“She is quiet in meetings, but suddenly talks all through lunch. This color looks like her face then.”
“Yes. That sounds like your reason for choosing this one,” Rose said.
On the edge of the wrapping paper, he wrote one line himself.
Not congratulations. Thank you. Let’s have lunch again.
“This doesn’t feel like a lie.”
It was 12:37 when he left for the office with the orange stem.
Gerbera removed the label bright from the entrance shelf. In its place, she set out three white cards.
What is the occasion?
What do you want to say?
Is there anything in the recipient’s home we should consider?
The shelf that had classified flowers became a shelf for questions.
After closing, they opened the old order slip on the worktable. Gerbera shone a light across the fold running through the variety field.
“Rose. Maybe the letters didn’t disappear.”
One mark survived on the left. On the right was an old form that could also be mistaken for a number.
“What if we have been reading the two sides separately?”
Joined together, the marks began to resemble a flower name.
It did not follow that the name meant the same thing thirty years later.
Rose placed a clean card beside the slip.
Check old market records.
The flower fact in this episode
Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries includes gerberas as an example of flowers displayed with a small amount of water. Its guidance says to replace vase water daily rather than topping it up. Check the condition of the flower and the florist’s instructions, and use flower food only as directed.
A useful sentence at a florist
“It is a farewell, but I do not want to assume it is a celebration. I want to express thanks and choose one stem myself.”
The next clue
Which flower name in the market records from thirty years ago matches the marks joined across the fold?
