At about closing time every Saturday evening at A New Leaf florist shop in Old Town, after the staff has plucked the bouquets out of their buckets in front on the sidewalk, removed the dried wreaths that hang on the outside walls and packed up to close for the night but before they lock up the cash register and turn off the lights, one of the employees will look up and shout out to the others, ”Hey, Mr. Saturday Night been in yet?” If all heads look up and in unison answer ”No,” they keep the door open and wait.
They cannot close without Mr. Saturday Night. He`s a regular. The weekly mystery guest they look forward to. He says little when he walks in, as he does every Saturday just before closing time. And he gives no explanation nor engages in any banter.
He simply buys a loose bouquet of flowers and leaves. A gift for someone he loves, perhaps. No one knows for sure. That`s the mystery.
THE YOUNG WOMAN WALKS IN ON her lunch hour. It is busy in the Loop florist shop, and everyone is occupied. A woman employee is freed up and goes to take her order. ”No,” the young customer says. She would like to deal with ”that young man” behind the counter. She will wait.
”I would like to send some flowers,” she says in a lowered voice to the young man when he finally comes over to her.
”Yes,” he says. ”What is it you are looking for?”
”Well,” she says, hesitating. ”Something romantic. Perhaps roses. A dozen. Red. Long-stemmed. They are to go up to the 17th floor in this building,” and she gives the address and office number.
”And whom are you sending these to?” the young clerk asks.
The woman leans over the counter. ”I`m sending them to myself,” she says, laughing shamelessly. ”And I need your help. You do the card for me. Say something romantic and sign a name. Any man`s name. But I want the card to be in a man`s handwriting. That`s important. That`s why I want you to do this for me.”
”You got it,” says the hip clerk, who has done this scores of times before for other working women.
Later that afternoon, a dozen roses are delivered to the 17th floor. The note with the flowers, written in a man`s scrawl, says: ”I will never forget you . . . ever. Love, Patrick.” The woman who receives them feigns surprise. ”Oh! Are these for me?” Then, all aglow, she places the flowers on a prominent spot on her desk. Somewhere in the back of the office, a male employee looks up, sees the roses on her desk and gets jealous. It was exactly what she had hoped for.
EVERY SUNDAY HE COMES IN. THE women who work at Mike`s Flower Shop at 6500 N. Milwaukee Ave. expect him. They make sure they have what he always wants-one red and one pink carnation. Just two flowers. He buys the same thing every week and has done it for years. A simple purchase, but it means everything to him. With the flowers in hand, he leaves and goes up the street to the cemetery, where he lays them on his wife`s grave. That the women in the flower shop know. But why carnations and why red and pink is his secret. The significance of those choices he keeps to himself, locked away with his memories of a woman he loved and cannot forget.
”I WANT TO SEND A DOZEN ROSES . . . dead ones,” the woman says on the phone to a North Side florist. Her voice is angry, but she wants to talk about it. ”They are for my ex-husband, who left me for another woman, and tomorrow would have been our anniversary.” She sounds like she is about to cry.
The clerk at the florist shop hesitates, for orders like this are tricky. The order can be easily met, but the recipient is usually not very pleased. Besides, you could get the flowers and vase back through your front window some night.
However, the woman is insistent. The flowers are for out of town, so another florist in that town will have to deliver the bouquet of droopy, half- blackened and rotted blooms. The woman on the phone continues her tale of woe and the history of her marital collapse. The order is taken.
The next day, in another city far from Chicago, the dead flowers are delivered. The ex-husband takes one look at the bouquet, refuses to accept it and slams the door. Later, the ex-wife is back on the phone to the florist. No longer about to cry, she is now demanding her money back.
”SAY IT WITH FLOWERS” IS AN OLD saw but a truism. People do say it with flowers, and when they do, they say all kinds of things. They say they are sorry. They say they had a great time last night. They say ”Get well” or ”I am thinking of you.” They say ”I want to see you again.”
They say ”Congratulations” or ”Cheer up” or ”Hurray, you won.” They say ”Thank you” or ”Remember me.” They say ”Please come back to me.”
They say ”I know how you feel” and ”I love you.” People send flowers when they are happy and sad, when they are in love and when they`ve been hurt. They send flowers to their wives, their mistresses, their boyfriends, their bosses, their employees, their corporate competitors, their best friend, their best friend`s wife, their mother. They send flowers to themselves.
They send flowers because it is easy. They send flowers because they are beautiful. They send flowers when they can write it off on an expense account. They send flowers when they are down to their last 10 bucks. They use flowers to say what they do not know how to put in words. Or can`t. Or are too embarrassed to express. Or don`t want to do it in person. Or can`t be bothered.
They send flowers with no note and just a name or they send them with no name at all. They send long personal messages that take up several note-size cards, or they tell the florist to write something because they can`t find the right words themselves.
The one who hears it all-the reason, the message, the story behind it or the secret-is the florist.
”Our job is to translate,” says Marion Parry, owner of A New Leaf, 1645 N. Wells St. ”The job in the florist business is service, which is not just ringing up a sale on the cash register but understanding why someone is buying flowers. When I take an order, I ask what the occasion is. You have to be careful not to be intrusive, but you want them to share why they are doing this and what they are trying to say. ”Once you ask, they are usually relieved because you can help them get something they have no words for. They don`t always know the flowers they want, but they know the emotional response they want to get. You end up as the translator.”
”We see their life`s story,” says Virginia Pasterczyk of Mike`s Flower Shop, ”and we`ve seen it over three generations. Their births, their proms, their graduations, their courtships, their weddings, their anniversaries, their funerals. People getting married, becoming parents, then grandparents, then their golden anniversaries and then their deaths. Happy and sad, you see and hear it all.”
”SOMETIMES I THINK WE KNOW more secrets than priests and psychiatrists,” says one florist assistant. ”At least we listen as much, and we see people when they are happy as well as troubled or contrite. When there are highs and lows, the big events in a human`s life, the ceremonies, the traditions, they call us, the simple florists. We could write a book on human emotions just from standing in front of the flower cooler and listening to the story about why someone is buying one pink rose.”
” `I made her mad. I`m in trouble, man. I need a pretty flower or something so I can get back into the house.` That`s what I hear a lot of,”
says Faye Morris, of Faye`s Floral Affayre at 6423 S. Cottage Grove Ave. ”Oh, crazy things go on in a florist shop. You can spend half your time laughing. When people call, they tell you their life`s story. Especially if a man`s wife is mad at him.
”Funny, but I don`t know anyone from any ethnic group or religion who doesn`t love or send flowers to give a message. Even the Amish do. Everybody lights up like a Christmas tree when they answer the door and see a florist delivery man. Men and women alike. I don`t care how old they are, how sick they are, how grouchy they are or how bad their day has been. They all get a big smile on their face, and they say one thing, `For me?` and then they grin real big.”
”Ah, the stories are wonderful,” says the male floral assistant who helped the young woman send flowers to herself. ”The romances people should not be having, the affairs being carried on, the intrigues and the confidences you must promise to keep so no one will ever know whom they are sending flowers to.
”We had one man come in, in his early 30s and clearly a lawyer-quintessenti al gray-suit-and-silk-tie guy from one of the big law firms in the building and a firm in which he was not supposed to have extracurricular relationships with any of the women. He comes in, and he will not deal with any of the women employees. He wants to talk to me. Then he says: `Can you help me? Here`s my credit card. My phone number, my name. Any time I call, I will deal only with you. I will order the flowers and then read the message to go on the card once. You will write it on the card and not on the order form. Then you will seal the envelope. No one else is to see the message. If anyone calls about the flowers and asks questions, you know nothing. This is to be handled discreetly.`
”He did this for a long time. Every two weeks he sent flowers to a woman in his law firm. I met her once when she came in to buy a vase to hold all the flowers he was buying for her. I haven`t seen him recently, though. His last message to her was, `I just can`t wait to see you.` I wonder if he ever did.” ”Well, you see just about everything and hear just about everything,”
says Ed Sanders, co-owner with his wife of Choice Cuts at 810 W. Webster St.
”One time, a young woman came in, slightly built and low-key. She says to me, `My other half will be in in a minute. We want to order flowers for our wedding.` Luckily I did not say, `And what is the groom`s name?` Several minutes later in walked an older woman, I`d say 20 years older. She was the groom.
”Not once did they say they were lesbians and were marrying each other. But I took the order and delivered them the day of the wedding. The older one wore a corsage, and the younger one carried a very old-fashioned bouquet. It was held in an artist`s studio, and both of their parents were there. Really, the whole thing was out of a Fellini movie.
”Then there were all the girls in an office who got together and ordered flowers-dead ones-for their boss. They told us he was sleazy and made passes at all of them. They ordered dead flowers in a black box with black tissue paper, a black ribbon and a card that read, `This is for all the years of grief you gave us!`
”He called, of course, and wanted to know who sent the flowers. We had to say we did not know. It`s professional courtesy, the confidence you promise a customer. He never knew who sent them, but he got the message.”
”The purchase of flowers can stand for the grand gesture or the simple token of affection,” says Parry of A New Leaf. ”I think the perishability of flowers strikes a poignant note. It pinpoints an emotion for the moment. As emotions change and do not last, so too with flowers. I used to believe that you should buy something that will last, and so I would tell my customers,
`This one will last five to seven days.` But no longer. For sometimes a flower is so fleeting you appreciate the specialness of those moments when it is beautiful, and perhaps those moments are worth more than having a flower that will last a week.
”It can be really complicated, this job of being a florist,” Parry adds. ”It can turn you into an eccentric. You hear stories from people`s hearts. Each customer gives me the opportunity to get involved in all human passions. People are willing to share those with you. You are no longer a stranger to them. You are a co-conspirator, a listener, a friend, a messenger.”
”Down here in Pilsen, the Mexican people love flowers,” says Magdalena Garcia from Xochitl Florists, 2108 W. Cermak Rd., where she sells wedding dresses and graduation gowns as well as flowers to the people of her neighborhood. ”They are poor, but flowers are how they talk to each other. When a woman has a baby. When a girl gets married. On Mother`s Day, I have the children lining up to buy a rose for their mothers. I have so many children in here I take pictures of the crowd each year. The line goes out the door.
”Nobody can make prettier things than God himself, and flowers are made by God, so what better expression than God`s work to give to someone when they are born, when they graduate, when they become a mother and when they die?”
A YOUNG WOMAN WALKS INTO Faye Morris` South Side florist shop. She is wearing tight jeans, so she has to carefully extricate a few battered one-dollar bills out of her front change pocket. ”I need one red rose,” she says, smiling broadly. ”Who you getting it for?” asks Faye out of gentle curiosity.
”Well,” says the young woman, ”there`s one red rose, and then there`s a dozen red roses. They don`t say the same thing, you know. A single red rose says one thing, and a dozen says another. See, I got this friend, a man, and he`s been a friend for a long time, and I want to say something to him and I got three bucks, so . . . I don`t know . . . I thought one red rose would say it `cause I can`t.”
”When someone gives one single rose, they are exposing themselves personally,” Parry says. ”They are saying, `I am going to give you one special symbol of my regard for you.` The risk is you can appear to be cheap. The reaction can be, `Isn`t he cheap?` or `Isn`t he sensitive?` You don`t always know what reaction you`ll get. The person who gives a single flower has a certain confidence in himself.”
”Man has been using flowers, in every culture, as far back as recorded history goes,” says Jim Moretz, director of American Floral Arts, a school for florists at 539 S. Wabash Ave. ”In King Tut`s tomb, they found flowers on his chest. Flowers are a perfect replica of human life: planting, growth, bloom and withering. I guess flowers say it best from birth to death.”
Though just about everyone at one point in his or her life has ordered flowers, the florists see changes in our lifestyle through the orders they get. Men now order flowers for other men, often their lovers. Women order flowers for men, and men, though often still shy about it, buy flowers for themselves.
”The family has changed,” says one woman who does the flowers and the settings for upscale balls, dinners and weddings. ”Instead of presuming at a wedding that two mothers and two fathers will be present, you now ask how many mothers will be there-three, four? And fathers-two, four? And twice we`ve been hit when we asked what the maid of honor was wearing and were told that the maid of honor was a man. So now we do not say `maid of honor,` we say `honor attendant.` We had one wedding where all the bridesmaids were men.”
”Yes, we`ve seen changes,” says Pat Szmurlo of Mike`s Flower Shop. ”In the beginning, years ago, the business in this shop was dependent upon the cemetery up the street. But younger people do not go to the cemetery as the older ones used to. People don`t take flowers to put on graves as they once did.
”It used to be the silver anniversary that was the big event, but now we see more and more golden anniversaries. People are simply living longer than they used to. And kids don`t buy flowers for their proms as they used to either. By the time they pay for their limos, their tuxedos and the after-prom parties, they have almost nothing left for flowers. The kids run out of money.”
”Oh, people have fun with flowers,” Faye Morris says. ”They send funeral wreaths as a joke to a friend in the hospital or an `I heard you had a baby` arrangement to a man who just had an operation. I`ve had requests to send black roses-painted roses-but I think it is horrible to paint a rose black, so I just say, `No, we don`t do that here.` Dead flowers, we don`t do them either.”
”We get requests for black roses,” Parry says, ”and I think the people who order them read about them in some novel. They don`t know what a black rose is supposed to symbolize. I don`t know what they mean either. Perhaps it means exotic passion, passion beyond that of the red.
”But, yes, there is humor in flowers, especially with birthday milestones, like turning 50. The `Over the Hill` bouquet is very popular. But it is playful, not mean. Generally, flowers do not send the message of abuse or convey dark and evil feelings.”
There are in Chicago hundreds of florist shops-in high-rises, in storefronts, at railway stations. Every neighborhood has one, if not several. Only a few of them are expensive, sophisticated and upscale. Another handful, less than 1 percent of the city`s shops, are at the opposite end-cash-and-carry stands, no design, no delivery; flowers in a bucket.
The remaining shops, 99 percent of the group, are the service florists, those who design arrangements, know their customers, deliver all over town, have their regulars who come in like clockwork and who day after day listen to the stories of people`s lives when they call or walk in off the street. Whether it is a woman sobbing over the death of her mother and needs a funeral spray or a shy teenage boy buying a corsage for his date, who will wear pink that night, and asking also about flowers to wear ”here” as he points to his wrist, the service florist must try to find a flower to match the message.
”Everyone who orders flowers,” one South Side florist says, ”is doing it because they have something to say. ”
ONCE A YEAR, AN OLDER MAN COMES into Ed Sanders` floral shop in the De Paul University area to pick up his order. The order is always the same: a cattleya orchid wired to a small stake. He takes it to the cemetery and places the stake in the ground at his wife`s grave.
Why a cattleya orchid, no one knows. Perhaps she wore one on her wedding day. Or to their first dance. Perhaps it was the flower he bought her every year on their anniversary. Or maybe she was wearing one on her shoulder when they first met.
The man is trying to say something with the orchid, something he has no words for and no one to say them to. Whatever love, passion, grief and loss he feels is said with one delicate and exotic bloom. Each year he says it over again, and the only way he can-he says it with a flower.
