Ring!
"Debbie, you have..."
"What? No, I didn't call for a messenger this afternoon."
"No," the receptionist said, "you have more flowers!"
"Really? Guess what? I've got more FLOWERS!" Debbie shouted at the guys in the office.
"Well, hurry up and go get them so we can go to lunch," Rob told her.
She ran into the hall.
"No, wait, Debbie. Come back."
Mike and Rob stood at the end of the hall.
"Close your eyes and sit at your desk," Rob instructed. "Don't open 'em. Keep 'em closed!"
"All right, all right. I can't take the suspense." Debbie lay her head on her desk, hands over her eyes.
Steve carried in the present and lay it on her desk.
"It's here!" Debbie gasped.
She opened the pink and baby blue wrapping on the tallest bouquet she had ever seen. A silver balloon reflected her bright face. She slowly tore the pretty paper, making her way down to the actual flowers. The balloon floated high above the red and white tulips and baby's breath which sprang from the dainty bouquet. Mike and Steve dug into the box which contained the glass vase for a card, for any sign of a giver's name.
Mike examined the curvature of the fancy glass vase.
"I knew you'd be surprised. No signature." Debbie stared at the scrawled words. She looked up at Mike but his grave red face was turned away.
"They're beautiful. So fresh." And they left for lunch.
"I can't make up my mind. Where should we go?" Debbie asked for the tenth time.
"KNow what? I've never gotten unsigned flowers before. And I'm 27 years old." Debbie sighed.
"It's not me because I would sign them. I would want them to know I sent them," Rob said. "But maybe I should, if it gets a reaction like yours. Do you have a secret admirer?" he asked.
"Is there someone special in your life, Debbie?" Mike asked. But he was looking away from her.
"Not that I know of. But you know me," she said.
"I do?" he asked softly.
"What's more exciting? Knowing or not knowing?" Rob said.
"Not knowing," Debbie answered emphatically.
Where should we go?"
"It's up to you. It's your birthday," Mary said.
"I have a taste for Japanese. But should we? What do you think, Mike?"
"Pearl's," he joked. "No, Houlihan's. Actually, it's on your T&E, Mary."
"Houlihan's? All right. No. Let's go to Dosanko's!" And Debbie's mind was made up.
Mike's face fell. "Shoot!" he said with a grin.
"Good choice, Debbie," Mary said.
"I think so, too," she said.
The four sat at the wide round table at the sunny Japanese restaurant. Debbie clutched the edge of the table. The last traces of nervousness around her coworkers still remained. They always made her laugh and she hated to bare her smile. The teenage awkwardness that comes with wearing braces for years never left her. Throughout the meal, Mike's red face was turned away from her.
"Who is it?!" she shrieked.
"Just stop with the 'who sent the flowers'!" Mike shouted.
"Who do you think it was, Debbie?" Rob pursued. He looked snidely at Mike.
"No, let's stop," she politely waved it away.
She returned to the office. Crystal, her boss, Mary, Ann, and Rob stood or sat in chairs around her desk.
"No one signed them," someone was saying.
"Debbie," Mike said softly. "I wish they were from me, but they're not." Mike's voice when he said "wish" was filled with yearning and sadness. His face was still red and he looked sadly down at his typewriter.
"They're not? Really, they're not?" Debbie ducked down to look him gently in the eye and he shook his head no.
Debbie's face fell. She dragged her feet to her desk and sat down, staring through the stems of the beautiful bouquet and fingering the silver strand of ribbon that tied the balloon to the flowers.
So, it wasn't Mike.
And it wasn't Steve. It certainly wasn't Rob. Or was it Steve?
It had to be the guys at the coffee shop. It had to be. Debbie could not think of a single other.
"How about the gym," Mary asked her.
Debbie's face lit up in introspection.
"Ah, hah," Mike said.
"But they don't know my name," she said.
She thought of all the handsome guys in the office.
"Well, I work in an officeful of gorgeous guys," she said to Mike and Rob.
"Not us," Rob said.
"She did too mean us," Mike argued softly.
"I meant everybody," Debbie said graciously.
"See? Thanks, Debbie," Mike said appreciatively.
She thought of a good-looking guy, way off in Editorial. She thought of Scott. No, he wouldn't do that.
"Who were you with last night?" Mary said.
Debbie thought of the Marriott Hotel, The View they occupied at the top of the hotel. She had left with Ken to get her stuff at the office. Ken...
"Debbie, you've got to find out who sent those flowers." Crystal said.
"Ugh. I feel like I'm at work. I'm so tired of tracing things!" Debbie groaned. More follow-up calls. More paperwork.
It could have been Mike but it wasn't.
"Did you really think I sent them?" Steve asked her. They were in the technology room. Scott sat with his back to them at the computer.
"Well, I don't know." Debbie said bashfully.
"So, you have a Secret Admirer?" Scott smiled at her.
Kooch, sitting in his office across the hall, looked angry. Debbie had stomped into his office and told him.
"Did you ever get flowers?" Steve asked Scott.
"No," he said.
"Well, maybe you should date a guy," Steve stated.
They all laughed and Scott shook his head and shrugged in embarrassment.
"Did you ever give anyone flowers?" Debbie asked Scott.
"Once," Scott admitted, abashed by this honesty. He kept his eyes on the computer.
"Once? What kind of guy are you?" Debbie said.
"Cheap."
"What?" She thought he said deep.
"Cheap."
"Oh. Well, you're smart," she said to his back.
"I really thought they were from Mike," she said to Scott and Steve, unafraid in her big disappointment. "And when he said they weren't, I said, 'they're not?'" Debbie recounted the solemn afternoon.
"It was one of the guys at the gym, you Aerobics Dog," Steve said.
"They don't know my name."
"Do they call you Baby?"
"Hey, I like being called Baby," Debbie confessed.
"I think I know who they're from. But I don't want to say," she smiled.
FLOWERS
Spring 1989
Denise Hickey
