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"You're in luck! Her break starts right now!"

Lisa jumped right out of her skin when the old woman appeared out of the back room. The old hag must have been listening in right from the moment he came up to the counter, she thought, and not without cringing on the inside. She always had that talent of butting in when she wasn't needed or when Lisa wanted to have a moment alone for a change. Now of all times, it seemed like she was actually helping her, and in the romance department, no less.

"I... I guess I could go," she stuttered out. And without so much as a goodbye, the old woman was taking the flower to be put in a vase and literally shoving her out from behind the counter.

"Hang up your apron on the way out and have fun," she said in her crackling voice. And who was Lisa to say no? She never had a say in anything.

"Uh..." Lisa kept being shoved out towards the door by little bony hands until she was practically pushed right out into the street. Standing on the doorstep of the flower shoppe, she, too, blinked rapidly with little exasperated noises.

"I... alright." But honestly, she'd never been pursued before, and now that she was right in the middle of the experience she wasn't even sure what to do. "So... Aiden," she said, giving him a snide little sidelong glance. "Do you always go to little shops to prey on girls who work behind the counter?"

"You're as transparent as a glass door," she said, waiting for him to lead her somewhere. If this was his idea of a date, standing on the front steps, she would have much rather spent it inside.

"And only by the ones who are looking for a little thrill on Saturdays. Lucky you, it's Tuesday, and you're completely free from that kind of suspicion."
Lisa tousled her hair a bit in the hopes of making it look a little fresher. Her whole ensemble felt wrong all of a sudden, along with her face, her hair, her smile... Why couldn't there have been some sort of warning in the morning? Something could have told her that a handsome young man was going to come calling.

"I don't know."
Lisa was quite content with peering at him with the utmost scrutiny. He was handsome... that sent up a red flag. Handsome boys usually knew they were, and thought they were the bee's knees. Was she heading into a premeditated trap of some kind?

"Maybe we should start spouting off our favorite flowers and colors, and then connect that way, then start talking about our philosophical views only to find that we're drastically different and therefore incompatible."
And there she went again, talking like she was from some kind of book off the shelves. Lisa couldn't help it, but when she felt threatened or unsure of herself, her voice tended to express those feelings for her.

"So do I." Aria glanced up at him with a smile that wasn't completely genuine, but would have to do. "Where do you live?" she asked. Already the conversation was becoming boring. Not that she didn't want to know about him, but the way they were carrying on was like they had to be together, not as if they wanted to.

"What do you do, why was your sister gone and why did she come back here, of all places?" she suddenly burst out, not thinking if these were offensive questions or not.

Wow. So that was why nothing was too good for her. They had been reunited after years of being apart, and who knew what happened during that time away. Lisa fell quiet, feeling quite reprimanded in some way for her terrible attitude.

"Well..." she began. "I don't have any parents. So this is basically it for me. I was apprenticed to the old hag when I was sixteen so the orphanage could get rid of me. Been there ever since..."
No other options, nothing really worth telling him about. Life had been pure work and nothing but.

"Oh, believe me, I used to hear it all the time." Lisa's voiced changed to one that mimicked the hag in every way. "You don't know how fortunate you are to be living here instead of living on the streets!"

She paused for a brief laugh, but it didn't last for long.
"And don't be sorry. That's another thing I heard all the time when people found out about my lot in life. 'Oh, I'm so sorry' they'd say. And all they really meant was that they had no way of making it better so I best be moving along."

---


Lorey had loved working at the flowershoppe. She was not only learning new skills, but learning the names of flowers , and tools, and places in the world she had never seen. Everything was new and exciting.

That day, Richard was coming to see her at lunch. Her boss, a Miss Fiadora, was nearly eighty but as spry as anyone half her age. Once she had heard the news of Lorey being engaged, she let out a cry and even did a little jig. Lorey wasn't sure how she'd managed that one.

"I knew you were going to be snatched up!" she'd said, sticking a sprig of greenery in Lorey's hair before dashing off.

That was a few days ago. Now, Lorey was sitting in the back room, filling a simple order of pink snapdragons in a vase with a ribbon, waiting for Richard to come. As she worked, she hummed a pretty tune from her mother's music box. Quiet, rainy day, she thought.