Bad Boyfriends
What it might mean when you buy flowers...
We are playing poker after dinner when L says “I have to be done by 8:00 b/c (a friend) and I are going to Trader Joe’s to buy flowers.” L has been on a poker kick for the last…three years…and Steve and I are not going to argue about laying down our hands a little early. Bed has been calling me since we cleared the table an hour ago.
L stands and checks himself out in the mirror wall of our former dining room. I installed it to try to make the small dark space appear less small and, by reflecting the light of the large living room beside it, be less dark.I didn’t have my protractor out and the angles of the skylights were all wrong so I succeeded in neither of those aims. There are mirrors there now. Ones I have averted my gaze from for so long that I am still surprised when I mistakenly spy myself and realize there is so much less of me than there used to be. Still. Not going to look. L feels differently. The mirrors are there to check his hair for one last adjustment, give him approving glances about his outfits, celebrate his new shoes and how the laces and stitch color pick up on whatever thrifted T he is wearing that day.
“Do you think I need to get dressed?” He asks the mirror before leaving for his flower run. The answer, obvious to anyone with a seventeen year old is “no”. He is wearing plaid PJ bottoms, ugg slip ons and a hoodie. Clearly he is already dressed. The mirror knows.
He goes to pick up his friend who I can only assume is wearing similar Uggs, pjs, hoodie, and hairdo Let’s take a moment to give props to Uggs…they have regained (or maintained?) a foothold in kid/teen popularity long after they were a punchline.
I’m picturing them leaning over the flowers at TJ’s heads almost touching. I’ve seen those heads together since second grade, over math books. phone screens, other phone screens and now they are consulting over bouquets.
I’m picturing the other 50 year old moms who roll their empty carts past them on their way to tomatilla’s or cookie butter. If it were me I would smile a little thinking about how they grow up and find other people to love. It used to be me that he would run to, dandelion crushed in a sweaty plump palm to try to tuck behind my ear. Now he is not buying the flowers for me. These women (or other gendered individuals) in Trader Joe’s probably think my son and his friend are good boyfriends. Or maybe bad boyfriends trying to make up for some minor transgression.
Those imaginary moms are wrong.
L and his friend are buying flowers to bring to school to mark the anniversary of their classmate who was shot parked in his car right outside their school.
Earlier that day L sent me a text asking me to help him make a bouquet to bring to the memorial. I love making bouquets from our garden using flowers and weeds and creeping vines, and sticks and brambles. “I’d love to.” I texted back. Turns out a stick and bramble bouquet isn’t exactly what he intended so Trader Joe’s was called on to pinch hit. At dinner I annoyed myself.
“Store bought flowers seem weird. All of that plastic. I hope someone collects them and brings them somewhere.” “Like where?” L asks me. “I don’t know, a hospice, a hospital. Just leaving them on the sidewalk seems wasteful.” He doesn’t answer. “What if people just took the money they were going to use to buy flowers and donated it?” L says “We have had so many fundraisers, every dance, tickets to every sports event, I don’t know how the school even recoups any of its money…sometimes people just want to bring flowers mom.”
Right. Sometimes people just want to bring flowers. Not everything needs to be political. I am quiet for a bit. This is though. Guns are political. Public schools are political. Flowers…in this case are political. And very very sad.
To the other shoppers at Trader Joe’s: I hope you enjoyed those boys picking out bouquets. I hope you thought they were together buying flowers for happy reasons. For the reasons that seventeen year old’s ought to be buying flowers. You should get to think that. And if you are jaded I hope you are only jaded thinking they might be buying flowers sheepishly, for being late to a date, but certainly not in memorium for a classmate who will never select a bouquet again.
My heart just flew out of my chest and exploded, Anna. Sending emotional flowers your (and your son's and the school's/community's) way. xo
Well. That's a punch to the gut. Like everyone else, I was thinking he was buying flowers for his girlfriend. Until I read that sentence. So sorry that happened to your son's friend. I hope your son is healing. And I hope justice was served for his friend. One of the kajillion reasons I'm glad I never had children when I was married. Because I'd be worried about incidents like this.