February 5, 2024
We’re not going to talk about this?” asked Tuesday, through a yawn.
It was five o’clock on Monday morning. Ricki had been ignoring her calls since the stakeout. So, in an act of desperation, Tuesday joined her on her daily trip to the Flower District, the colorful block of floral markets on Twenty-Eighth Street in Chelsea. They imported flowers from farms all over the world—the Netherlands, Ecuador, Colombia—and opened early for retailers to have their choice of blooms before the general shopping rush.
“No, we’re not talking about it,” said Ricki, with curt finality, as she made her way through the stalls, a basket dangling from her forearm.
“But you and that dude? Ricki, that was not a stranger vibe. You recognized each other! Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re right. I told you, I saw him in that community garden the other day.”
“No, I mean, it looked like you knew knew each other. In a deeper way. Like, from your past. Prom? Ex-fiancé? Brother-in-law that you accidentally slept with after one too many spiked eggnogs at Christmas?”
“You haven’t seen my brothers-in-law.”
Ricki stopped at a bush of begonias, kneeling down to assess the color. Oh, this used to thrill her! She usually zoomed out of bed before dawn, excited to take in the Technicolor spectacle of blooms and greenery. Watching seasoned Manhattan florists shop the stock, dreaming up design trends that would soon influence everything from textile prints to wedding style, was such an education.
Flower District shopping was one of her favorite parts of being a florist. Not today, though.
Wilde Things had flatlined. Since her expensive, exquisitely curated creations just weren’t moving, she’d taken to buying discounted stock, which translated to generic bouquets with only about eight hours of life left in them. She hoped that with Valentine’s Day around the corner, maybe the arrangements would sell by default—even though she hated toning down her aesthetic to be palatable.
Ricki had known that running a business would be hard. God knew she’d been forced to listen to enough of her dad’s TED Talks to know that entrepreneurship was about trying new things, failing, innovating, and trying again. But what if she just kept failing?
And was she failing because her focus was… elsewhere?
It was a strong possibility. She had tried, truly, but she couldn’t banish Garden Gentleman—now Mysterious Benefactor—from her head. It had to mean something that they were the same person. Was she being stalked? Or was she just being a chaotic Gemini? No, Tuesday was right—something was there.
Historically, Ricki wasn’t satisfied with unanswered questions, especially as she’d been raised in a house where nothing was questioned, ever. Ricki’s world had been defined before she came into it, and her job was to toe the line.
“Your daddy is our leader,” Carole had announced over breakfast when Ricki was five years old. “What he says goes.”
“Why?”
“Men always lead. That’s how the world works.”
“But you’re a big deal, too, right? You’re an interior decorator! Why’s Daddy the leader just ’cause he’s a man? Why is the stuff he’s good at more special than what you’re good at?”
“Because Eve ate the apple.”
“What if I want to be the boss?”
“You’ll run franchises one day, like your sisters. But Daddy’ll always be the big boss.”
“Corey Jacobs said Daddy’s a… a… ‘Republican race traitor.’ Is that bad?”
“Lord. You like the pool at the country club, don’t you?”
“I love it!”
“Then hush. Your only job in this world is to follow my directions. Where to go to school, what clubs to join, who to marry. Do what I say, and you’ll always be the prettiest, smartest, most important girl in the room. Like your sisters. They were perfect angels who never caused one bit of trouble. And look how they turned out.”
Five-year-old Ricki heard this loud and clear. So much so that she decided to practice. Hours later, Carole caught baby Ricki posed in front of the full-length mirror, dressed up in one of Carole’s sequined Armani gowns, a pound of makeup, and a full-length fur. The white-satin-covered vanity was stamped in lipstick-coated fingerprints. Orange nail polish was spilled down the front of the fur.
“I’m the prettiest, smartest, and most important,” she whispered to herself in Carole’s drawl. “But the big boss will always be a Republican man. Because Eve liked apples.”
Ricki would never forget turning and seeing the color instantly drain from Carole’s face.
Grabbing Ricki’s hand, she yanked her down the hall to the bathroom, stripped off the fur, and then pushed her into the shower, gown and all. Ricki toppled to the tiled floor, crying. It was all so confusing! She was trying to be like Carole! Wasn’t that what she should be doing? When Ricki looked up, she was surprised to see that her mom had tears in her eyes, too.
“Was that your impression of me?” Carole’s voice trembled. “Maybe I’m a joke to you now. But when you’re older, everything I told you will make sense.” Sniffling, she smoothed down her soft, roller-set curls. “I’m just teaching you how to be easier to love.”
As a kid, Ricki had no answers. But adult Ricki made it her mission to find them.
Get out of Harlem, now, while you still can.
What did it mean? As badly as she wanted to turn her life upside down to solve that mystery, to understand the curious electric charge that passed between herself and that stranger, she couldn’t. She had a business to keep alive, and no time to chase white rabbits.
But Tuesday wouldn’t leave it alone.
“You’re not curious about who he is? Or why he told you to leave town?”
“The problem is I’m too curious.” Ricki folded her arms in front of her chest. “All I know is that I can’t engage. Fine men with complicated stories are my kryptonite.”
“I mean, we all have a past.”
“We do. But… well, mine is especially outrageous.” Ricki hesitated a beat. She’d never shared the more ridiculous parts of her history with anyone. Yes, she and Tuesday shared an instant, undeniable connection. But still, if her new best friend knew too much about her, wouldn’t she be put off?
“Listen, Ricki. I’ve seen and done it all. You can tell me anything, and I’d never judge you,” said Tuesday, reading her mind. She pulled a flower out of Ricki’s basket. “I swear on this daisy.”
It was a chrysanthemum, but Ricki was touched nonetheless. For a fleeting moment, it occurred to her that if she hadn’t moved to Harlem, she’d have missed out on finding Tuesday. That one decision had led her to a kindred spirit.
“You’ve heard of UniverSoul Circus, right?” Ricki asked. “When I was sixteen, I fell in love with the eighteen-year-old tightrope walker. When my parents found out, they sent me to live with my aunt for the summer, to get him out of my system. But instead, I joined the circus with him.”
Tuesday gawked. “As… what?”
“Well, I can juggle. Mom made me learn party tricks to entertain dinner guests.”
“I think we have the same mother.”
“The next year, I saw this cutie steal T-shirts from Target. He set off the alarms at the exit, but I told security it was a mistake, he was with me and he’d thought I paid for those shirts. This guy said he was new to Atlanta and had nowhere to stay, so I snuck him into my parents’ house, and he lived in my room for two weeks. The house is big enough that no one noticed. One day, I woke up and he was gone. He’d stolen all the nonperishable food in our pantry.”
“No.”
“And my Mom’s good wigs.”
They walked in silence for a full minute before Tuesday responded.
“It’s funny, I’m used to being the protagonist in every situation. For the first time, I’m a supporting character. I like it here.”
Nearby, a curly-haired twenty-something salesman let out a yelp. “Tuesday Rowe! I love you! What have you been up to?”
“Oh, just waxing and waning with the moon.” She slipped on her shades, and they kept strolling. “Continue, Ricki.”
“Anyway, I’m sick of toxic adventures. I just want to focus on Wilde Things. Tuesday, I need to make this work.”
Tuesday threw an arm over her shoulders. “And you will, babes. You got this! We’re not letting a wealthy maniac block your blessings.”
The two kept browsing until they finally reached Ricki’s favorite seller, Macchione’s Tropical Flowers. Kelly Macchione was the friendly brunette who ran her family’s company, which was started by her great-grandfather, a 1920s nightclub manager who moved on to flowers during the Depression. Kelly grinned brightly at her, and she waved back with a wan, embarrassed smile. Ricki hadn’t been able to afford her blooms in weeks.
Ashamed, Ricki peered down at the last-choice flowers in her basket: a sad array of basic blossoms with just-about-to-wilt petals.
“Look at all these basic pastels,” she said with a sigh. “The Megyn Kelly of flower assortments.”
Tuesday nodded sadly.
“I think,” said Ricki, “this is the beginning of the end.”
Back at Wilde Things, exhausted at the end of another slow day, Ricki headed out for an aimless, defeated walk. She was about a block from the 145th Street Community Garden before she realized that was where her feet were taking her.
It was a frosty night, but it gave her the opportunity to wear a 1950s belted wool coat and dramatic faux-fur muff passed down from Ms. Della. (Ricki felt that romanticizing unpleasant things, like New York winters, was self-care.) She stood deep in the garden, just beyond the Eden Lounge plaque, with her face shoved into the night-blooming jasmine bush. The aroma—voluptuous, creamy, scientifically impossible—was making her drowsy. Intoxicated by the scent and bathed in the crisp stillness of early-evening darkness, she didn’t notice the obvious.
“Hello?” a male voice called out.
Ricki spun around at the same time a person emerged from the shadows.
She screamed. Reflexively, she executed a clumsy but effective dropkick, her block-heeled boot connecting solidly with his upper arm.
“Ow!” He grabbed his arm, stumbling backward in surprise.
Garden Gentleman. Mysterious Benefactor. Fucking him.
Breathing heavily, Ricki hit the defensive stance she’d learned at Kick Start Martial Arts in eighth grade, her knees slightly bent, her fists blocking her face. “Are you following me?”
Mysterious Benefactor dropped his hand from his arm, his expression frustratingly unreadable. Ricki took a good, long look at him this time. The silvery glow of the moon softened the sculpted planes of his face. He had long inky-black lashes and a mouth that made her eyes cross. Tonight, he was dressed in the archetypal casual-cool NYC twenty-something look: Howard hoodie, double-breasted navy coat, desert boots.
“I repeat,” she said, trying to quell the tremble in her voice. “Are you following me?”
“No,” he said with weary resignation. “No.”
Ricki’s stomach flip-flopped, but she didn’t lower her fists. It was the first time she’d heard him speak in a regular tone (ordering her to get out of town didn’t count). That simple “no” made him seem flesh-and-blood real.
Which was even scarier than him being just an enigmatic mystery.
“No? Just no? You owe me an explanation.” She hoped he couldn’t sense how frightened she was. There was no world in which their run-ins were an accident, a twist of fate, a coincidence. Who the hell was this man?
“Do I? You’re the one following me.” His voice was calm and his face was steady, but there was a charged tension in his voice.
“Me? I am not following you!”
“Right. You’re stalking me,” he said. “Were you not camped outside my house, staring in my windows? Taking pictures? For two hours?”
“Well…”
“You even had that girl from Degrassi High co-spying with you. Isn’t she on house arrest?”
“First of all, Tuesday was on Ready Freddy. Secondly, she’s not a wild child anymore. She’s a mild-mannered memoirist.” Slowly, Ricki lowered her fists, her heart thumping wildly in her chest. “Now that we’ve cleared that up, who are you?”
He didn’t answer. He just stood there, a scowl darkening his face. They watched each other, each waiting for the other to make a move. The moment crackled between them. And then, just as he opened his mouth to say something, he stopped and walked away.
“Wait! Where are you going?” Ignoring every red flag in her body, Ricki scurried behind him.
Exasperated, he turned to face her. “I’m leaving. This garden ain’t big enough for the both of us. I don’t want trouble. I came here for some fresh air and to fake-meditate on my anxiety app.”
“Oh?” Ricki’s interest was piqued, despite everything. And then, true to form, she overshared. “I have GAD. Generalized anxiety disorder. I’m familiar with all the apps. Which one is it?”
“Oh. Uh, I don’t remember the name,” he mumbled, slightly embarrassed. “I don’t know, my life coach recommended it. Forget it.”
Ricki got the message. This guy wasn’t an open book.
“Look,” she started, wanting to erase the past sixty seconds. “I did wait for you outside of your house. But I’m not a stalker. It’s just that you paid a lot of money for that piece. I wanted some answers.”
“Fine.” He sighed impatiently and then took a few steps closer to her. He widened his stance and peered down at her. His stern, intense expression threatened to throw Ricki off her game. “You want answers?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
She was helplessly drawn to him. The pull went far beyond her attraction to terrible men. Those were passing fascinations, whereas this felt like the beginning of something, the framework of something sprawling, like a trellis under a vine.
“Fine, I’ll give you five minutes,” he was saying. “Ask me anything.”
Ricki folded her arms across her chest. “Do you know me?”
“No.”
“Am I in danger?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, staring at the ground. “No.”
“Then why the drama?” She deepened her voice, imitating him. “‘Go! Now!’”
“It was an overreaction.”
“‘Get out of Harlem while you still can’ isn’t an overreaction. It’s a warning. A threat. Did my father thug you into doing this? To scare me into leaving town?”
He raised a brow, interested. “Who’s your dad? He sounds menacing.”
“Richard Wilde. He owns a national chain of funeral homes.”
“Where he buries his enemies?”
“Okay, this isn’t about my dad,” she blurted out impatiently. It was maddening trying to get a direct answer out of this man.
He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets. “Look, I saw your portrait on the Sweet Colette flyers stapled around the neighborhood. I thought you were pretty.”
Shyly, she looked down at her shoes. “You thought I was pretty?”
“The portrait. I thought the portrait was pretty,” he said clumsily. “I didn’t even put two and two together that it was you. The woman I saw in the garden.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, I wanted to remain anonymous, so I sent my assistant to buy it. She lives nearby. I just like to support young artists.” He shrugged. “I was a young artist, once.”
“Once?” Squinting at him, Ricki took three steps closer. “How old are you?”
He took three steps back. “Twenty-eight.”
This guy’s energy was confused, like he was caught between needing to get away from Ricki and wanting to stay.
“You do know how creepy this sounds, right? You bought it anonymously… for what?”
“I wanted it,” he said with a simple shrug. “No more, no less.”
Ricki’s breathing stuttered. He moved with such easy, masculine strength—even his shrug. Leonine.
“And do you get everything you want?”
He scratched his exquisite jaw slowly. “No. That would be boring, wouldn’t it?”
Ricki’s mouth went dry, and she swallowed.
This will not do. She could not join a circus for another handsome stranger. She had a business to run!
“Well. I’m sorry for stalking you,” she said. “Have a nice life.”
Ricki walked around him, headed down toward the gate.
“Hey.”
This time, he was the one to stop her.
Ricki turned around.
“I’m sorry I reacted the way I did when you showed up to my house. I’m a private person. I didn’t want to be found.”
“Whatever you say,” she said, anxious to leave. Between his overwhelming physicality, the jasmine-scented breeze, and the irresistible mystery of him, she was due to lose her head any minute. She had to save herself and get away.
But neither one of them moved.
“Should I go, or you?” asked Ricki.
“With all due respect, I was here first.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest. She saw his biceps flex under his coat.
“It’s a community garden—it belongs to all of us.”
“No, it’s mine,” he said quietly, a competitive edge in his tone. He was putting off his departure. “I’ve been coming here for years. You’re new to Harlem.”
She scowled, immediately on defense. “Wait. How could you know that?”
“I can tell. You have that fascinated look. Everything’s still interesting to you. Your eyes are ravenous, like you’re looking everywhere at once. Real New Yorkers have seen it all.”
“I’m from Atlanta, not Antarctica.”
“Okay,” he said with a satisfied smile, a mocking edge in his tone. “But Atlanta’s not New York.”
Hands on her hips, she asked, “Well, how long have you lived here?”
“I don’t anymore. But whenever I’m in town, I come back to the garden. That scent is really calming; it helps me think.” Hands still in his pockets, he cocked his chin toward the highly fragrant tall cluster of jasmine.
He smells them too, she thought, which was baffling. Ricki had assumed it was a side effect of her overactive imagination.
“Do you know how rare that is?” she asked. “I own a flower shop. Those flowers blooming in winter? It makes no scientific sense.”
“It’s February of a leap year,” he said. “Nothing makes sense till March.”
Ricki could feel him watch her. She moved backward, brushing against the bush. Petals fell to the ground, and she gently picked them up, cupping them gingerly in her palm. Something sparked in his expression, a quick flare that faded before she could grasp it.
“I hate hurting nature,” she said sadly.
“It hurts us all the time,” he said, his voice hard but his face soft.
Their eyes met, and then they both looked away.
And then, because she was completely in over her head, because her defenses melted a little, Ricki felt it again: the terrible urge to share a random fact. The compulsive need to make things weird with one of her extremely niche tidbits.
Don’t do it, she thought. Don’t unload the jasmine story onto this mysterious, enigmatic creature who’s already established that he has anxiety and just…
“Indian mythology has a story about night-blooming jasmine,” she blurted out. “There was once a beautiful princess who fell in love with the sun god, and he loved her, too. Deeply. But he refused her, because he was terrified that he’d burn her. She couldn’t live without him, so she set herself on fire. And from her ashes grew a lavish tree with yellow and white blooms that flowered only at night, releasing a sweet fragrance symbolizing her eternal devotion. But the petals closed during the day, because the memory of the sun, her lost love, was too painful to bear.”
Ricki took a deep breath, realizing that she, once again, had embarrassed herself in a fraught social situation. She turned around to leave.
“But do you think it’s tragic or romantic?” he asked.
She looked back, frankly stunned that he’d listened. And cared enough to respond. “What did you say?”
“The story. Is it tragic or romantic?”
“To… to me, it’s romantic. Wildly romantic.”
“I think it’s tragic,” he said, burrowing a little into his scarf. “Abandoning your love because you know your love will hurt them? Sounds like torture.”
“Sounds like you know from experience.” Ricki met his eyes.
He nodded at her. “I really should go now.”
Yet he still didn’t budge. Why was this so hard? Ricki felt a powerful physical pull drawing her toward him. Did he feel it? It was inescapable. Every time she tried to leave, she couldn’t. Well, she didn’t want to. And it was clear that he didn’t, either.
Maybe this was an enchanted garden. Maybe it was just leap year weirdness. Resigned, she sat down on a wrought-iron bench under an apple tree.
“What kind of artist are you?” she asked.
“Musician.” The tension eased in his face, as if he were relieved she gave him a reason to stay.
“A musician who fake-meditates in public gardens.”
He chewed at his bottom lip and eventually joined her on the opposite side of the bench. “I’m a city person, but I need to be around green things sometimes. It’s almost soundproof here. You can’t really hear the cars or the people. None of that city caterwauling. Just the birds, and the trickle of the pond.”
Caterwauling? Such an outdated word.
“Country sounds are louder than city ones sometimes,” she said.
She saw him notice her dirt-encrusted fingernails on her lap. Quickly, she wiped her hands together. “Sometimes I like to ground myself by feeling the earth. I don’t know, it feels like an ancient human ritual. Like cozying up to a fire for warmth or balancing a baby on your hip.”
He leaned back against the bench, tilting his face up to the sky. “Marveling at the moon.”
She looked upward. “Yeah.”
“Is that why you opened a flower shop? Because plants feel elemental and powerful, older than us?”
The breath went out of Ricki. No one had ever asked. Or gotten it, without her telling them.
“Yes. And I also love delicate, soft things. A beautifully composed song. Handwritten notes. A gorgeous meal. Cultivating beauty energizes me.”
The trees shifted in the icy wind, moonlight spilling through the branches.
“You’re an aesthete,” he said.
“I guess I am,” she said, beaming. It was enormously flattering to have a fascinating stranger see this in her. “Aesthete. It’s one of my favorite words.”
He didn’t smile, but she saw his eyes sparkle.
“What kind of musician are you?” she asked, loosening up. “Let me guess. You look like a producer. Mumble rap? K-pop? Brooklyn drill?”
And then there it was. The barest shadow of a smile. She detected a small dimple and instantly felt her cheeks flush. Jesus. That smile was potent, special, the kind of smile that should be saved for formal occasions. Like your finest jewelry.
“Out of all the genres, why those?” he asked. “And Chicago drill is superior to Brooklyn.”
“You’ve obviously made a good living in music if you’re able to invest thousands into anonymous painters. Impressive at our age. It’s so hard to be both creatively fulfilled and financially secure.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together. “Is creativity more important to you than security?”
“I want both,” she said assertively. “I want it all.”
His lips curved upward slowly. “You’ll get it.”
Ricki was entranced by his quiet, solemn intensity. His deep, rich voice. Her thighs were fucking liquid, and she didn’t even know his name.
This man could quite possibly ruin my life, thought Ricki. Go. Now.
“On that note,” she said, standing up. “I really should get home. Good talk, Garden Gentleman Slash Mysterious Benefactor.”
“Who?”
“Long story.”
He stood up, too, and with almost courtly formality dipped his head and said, “Evening, ma’am.”
For the first time, Ricki noticed the slow, syrupy stretch of his vowels. There were definite New York–ish inflections, but she also heard touches of an almost Low Country drawl. Wherever he was from, his voice was unbearably charming.
She waved goodbye awkwardly and then hurried away down the path. She was halfway to the street exit when she heard him call out to her.
“One last thing.”
She stopped in her tracks. He walked over from the bench, pausing about five feet in front of her. Casually, he leaned his shoulder against a gnarled oak tree and asked, “What’s your name?”
“Richard Wilde the Second. Ricki.”
“Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said. “Now I know who to file a restraining order against.”
“My stalking days are over,” she said, eyes sparkling. “What’s yours?”
“Ezra Vaughn Percival Walker the Fourth or Fifth. Sixth? Not sure.”
Ricki’s mouth dropped open. “Stop. Your family did that several times before you?”
“The firstborn boy in every generation gets this name. No idea why, but there are worse ones. I had a cousin named Zeronald.”
She laughed, and his face broke into a smile so bright and so radiant, her breath caught. They stood in a silence that was too comfortable for two complete strangers. For five seconds that felt like five hours, they stood there, letting the moment wash over them.
It was intoxicating: the all-consuming darkness pierced with intermittent moonlight, this impossible-to-read man, the quiet luxury of the garden. Their fifteen-minute encounter had felt like a luscious waking dream. Later on, she’d blame the boldness of what she said next on the magic of the moment.
“I’m curious about you.”
He took one step closer, away from the tree. “Curiosity killed the cat, didn’t it?”
“It did.” She settled her gaze on a nearby winterberry bush. “But everyone forgets the rest of the saying.”
“What is that?”
“Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back,” she said quietly, and then met his eyes. “Whatever it saw or felt was so good that dying was worth it. The cat returns for more. Again and again. You know, nine lives and all that.”
“Chasing the rush.” Ezra took another few steps toward her, his tall frame dwarfing her. “And how many lives you got left?”
When she found her voice, she responded, “I think I’m on my last one.”
“Don’t waste it.”
Before her brain could formulate a response, he said, “I’m going to leave now.”
“Right. Good.” She cleared her throat, breaking the spell. “Yes, go.”
“But can we please agree to avoid each other? It’s better that way. Believe me.”
Believe him? Ricki didn’t even know him! But he was right. Because whatever this was, was too overwhelming.
“I’ll forget we ever met, Ezra Vaughn Percival Walker the Sixth.”
“Thank you. And just so you know,” he said, “I’m curious, too.”
He dipped his chin in farewell. Then he walked out onto 145th Street. And Ricki knew, without knowing, that she would definitely see Ezra again.