Over Christmas time after college, a boyfriend hooked me up with Manhattan’s first star florist. I loved flowers and needed a job and as a favor to Peter, Marla hired me without even meeting me. Her tiny Upper East side shop was crowded with finches chirping inside faded Victorian cages, Oscar Wilde-worthy ferns, hundreds of paper whites, orchids and tulips. I was instantly enchanted but the fairy tale setting was soon shattered when its proprietress- part Blanche du Bois and part Fran Drescher- shouted from the back for someone to answer the god damn phone. I hadn’t been there more than 30 seconds but since no one stepped in, I picked it up and merrily exclaimed: “Marla’s Flowers!” “Toooo nice!” she called back. I hesitated and then realized what she meant was that I was already being too nice to the customers. “Hello?” purred a girlish yet aristocratic voice on the other end. “Is Marla there?..” Marla poked her head out, the stub of a joint clasped between her teeth and gestured for me to ask who it was.
“Who is calling?” I said in a tone which I hoped sounded less polite.
“Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.”
I tried not to drop the receiver as I mouthed dramatically who it was. To my awe, Marla refused to take the call. “Ask her what she wants.”
It turned out Jackie wanted some flowers for a party at her apartment. She wanted Marla but wanted to be sure “it didn’t cost more than a car.”
Marla reluctantly complied and the order was placed.
It wasn’t long before I witnessed the raw talent Marla possessed: she could make red carnations look sexy and, with one fell swoop of her sheers, cut thousand dollars of white tulips to the nub, plunking them effortlessly into a vase and never look back. We’d jump into the back of a van her model-gorgeous husband would drive and careen up Park Avenue to deliver to some of the poshest addresses in the city. I had never seen apartments like this: they stretched entire floors, had Titantic-sized staircases and at every turn, were anointed with sumptuous velvets, chintz, tassels, art work from my Art History 101 course, gleaming kitchens bustling with staff and hostesses the size of Twizzlers who greeted us in pressed jeans and Chanel jackets. We went to Trump Tower after a woman called - she had a read a profile on Marla in W- and asked if we’d come decorate her Christmas tree as a surprise for her husband when he came from work. I put my hand over the phone and whispered to Marla how much it would be. “Don’t DO Christmas trees!” she puffed back. But the woman wouldn’t take no for an answer and to get rid of her, Marla quoted $100,000 to “do” her tree. The woman accepted without a hesitation. The penthouse at the Trump Tower was like being inside a Lucite box. I felt dizzy surrounded by the thousands of refracted lights of the city and the tree and soon I couldn’t tell which was which. While the woman flirted with Marla’s husband, Marla and I just kept adding more strands of lights. Marla taught me that “more is more” and while I agree that $100,000 seems a bit high too decorate the tree, it certainly did look fabulous in the end. Once the word got out that Marla did trees, the phone didn’t stop ringing. She worked late into the nights hacking and stuffing flowers into arrangements that cost what I hoped to make in an entire year. We did a tree for a widow on Sutton Place ( I wished I had brought my roller blades to skate down her long, butter scotched-colored hallways) and, as the coup d’etat, wrapped her mink coat around the base.
By day- now shriveled with seasonal exhaustion and her daily dose of angst- Marla retreated into the smoky back shadows of the shop while the phone trilled like one of the finches. “I’m not heeeere!” she’d wailed. We went to a famous philanthropist’s apartment and filled it with dozens of arrangements that made the ones at the Metropolitan Museum seem like FTD. I snuck a peek at the calligraphed place cards in the dining room (which was twice the size of the entire apartment I shared with a roommate) to read: “Henry Kissinger” and “Nancy Regan.” Smells began wafting from the unseen kitchen and I touched the gilded tip of the chair and imagined it being held for me, while Nancy and Henry jockeyed for me to explain my senior thesis topic one more time. I longed to tuck a napkin the weight of a bedspread onto my lap, stare at the massive white lillies and be served.
As the butler handed me my Gap coat with a definite push out the door, I wanted to suddenly call out that I had been a debutante. It was a fact I never told anyone- thinking it particularly silly and old fashioned- but now the desperate gesture would perhaps bide me time to linger here as a guest rather than a flower girl. I didn’t expect to graduate college and feel like I didn’t belong. I certainly didn’t want to become a woman who paid to have her Christmas tree decorated nor would I ever want to have a butler even if I could afford one. I knew I had been lucky enough to grow up with enough money and education that no matter how unsuccessful I was, I wouldn’t ever have to work in someone’s house creasing their jeans or place cards. But still, racing in between such dizzying plateaus and displays of wealth and power, I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to be heading.
Walking home and looking up at the glowing lights of duplexes, I suddenly knew I’d never own one. But I was determined to have a place of my own someday that I could fill with flowers I’d arrange myself. Maybe a few finches. Have a few people over to stop and smell the delicious scents and hear the songs. For now, that seemed like enough.