The guests were all dressed one degree more formally than normally they would have

been, had they eaten at home. They tucked their shirts in; the undertaker’s mother wore
stockings and curled her gray hair with an iron.

“Truly, my dearest, this dinner is excellent,” said the undertaker to his wife, reaching for
her hand. “You’ve become quite a little epicurean, haven’t you?”

Victoria blushed modestly into her plate as he continued to address the guests.

“I give her everything, she lives like a queen in a palace, and still she always insists on
rewarding us with such thoughtfully prepared gastronomic delights. Tell me, dear, how
long did it take you to concoct this particular dish, and what is it called? Is it a
Colombian recipe, or did you invent it yourself? ”

“No--is just called honey pork, with orange juice and lemon,” Victoria said, softly,
glancing at the starburst clock on the kitchen wall. It showed that it was 7:15. “It is very
fast.”
“Well you have definitely mastered this, and astounded us all, I’m sure,” the undertaker
said. “But then again, you always astound us, my darling,” he added, in a saccharine tone
of voice.
“Mmm…it is very good,” offered the undertaker’s stepfather, pointing his fork at her
after chewing a bite.
“Thank you.”

The undertaker sat at the head of a dinner table accompanied by his mother Martha and
stepfather Eugene, his wife, and his younger brother, Trent. They ate from large, square-
shaped ceramic plates, on which orange sauce was drizzled over tender cuts of pale
seared meat. Sheer burgundy drapes were drawn over the large window in the dining
room, tinting the expansive wooden landscape behind it.

Although he was pale, Harold’s skin bore a powdery quality that made it seem
deceptively paler; and his lips and the corners of his eyes, despite that they weren’t
painted, looked enhanced by theatrical make-up. His dark hair was clipped short and it
pointed upwards upon his prominent skull. Around his neck at dinner each day was the tie
he wore to the funeral parlor, which he hid behind a starched-white lab-coat while
embalming, and accompanied with a suit-jacket when discussing preparations with his
clients. Today his tie was copper colored.

His brother, sitting next to him, was a handsome young man, far too handsome, his skin
too sun kissed, his eyes too sea-colored, to be taken seriously for a doctor, which he was
preparing to become. Next to his brother, Trent slouched a little. His body nervously
defied the natural length that made him half a foot taller than Harold.

Only the undertaker’s wife sat upright as she ate supper. She closed her eyes to taste each
bite of food, and ate it slowly. Now gazing absently at the kitchen, she drank a sip of
white Chilean wine, Casa Astonia, a label from two years ago that today she had chosen
at the liquor store, based on nothing more than intuition. Now cutting a piece of pork, she
nodded to herself.

Disconnected sounds of silverware raping on ceramic amplified the silence in the room,
as Harold studied his quiet guests methodically, desiring to strike a conversation. His
mother unconsciously looked up from her food while he watched her eating, and she
smiled briefly at him, though her eyes were reverted elsewhere.

Noticing his brother’s brows folded in concentration, Harold leaned in his direction.

“What’s the matter Trent… you haven’t said a word tonight…”

Trent shook his head as if he had been drawn from daydream. He reached for the clear
glass in front of him and drew a sip of water.
“Well…” he began, clearing his throat. “It’s just that… lately I’ve been thinking about a
lot of things…”
“Trent are you sure you want to do this, right now?” his mother asked, gesturing with her
tired eyes towards Harold.
“No, it’s OK mom, I want to say it.”
Victoria crossed her arms over her chest, and began to observe the conversation, tilting
her head to one side.
“Well, then? What is it?” asked Harold.
“Well, um, you know I appreciate you paying my tuition. I thought I wouldn’t be able to
go to Brenson when I got in. And, so, um, you saved my ass.” He placed his hands flat on
the wooden table, pausing to choose his words. “But, well, um, I’ve been thinking about a
lot of things…. and I was thinking that this year I’d like transfer here to state. The
tuition’s already free, and if I want to take any extra classes it’s cheap enough that I can
pay for them myself.”
“But why would you do that? You know your tuition is a gift, and I would never ask you
to repay me…Brenson is the best school in the country…”
“I know that.”
“Well? What is the issue, then?”
“Well, I know you want me to be some great doctor…and yeah… right now I think I’d
like to be one someday too…and I know you’re giving me the money because you want
to make sure that I’ll do it….you want me to be successful…you always did…you’re the
one who encouraged me to apply there in the first place…”
“I just want to see you live up to your potential.”
“Yeah, I know…but I was thinking that what if there are other things I’d like to study too,
besides medicine…” he paused again. “Like, theater, for instance. And philosophy.”
“So you no longer want to be a doctor, then? Is that what this is about?”
“No, I’m not saying that. I still want to be a doctor. But…the thing I’m realizing is I don’t
know what the future holds for me…. and I just…I want to learn different things, now, I
want to think about I’m doing before I’m stuck forever in some demanding career that
won’t make me as happy as I could be.”

Trent looked to his parents for support, but they avoided eye contact with him.
Victoria, on the other hand, looked on him in high approval, though because of his
preoccupation with his brother, he didn’t notice.

“All these things you’re talking about, Trent, you could study on your own, later, if you
wanted to. But not everyone gets the chance to go to a school like Brenson…or has the
ability to become a doctor…it’s not something that most people are just born with….do
you think I wanted to be an undertaker when I was your age? Don’t you think I’d rather
have done something else with my life?”
“So why didn’t you?”
“It was a calling that I couldn’t avoid,” Harold said, shrugging, as he nodded to himself.
“I realized that I owed something to my fellow man…”
“So maybe you found what you were meant to be…but I’m just not there yet,” Trent
responded, with some vexation. “And I definitely I don’t want to expect you to finance
my adventures…”
“You can’t look at it that way, Trent…”
“I’d always feel like I owed you, like I’d have to be a doctor if you paid for my school,”
he said, cutting Harold off, “And I just don’t want to feel like I owe anything to
anybody… if I do become a doctor, I want to know I’m doing it because it’s what I want
to do.” Trent’s voice grew louder and steadier, as color flushed into his cheeks. Now his
eyes were focused on something far across the room.
“So…what…you think you may want to be an actor… or a professor, then? And go to a
second-rate school? Don’t you realize how misguided that would be?”
“Yes… but I guess you wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

“It is so wonderful what you did,” Victoria said to Trent, as together they stood outside on
the terrace, after dinner. The summer sun was setting low, and it burnished the acres of
hilly land behind the twelve room mansion, and it made the chirping birds chirp more
wildly, move swift as darts through the sky, in search of their nests for the evening. She
smoked a cigarette and leaned over the balcony, her small shoulders cupping forward.
Trent stood back against the railing, watching through a burgundy-draped window into
the parlor, where his brother played ragtime on piano for his parents. Standing outside,
the sounds of the music were muffled before it reached them.
“Will he be very angry?” Trent asked Victoria.
“He will no understand.”
“I know…” he said, solemnly, turning towards her.

“Why does he invite us to dinner every night?” he began, suddenly, “it’s like ever since
everything happened and he started helping my parents out, he doesn’t let them be alone,
he gives them money now and expects us all to be right there, like some kind of audience
of his or something. And it’s like, I can’t even tell…was he always like that?”

Victoria shrugged, and leaned further out on the balcony. She looked down at the earth, at
the fields swaying in the breeze, below.

“I’m sorry,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “I guess I’m just frustrated about
a lot of things right now.” He began to pace across the terrace, with his hands thrust into
his pockets as though there were something in them he was holding.
“No, I do no mind,” Victoria said.
“What about you--are you doing okay?”
“Yes. I am okay right now.” Her words blew out evenly as the smoke in her lungs. A
flock of geese shot a sharp black horizon line across the firing sky, their trumpeting calls
echoing behind. The line disjointed as the flock ascended higher in the air, until the last
geese climbed at level with the first. “Trent,” she said, seeing them, “if I am no here next
summer, I want you feel you can call me any time.”
He stopped pacing and stepped near her.
“What are you talking about? Are you going back to Colombia?”
“If I still am here, I want you never speak to me.”
“Why? What’s wrong, Victoria?”

The next evening, Harold walked through the greenhouse, hands clasped behind his back,
thinking. Still in the shiny dress shoes and the suit which are the uniform of his
profession, he stepped slowly on the paved cobblestone walkway of a magnificent indoor
garden, spacious, precision groomed, as he made mental observations about the
arrangements for its debut as the Lamshire Orchid Society’s new meeting place. There
was much work still left to do—the fittings for the new habitat had slowly begun to arrive
in the mail, and they now sat stacked in cardboard boxes against a wall, unopened,
because none of the pieces could be individually supported without all of the rest.

The bright garden spanned a quarter mile, and was encased in metal-framed glass with
mechanically regulated temperatures that kept various sections in climates that ranged
from breezy to smoldering. Spanish moss trees and willows draped over habitats where
hundreds of orchid types bloomed simultaneously; from the rarest Potinara Egyptian
Queens-- blue-purple hybrids with the yellow-spotted fat bottom lips of irises, to the pale
clown orchids who laughed wickedly as lipsticked Jokers. There were orchids with open
pelican throats. Orchids that looked like hummingbirds. Like hats that defied the laws of
physics. One orchid’s flowers looked like ballerina slippers, complete with dangling,
unstrung laces. Some orchids yawningly stretched their roots through open baskets
hanging from the ceiling, and fed on air, while the roots of others held tightly onto tree
trunks, or grew flowers on tall stalks shot straight up from the ground. The walkway
wound around several ponds that sat in deep brick basins. There was a small brick bridge
that crossed a little stream where coy fish swam.

Together, the various orchid perfumes combined to permeate the garden with a musky
fruity scent, like a cocktail sweetened by many flavorings, though still unable to
completely mask its bitter tastes of liquor.

Harold inherited about a third of the orchids, as well as the garden, from Ms. Rolanda
Ampersand, spinster daughter of James Ampersand, a rich tobacco grower who once
farmed on the lands where Harold now lived. As a teenager, Harold earned extra money
by working as the aging woman’s secretary. During that time, she imbued him with her
knowledge about orchids, a knowledge she obtained from her father, their original
collector.

James Ampersand’s vast collection was highly valued and well famed because of his
eagerness to preserve as many wild orchids as he could, although his zealousness was
met with great contention in the local orchid society, for the ways by which endangered
orchid species find succession is oftentimes a guarantee of their complete natural
exhaustion by hunters and harvesting enthusiasts.

The human obsession with possessing wild orchids is often called an addiction, but it is
more accurately a fever, whose most vicious symptoms manifest in the form of
competition, over which people have murdered, and have made infernos out of forests to
genocide entire orchid species, just to be the sole guardians of particular flower types.
As populous and comparably diverse as people in the world, if it is simply the spectacular
genetic traits among the members of the different orchid groups that make them so
desirable, once scarce, they are made even more precious.

Ampersand died before he lived to see the day when governmental regulations legislated
against private excavations through the natural lands of sovereign countries. He himself
had gone on numerous globe-trotting treks through Singapore and Belize, Brazil and
Thailand, with other groups of similar like-minded men, to collect as many of the rare
jewel blossoms as he could.

Almost 400 of the flowers in Harold’s garden, which James Ampersand built with his
own hands, were plucked straight from some of the earth’s most strange and secret
forests. Thus, when Harold inherited Ampersand’s small fortune and his extravagant
orchid collection, it was to be his fate to also inherit the mantle of James’ contentious
legacy in the orchid community.

Though James Ampersand defended himself against his critics by claiming his mission
was mainly to protect the plants from the threat of extinction, it was difficult for many
others in the orchid society to accept his altruistic postures. It was especially so when
they beheld such wonders as the Asian Slipper orchid-- its strange and fanning, lined,
white green and fuchsia sepal crest, with petals spotted, hanging, like a catfish mouth
slashed open.

This is to say nothing of its swollen, bulb-like lower purple lip.

Victoria had not changed any of the decorations in the mansion in the two years after
marrying Harold. In their bedroom, three seventeenth-century American portraits of
anonymous women peered through aging paint, held in place next to each other by
matching golden frames, embellished, like ornate signatures. One woman sat reading a
book by a window in a library, her dark hair clasped tightly in a bun. Another woman
posed with a white daisy in her hand, peeling its petals away in a verdant garden rouged
golden with light. A third woman sat at the edge of a bed, wearing an evening dress that
revealed a pale neck, bare, but for a black ribbon choked around it.
“Did he speak to you any further about his decision when you drove him back today?”
The bathroom door was open, and Harold called from it as Victoria sat in bed, tying her
nightgown’s ribbon in a bow above her chest.
“No—we only talk about his work,” she said, pulling a white pillowy blanket over her
body.
“I justth don’t understandth…” Harold said, lisping as he flossed his teeth, “how could he
be thso ungrathseful?”
“He want be independent.”

She switched on the nightstand lamp, which looked like a tall, thin mushroom, with
yellow and pink glass flowers curving through it, as if underwater. Reaching for a
romance novel, entitled Flights of Fancy, she turned to the page held in place by an
emory board.

Harold came out of the bathroom wearing red silk pajamas painted with golden dragons;
his hair was damp from his shower and looked as though spiked with gel.

“But surely he knows I have only his best interests at heart?” he asked, tilting his head to
note the strong-chinned pilot on the cover of Victoria’s book. He fluffed his pillow
thoroughly before climbing into bed.
“He want make his own mistakes.”
“But in this world, you cannot afford to make mistakes, to wander, aimlessly. Life is
short... wealth is scarce… status is precious… if you look away, even for a minute, there
will be a thousand other people waiting to take your place.” He snapped his fingers.

Victoria put the book down and began to listen carefully to him. He lay on his back now,
and with his hands began to punctuate his ideas in the air.

“I only want to keep my family safe and comfortable. I know he wants to be a doctor. But
if he wants to take other courses at Brenson, of course I would let him.”
“That is the point,” Victoria said, “he does no want you “let him” do. He wants fail or
succeed on his own. Perhaps he wants become a mime.”
“It would be an absolute waste.”
“No,” she said, looking into his eyes, “if he is happy is no waste.”
“Life is not just about being happy.”
“Tell me,” Victoria said, with gravitas, “one reason other for why we do anything.”
“For each other. Out of duty.”
“For pride. For it is make us to feel good to make other people to feel good. And so what
about your plants? What do you have in keep them if they no make you happy?”
“In order to be sane, naturally, I need something else to balance the morbidity I face in
my profession. Why are you asking me all of this?”
“You say you no like your profession, yes? So why you keep it? Why you no hire
someone different to work?”
“Why, it’s my duty, you know that… It’s something I was born to do.”
“I no believe this. And so what about me? Why you keep me?”
“Why dearest—that is preposterous. Don’t get yourself so worked up… you know I love
you.”
“OK, but is not because is your duty to love me.”
“That’s true, but as your husband, my duty is to make you happy.”
“Happy? OK. Happy. You know what make me very happy?” Victoria asked, closing her
eyes, and lowering her voice.
“What’s that?”
“I always wanted… start a business.”
“But why would you want to do that? You have everything you need, right here.” He
rolled onto his side now, and smoothed his hand over the bed sheets.
“No, no…I want something is mine, to work for, to have responsibility.”
“I don’t understand…but well, of course, if it means so much to you, I’ll help you.”
“Really?” she asked, turning towards him, “and it could be my business?”
“Yes, of course…”
“The papers, all of them mine? You will no tell me how to run the business?”
“But why would I want to do that? Of course it will be all your own.”

“How long did you say you’ve been growing orchids?”

Forest Ludlow was the head of the Lamshire chamber of commerce and new director of
the orchid society. A tall man, he wore his straight dark hair cut sideways at an angle
across his face, and his chin receded into a long neck. He walked in slow step with
Harold, who was leading the fifteen members of the orchid society through a tour of his
garden.

“Almost twenty years, now,” Forest Ludlow replied to him.

“Yes, of course…how foolish of me...wasn’t it a Phalaenopsis that you first acquired?”
“Yes. And it died two weeks later,” Forest Ludlow said, sucking his teeth. He shook his
head in remorse. “But you know, it often is said that most of us choose to cultivate
orchids in order to pacify the ghosts of those we killed in our learning years.”

It was a customary habit of the members of the orchid society to wear orchids from their
own gardens, as accessories, to all of their meetings. Most of the women wore the orchids
in their hair, blooms in hearty colors, ranging in size from a half dollar to a chicken egg,
and in shapes that would be at home in modern art galleries. All of the men wore orchids
in their lapels, and Ludlow had on a beige silk tie that was embossed with mauve stitches
inside moth orchid outlines.

The society was a festive bunch, floating in their vibrant colors and spruce apparel along
the spacious white and green garden, like a salad on parade. Although the suits they wore
were mostly dark, the men opted for ties and dress shirts made from threads that were
dipped in iridescent dyes-- metal yellow, avocado green, clementine, magenta, paisley.
Harold’s shirt was pinstriped white and cobalt, and with it, he wore a crimson bow tie.
The ladies’ fashions allowed them to be more expressive, and their colors were
fulminating counterpoints to the mens’; only their fabrics folded, rippled, swayed in freer
measure as they walked, high collared, in breezy scarves, wearing high arched shoes with
clasps or pointed toes, as they filed along the cobblestones in trickling cadences. They
pronounced their shining tresses of hair either in long trails, or angled styles, short, or in
bouncing spring ringlets, or, pulled back, or fluffed out, with myriad variants of shade in
compliment to their own unique color schemes of dress, and everyone else’s. They made
up their lashy eyes in shadows, or lined them, which fluttered as they chattered like birds,
expressing wonder at the garden. The skin on their faces was plump, and polished as
apples.

Cassandra Wilmington, the club secretary, wore a fashionable navy skirt-suit with a small
jacket that was cut high to reveal the bareness of her back. She ambled her way towards
the front of the crowd to catch up with Forest Ludlow and Harold.
“Harold,” she said, pressing her hand on his arm, “I must tell you there is really no
contest. Your garden trumps all…oh, it is simply breath-taking… I cannot believe I’ve
never been here before… but oh…” she stopped still, covering her mouth, “I had no idea
you had a tiger orchid!”

“Look everyone, his grammatophylum is blooming!” she cried.

The members of the orchid society froze in unison to admire a three-foot plant dangling
from exposed metal rafters, all of them knowing of the rare occurrence for that particular
orchid type to ever bloom in captivity. Its flowers spanned three inches and bore the
stripes of tigers, hence it’s common name. With its long, thick green leaves and its many
florets, it was quite a corpulent specimen, for it weighed several hundred pounds.

“But, why didn’t you tell us? This would make headlines!” someone said.
“I do not like to draw so much attention to myself,” Harold replied, turning towards the
group, and adjusting his tie. “In any event, this is a hybrid, not a natural genus. I bought
him from a breeder in Thailand, who crossed the gram with an oncidium. The flowers are
surprisingly large, nevertheless.”
“They certainly are,” said Wilmington, scrunching up her little nose to look at it.

“Well I believe there really is no question,” Ludlow said, clasping his hands as the group
encircled them. “Shall we all vote now?” He looked to unanimous nodding eyes. “All in
favor of making Harold’s garden the site of our new meeting place, say aye.”

“Harold, you are truly a lover of orchids. Did you say you have no gardener?”
“That would take the pleasure out of it, no?” he replied, smiling affably.
“Harold, is it true that you have never registered a single orchid hybrid of your own?”

But before Harold could begin to explain his reasons, he heard Christina Carmichael, one
of the younger members, cry out-- “oh, what a charming little tree frog!”
“A frog?” Harold pushed his way through the guests who had now amassed around a
bunch of orange cattleyas growing at the root of a miniature elm tree.
“Yes—that one there…the red one.”
“But Harold, you’re not afraid of ruining your garden with those pests?” Forest Ludlow
asked him.
“Pests?” asked Christina Carmichael.
“Why yes… frogs carry infection and germs that could easily do harm to our delicate
flowers, and when they multiply, pff…” Forest Ludlow fluttered his lips, “they become
terrible nuisances by croaking at all hours of the day...you must exterminate it, Harold,”
he said in Harold’s ear with a confidential air.
“Of course,” Harold said. “I had no idea it was here.”
“Wonderful,” Ludlow, said, grabbing Harold at the shoulder, “we will have the induction
ceremony here, next month, then.”

In half an hour, all the guests were gone, and Harold carried a butterfly-net into the
garden. It was dusk when he came out again, after a hunt that took two hours.

He tightly clasped the frog in his hand through the netting, and walked outside with it
into the patio. Laying the bundle on the ground, he smashed the little creature in it under
his heel, against hard concrete. When it exploded, it made a popping sound, like the that
of a champagne bottle opening.

Three times a day for the next three weeks afterwards, Harold assiduously scoured his
garden for more frogs, but never found any.

James Ampersand eventually excommunicated himself from the Lamshire Orchid

Society’s murmuring whispers, although after his death, his daughter worked to restore
his reputation, donating hundreds of thousands to the preservation of rainforests and other
natural orchid habitats. She joined forces with the orchid society on various philanthropic
projects, but despite this, Rolanda herself never became a member.

In the years following Rolanda’s death, Harold endeavored to establish himself among
the innermost ranks of the prestigious society, though he did not apply for membership
right away. Instead, he began to appear regularly at important orchid shows across the
state and through the nation, winning prizes for growing other people’s hybrids. His
flowers were regularly featured in glossy spreads and on the covers of all the major
orchid magazines.

Harold Maurice’s name in the American orchid world in time became synonymous with
Midas’ touch, as his care for flower hybrids resulted in blossoms exceedingly lovelier
than those produced by their originators. Many found it exceedingly curious, however,
that he was never known to have crossed any grexes of his own, since the practice of
creating new breeds is considered one of the supreme pleasures of being an Orchidian.
And, although it was said aloud that Harold kept the rare plants of James Ampersand’s
greedy collection out of duty to his benefactress, it was often wondered quietly why he
did not donate them to garden museums, where they could be appreciated by others who
loved orchids. It was also often wondered why he chose, of all professions open to him,
to become an undertaker.

Three weeks later one evening, spirits among the dinner guests were much more lifted
than usual. Martha helped Victoria carry in the bowls of lentil soup, and both women
smiled the same smile, as though they shared some sort of secret between them. Martha
had cropped her gray hair short and dyed it auburn, shaving years off of her appearance.
Energy now sprinted in her steps, and the look of confidence in her eyes reflected not
only a sense of vigor, but also how long the feeling had been missing from her. Sensing
something out of the ordinary, Harold was about to ask what was different about tonight,
but it was at that moment when Victoria started to speak.

“It is going so wonderful in the store,” Victoria began saying, as she scooted her chair
closer to the dinner table. She glanced at her soup and smelled its steam rising. Smiling
serenely at Harold, she said to him, “will be so beautiful inside when is finished, oh!, and
today, Martha is my assistant now.”

Harold lowered a spoonful of soup back, untasted, into his bowl. He shifted in his chair,
and scanned his eyes slowly over the two women.

“Mother…what about your spine problems?” he said at last.

“Oh, I’m fine,” she said cheerfully, smiling at Victoria. “I tell you, we had the greatest
time today. How do you like my hair?”

Noticing, Harold said he liked it.

“Really Harold, it was such a great idea to let Victoria open up a flower shop,” his step-
father interjected, “I went to the storefront today and it’s really something. There are a
whole bunch of new little businesses out there…I’ll bet you in five years it’ll be as
popular as Eastern.”

Eugene, sitting across from the women, next to Trent, spoke with excited rhythm. His
gestures were animated (he lifted his palm to underscore the promise of five) and he
otherwise forgot himself, by talking with food in his mouth. It was if while he spoke, he
consciously tasted the food, and the taste of his food and the substance of his words,
combined, surged through him with felicity.

Harold gave Eugene a silencing look, which made him shrug meekly to himself.

“And you should really see what Victoria’s done with the place, Harold,” Martha
interjected, her voice squeaking, as she attempted in her own way to intoxicate her son
with some of their gaiety. “When Eugene stopped by this morning to drop me off, we all
started talking about picking out an awning, and we all talked about it, and Eugene
offered to help us make one…so Victoria took me to the beauty shop, and when we got
back and went to the shop this afternoon, can you imagine, Trent was there with Eugene
and they were finished installing it already!”

Trent sat silently through dinner, and he watched Victoria curiously, who maintained a
calm and self-assured composure, despite Harold’s obvious discomfort. Unlike his
mother, Victoria was unconcerned with Harold’s cloudy mood, and made no attempt to
appease him.

Though he ate at a loitering pace, Trent rose twice during the meal to the kitchen to fill
his plate. Harold, seeing Trent staring at Victoria, glared at her.

Victoria stood over the sink wearing a pencil skirt with flip-flops and yellow latex gloves.
She was scrubbing a pot under hot water and soap, and humming Lara’s theme from Dr.
Zhivago.

“Listen to me, what do you intend, hiring my mother as your assistant? They don’t need
money, they don’t need anything…I take excellent care of them.”

As soon as she heard Harold’s voice, she wiped her hands on a dishrag, and, as though
prepared for the question, she lowered her head, shut the water off, and turned around to
face him.

“I thought you say you will no tell me how to run my business,” she responded, calmly.
“But she’s my mother.”
“She is Martha. She is no only your mother.”
“She’s sixty-one years old and has terrible back problems. She shouldn’t be standing up
all day, picking things up...” Despite his tone of authority, the accelerated pace of his
delivery cut a sense of supplication into Harold’s words.
“She no stand all day,” she corrected him, enunciating her words slowly, as if contrasting
him on purpose. “We have chair and stools. She make orders and cut flowers. You no see
her how happy, only from one day? Why you want take that away?”

A moment of silence lapsed between them, as Harold scrutinized Victoria’s face with
pinching eyes, while considering her questions.

“I understand that you want to help her, it is admirable, but it simply isn’t practical,” he
responded, sighing. “You wanted to have a flower shop, and I indulged you. But my
mother will not be working there.” He flattened his hand as an invisible line through the
air.
“How you will stop it?” Victoria demanded.
“Tell me. How?” She repeated, louder now, sharply burning her eyes into his.

His mouth opened slightly and his face contorted with fury as immediately he stepped
towards her, at eyelevel. Despite a reflex to shrink from him, Victoria straightened
herself.
Harold’s hand trembled at his side as though about to strike her, before he balled it into a
fist and abruptly turned away.

He patted his brow with a handkerchief as he walked into the glass-enclosed nursery at
the far end of the garden, where all recent acquisitions were kept. The combination of
scents made Harold clear his throat, for some smelled spicy as cayenne, while others
smelled foxy as vinegar, or sweet as cotton candy. The room was large enough to
accommodate the specific habitat needs of orchids that thrived under such diverse
climates as snowy mountains, sunny fields, and steamy forests. Misters, fans, shade-
makers, and hot lamps surrounded plants that grew over mossy rocks, in shallow pots of
deep black soil, and in hanging baskets of fertilizer stones that looked like beans. Lining
three sides of the square shaped room were planks of steel, on which were five plants
each, with metal frames that labeled them according to their proper Latin names:

Macodes Sanderiana, Polyrhiza lindenii, Ophrys fusca, Gymnadenia conopsea,

Anacamptis pyramidalis var. tanayensis, Rossioglossum grande, Holcoglossum
kimballianum, Catasetum fimbriatum, Cypripedium, Habenaria radiata, Paphiopedilum
delenatii Guillaumin, Miltonia spectabilis 'Schunk', Angraecum mauritianum,
Masdevallia ignea, Dendrobium stratiotes….

Several of the flowers were already blooming and lush, and geometrically brilliant as
fireworks are explosive. Their twirling antler petals pierced long into the air, with flowers
growing from stalks in acutely symmetric rows of lines that alchemically accented as
curves; one flower’s long lip skirted like a flattened paper cocktail umbrella; there were
perfect white egrets in mid flight on stems, extending their petal wings in dancing
interpretations of flying; some blooms seemed heavy as parrots, had fur like bugs, were
unreal as drawings of time-elapsed light.

Although several of the orchids in the workroom would still not yet be open in time for
Harold’s ceremony, he little could complain, as July is incidentally a popular blooming
month for orchids, especially for these, which he each selected specifically for being the
favorite natural plants of the various members of the society. It wasn’t that he did not
possess already several of the almost supernatural species, but after the unfortunate fire
that destroyed Winston Sidell’s extensive garden and burned down his house, Harold
slowly began to acquire new plants from various synthetic farms, in order to build a
habitat at the center of his garden, which, like the workroom, would simultaneously be
suited to display the members’ favorite natural orchid wonders, but in a more dramatic
staging.

So certain was he that the demise of the former senior member’s garden would translate
into his own garden’s selection as the society’s new meeting place, that Harold six
months ago decided to commemorate its future induction by honoring the members with
a kind of permanent mini-exhibit.
On walking out of the nursery, Harold grabbed the small butterfly net that leaned against
the door, and wound it about his wrist, proceeding towards the center of the garden where
the new display was nearly complete. Although he hadn’t seen another tree frog since
smashing the one two weeks ago, he still had not forgotten its threat to his garden.

The Lamshire Gazette was spread open on Harold’s desk when Martha walked into his
office at the funeral parlor, and half of a Subbi sandwich sat on it on an open wrapper, as
Harold took bites from the other half while he read the paper.
“Mother, what are you doing here?” he asked in surprise, when he saw her.
Rising, he walked behind her to shut the door.
“I must speak to you, Harold… now listen to me very carefully, it’s important.”
“What is it?”
Martha remained standing as Harold perched himself on the edge of his desk, with his
knees crossed, and his hands folded over them.
“Victoria told me about your discussion yesterday, and I want to… reassure you that I’m
not under any kind of strain, and that I intend to continue working with her at the shop.”
She nervously folded the leather strap of her bag as she spoke, and looked at the
newspaper on Harold’s desk, at Harold’s sandwich sitting in its wrapper.
“But mother, you know it’s only your health that I’m concerned about,” Harold said. He
lifted his open palms to her.
“Oh, I know that, son…” Martha shook her head, as if chasing away a thought. Then she
noticed a small bouquet of fresh cut orange Gerbera daisies, white chrysanthemums,
yellow gladioli, pink carnations, sitting in a glass vase at the far end of Harold’s desk.
“Harold, where did you get those flowers?”
“My secretary buys them for me, mom, I don’t know where she gets them from,” he said,
defensively.

The members of the orchid society sat in folding chairs in semi-circle, before a black
velvet curtain hanging from the ceiling in the garden. They whispered questions to each
other, wondering what might be behind the mysterious veil, as their manicured nails
daintily held little china plates of hors d'oeuvres and they casually took drinks from large,
wide-brimmed glasses of wine. They were waiting on Harold to return from a telephone
call he had taken outside.

“Do you think he’s maybe crossed a hybrid and kept it a secret until now?” Melissa
Carmichel asked the mayor’s wife, Darlene Hinsely, sitting next to her.
“What’s that…do you think so?” Darlene Hinsley whispered back.
“I don’t know…what else could it be….?”
“Maybe it’s a sculpture…” Sander Jennings offered, overhearing them.
“I hope it wasn’t a bad news phone call,” Forest Ludlow said aloud to no one in
particular.

Five minutes later, Harold’s hasty steps rang clearly through the garden, and he appeared
before them wearing a silk forest green dress shirt with a turquoise tie. The cochleanthes
orchid in his lapel, called “Moliere,” was white and violet colored, and it looked like the
nose and face of a bearded man whose eyes were shrouded beneath his arms.

“Thank you all for coming,” Harold said, standing in front of the black curtain. He moved
his eyes over all of faces across from him, his breathing trembling with proud elation.
“This truly is a momentous occasion, and I am honored, no, I am humbled, that you have
chosen my garden to host our meetings,” Harold said, placing his hand over his chest.

The group clapped, all of them looking happily at one another, many nodding in
approval.

“What I have behind me is a token of my gratitude to each of you. I will not be long-
winded, so I will say, simply, that I have acquired the most beautiful specimens of your
most cherished natural orchids, and have created a display for them, here, at the center of
my garden. It is my own humble little attempt to immortalize all of you.”

He bowed chivalrously before tearing down the veil, and revealed a large glass wardian
case, six feet long and seven feet wide, which resembled a fish tank, with layers of rock
and a small mechanical waterfall, a mirror at the top, which made a prism effect as it
reflected the colors of the orchids and created an illusion that augmented its depth and
their numbers. At the top of the case, which rounded as a dome, was a silver inscription:
IN HONOR OF THE LAMSHIRE SOCIETY OF ORCHID ENTHUSIASTS.

Immediately the members rose from their seats to peer into the case, crowding around it,
examining the flowers, and then noting the embellished labels, which had, along with the
name of each particular plant, the name of the member it meant to commemorate.

“Harold, did you transplant these flowers from your own collections?” Forest Ludlow
asked, turning from the case.
“No,” Harold replied, brimming with satisfaction as he admired his habitat, “I acquired
them specifically for this purpose.”
“Harold—I don’t see a flower here for you…” cried the elderly Brenda Meyers.
“In honesty, my dear, I haven’t got a single favorite orchid, but also I thought it would be
narcissistic of me to commemorate myself,” he said.

“Oh, Harold! I see two tree frogs over there in your encyclias!”
“What?”

Harold, followed by Forest Ludlow, rushed towards an oak tree behind the habitat, where,
just as Linda Cramer described them, were two red tree frogs sitting together, croaking,
among a group of pink encyclias, which are orchids that look like giant hyacinths.

As they disappeared, the society members spontaneously convened in a loose huddle, to

express their thoughts about the new habitat.

“Don’t you find it a little morbid?” the honorable Luis Drake asked Marjorie Fanning.
“What do you mean?”
“I see what you’re getting at,” interjected Soren Darrow “—the names…don’t they
remind you of tombstones?”
“No…how could you even think such a thing!” exclaimed Christina Carmichael.
“And isn’t it interesting that he didn’t include himself among the rest of us?” offered
Gertrude Laury, raising an eyebrow.
“But he said he wanted to be modest,” Cassandra Wilmington turned to say to her.
“Perhaps…but the whole thing is just so eerie, isn’t it? I mean, the thing itself looks just
like a coffin, and that black curtain….” Miguel Montoya said, leaving his sentence
unfinished.
“I admit it’s strange looking, but it’s the only way he could get all of the flowers to grow
together at the same time,” Lucille Kramer said, placidly.
“Just wait one second…did he not just say he acquired all of the plants especially with
this purpose in mind? There is no way he could have done this in a month.” Marjorie
Fanning said, raising a finger.
“It’s true, he did say that…” Cassandra Wilmington, verified nodding her head.
“You don’t think he burned down old man Sidell’s house, just to replace his garden with
this one…” gasped Christina Carmichael, lowering her voice.
“Well, Sidell never approved of the Ampersand collection…and he always had a funny
feeling about Harold…” Miguel Montoya remarked.
“But Sidell claimed responsibility for the fire--- the pipe…remember? He didn’t
extinguish it…” Cassandra Wilmington said, correcting Miguel Montoya.
“Yes, that’s right…” agreed Lucille Kramer.
“Still, it doesn’t excuse Harold for being so presumptuous…” the honorable Luis Drake
said, with some finality.
“No… it certainly doesn’t,” echoed Gertrude Laury.

When Harold returned to the group, the conviviality had completely vanished from his
face, though he attempted with a smile to conceal his agitation over the frogs. But now,
everyone’s eyes were fixed suspiciously upon him, and nobody else was smiling.

“Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, pal, but it’s illegal for me…or you…to kill these
frogs,” the exterminator said to Harold in the garden, on the next day. He wore a faded
baseball cap with blue jeans and a polo shirt, and his mustache was groomed in a thick
dark band above his lips.
“What?”
“Yep….these are Icarus frogs….they’re endangered species, my friend…you could
actually consider yourself lucky in a way…since the government will pay you to take
care of them, unless you just wanta to hand it all over to them and let them do it…”
“What, what….you mean I must keep the frogs alive?”
“That’s right,” laughed the exterminator ironically.
“Well… I suppose I could build a new greenhouse…and move all of the plants
elsewhere,” Harold said, scratching his head.
“I’m afraid it’s not that easy, mister.”
Harold looked at him questioningly.
“Oh, yeah,” the exterminator said, putting his thumbs into his belt loops, “you see…
government won’t let you move a single plant, or even add one…’cause it might upset
this delicate ecosystem you’ve created here.”

After the exterminator left, Harold stood alone in the garden for several minutes, drawing
his fists into balls at either side of him. A strange and terrible expression came upon his
face, as he exhaled a deep, guttural sigh from within.

“And so today, while Charles was talking to me, I had an epiphany, you could call it the
most serendipitous thing, honestly,” said Trent, leaning back in Victoria’s office chair at
the flower shop, his legs crossed on top of her desk. The fluorescent lights shone on his
face as he looked up towards the ceiling while he spoke, arms clasped behind his neck,
elbows sticking in the air. There were over twenty metal buckets of roses and Asiatic
lilies and sunflowers on the ground, and chrysanthemums, and it made the office smell
like potpourri. The large clock on the wall was shaped like a sunflower, and on it was
spelled: VICTORIA’S FLOWERS.

Victoria sat across the desk in a rolling office chair, flipping through an ordering
catalogue with a pen in her hand, as she circled and numbered the flowers for Martha’s
order next day.

“This whole time,” he said with a relaxed voice, “what’s been bugging me is that I
thought if I became a doctor, I wouldn’t be able to make a difference…like with
Charles…he’s been in and out of that place more times than he can even count. I know
he’s doing alright because I’m there, and I’m someone he can talk to, he doesn’t want to
let me down…but when I’m gone…I don’t know…I just know he’s going to be back on
that dope again.”

Victoria said uh-huh to show that she was listening.

“So it made me very cynical. I mean, I don’t believe in forcing someone to stay clean if
they don’t want to…part of me believes he’s got a right to go down that road if that’s the
choice he wants to make…and I can see in what way it would be preferable to going into
therapy and talking to someone who has no idea what your life has been like and they just
want to prescribe you pills…that’s all psychiatry is anymore, anyway, it’s just pills….”

“Yes,” she responded, nodding. They had talked about the issue before.
“And so before I was thinking that I wanted to just try do my own thing—if I couldn’t
make other people happy, at least I could make myself happy…you know what I
mean…”

Victoria nodded, and looked up from her catalogue, but not at Trent. She looked through
her office window, into the empty street.

“But today when I was talking to him, and he was telling me about Vietnam…you know
it was really so fucked up--- he had a friend in special ops, who doesn’t even have a
telephone number now, or a social security number, I think his family died in Jonestown,
too, and as we’re talking, I realized…this is what I want to do…I want to talk to people…
to give them real therapy...because as we were talking, I could tell that it was like this
great pressure was being lifted off him…he was admitting all his failures and regrets…
and everything that happened to him… and I was just sitting there, just reassuring him
that it’s okay….that he’s a human being, just like anybody else….and you could tell that
in that moment he felt better…he had dignity…I empathized with him…and I realized
that even if it was just for that one moment…”

The little bell rang above the entrance to the flower-shop.

“Victoria!” Harold shouted, coming in.
He stormed into her office, holding a letter in his hand.
“Can you explain this?!”

Trent shot up from the chair when he saw him, and Victoria rose from her seat, her face
as pale as the sheets that Harold was clutching. They all stood silent, until Harold said,
straining to lower his voice, “Get out of here, Trent… now. Here’s the keys. Take her car.
Victoria’s coming home now, with me.”

They said nothing to each other on the way home. Victoria sat with her hands folded in
her lap, and watched the roads unfold through the windshield, the headlights quickly
shining on the vacant lots, on the little neighborhoods with yard ornaments that spun like
pinwheels as they passed them. One had wings like a duck.

Harold grit his teeth as he tightly gripped the leather steering wheel, and speeded in his
red Cadillac.

The bedroom door was shut despite that they were the only ones in the mansion, and
Victoria sat unmoving in a brown leather armchair, her hands holding on to the armrests,
her arms unbent, as Harold paced quickly backwards and forth before their bed. The lamp
on her nightstand was the only light turned on, and only the sharp contours of Harold’s
silhouette face could be seen in the dark room, although Victoria wasn’t watching him.

“And so, you expect me to believe you weren’t planning to leave me for this….ex-lover
of yours…who was the reason why you fled from your family…who now wants you to
go to live with him….”
“No Harold…I tell you…I no wanted marry him anymore.”

Earlier in the day while searching for the lint roller in her sweater drawer, Harold had
discovered a small bundle of letters from a man that Victoria was once engaged to, in
Colombia. Because her father had forbidden her to marry him, she fled to the United
States.

“I tell you…I no plan to leave you for another man….” Victoria said, almost whispering,
eyes locked forward, on the lamp. “For six months Juan Jaime write to me, but never I
write back…never I say I leave you… he beg…. but I want stay here…I no want go back
to Colombia. I no have nothing there.”
“Why then, did you keep his letters?!”
“Once, I love him.”
“And what about me?!”

As Harold’s shouting escalated again, neither of them heard Trent come in through the
front door. Now he stood at the bottom of the stairway, listening.

“Harold….” Victoria said, standing up, looking in his eyes. “I want be honest, ok?….
Yes… is true I plan to leave you….but… I no was unfaithful….I no am like that….I
swear… I swear I no am leaving you for another man…I want live by myself…”
“You worthless manipulator! You purposefully planned to start the flower shop so that
when you left me you’d be comfortable….”
“Yes.”
“What an…. ungrateful piece of garbage!” he screamed, turning away. “You were
nothing when I met you! Do you remember?! You were just an immigrant maid! You
were my maid!” Turning back, he started pointing at himself. “It was I who gave you your
status. I presented you to society! Do you remember? How I learned Spanish just to speak
with you, remember that? You remember how you told me you had no one else? How you
left your whole life behind in Colombia? How you carried all of your belongings here in
trash bags because your father took his luggage from you at the airport? Huh? Remember
the squalor apartment you lived in with all of your immigrant friends? I clothed you!
Gave you jewels! It was my food you ate! I’m who gave you your flower shop! You said
it was your dream! And the whole time…this whole time, you were planning to leave
me…”
“Yes,” she said.
“Get out of my face!” he said, waving her away.

As Victoria walked out of the room, Harold followed her into the hallway.
“Well now guess what, you stupid slut…” he screamed bitterly, standing outside the
bedroom door. Victoria stopped at the top of the stairs. “You don’t own the flower shop…
I do. The papers aren’t in your name-- they’re in mine. You signed false documents of
incorporation…I went back to Fenson McIntire’s office, alone, behind your back, and I
drafted new ones! I told him you changed your mind about the business but I wanted to
surprise you. And, you’re also not renting the storefront because… I own it! I’m the one
you were paying rent to, with my money.”
Out of breath now, because of yelling, he began to laugh spitefully at her.
“It’s a bogus lease! And now, I’m going to burn it down! Just as I’ve already burned all
of the bogus papers you so desperately wanted.”

Turning around, Victoria pressed herself against the wall, and covered her hands over her
mouth.
“Yes! I absolutely did that,” Harold said, lunging towards her. “Did you take me for a
fool? I knew you only married me because it would give you your citizenship.”
“I no believe it,” she said, barely audibly, angry tears pooling in her eyes. Hanging her
head not to show them, she saw Trent standing at the foot of the staircase.
“It’s true,” said Harold, staring down over her, breathing heavily on her face.

Suddenly, his voice softened, and his eyebrows relaxed.

“And guess what else?”
Victoria looked at him now, as he smiled with pleasure, waiting purposefully for her to
ask him. They were staring at each other now—she angry; he, no longer furious, but
amused.
“What else,” she said, at last, between her teeth.
“I’ve made scans of all your boyfriend’s love letters…which means that when I divorce
you, you’ll get nothing because they will serve as evidence of your infidelity,” Harold
said, smiling. “You’ll get nothing…and will have to go back to cleaning toilets and living
with all the other whores, where you belong.”
“You a liar!” Victoria screamed, as she stepped behind him, and pushed him hard, and
shoved him down the stairs.
“You liar!” she screamed again, as Harold’s skull thudded over and over down the long
winding staircase, hitting twenty-seven steps in succession, breaking his neck.

“Victoria!” Trent shouted, as she walked back down the hall to the bedroom.
“You murdered him! He’s dead!” he screamed behind her, as she slammed the door.

softened

Harold lunged closer towards Victoria as she stepped back towards the stairs.

until Harold walked towards Victoria and she stepped out where Trent could see them
both. She was holding her hands together in a plea of innocence.

“Harold!” Trent shouted. “Stop it! You’ll make her fall down!”
“What are you doing here?! I told you to leave us alone….wait… you both planned all of
this!” Harold said, pointing at Trent and looking at his wife, who had pressed herself
tightly against the wall.

you were going to leave me for my brother! It’s why you hired my mother….”
“Harold! It’s not like that,” Trent shouted, beginning to start quickly up the curving
stairwell.
“No? Then why were you with her tonight…at such a late hour!”
“He is my friend, Harold! I no have family…I wanted still see Martha….I wanted…”
“Why you conniving little manipulator! Don’t you remember? You were nothing when I
met you!” Harold stepped towards her and she stepped several paces back, falling down
the stairs.

The fall broke her neck, and Victoria died instantly.

Because Trent saw everything, he testified that it was not murder, but an accident.
Because Harold was the only undertaker in the county, and had no assistants, he was the
one who performed Victoria’s embalming.

The following afternoon, Victoria’s blood drained into a sink and the embalming machine
flooded her veins with its liquids, as Harold lay over her, grunting, while he violated her
lifeless body, and covered her face with his hand.

After the funeral, Harold returned to the Ampersand mansion, and without thinking, sat
himself at the head of the table for a few minutes. It was the sound of frogs croaking
outside that reminded him that Victoria was dead, and, rising, he went in to the kitchen,
looking for something to eat.

In the three months following the unveiling, Harold sat sullenly among the

(you can explain how the greenhouse can be many temperatures at once…the moist
plants close together, the ones with air have air conditioning and so on)

SO it’s like the kind of thing where its either she leaves him soon or she stays forever.
Part of the reason why she would be staying forever is because of the money, and because
of fear. So I guess that’s a question I have to answer, since if she came here independently
and everything, why would she be afraid of leaving him, especially if she is sure of
herself and sure of her value.

I get it—fear that he would kill her makes sense more than anything. She ran away from
her father because he was too possessive, perhaps he almost killed her, perhaps it was the
kind of thing that she narrowly escaped from. It was the kind of thing she narrowly
escaped from.

She came here with the clothes on her back because she wanted to marry someone who
her father did not approve of, but had no good reason not to, and she told him that they
already consummated their love. He flew into a hysterics and with his shotgun ran after
her when she ran out of the house. He even fired shots into the air. She got onto a bus and
called her friend who helped her get an emergency visa and fly out of the country. She
arrived in the united states and her friend’s family let her stay with them for some time,
but her friend’s uncle who was married started falling in love with her, and so she fled
them, not because she didn’t like him, but because she didn’t want to ruin a family with
children, or destroy her friend’s family. She started working as a maid but didn’t tell
anyone what her background was or anything. They assigned her to Harold’s house, and
Harold was considered creepy by a lot of women, or he was just never able to be
confident enough to express himself with a real woman. He wasn’t confident enough
largely because of the class thing—not only was he always attracted to women of a
higher class than him, but he felt distinctly that he was not the same class as they were. It
could also be the case that someone rejected him or that he felt rejected by his mother
when she had her other son. So he’s 33 now which makes him younger and that fits. He
could also be prematurely graying or something. At any rate he was an extreme mother’s
son for many years, but when his mother had his brother, it was like a rejection for him.
The brother was also born unexpectedly because she was in her 40s then. He loved his
mother very much, his mother was of a higher class perhaps? No, they were both high
school sweethearts in the same town? His father was always busy as a carpenter, but his
mother didn’t work for a long time in the beginning, and they spent a lot of time together
in those days, those early days when he was happy. So it was a latent thing. He was
always strange, and yes he always did say that he wanted to become a doctor? What did
he say he wanted to become?

Perhaps the guy she’s married to is not his father, and so his father betrayed him
somehow by dying? So his mother had a job at dillards and it was just the two of them
until she met him? I think that could start piecing things together. So his mother married
her highschool sweetheart. His father was a gasoline engineer or something like that, and
while they were together she didn’t have to work, but after he died, she did? The issue
that question raises is

His father was a petroleum engineer but he died in a fire when Harold was 2 years old,
and so there was a lapse of time when it was just he and his mother, until he was 9 or so,
that she didn’t have to work because she lived off his inheritance, and they had nice
things from before, but she also gave him a lot of nice things, they went places, etc. When
he turned 13 she started dating the carpenter, did she still not work? Did she never have a
job? Perhaps she really did never have a job, and luckily the carpenter could support her
that way for a long time. But it was not as in the heyday of before, I suppose there was a
golden age that Harold missed, not only from when he was little, but in general I guess.
They were not top tier it could be said, the carpenter was no engineer too, and Harold
romanticized his father in a way if you can think of it. The carpenter made ends meet, and
had his own business, and when things got tough and corners started needing to be cut, he
hired Harold’s mother to be his clerk, where she stayed, until two years ago when he was
forced to retire, and not only that, he was forced to sell the buisiness to others--- couldn’t
Harold take it over? Harold had already bailed them out one time before, and this time he
didn’t ask but sold it and they lived that way for a long time, three years, it should have
been enough to retire on, but Harold’s father got sick, there was a cancer scare
afterwards, but luckily it is in remission now, even though it wiped out their bank account
nearly completely. They even lost the house, but Harold bought it back for them. His
mother had broken down and told him they couldn’t make the mortgage payments. I
wonder if instead of buying them their house, he made them move in with him, even his
brother, under the same roof. No, he was rich enough to buy them their house, and his
mother also broke down and asked him flat out, which he couldn’t refuse. He did try to
offer to make them stay with him. This has all happened in the last 3 years or so. But
anyway when he was growing up he was very close to his mother, and thought she
deserved everything great, and thought he deserved a higher standard of living than he
said. And for a long time he said he wanted to be a doctor, or an important man, but when
his mom started dating Eugene, and then when she gave birth to his brother, he was
betrayed by these actions, and found comfort in a doting old woman, who was impressed
by his refinement, for he played piano very well, and also sang arias. He was a tenor. Plus
his mother was increasingly busier, lets say that he supported her for like the first two
years of marriage but then his business wasn’t as strong, and she started working for him,
but she liked it, and even when it picked up again she stayed working as his secretary but
Harold couldn’t understand that, the only thing that Harold understood was that his
mother was always busy, and that she doted on the new son. He treated his brother
somewhat coolly, they weren’t lovy, but he looked after him, he was jealous, but not
insecure of himself. It was almost a bitterness more than anything.

His brother was popular and had a lot of friends, though he was a serious kid, he liked ot
read. He was sensitive about women, and had never had a serious girl friend before. He
was close to his mom, but it was not the same kind of closeness as Harold and his mom.
He was always active, doing various things, but he was not an overachiever, was he?
Should he have gotten a scholarship? Well he did a lot of things, and he was very
intelligent, but how do you decide that you want to be a doctor unless you are perfect at
school. I suppose I will have to change something, but what? This all just happened three
years ago, his dad was forced to sell, they had money for college and inheritance, but
then last year, it all happened in one year? He was a survivor in one year? Maybe it just
was a better school he wanted to go to. He was accepted at Columbia or something, but
they didn’t give him a full scholarship because he was good but not crème of the crop or
anything. He was good enough to get in, but not outstanding enough to get a full
scholarship to go there. So he wants to transfer to the state school now, he wants to
transfer, and he doesn’t even know what he wants to study. It was Harold who pressured
him anyway into applying to the better school. Why does Harold care so much? Because
he has a slight guilt that he did not go to a good school like that himself. And also he
wanted him to be gone subconsciously, his brother I guess is not someone he wants to
control, because he’s competition. And also, if he pays for his brother to go to Columbia,
then it makes him partly responsible for his success, and he can control him a little bit.
But his brother is not someone he wants to control all the way.

Trent was a good scholar, wrote good papers, got straight As, was on the basketball team
but not a star player, overall a rounded guy. He didn’t hold any student government
positions, or volunteer. But his test scores and his grades were impeccable. He hung out
with his friends, mostly. He did drama and liked to read philosophy. I guess Jack London
is hugely influential to him. He worked as a carpenter in the summers. So if Harold is 34
and his brother is 19, that could make Victoria (she moved here when she was 21 out of
college. Six months with her friend’s family. Six months as a maid before she met
Harold. 22. Six months when she worked for him, six months when she got married, 23.
Plus three years of being married, 26. In that time she perfected her English and had
carefully considered her past with her father and her friend’s uncle. When she got married
to Harold, she started going to yoga classes, and cooking was the thing she worked on for
her creative outlet. Maybe I can get her to study a gourmet thing. When she went to
college, she studied to be a schoolteacher, and she also studied philosophy. She had taken
fencing. She knitted sweaters. She had friends who were maids, but Harold was always in
a grumpy mood when she brought them over. Except for the orchid society, and the social
club, Harold was not an extreme mingler, although he did like to be seen and known
about by other people. His wife was the maid of the house.

If I introduce another source, persay a childhood friend with whom Harold can show
himself freely and around whom his brother feels comfortable. An old friend coming to
visit, who Trent doesn’t have to impress. Maybe he’s been staying there for a few days.

No save that story for another time. So Harold’s brother can speak Spanish but Harold
cannot, and never learned. Harold never really paid much attention to his wife’s life story
except that he was impressed by her back ground, and she was exceedingly lovely.
Perhaps the marriage proposal started out as something where he offered simply to give
her her citizenship, and told her she could leave at any time, but that he wanted to help
her in this way. So it started out that way but people started saying how beautiful she
was, she was someone to take to the country club, she improved his status, and made him
the envy of other men.

It started out romantically at first, she was working and he began to obsess about her. Of
course, necrophilia doesn’t exclude having sex with living people, and beauty has its
charm that can’t always be found in death. It wasn’t so much an ongoing obsession—in
hierarchy his obsessions were: necrophilia, orchids, she. But it was an obsession the more
she worked there.

So one day he served drinks and came on to her and she assented, because she, unlike he
completely, understood his power over her in terms of position, she was poor, and he
could fire her, which would make it difficult to get another job—it took her a time to find
this one anyway. So she assented, and since he had never not been rejected before, he
interpreted this as love and relationship, though in her mind there was always a
subconscious forcing mechanism involved.

She was his first live woman, but he simultaneously admired her beauty and resented her
independence, although she was barely even independent, he wanted to control
everything about her. He made her not work anymore, told her not to have her friends
around when he had other guests, so she either visited them herself, or did not visit them.
So she didn’t really have friends anymore. His control of her increased, and the fact that
she was really illprepared to have another job, or the fear of being in another independent
situation was what drove her to ask for the flower shop. It is not that she did not enjoy her
life, but she wanted ultimately to be more free. He did not please her in bed, and she was
a romantic, or she had an ideal that she would trade nothing else in the world for. Of
course there was her lover in Colombia, I forgot about that.

She stopped talking to him at first, until he found her address from her friend, and they
told him that she left, and left no address. But he did not stop searching until he found
her. The problem is, that he was part of an important family in Colombia, who was close
to her father’s family—they were neighbors. It would be impossible not to keep the secret
of her return and their marriage from her father. But he continued and went on to be a
doctor also, he was currently in medical school. He wanted to forget her but he could not,
and he wanted to come out there and start a new life there, perhaps he could get a student
visa—his family had money and they could support him while he went to school there,
somehow he found her and these were his plans.

It would have been perfect except that she did not want to make herself dependent on
anyone again. She loved him also, but it was a more sober love, and in truth it wrought a
lot of confusion for her. She was madly in love with him once before, but as time passed,
she started to find herself, and the most important thing became to be independent. She
just wanted to be alone, not to have anyone making demands on her, and he also
reminded her of her former life. But I guess the important thing to think about in this
situation is the fact that she had already been planning the flower thing for some time.

The question to ask myself is why, then, did he suddenly assent? Well, it so happened that
he became even more obssesesed with the flowers six months ago since the guy died and
it was his chance, for some reason notoriety in the orchid community was something
valuable and important to him, and it could partly be because of the fact that he had
known Ampersand and admired his life and the people looked up to him. No ampersand
was not a doctor, however, but his daughter always told Harold he should be a doctor—in
fact it was she who planted the idea in his mind. And so, since he looked upon her as a
standard of value, as a standard of what to look to, as a standard of what to look forward
to, he loved her, she was refined, she was a beautiful woman, even in her old age, but she
adored her father absolutely, and this too was a sore point for Harold. She played the
harp, had gone to school in France, etc., and he sought to emulate him. It could be that
even though Ampersand had a tobacco farm--- he did go to college, for business. The
tobacco farm was in the family for many generations, her family was originally French
Canadian then, they came as explorers and discoverers, they had money but it was the
adventure. Her mother was a local daughter of a government official. So they all went to
college, and his degree was in biology then and chemistry. Harold, however, was very
eager to be an undertaker, and went to the state school for mortuary science. It was a
great shock, but he called it a calling, and it was moreso because of the fact that it was
frowned upon and strange, and he called himself a martyr for the situation. It was
exceedingly strange, however, that he would choose it, but it was the fact of Rolanda’s
death and the fact that the undertaker there allowed him to be there and participate in her
ritual, for she died of a heart attack and no autopsy was performed, so the undertaker
came right away to pick her up, but he was short on staff on that day, when Harold called
him, he told him he was short, and would need his help, which he assented to, and stayed,
and then started working with him and there. So it was a dual life. He kept the Ampersad
Mansion, this happened when he was 18, 1993, and so he moved in there, and
immediately assumed the other life, creating a new family romance as it were, because he
did feel very strongly shunned by his mother, and this new mother was gone, but he
found a taste, and suddenly it changed him in to something else. Rolanda always
mounred her father, who died in 1980, so it was why, although she doted on the boy, she
never fully submitted to him, and here too was a situation in which Harold had to
compete for someone’s full attention. So the funeral directing gave him an outlet for his
demons, and the orchids gave him a way to be recognized, even though it was by
appropriation. But he did win the public over.

So he has increasingly been working on the orchids. How do I establish that? In

preparation? Do they have a dinner before walking out there?

He stays behind to talk with Victoria, and Harold looks at them strangely and retreats in
frustration to the garden.

After the fight with his brother, he goes into the garden. His parents drive home, but Trent
stays behind to talk to Victoria. No she drives him back. She drives him back and on the
way back, does the idea suddenly occur to her? No, she had already planned it, or
something like it. So when she talks to him does she know what she is going to do?
Perhaps she says something like, recently I have begun to think the same things and
you’ve emboldened me. Listen. She goes out for a long drive and when she returns she
gets in trouble for being gone so long. He doesn’t talk about the orchids? No, yes, he
talks about them, perhaps he talks about them and the explanation about what the strange
ones are doing comes earlier. How will it go--- she comes home he gets mad at her,
remember more has to be done to establish the idea that he is scary somehow. Perhaps he
startles her and shows her fear, which explains the don’t talk to me thing. He can be like
where were you and asking her questions, they were talking, he doesn’t understand, she
explains it, then she calls him out for being controlling of his life. He claims that he is
not, because he’s never been conscious about it. She says, oh yes? Well prove it. I want to
start a business. What kind. She perhaps sees a flower in the bedroom, or a flower on the
wall, and then asks him. He asks her why, isn’t she happy? She has the life of a dream.
She says that she has learned how to cook, she wants to do something else now, she
wants to run a business. She compares it to his own flower hobby. He brings to her
attention where she was when she got there, and she retorts angrily at him somehow. Like
how could you. I’m not your charity. Does she look at him in disbelief, or is it more a
judgmental stance. She starts making accusations. She starts saying that he wants to
control everyone in his life. That he likes the flowers because they don’t move, they stay
put. All they do is bloom. No she doesn’t say that about the flowers, but I have to build
this part up more.

So then at the next dinner what is Trent doing in the meantime? What is he up to? Well
currently he is working on an internship at a free clinic, where he helps people, where he
helps people get their medication or to rehabilitate them in various ways. He wheels them
around, perhaps it is a halfway home? I think a rehabiliation place where people come in
and they are addicted to things, and he spends time on the grounds being someone to talk
to, sitting in on group meetings, hearing their stories about their lives and dreams. When
they throw tantrums, he talks them down. He sits in on therapy sessions (he may want to
be a psychotherapist, or a psychiatrist, which is what Victoria’s father was, and perhaps it
is her influence that helped him pick the specific field). Maybe it is a rehabilitation
program that is part of the veteran’s hospital. He spends time talking to them, he will get
school credit because he will write a sociological/psychological report on them as a
group, a report that will give him behavioral psychology credit, where he talks about
what their common denominators are, etc. He is very helpful there. There is a man there
who was in Vietnam, and was very intelligent, etc. who has had a real impression on him.
He wants to help them, but this guy has come in and out, and he knows that he might not
stay in. He talks deeply to Victoria to say that it’s not that he doesn’t want to help them,
it’s just that he wants to know for sure he’s doing what makes him happy in his life. It’s a
torn between kind of thing. So what does the contrast show with him and Harold. Harold
wants to help people to control them, Trent wants to do his own thing and be happy. He
realizes that there is a point where it is just personal responsibility, that people can’t be
forced into change. Maybe she drives him home, and we don’t know what happened.
What other things could be happening?

Harold is so busy with his own things that he stops paying such close attention to
Victoria, but when the frog comes….should the frog come after or before what happens
with his mother? The mother thing could be the straw, right? So then it’s three weeks
later, they have their fight, tomorrow is the big day, move the orchid scene before the
scene with the people in it, they have their fight about his mother, and he retreats into the
garden again and picks up the net. Here we can have the flowers blooming, he loses
himself in the blooms, and his work, and looks again for the frog but doesn’t find it.

When they come in again, they see the frog, and he has to get an exterminator. There are
murmurs and the whole thing is kind of a disaster in his mind? No, it’s kind of a stay on
execution, because no one thinks it’s a bad thing, that it’s something that can be treated.
This time there are two of them.

Describe that scene past past happening.

But when the exterminator comes, he tells him that bladiblah, and his heart sinks even
lower.
And then the next day his mom comes to his job and tells him off.

How do I establish his jealousy of his brother? Well first he accuses her, then he notes the
way he looks at her at dinner, her defense of him, they had lunch together.

So he starts to think that she is using the flower shop as a way to get away from him.

I have to say that his life does not end after the flowers are gone, or when the greenhouse
becomes a sanctuary. Because, truth be told that he keeps trying to get rid of them after
the guy comes in and tells them he can’t kill them. He has to release them into captivity.
At the next meeting there are even more croakings and things like that and so they have
to decide that it’s not suitable, because they’ve multiplied. He asks for a respite but they
don’t give it to him. Or perhaps it’s three months later, six months later, and the frogs
gradually increase and increase until they say in the meantime they’ll have to switch to
someone else’s.

Trent is back from school and he wants to be a doctor, after all, and Harold keeps going
and trying to capture the frogs, while Victoria’s business is booming. She starts staying
out later and later there, and Harold has to eat his own meals and things like that, which is
fine, but the dinners have been cut. It is the holiday season and she is impossibly busy
and he finds Trent there before he even shows to Harold’s house. Trent is there to tell her
his decision. That’s when Harold flips out.

So I have to put the going to the garden earlier, explanation of the flowers sooner. A little
more dialogue between Trent and V. The fight happens three weeks later.

The frog shows up again. Describe that he was a little frazzled anyway, let’s say his
mother goes to his job and then he has to go to the debut right after. No vice versa. The
debut, everything arranged, describe the flowers here, describe their casing, describe the
people they’re supposed to represent and make it so that they are reflective and we know
the importance. The people really didn’t know how to respond to it.

Then they see a frog. No his mother goes into his job first and then it’s the debut. He
drives there. Then they see a frog.

What the exterminator says.

Harold continued to go with his net out there. Until six months later the sounds got
impossible to bear.

(He had to sit at another person’s garden, and every time it was a blow to his ego.)

He comes out with a net, there is blood on it. And they have a fight about why are you
still going out there, why does he insist on staying there, Why are you staying out so late
etc. why doesn’t he just build a new one.

Trent is back. They’re talking in the shop. He freaks out then and they have a fight there.
He goes home. What you would see if you’re in the room with him, but what he doesn’t
see. Describe things, see what things need to be explained and why you are explaining
them and how you explain them. So the narrator follows him, describes things
objectively, certain past things can be explained, and think about when and what they
could be, the purpose would to inform the audience as much as you can, let them be
there, know what it’s like to be around him, but not presume to be in their own heads,
things anyone would notice. So it is very film type, and is based on Harold’s presence.
Things he could see if he could see. It is an omniscient/objective narrator who does not
describe thoughts, but who has in mind a story to tell, so that’s why the details are
presented the way they are, he would know them, if he paid attention. But it is not an
omniscient narrator who goes in everywhere with him, just shows certain things. The
perspectives of those around him are only given to us by virtue of the fact that they are
around him. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be like you are in the place of them or have
to be a sentient being in order to be in the scene, it is just them, so an argument is that
even bodies are individuals, they belong to the individuals.