The Gardens of Digby Green: Rejects
Rose left the church and pushed the upper range of the speed limit on her way back to the shop. Usually, Tim from Roseland Garden Supply was right on time. She’d need every possible minute to cope with arranging her Mother’s Day displays alone.
When she’d parked the Chrysler Imperial in her space behind the shop there was no sign of the delivery truck. She needed those miniature roses. Rose slammed the shop door to ease some of her tension. Deep breaths followed. No sense in allowing anger to leave her open to mistakes. The corsages were for a joyous occasion.
Rose reopened the front door. She gathered her materials and went to work. As Rose boxed the fourth boutonniere, the back door bell rang. Her roses. She went out to the lot.
The squat driver opening the delivery truck wasn’t Tim. He pulled out the ramp and tromped up it, reappearing with the first plants of her order.
Rose met him at the bottom of the ramp.
The pots were wrapped in that pesky colored foil again. She lifted one. Four aphids slurped the juices from a developing bud. Rose folded back the obscuring foil on a second pot. What ought to have been glossy miniature green leaves were grayed by the webbing of spider mites.
“Don’t you move another step.”
She dropped that pot back into the rack and reached for a third. Thrips damage. Her breath came in short huffs. The next potted rose was yellow with virus.
“What did you do, you jerk? Load your truck with the rejects? I won’t offer these to my customers.”
The driver’s face contorted.
“Tim would never do this to me. Get this garbage out of here. I’m calling your supervisor.”
She shifted her weight to leave, but found herself being dragged up, into the darkness of the truck box.
The Gardens of Digby Green: Rejects is the third installment of a short story in multiple parts which will post on Fridays until the story is complete.
Next week, part four, In the Dark.
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