The Man in a Muddle in the Middle of the Mums: 
A Dirty Story

By

Sharman Ramsey

It all started in the middle of TJ Maxx on a sunny spring Tuesday morning.  It was bright and early on a day when the truck was supposed to arrive.  I was pushing my empty, but expectant, cart, down the glass wares aisle when I just happened to overhear the conversation in the next aisle. 

“I am so lonely since my divorce.  I haven’t been out in the dating world in quite a while.  Where do you find a man worth having these days?”  I heard a woman say.

“You’re divorced, looking for a man and have a condo in Panama City?  What are you doing here in Dothan?  You’ll never find a man here!”  The other woman replied.

I picked up a piece of Lladro and pretended to inspect it.  The conversation came over the aisle clearly.  Not that I was listening…I mean, really…listening.

“Everyone I know who has gotten remarried lately has found a new husband in Panama City.”  And she proceeded to name senior and middle-aged newly weds, I was well-acquainted with.  Women I had known through clubs and organizations down through the years.  “But, when you’re here in Dothan, I hear grocery stores are great spots,” she concluded. 

“Humph,” I sniffed, as I carefully set the Lladro down and picked up a beautiful crystal decanter to inspect the price tag.  (Maybe when they marked it down, I thought, and set it carefully down.)  I had seen too many men mangle the mangoes and grope the grapefruits in the fruit section to give much credence to finding a sensitive guy utilizing the grocery store theory. 

By then, the glasswares aisle was crowded with women totally engrossed in the stemware.  As the two in the other aisle said their goodbyes, we glanced guiltily at one another and backed out of the aisle, now too crowded for us to pass with our buggies.  Apparently, the truck was late.  It was time to leave. Michael’s should be open by now so I could pick up my scrapbooking supplies.  Since Kevin’s death I had become obsessed with chronicling all of life’s events for me and my children …who never seemed to have time…for me or scrapbooking. 

Having been a widow for several years, I was used to women like the one in TJ Maxx giving advice on how to find a husband.  Being married could often be a test of your religion, but the good times always made up for aggravating days when testosterone was on overload.  However, I had thus far ignored their advice and had successfully avoided entering the dating fray.  But, it wouldn’t hurt to “theoretically” assess the potential, would it?

Merciful heavens, what was I doing?  A middle-aged grandmother (a girl can fudge a little on her age when she’s talking to herself)   As I was saying…a middle-aged grandmother assessing assets.  I chuckled.  My children would be appalled.  They still liked to think mom and dad played pinochle when the bedroom door was closed.  As my husband used to say, “I may be married, but I’m not dead, yet.”  Now he was and I wasn’t…dead that is.  And I guess I wasn’t really married any more.    

So now absolved, I continued.  I hadn’t assessed assets since my cheerleading days when my best friend and I favored basketball over football because the guys’ uniforms made that assessment so much easier.  I smiled remembering how naughty my friend and I had felt and how we’d giggled.  Oh, well, I sighed,  those days were long gone.

The brightly colored flats of annuals at Home Depot were just too much of a distraction and with the weather mild and the pansies bright and welcoming, I decided on a detour.  I grabbed a buggy and headed toward the petunias.  It was the perfect day to get good and dirty digging in the yard.  Nothing like working up a good sweat and breathing deeply in the early morning to get your juices flowing.  I groaned.  Since hearing that conversation at The Maxx, my every thought seemed like something straight out of one of those romance novels I read late into the night until I finally fell asleep. 

I heard his voice first.  It was one of those deep, Johnny Cash voices.  The kind you wanted to program your car’s navigation voice with and play over and over saying “What is your command?”  Nonchallantly, I pushed my buggy down the aisle inspecting the many colored petunias as I followed the voice.  I turned the corner caressing an aspidistra.  And then with what I hoped was nonchalance I lifted my eyebrow and glanced up.  The eyebrow went down as the eyelids popped open.  I forgot to breathe.  The man’s assets were of Richard Gere quality.  The man in a muddle in the middle of the mums was clearly a gem of the first order as any regency romance writer would clearly recognize.  His jeans were so tight you could see the bulge of his wallet worn around the edges.  His t-shirt was tight across the well-developed pects.  His silver grey of his hair was a relief after all of my ogling.  I did not want to be the Demi Moore of Dothan.  I took a deep breath and plucked a dead bloom off of the nearest petunia. 

I would call the doctor as soon as I got home.  I had to get my Premarin dose increased!  These hotflashes…

Too good looking, I decided, risking another peek.  Probably too dumb to count…or, worse yet, gay.  What a waste, I decided.  And started to push my buggy away. 

I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard his gravelly voice say…”My wife used to do all the gardening.  But she died a year and a half ago.  Since then I immersed myself in my practice.  Lately, I have discovered gardening.  Working up a good sweat in the sunshine is great for producing endomorphs and it makes you feel so much better.”

“Late wife,” he’d said.  The garden lady looked appropriately sympathetic.  I wondered if she too wanted to give the poor man a purely platonic hug.  I glanced at her.  And then back at him.  Be honest, girl, that man couldn’t get a purely platonic hug from any member of the opposite sex over puberty unrelated to him.   My heart fluttered.  A widower who still loved his wife.  A single man.  Like the red matador’s cape unfurled before the approaching bull, there wasn’t a red-blooded woman alive who would not hear that as a challenge.    

“I am looking for flowers native to this area,” he went on.  “I want my yard to have the life and color it always did when my wife cared for it.” 

My heart clenched with the emotion in his voice.  He sounded so sad and lonely.   There was more than plants missing in his life. 

Suddenly it dawned on me.  This was the moment predestined…the reason I had struggled through Rayfield Vestor’s tests.  Master Gardener training could actually pay off.  I actually knew what flowers were native to the area.  It was my duty as a Master Gardener to share my knowledge and help others.  Perhaps this could count toward my service hours.  I now felt almost sanctimonious about addressing this perfect (and I do mean perfect) stranger.  Thank God I had worn my Liz Claiborne blue jeans and blazer for a casual shopping look to go to the Maxx today rather than my usual mud encrusted sweat pants.

While the garden lady scurried off to get her garden book on indigenous flowers, I said, softly, with as much courage as I could muster, “Those Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) are native perennials.”  He looked at me and smiled.  Whitening strips couldn’t produce that gleaming a smile.  Maybe he was a dentist.  I thought.   Then continued, “They don’t live very long, but they are beautiful while they do.” 

He listened attentively encouraging me by his expression as I rattled on.  He picked up the plants I suggested and put them in his buggy. 

“This Lance-leaved Coreopsis (coreopsis lanceolata) is yellow like the Black-eyed Susan and they look great planted together.”  I told him.

“The best specimens seem to be down on the ground,” I said with my fingers crossed behind me.  It was just a little white lie.  He had to lean down, denim hugging his inspirational assets, to pick them up.  Honestly, they all looked alike.  But, I’d be going home to an empty house soon, with only memories.  Cut a girl some slack I told my conscience. 

 “This Butterfly weed (Asclepius tuberose) is a showy orange color for the garden, but it is not as easy to establish.  The Mexican hat (Ratibida columnaris) in red and yellow with its columnar shape adds variety and height to the garden.  And you cannot go wrong with Sunflowers (Helianthus). 

“These are all easy to grow if you sow them in your garden from late October to mid-November or even early December…if a late dry heat persists.”  As if on cue…another hot flash.   I grabbed the church program out of my open purse and started fanning. 

“You seem to know a lot about planting seeds,” he said, focusing his vaguely familiar blue eyes on me.  Must be because they were definitely bonemelting Mel Gibson blue, I decided.  (And I almost hadn’t pulled into Home Depot, I thought).  “Three children,” I said.  His eyebrows went up.  “I mean I planted seeds with my children to teach them how plants grow.”

“And I am a Master gardener,” I said.  I grabbed the nearest plant.  “Fall rains help establish the seedlings and they do better.  While some say don’t use fertilizer…why I find liquid fertilizer and fish emulsion makes everything bloom better.”  I cleared my throat.  My mouth was dry. 

The garden lady came back with her book.  When neither of us acknowledged her, she turned her back and huffed away.

“This coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) is a beautiful rose-purple with golden cone that grows well… from seeds and is quite easy to divide.”  I stuttered on, “I am sure you know that the two most common methods of plant propagation are from seed (sexual) and from cuttings (asexual or vegetative).”   Who would have thought that everything that had to do with gardening could be taken as innuendo.

I could no longer look the man in the face.  That gorgeous smile turned into a grin as he said, “Tell me more,” in a voice too husky for the middle of Home Depot in the middle of the morning. (About what? I asked myself.  Native flowers.  Oh.   Yes.)

“The coneflower reseeds itself and is quite easy to divide from the roots,” I stammered.  Was I making any sense? 

I grabbed another flower.  “Take this Ox-Eye Daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum) for example.  It is the first to bloom in April.  It is very hardy and reseeds.  It may be a native of Europe, but it has been naturalized here and grows well from plants or seeds.  It is usually considered a native annual…Like this Indian Blanket (Gaillardia pulchella) and this Scarlet Sage (salvia coccinea).”  Better.  I thought.  Much better.

By now, we were both covered in dirt from the plants I had pushed into his arms and those I now held like a bouquet as we stood staring into each other’s eyes. 

“It is wise to be wary,” I said, and he nodded, suddenly solemn, “I mean, about introducing plants near native areas where they might escape and threaten…natural species.” 

“You don’t talk much,” I finally said, breaking the silence.  “My husband Kevin didn’t talk much.  He used to say I talked enough for both of us…  My late husband. .. I mean…  He isn’t late.  He isn’t here.  I mean he’s dead.”  Suddenly, unexpectedly, tears blurred my eyes the way they always did when I spoke of Kevin.  He’d died too soon and left me in a world that seemed big and scary without him.  Sympathy shone in the stranger’s eyes. What would Kevin think of this guy whose name I did not know with the Johnny Cash voice, the assets of Richard Gere and the Mel Gibson eyes?  But even more important…what was I doing comparing this stranger to my husband of 35 years?

The persistent garden lady returned.  “We have lots of seeds that you can choose from,” she said.  I could tell she had reapplied her lipstick.  “While we have mixes,” she added, “we Master Gardeners,”  (and she shot daggers at me with her eyes) “do not recommend mixes because they have too many non-native species, they combine tall and low plants which insures that flowers on short stems will not be visible, and they almost never offer late summer and fall blooming species.  Yet, some of our loveliest wildflowers bloom in the autumn.  I have ordered various species and planted them in drifts of different heights for my yard,” she said. “It isn’t far from here,” she added.

Sanity returned.  “Well,” I said.  “You’re apparently in good hands.  This lady is obviously also a Master Gardener and probably knows much more than I do.”

I thrust the plants I held into the surprised woman’s arms andI scurried away, eager to return to the safety of my own garden. 

I pulled the door to my Tahoe shut and rested my head on the steering wheel.  I am never going out of the house again I vowed.  Kevin always told me I would get in trouble talking to strangers. I should have gotten my scrapbooking supplies and gone straight home! I turned the key in the ignition and turned to look over my left shoulder before I pulled out. 

I shrieked.  There he was.  Almost eyeball to eyeball.  I was about to live out my youngest daughter’s  favorite horror movie.  He was a male Glen Close.

He stepped back and held up his hands.  “I’m not about to hurt you,” he chuckled.  “I have the advantage on you, I am afraid.  I was the anesthesiologist for your colonoscopy.  As soon as you started with the Latin names of all of those flowers, I recognized your voice.  You are the only patient I have ever had that recited the Latin name of flowers in her sleep.”

My face must have shown my continued apprehension.  Then mortification set in.  I could not blame hot flashes for the flush of humiliation that enflamed my face. 

“Please,” he said, coaxingly.  “I simply must have you tell me whether monarch butterflies are attracted to any of these plants.”  That gravelly voice could melt a girl’s bones.

 “Milkweed,” I sighed.  What a wonderfully sensitive man to show his concern about the declining numbers of butterflies!  No wonder he’d stayed married to that lucky woman so long.  I was sure he would pass the fruit department test!  “Planting butterfly weeds would help ensure the continued survival of these wonderful Lepidopterans. “

“I understand monarchs are having a hard time in the winter havens.  They fly back to the U.S. from Mexico, and find the milkweeds, the food of their caterpillars, mowed out of existence on our roadsides,” he said.  I sighed again.  There was just something about a man who loved insects. 

“Coneflowers also attract butterflies,” I said, lost again in his Mel Gibson eyes.

“Could I interest you in lunch?” he asked.  “The hot dogs here are really pretty good.  And I must pay for all of those plants we selected.”

I nodded.  He opened the car door and I climbed out.  The poor man still needed to know about soil preparation and weed control.  He passed the garden test. 

“By the way,” he said, “I made sure the doctor got those double prints you requested for your scrapbook.  Your sticky note reminder in that unique spot made it …and you, hard to forget.”

Ever literally feel your heart stop?  My feet felt glued to the asphalt.   How should one react to that ?

Oh well, I philosophized.  I’d assessed his assets, perhaps I should feel encouraged that I hadn’t totally failed that test myself.  There was nowhere to go with this relationship, but up from here. 

Bibliography

Mary 1. Burks, Project Director, Alabama Wildflower Watch

3733 Dunbarton Drive, Birmingham, Alabama 35223, http://www.auburn.edu/awac/watch1.htm

 

Copyright 1996  These are my own working genealogy files that I share with you.  The errors are my own.  But, perhaps they will give you a starting point.  All original writing is copyrighted.  Webmaster