On Saturday morning, Nina had put away the wedding photographs. She offered Mary coffee, then seemed to remember that this wasn't an ordinary customer appointment.
“You don't have to buy anything,” she said.
“I know.”
Mary stayed standing by the counter. She had rehearsed several questions on the way there. Now that she could ask them, she wanted a simple account before she decided what it meant.
“Tell me what you heard.”
“It was the Tuesday before you met. I was delivering flowers to the hall. Adam was collecting some materials, and June mentioned you'd come back.”
“She mentioned me how?”
“She said the woman who'd made the market map was back and would be helping on Saturday. The poster was there. Your name's on it.”
Mary knew that. She had never thought about her own small name on a poster as something another person might stop to read.
“And?”
“He said, ‘Could you put me with Mary on Saturday? She did the market map. I'd like to work with her.’”
It sounded possible. It even sounded rather nice. Mary had liked that he understood what the map was for, and the pleasure of that hadn't disappeared.
“That's what he asked?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing else?”
Nina glanced down at the counter. “‘Her opinion might count for something.’ He said that too.”
Mary waited for a further sentence that would make this either harmless or dreadful. There wasn't one.
“What did he mean?”
“I don't know. That's what I heard.”
“You and he had just split up.”
“Yes.”
Mary could hear the edge in her own voice. She had begun to ask the question as though the breakup made Nina responsible for how Mary felt now.
“I'm sorry. I mean, could he have been talking about work?”
“He could.” Nina moved a loose leaf from the counter. “That doesn't change what happened between us.”
“No. It doesn't.”
There were no customers yet. The workroom door was open, showing two unfinished arrangements and a bucket of stems. Nina had work to do. Mary couldn't keep her here until the story offered a verdict she liked.
“I'll ask June,” she said.
“Please do.”
At the door, Mary stopped. “I'd still like the flower pictures, if that's all right. I haven't chosen anything.”
Nina took two from the drawer and gave them to her, then returned to the arrangements. Mary put them in her bag beside the card.
June was at the hall getting chairs ready for an afternoon class. Mary carried two while she explained why she'd come.
“That's what he asked,” June said when Mary repeated Nina's account. “The opinion thing too.”
“You didn't tell me.”
June lowered a chair to the floor. “I thought he might be interested. I wasn't assigning you a boyfriend, Mary. You could have told him where to put the paint and gone home.”
Mary took another chair from the stack. She had wanted the meeting to be an accident. She wasn't sure why. Perhaps because an accident couldn't be something she had misunderstood at the time.
“I took it as him wanting somebody to like his work, after Nina,” June said.
“Do you know that's what he meant?”
“No. It's what I thought.”
Mary stayed until the chairs were set out, then went to see Adam. She had told him she would come after the florist. He let her in and asked whether she wanted anything. She said she'd like to talk first.
“You asked June to put us together.”
“Yes.”
He didn't look surprised.
“Why didn't you say?”
“It didn't seem important once we'd met.”
“It was important to me this morning.”
He sat down on the edge of the sofa. “All right. I'm sorry.”
She stayed in the chair opposite him.
“Why me?”
“I liked your work. The map was clear. I'd seen the poster, and June said you were coming in. I wanted to work with you.”
It was the explanation she'd heard from Nina and June. She remembered his pleasure in the map, the two of them arguing about letters, her arrow too wide and his correction right.
“And why would my opinion count for something?”
He looked at her, then down at his hands.
“You know what you're looking at. I wanted you to think I was good at what I did.”
“Were you trying to meet someone? After Nina?”
“I liked meeting you.”
“That's not quite what I asked.”
“I wasn't expecting you to ask me out. But when you did, I wanted to say yes.”
She believed that. He had wanted to say yes. She could remember his face, and her own nerves getting her number into his phone.
It wasn't all she had asked. She let herself notice that instead of turning the answer into something complete.
“I don't like finding out things about us from other people.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“I should have told you I'd asked.”
Mary glanced at her ring. The clear stone caught the light from the window, exactly as it had when he opened the box.
Someone could ask to work with a designer because they admired her work. They could hope she'd think well of them. It didn't make every hour that followed false. She had been the one who chose the pottery place. He hadn't known what she would make or when she'd laugh. He'd given up an evening he wanted for her rehearsal, and she had seen him lose patience and stay anyway.
She also hadn't known he'd asked June to arrange the morning. Now she did.
“I'm keeping Nina's number,” she said.
He nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“I haven't decided about the flowers.”
“You don't have to decide now.”
For a while neither of them spoke. Mary wanted him to come closer, but she didn't want him to guess that everything was settled because she wanted it.
“Can I sit beside you?” he asked.
She moved her bag off the chair next to hers. He came over and sat, leaving a little space. She rested her hands in her lap.
“I do want to marry you,” she said.
“I want that too.”
She turned towards him. “I still need to ask things.”
“Then ask.”
She didn't have a new question ready. She had two flower photographs, a piece of their beginning she hadn't understood, and a man beside her she still wanted.
When he offered his hand, she took it.