Flowers

“Is she pretty?” asked Rod Stewart. I’d just delivered a spray of dendrobium orchids to him from a fan across the room. We were in Wall Street, a Hollywood night spot I frequented to sell flowers.

I shrugged. Beauty is subjective. He asked me to fetch her, so I walked back to the other side of the thumping club and found the buyer. She was watching me, and smiled when I approached. “He wants to meet you,” I said, shifting the flower basket to my shoulder. She followed me back to his table. He didn’t get up, and I didn’t stick around. I thought of warning her, but she was an adult, and it was none of my business.

My business, in the late ’80s — besides acting, dancing, and writing — was hawking blossoms. I had a regular route, stopping at restaurants and clubs in Beverly Hills, downtown L.A., and Hollywood. Thursday through Sunday I graciously offered roses, posies, orchids, and gardenias from a wicker basket at my hip. Occasionally I sold the entire thing — $500 cash — in one fell swoop. Then I could either restock at the florist shop in West Hollywood, or go home early.

The job suited me. I like night-time. I like dipping in and out of places. One evening I shyly delivered a perfect red rose to the famously fast tap-dancer Ann Miller. Another night John Cusack ogled me. An accident put my hatchback out of commission for a bit, so I made the rounds on the back of my neighbor’s screamingly fast Ninja motorcycle, basket tucked between our bodies, holding onto my Eliza Doolittle hat.

At the end of the shift, I usually went to a club that played my music: Oingo Boingo, Boomtown Rats, Devo, B-52s, Plasmatics, The Clash. After looping the dance floor to sell the last of the blooms, I checked the basket in the coat room, and boogied ’til two – closing time. Then I drove back to Venice, hung my smoky clothes outside the bathroom window, and took a long shower. 

I burned out eventually. Someone grabbed my crotch one night, but it was too dark and crowded to catch the culprit. And chatting with drunks and skeezies enervated me. The florists were sorry to see me go – I was their best peddler.

But I wasn’t done with petals, oh no. Not the woman who named her house Rainbow Flower when she was seven. In the ’90s, a college classmate roped me into her brilliant Valentine’s Day scheme. We bought long-stemmed roses and roamed Capitol Hill passing them out to single folk, with a cheery “Happy V-Day!” It was completely satisfying, and I continued the practice. Recently, grocery store clerks and young military men benefited from my anthophilia when I bought a big mixed bouquet and gave it away, stem by stem.

Flowers are a language of love. Let’s be fluent.