3/31/2010

Theme Thursday - Yellow

This my entry for this week's Theme Thursday on "yellow."



The Perfect Yellow Rose

The doorbell rang, and she went to open it. It was her birthday, so she wasn’t surprised to see the Roadway Express man standing on the stoop holding a package. She signed for it, and laid it on the hall table. She’d open it later. She was in no mood now. It had only been a few weeks since Mike’s memorial service, and it was hard to be enthusiastic about anything, even a birthday gift.

She and Mike had been inseparable, until Uncle Sam managed to separate them by sending him to Vietnam. Their mothers were college roommates, and had ended up living next door to each other. She and Mike had been friends their whole lives, almost since they were born, two months apart. They’d shared a playpen, a skate key, afternoons watching Howdy Doody, and the chicken pox . They’d ridden their bikes together, played hide and seek in the dusk, wrestled, and occasionally given each other a black eye. They’d seen each other though swimming lessons and driving lessons, boyfriends and girlfriends, all the angst and joys of growing up. He was her best friend.

On every birthday since they were about six years old, Mike had given her a goofy gift, the sillier and more bizarre, the better!  Among other oddities, he'd given her a bullfrog, a Ch-Ch-Chia Pet and, her favorite, an alligator skull. This year’s birthday was a big one--she was turning 21--so the thought of commemorating it without some sort of gag gift from Mike was breaking her heart all over again.

That night, as she was leaving to meet her parents for a birthday dinner, she noticed the box sitting on the table by the door, and decided to open it. Inside the outer packaging, she found another long thin box. She unwrapped it and opened the tissue paper inside. Inside was a beautiful yellow rose, kept fresh by a little vial of water pressed onto its stem. She poked around in the tissue paper, but she couldn’t find a card.

She was running late, so she decided she’d look again later, and left to go to the restaurant.

“Here’s to the birthday girl!” Dad said, raising his wine glass. “We love you, Baby.”

And then she remembered. On her sixteenth birthday, an eager would-be boyfriend had overwhelmed her with two dozen red roses. When Mike had teased her about it unmercifully, she’d said to him, “That’s just so pretentious. I don’t even like red roses, and really? Two dozen? If a guy really loved me, he’d give me one perfect yellow rose.”

21 comments:

  1. ah, wonderful...left a big smile on my face this morning...love tends to do that...smiles.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A lovely, touching story. Enjoyed it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ditto the aw. very touching, pretty story.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My heart just melted; I'm cleaning it up off the floor, as we speak.

    That, Ms. Patti, is the best sort of flower anyone could ever send.

    Remind me to tell you, sometime, the story of our rose...

    ReplyDelete
  5. How touching! I loved this so much. I wanted it to be from Mike all the way through...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Very nice...roses transcend time and space. Yellow roses are my favorite. They were the first flowers my husband gave to me. Nic yellow memories : )

    ReplyDelete
  7. Brian: I’m happy to have put a smile on your face. That puts a smile on mine too.

    Lou: Hmmm… I wondering what you are remembering…

    Anthony, Ziva & Tom: Thank you!

    Ti: Can’t wait to hear your rose story!

    Kathy: Thank you. I’m glad you were rooting for Mike.

    LadyCat: Yellow roses are my favorites too. They seem so much more – what?—subtle and elegant than red roses.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh, what a nice surprise to come across a lovely story for the theme. Thank you <3

    ReplyDelete
  9. Your post reminded me of the song made famous by Mitch Miller, The Yellow Rose of Texas, and of course that legend of the "yellow rose.". A nice post for yellow theme. Nice story.

    ReplyDelete
  10. It's been ten minutes since reading your story and the tears are still rolling down my cheeks.

    This story while very different is also very much the same as a real life episode in my life that had been long stored away to be reopened by your lovely tale.

    Just what you expect from a good story.

    Thanks for the visit to my yellow as well.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Very very nicely done. Quite enjoyable.

    ReplyDelete
  12. beautiful!

    here is my yellow theme Thursday post

    http://jingleyanqiu.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/lets-double-thursday-fun/

    Happy Day!
    xx

    ReplyDelete
  13. What a good entry and that yellow rose is my favorite. HAPPY EASTER and enjoy. Nancy

    ReplyDelete
  14. a very touching story.The yellow rose looks beautiful. Happy Easter
    Thank you for visiting ariel.

    ReplyDelete
  15. That left me smiling more than anything. I've said those very words more than once! My sister is names after a rose and my parents obviously had one of those roses in the garden. Me, however, well I don't share a name with any rose, so my mother pointed out the big yellow rose in the garden and said to me that that was my rose. I was too young to tell all the red roses apart, but I could always find the yellow one :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. Yellow roses make me melt. Loved your story!!

    ReplyDelete
  17. sweet-yellow is about trust and being true--so yes, perfect ending to a wonderful story-great post! c

    ReplyDelete

Thoughts? I would love to hear from you.