The day continued on with many of the townspeople stopping in to order flower ornaments and corsages for the upcoming flower festival. With so many big vendors coming to the town and all the farmers from the county bringing some of their collections in, Evelyn was grateful for the people coming to her now. She would barely be a blip in the flower sea once the festival started. 

Nearing the end of the day, a teenage girl with tight black ringlet curls to the nape of her neck caught Evelyn’s attention. The girl was looking at the tulips they had available.

“Good afternoon. Can I help you find the perfect flowers?” Evelyn asked.  

The young woman shrugged, “I’m just trying to pick out the best color for the room I rent. Can’t go into a flower festival without some tulips lighting up my otherwise dull room.”

Evelyn knew just the tulip to light up a room. “Come this way,” she led the girl toward the back door and into the greenhouse. “We have really nice tulips that will do just the trick. The yellow and pinkish red flowers make me think of the beautiful sunsets our town has.” 

The young woman admired the many rare varieties of tulips they had flowering on the shelf. Evelyn was quite proud of her tulip selection. 

“Can I buy these as an arrangement in a vase to pick up the day before the flower festival or is there another way you sell these?” the girl queried without looking away from the tulips. 

“We do sell them cut for a vase, but we can also let you rent a pot for the duration of the flower festival, which is a fair amount cheaper for a rare flower color like this one. Renting comes with care directions, and we do charge extra if the plant comes back damaged,” the usual sales words rolled off Evelyn’s tongue.

“I’d like to rent then. I would hate to watch something this beautiful wither away and die,” the girl smiled at the tulips, and Evelyn knew her pretty plants would be in good hands.  

“Let’s go back to the counter and work out your contract,” Evelyn led the girl back out of the green house. “What is your name?”

“Emma,” she responded.

“And do you have anyone living with you or any pets?” Evelyn asked as she pulled out her paper and quill. As much as she hated charging extra for these things, she’d learned with rentals that an ‘extra occupants in the house’ deposit was important. One person’s cat had destroyed one of her plants and the lady had refused to pay for damages because she didn’t damage it. 

“No, I’m alone for the flower festival. It’s part of why I felt like I really needed some flowers in my place for the festival. Need to celebrate with someone,” Emma laughed as if it wasn’t a big deal, but Evelyn felt truly bad for the girl. At least she had all the customers of the shop and John to celebrate the flower festival with. 

Tulips. There’d been a young man probably close to Emma's age who bought some tulip bulbs for his mother’s grave the other month. She wondered if he had anyone he was celebrating with. Maybe he would be in to get himself some tulips for the flower festival and she could carefully craft for Emma to meet him. 

She made sure to remember the time slot Emma had for picking up the tulips. If that boy came by anytime soon, she’d make sure he was there at the same time Emma came back. It couldn’t hurt to have them run into each other. 

A smiling Emma left the shop just as the sun was starting to set. 

John shuffled in through the green house door. “All the plants are sleeping now. Want me to turn the sign around on my way out?”

“Yes please. Thanks for getting everything closed up for the night,” Evelyn replied. The first time he’d called closing up the green house and doing the evening check ‘putting the plants to sleep’ she’d questioned him about it, but his response had just been a vague, ‘the plants know when we close it’s time to sleep’. Now she just took it as his personal idiom for going through the chores of closing up the shop.

He turned the sign as he left. She’d debated giving him a key so he could lock on his way out and unlock in the morning without her needing to open the door for him, but she didn’t quite trust him that much yet. 

She locked the cash box and tucked it under her arm and grabbed the popcorn container as she went and locked the front door. The cash box came upstairs with her to the small space she lived in. People in fantasy worlds had a lot less living space than people in the modern world, but she’d gotten used to it now. 

A simple dinner by candlelight as the sun was completely gone now, and then she sat down to calculate out the money for the day and check the finances. The shop was actually running a highly positive balance right now, but that was probably because of the upcoming flower festival.

She ate the last couple kernels of popcorn prepped for bed, and wished she had her web comics and novels to read as she fell asleep, but at least she had people she could ship together in this world. 

The morning light woke her, and she started her normal routine. Pop fresh popcorn to be prepared for any ships setting sail, cook some eggs, and then make her way down to the store to open up and let John in. 

This particular morning a customer was standing next to John. In fact, she remembered that short dark blond hair very well. It was the young man she’s just thought about shipping with Emma last night!

“Welcome! We don’t normally have customers right as the shop opens,” she smiled widely as she stepped aside and let the two men enter.

“I have a busy day today, and since you open first I decided to come here first,” the young man sounded quite tired. 

Oh her day couldn’t be better! It was shipping time!