Page 4 of The Second Chance Bus Stop

Svedala

of the day.

‘A flower is the reproductive structure found in plants. The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction

by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs.’ I say this to the man who’s just walked into my shop, picked up

a dozen of pre-banded pink roses and shared that he’s off to a date this evening. For good measure, I add, ‘Good choice. Hopefully

they will help facilitate the union of sperm and eggs.’

He looks around me as if trying to make sure no customer is next to us. The doorbell hasn’t rung, so I know we’re alone. He

doesn’t look reassured which means I may have misread the interaction. Perhaps he was hoping for someone to walk in. Perhaps

he was hoping for a crowd to appear so he isn’t alone with just me .

‘I know there are people more comfortable with other terminology, but I think it’s degrading to speak of the reproductive

process like that,’ I explain helpfully.

‘Got ya.’

‘There aren’t many customers through the doors at this time of the day. If you look at Google, you will see that our peak

times are 12.30 and 17.30,’ I inform him as he yet again fixates on the door. ‘Card?’ I add as I tap in the price.

‘Contactless.’

‘Like my contacts list,’ I say, but he doesn’t laugh.

He taps his card, holds it mid-air as we both stare the machine down waiting for the rattle of receipt paper to break the

heavy silence.

‘Wonderful,’ I say when the card goes through. ‘Would you like me to wrap these for you? We don’t sell them with plastic wraps

as they’re harmful to the environment, but should you wish I can package them for you in compostable paper.’

I ready the shiny paper and the stickers with our company name on them, Blom’s Blooms. I am not called Blom. That would be

too much of a coincidence. But my uncle’s mother did have the maiden name Blomberg, and so the name was born.

Hearing my therapist’s voice in my head, I remember to put my heels down on the floor as I move across the room. I have a

tendency to walk on my toes, but there really isn’t any need to add to my height. Mum always attempted to make me feel better

once we both realised I wasn’t going to stop growing at sixteen. ‘There are some women who are like Arabian horses and others

that are like large Shire horses. Big-boned is just how we’re built,’ she’d say. It was just that later when I went to search

for these breeds online, it became clear that the Arabians went for a lot more money than the Shires, so what she told me

didn’t actually make me feel better.

‘I don’t need any wrapping, thank you,’ the man says apologetically, just as I’m about to start. ‘I’m in a bit of a rush.’

Once he’s run off, I defeatedly do what I do after every human interaction: go over what I could possibly have done wrong.

I can’t read strangers, and my two options are to trust that every person means well and adores me or to assume the opposite, that they hate me.

I can’t think of anything I could have done wrong this time.

I shared interesting and situation-specific knowledge, I wished him good luck (a polite pleasantry reserved for even remote acquaintances or strangers), I made a joke that has a track record of making customers smile, and I offered to package his purchase beautifully.

I think how my uncle would have laughed at my joke had he lived to know what contactless meant. My uncle left me more than the shop. He was safety and stability, cinnamon rolls and strawberry squash with floating

ice cubes. He always took the time to explain things to me, with words that somehow also managed to cover the answer to the

next question, the one I hadn’t even asked yet. One week in summer and one week at Christmas break I was allowed to take the

train by myself all the way from J o nk o ping and stay with him here, in the house attached to the shop. My brothers never came; they were too busy with hockey training,

Lego assembly and friends. ‘Tell me which flower you are, Sophia,’ my uncle would say. And I’d think carefully, swing my legs

back and forth on the chair and remember all the large, colourful pictures in his Latin dictionary of plants.

‘I think I may be a Tridax procumbens. A grass flower. It’s not so fancy and just smells like grass. It’s small and unnoticeable, but still a flower with its own

melancholy.’ I stumbled on that last word, knowing how to spell it but not quite how to say it. I hadn’t had an opportunity

to try it out yet. I liked the dance it did on the back of my tongue.

He nodded contentedly.

‘Grass flowers are one of nature’s most understated arts. They’re exquisitely designed, Sophia.’

It’s calm in the shop at midday, so I pop over to the next-door café, which happens to make the best coffee in the world.

It also has a food hygiene rating of five, as can be seen on a sticker on the front door. I ask for a hot chocolate, like

always. And a pasta salad.

‘This may be an unpopular opinion, but there’s no nice pasta salad.’ Lina prepares it in a deep bowl, tossing it with dressing.

Lina is clearly a sunflower, a helianthus. She never shrinks back and always smiles at strangers even if they don’t smile in return. She is the closest thing I have

to a colleague, seeing as she works in the building right next to mine. This is also as close to friendship as I get. It’s

not that I don’t want friends but more that, once I have them, I don’t know what to do with them. I don’t necessarily enjoy

going to loud places, and I have no energy left in me once I close the shop and leave for the day. I’ve collected quite a

few friends over the years but find the relationships wilt if they don’t get watered, much like flowers.

‘Didn’t you make this? And aren’t you selling it?’ I protest.

‘I cater to demand. Which includes catering to the demand of a specific returning customer.’

Yes, I have demand for a pasta salad. Its humid temperature, familiarity and non-overbearing flavour makes it the perfect

food.

‘At least it’s not breakfast food. It contains some veggies,’ she says.

‘I only eat breakfast foods when I’m overwhelmed!

’ Which, to be fair, I am a lot of the time.

Cereal and porridge always taste the same, can be prepared in minutes and eaten with a spoon.

It’s my favourite thing about adulthood, being able to eat cereal for dinner.

That and living a thousand kilometres away from my family.

I like my daily chat with Lina and am grateful when it revolves around pasta salad, rather than, you know, why I’m lonely

and why I don’t have evening plans and when was the last time I bought new clothes? None of which I have satisfying answers

to.

‘You added olives,’ I say, nodding appreciatively to the pasta salad.

‘Yes. Speaking of, where have you added yourself lately?’

It looks like we are swiftly moving on from the safe domain of pasta salads.

‘In fact, I’ve just deleted myself from the Ed dates.’ Lina knows that I don’t like kissing—we agreed to disagree on that

subject—but she never tries to persuade me or, like that one guy, force me to watch videos of people’s wedding kisses, to

change me. Like some form of conversion therapy.

‘Human bacteria is transferable. Because we’re the same species. Even a dog wouldn’t be as bad,’ I share.

‘You’re saying you’d rather kiss a dog than a man?’

‘Their bacteria isn’t compatible, and so no bacterial community can build up. It’s definitely preferable in terms of hygiene.’

Info-dumping is my love language.

‘Don’t say that out loud when anyone other than me is around, okay?’ She laughs and puts my salad on the table closest to

the counter, pulling out one of the chairs and sitting down opposite me.

‘Got it.’

‘You can’t stop dating because of bad dates. Same as you can’t stop eating brownies after one bad batch.’

‘It’s not just one bad date,’ I object. ‘It’s the exhausting, bewildering and alien process of making myself appealing to men. I read the Latin floral encyclopaedia for fun, drink milk to unwind and consider my favourite outfit to be my Christmas elf onesie from 2019.’

Lina whimpers out a no .

‘Yes,’ I reply empathetically. ‘On top of that I can’t even make up for it with a hot make-out session because, as discussed,

I don’t like kissing.’

‘Okay. Houston, we may have a problem.’

‘Finally.’ I get up and grab a warm cookie from the tray behind the counter, writing the price of it down on my standing tab

that I pay monthly. Lina would give me anything I want for free, but entrepreneurial women deserve to get paid for their work

even if they’re your best friend.

‘But I do think you’re wrong to believe a boyfriend will magically transform your life. It hasn’t happened to me yet. I think

it’s a myth sold to us when our sole purpose was to marry and take care of a home so that we’d be more willing to do it. But

if you insist on dating, you’re gonna have to warn them in advance. Not just in a sexy sentence at the end of a text but properly.

It’s just like any other ‘thing.’ Will only date vegetarians, will only date man above six foot, will only date men who don’t kiss . Got it?’

Okay. Be open with who I am. Easy, right? Easy, right?!

‘So maybe I don’t really need a man?’ I ask, giving it one more shot before accepting defeat.

‘Need? No, and again, no one else is going to suddenly give your life meaning. But want? That’s a different question altogether.’

‘That’s my point. What exactly would I want one for? I have my own business, a place to live, a pasta salad hookup—and I can,

you know, take care of myself just fine,’ I try to add subtly.

‘I know you’re a big fan of adult toys, but let me tell you, a vibrator is not the same thing as being with someone.’

‘I’ve been told that having a vibrator’s battery die on you during the act is like having sex with a man. It’s a very realistic representation of the experience. And one I don’t particularly enjoy.’