Page 9 of The Second Chance Bus Stop

Svedala

‘Lina, this is madness. You deserve so much better. The best .’

I sit at the breakfast bar with a glass of hot cocoa repeating things a girlfriend should repeat to someone who’s been recently

dumped, as she sips a wine I bought her. I tend to not like alcohol because it makes my cheeks flush and my head spin and

I sometimes say things I don’t mean. I always tell the man in the wine shop that I’m having a dinner party and am cooking

a fish or a lamb shank and would he recommend something, please, as I don’t drink very often. It sounds more sophisticated

than saying I need something that my best friend can slurp up whilst discussing her latest break-up. It turns out Mr. Must

Have Nutella in the House at All Times has bombarded her with a string of text messages sharing his unsolicited advice on

how she could be a better girlfriend, not so he can be with her but, you know, so she may keep a boyfriend in the future.

How generous of him. So far his suggestions include not taking guys to her apartment as it’s too nice and a lot of men may feel intimidated by her clear and apparent success. He also suggested she make more of an effort

to cook dinner for her boyfriend. You know, just a suggestion.

‘He just wasn’t ready for a grown-ass woman who does what she likes in her home. Think of him, he said? I have better things to do than memorise every taste and need he has and to restock the cupboards every other day before he comes over. I’m not his mother.’

I refill her glass, which was empty surprisingly fast.

‘I take it that since it’s now been twenty minutes of talking about this, you want to change the subject,’ I say.

‘Yup. No more than twenty minutes to be spent on him.’

‘Great. Can I show you my revenue spreadsheet?’ I ask.

‘Wow, that’s a cracker of an invitation on a Friday night, girl.’

‘Is that a yes?’

‘Of course. Anything you ask is a yes from me.’

I’m not quite sure how I got this lucky. I had friends before. I realised early that to make them, you just do a little bit

of what everyone else wants and become this mosaic of a person that everyone can tolerate. I said this to Lina once, and she

said maybe we need to tear all those mosaic tiles down and go pick a style that I, Sophia, actually like.

I enter my password and hand her my laptop.

She studies it, taking a sip of wine every time she scrolls down.

‘Excel drinking game. Shame for my kidneys you have so many rows.’

‘Hang on. You told me you said no to a commission for the Sweden markets,’ she says.

I had told Lina about the offer and why I decided to pass on it. The markets are lively, old-fashioned events with fun fair

rides, fresh doughnuts and gyros. I was dragged to them enough as a child as they were my family’s idea of a fun day out.

I found them stressful, loud, oddly smelly, and somehow I always wound up with sunburnt shoulders.

‘Too stressful for me.’

‘Maybe they’re stressful, but you’re forgetting what you’d gain. Money, Sophia. Looking at these—’ she nods at the screen

‘—I think you need to call up your uncle’s friend and say you’ve changed your mind.’

‘How would I even do the job, though? The farthest market is in J o nk o ping. That’s close to a three-hour drive. How would I transport all the flowers there? I’d need a car, probably a van, and

I would need help. I’m not sure I could do it all.’

‘Often I find a solution will present itself. But only if you’re open to it.’ She drains her glass and closes the document.

‘Thank goodness there wasn’t a second page as that would have meant a second bottle, and I have to open up at seven tomorrow.

But seriously, you keep saying you need the shop to make money. Or, rather, more money if you want to buy your brothers out

and keep Blom’s Blooms.’

‘I thought about expanding to sell vegetables. Broccoli is a flower, and I’d love to stock them. They are useful, strong and

green, a very peaceful colour. I think they’d do well in the store. ‘You and your wife just had a huge fight? Here, have a

side of broccoli with your flowers. Bring home dinner and an apology all at once.’

‘I somehow don’t think people will want to come to a flower shop and walk out with broccoli.’

‘Or I could try offering faster delivery? An Uber Eats–type thing but with flowers?’

‘You want to tell me you’d bike across Skane delivering flowers in one-hour slots? Since you don’t have a delivery van currently,

remember, or anyone else on staff to help with that.’

‘Okay. Maybe that isn’t the winning idea.’

‘I tell you the winning idea. You have an offer that will fill a second excel page. Take the job, sort out the logistics later. Don’t your parents live near to those last few locations?

Maybe they could help, or even if you stayed with them, saved a little on lodging?

This could be a huge moneymaker for the store, maybe an actual opportunity for you to keep it. ’

My parents. I shudder. Not at the thought of them exactly, but rather at the thought of their house and everything in it. Expensive ornaments

and carpets. Surfaces wiped with antibacterial spray and constant ‘take your shoes’ off reminders. Then there’s the questions about life choices and stories about my childhood friends who have been promoted or

had babies or, shock and horror, both . My parents are tulips— Tulipas . They’re formal and elegant, even though their outline is simple. They’re very uptight.

But Lina has a point. I need to do something. My uncle would expect me to do something. That’s why he left me shop, right? He thought I could do these things.

‘Okay, fine. I will email him tomorrow and see if the contract is still on offer.’

‘Good. Just keep an open mind, okay? I bet there’s a way to make this work.’ She closes my laptop. ‘And this wine was excellent.

Let’s tell the wine shop you’re cooking the same fish again next week.’