Catherine walked to the back of the shop. She washed her hands, took off her smock, and hung it on a hook. She took her purse in her hand, and without a word she walked past Mrs. Vanderveld and the two oily men to the front of the shop.

"Catherine!" Mrs. Vanderveld said sharply. "Where are you going?"

"To find another job," Catherine said. "I quit."

She walked through the curtain one last time, out the door with the tinkling bell, and onto the street, which was brilliant with early fall sunlight.

Catherine walked. Stopping only to buy a hot dog and soda from a street stand, she walked for hours around the Upper East Side. There were other flower shops dotted throughout the neighborhood. She knew some of the florists. Maybe one of them would want a partner. Or she could find a vacant storefront in the area and start completely new. In many ways it would be easier than trying to rehabilitate the Vandervelds' aging shop. She stopped to write down phone numbers when she saw "For Rent" signs.

When she entered Leslie's apartment that evening, with blisters on her feet and a bag of groceries in her arms, the phone was ringing. As she put away the milk, the apples, the wedge of cheese, she listened to Mrs. Vanderveld's newest proposal: They would sell the shop to Catherine if she would agree not to change the name from Vanderveld Flowers and to keep Mr. Vanderveld on as head florist.

Catherine said, "No. I want my shop to be my own. I will change the name."

"If you change the name, it's as if you erase our lives!"

"I'm sorry."

Mrs. Vanderveld was crying into the telephone. "We loved you, we helped you, we taught you, you were like a daughter to us, and now you want to change everything, to take everything from us."

"No," Catherine said. "I want to buy everything from you."

"Jan will die," Mrs. Vanderveld sobbed.

"No, he won't," Catherine said. Her bright crystal heart glittered inside her, throwing off inspiration. "He'll be happy. You'll both be well off and free from financial worries. I'll name him as head floral designer on all our ads."

"I don't know, I don't know," Mrs. Vanderveld cried.

On October 21, 1964, Catherine Eliot sat in Mr. Giles's office with Mr. and Mrs. Vanderveld and their lawyer. They signed the papers, and the flower shop became hers.

On October 22 the carpenters arrived.

By then, Catherine had already been at work.

Her first act as the new owner was to return to the shop that evening after dark. With her own hands she pulled down the hideous dusty curtain that had hung between the front and back of the shop. The material was so old, it shredded in her hands.

"Ha!" she laughed when the curtain was down.

Then she walked up and down the length of the shop, rethinking all her plans. Had she calculated every inch of s.p.a.ce correctly? Was this right? And this? In her mind the new shop took shape. The city grew dark around her while she remained in her cube of light, walking up and down, planning. She didn't go home that night, but toward morning she turned off the lights and lay down on a work table at the back of the store. She slept a few hours until Piet, coming in the back door with the day's flowers from the wholesale market, woke her.

"Good morning, boss lady," he said, bending over her.

He was close enough to kiss. Catherine felt the strangest impulse to do just that but held back, feeling rumpled and sour-mouthed and off-guard, caught asleep on the table. She sat up and pulled her skirt back down over her knees.

"Piet," she said cautiously, "would you go down to Nini's and buy me a cup of coffee? Buy yourself one, too."

"Sure thing, boss lady," Piet said.

For the first morning in three years, Catherine didn't make the coffee on the little hot plate at the back of the store. She wondered when she'd get the courage to tell someone else to make it.

She told the Vandervelds to take two weeks' vacation. They argued: it wouldn't be right, they didn't want to desert her on her first few days as owner. Catherine insisted. The Vandervelds hadn't had a vacation together for years. They needed it. They deserved it.

Besides, not much work could be done during the renovations.

"Renovations!" Mrs. Vanderveld gasped. She placed her hand over her startled heart. She stared at Catherine as if Catherine had turned into a monster.

"Renovations!" Mr. Vanderveld roared. "How long do you plan for these 'renovations' to take?"

"Two weeks," Catherine said.

"Ha!" Mr. Vanderveld replied triumphantly. "Two weeks, it will be at least a month. You'll see. It always takes longer. You'll be into Thanksgiving and we won't be able to fill our Thanksgiving orders, all those centerpieces, one of the busiest times of the year. You've made a terrible mistake, young lady!"

When the Vandervelds returned in early November, they were stunned.

"Oh, G.o.d, what have you done!" Mrs. Vanderveld cried when she entered the shop. She burst into tears.

Before, on entering Vanderveld Flowers, one had immediately encountered the high scarred wooden counter with beady-eyed Mrs. Vanderveld perched on a stool behind it. The walls and floor had been dark with old paint, old dirt. The "reception" area had been cramped.

Now one entered a long bright s.p.a.ce with tiered display brackets on the walls, freshly painted in milky white. Tiered tables for potted plants were set around the room. The old wooden floor had been covered with a washable vinyl in a marbleized pattern of greenish white with pale green veins.

In front of one of the refrigerators, in the middle of the room, was Catherine's grandfather's magnificent desk, which Kathryn had sent from Everly. The burled mahogany and shining bra.s.s drawer handles gleamed. Also from Everly had come the two Queen Anne chairs, upholstered in pink-and-white-striped silk, which sat on each side of the desk, one for Mrs. Vanderveld, one for the customer.

The gla.s.s-doored refrigerator that had been at the back of the shop in the work area had been brought forward to the middle of the room. The other wide refrigerator was moved back so that both refrigerators acted as dividers between front and back as well as displays. Between the two refrigerators there was no door. No hanging curtain. Only open s.p.a.ce.

"People will be able to look back here and see me working!" Mr. Vanderveld exclaimed.

"Yes, absolutely. That's the point. You're an artist. It will intrigue them."

"Humph," he replied, slightly conciliated by this new vision of himself. "Well, look, now I will have to walk all the way to the front to get flowers from the cooler."

"Before, you had to walk to the back. It's the same number of steps. Just a different direction. This way the flowers are all on display. People can see what we have, and they might want to buy what they see."

"You've spent a lot of money," Mrs. Vanderveld said wistfully.

"Yes, and I'm not done yet, but I think it will pay off," Catherine replied.

With Piet and the Vandervelds managing the regular business, Catherine continued at her frantic pace to get ready for the opening of her new shop. She rose every day at five-thirty to get down to the flower district to consult with container wholesalers, flower wholesalers, ribbon and cardboard box suppliers. She spent a few hours helping clean and arrange the flowers. At night she went to her bookkeeping cla.s.s. After cla.s.s she sat in her apartment, copying selected names and addresses from her Miss Brill's alumnae book, from her mother's address books, which she'd secretly borrowed from her parents' apartment, from the directories of yacht clubs and garden clubs and charitable organizations to which her parents and her grandmother belonged.

In early December the sign painter arrived to paint in gold, high on the plate-gla.s.s window, the name of Catherine's store: BLOOMS.

" 'Blooms'!" Mr. Vanderveld said. "What kind of foolish name is that!"

Blooms' colors were foam white with a hint of green, like the underside of certain leaves in a storm, and gold. The new cardboard boxes were white, the ribbon gold, the stationery, billing materials, and gift cards all read in discreet gold letters: BLOOMS.

Catherine told Mrs. Vanderveld she should answer the telephone by saying, "Blooms." Mrs. Vanderveld walked off, muttering in a low voice.

Catherine set wicker baskets of everlasting arrangements, buckets of fresh flowers, and porcelain or terra-cotta containers of houseplants and trailing ivy on the tiered tables and wall display shelves. Now people who entered stopped several times before they got to the counter, and inevitably they were delighted by something that had caught their eye and that they realized they had to have.

But Catherine was not counting much on walk-in trade. She had spent the money renovating the front of the shop because she wanted it to look elegant. All her training at school and her parents' homes had taught her that it was elegance people paid money for.

In early December a truck pulled up in the alley and two men delivered the five hundred custom-made containers Catherine had ordered.

"What's happening!" the Vandervelds exclaimed in horror. "What's all this?"

"Wait a minute," Catherine said, too excited now to be calm herself. "Let me show you."

She raced down the stairs and tore open the boxes. She took out one of the containers, which she had designed herself and had specially made. It was a small, open treasure chest, made of copper-alloyed tin that looked gold. She grabbed up a handful of sphagnum moss and molded it into a rectangle, then stuffed it inside the treasure chest. She filled the container with water. She anch.o.r.ed a large, luminous, amethyst orchid in the moss. She opened the small box of cards she'd had printed up. The cards all read, in gold letters on pale white: For the pleasure of treasures, Order flowers from Blooms.

Catherine Eliot, Owner Jan Vanderveld, Floral Designer Telephone 5555343 73rd Street at Park She raced back upstairs to show the Vandervelds.

"Humph," Mr. Vanderveld said.

"What will you do with this?" Mrs. Vanderveld asked.

"Announce the opening of my shop," Catherine said. "I'm sending out five hundred of these to people I know who can afford flowers and who don't know this shop exists."

"You're mad! That will cost you a fortune!" Mr. Vanderveld said. "The orchids alone-"

"I know. It's expensive. But to make a lot of money, you have to spend a lot of money."

"Where did you hear that?" Mrs. Vanderveld said. "Some ivory-towered philosophical economics course, I suppose."

"Actually, I thought of it myself," Catherine said. "But I'm sure someone said it before I did. Now, let's get to work."

She had asked Piet if he could find some inexpensive temporary help, with the understanding that they were on trial and that if things went well, they would be hired full-time. Later that day Piet showed up with two men named Jesus and Manuel, who worked along happily in the bas.e.m.e.nt, singing songs in Spanish while shaping the moss into bricks, which they put into the containers.

Mrs. Vanderveld addressed the envelopes while Catherine wrote personal messages on the backs of all the cards: "Dear Robin [or Anne or Melonie and every other girl she had known at Miss Brill's], When you get married, let me do your flowers! Love, Catherine."

"Dear Mrs. Evans, I know Grandmother would want you to know that I've carried on her love of flowers. Respectfully, Catherine Eliot."

"Dear Mr. and Mrs. Collier, I hope I'll see you and George at Everly this Christmas. Sh.e.l.ly loves school. I love my shop! Come visit me. Affectionately, Catherine."

"Dear Mrs. Stone, When Debbie has her coming-out party this spring, I'd love to be of some help. Best wishes, Catherine Eliot (Miss Brill's '61, with your daughter Mary)."

"Dear Mr. and Mrs. Jones [or Hyde-White, or Slate, and so on for two hundred names], I know Mother and Father would want you to know I've started my own business. Best, Catherine Eliot."

"Dear Mother and Father, See? I've started my own business. Maybe I'm not a total loss after all. See you at Everly at Christmas? Love, Catherine."

Finally all the cards were handwritten and all the envelopes addressed.

Piet had to make two trips to the wholesalers to pick up the orchids Catherine had special-ordered. With the help of Jesus and Manuel, they slipped an orchid into the moss and a white card into five hundred treasure chests. Catherine had spent hours the night before making a chart of addresses and blocks so the deliveries would be organized to take the least amount of time. Almost all the addresses were on the Upper East Side.

Mr. Vanderveld grumbled about all the fuss as he continued to make his standard Christmas wreaths and decorations.

"What a waste of money," he said to himself sotto voce, but loud enough so that Catherine could hear.

The next morning the phone began to ring.

"Catherine! How did you know? I am getting married! In January! To Linden Douglas! I'd love to have you do my flowers!"

"Robin, I'm thrilled for you. He's a dream. Congratulations! Let me come see you on the twenty-sixth, when all the Christmas fuss has died down."

"Catherine? This is Mrs. Evans, dear. I love the little treasure chest. I'm giving a formal dinner party for eighteen on New Year's Day. Do you think you could help me come up with something original? Refreshing? I do get tired of the same old thing, don't you?"

"I know just what you mean, and I'd love to try, Mrs. Evans. Perhaps I could stop by on the twenty-seventh to see your dining room colors and the table service you plan to use, and so on. Then I'd have a better idea of what would coordinate with your decor."

"What a lovely idea, dear. I'll see you then. I hope you'll stay for tea."

The phone kept ringing. No sooner did Catherine put it down than it rang again. By noon she was getting complaints from people that they were having trouble getting through. After she finished a call, Catherine kept the receiver off for a moment so the phone wouldn't ring.

"Mrs. Vanderveld," she said, "would you please run down to the coffee shop and phone the telephone company? Tell them we need another line put in right away."

"Oh, no, my dear, that's not necessary!" Mrs. Vanderveld said. "I'm sure all this will die down. You don't want to go to the expense of another line just because of one day's excitement."

"Mrs. Vanderveld-"

"Really, Catherine, you mustn't-"

"Henny. Do what I asked, now, please!"

It was a toss-up as to who was more startled at her sharp words, Mrs. Vanderveld or Catherine. But Catherine put the receiver back on the hook, and the phone rang again, and Catherine began to write down another order. Henny Vanderveld, head high, sniffing, gathered up her purse and went off to do as she was told.

Catherine didn't go to Everly that Christmas. She intended to, to make more contacts. But she was so exhausted that she spent the day in bed, sleeping. Christmas night she sat looking out the window of the apartment just as she had only a few weeks before. Tonight she was sitting in her robe, drinking champagne and eating stuffed olives straight out of the jar with a fork. She had opened the window in spite of the cold to hear the street sounds of people calling out, "Merry Christmas," and singing carols as they hurried through the dark to dressy parties. Occasionally a new idea popped into her head, and she wrote it down on one of her notepads. She was glad she wasn't stuffed into a proper dress, sitting at a proper dinner, eating turkey. She decided this was the happiest Christmas she had ever had in her life.

Catherine sat in the shining expanse of the Terrys' living room sipping tea with Robin Terry and her mother. Catherine was wearing a killingly expensive, terribly plain black wool dress, which she had stolen from her mother's back closet, and her pearls. She didn't think Mrs. Terry would remember her from Miss Brill's-there had been so many girls there-and Catherine had a black mark against her for not attending any college. But Mrs. Terry took one look at Catherine's dress and was rea.s.sured. Catherine was one of them.

"... so good of you to come to us," Mrs. Terry was saying. "We're in such a rush, with the wedding happening so soon."

"Oh, it's just not fair!" Robin wailed. "I've dreamed all my life of having a spring wedding out at our place in Southampton. We have a rose trellis there. I wanted to wear a summer gown and take my vows under the rose trellis. Apple blossoms in bloom, you know, a romantic wedding. January is such a boring, ugly time to get married!"

"Well, why don't you wait?" Catherine asked. "April's only a few more months away."

Mrs. Terry cleared her throat.

"Oh, Mother, really, everyone is doing it these days!" Robin said. She shot Catherine a look of exasperation.

Mrs. Terry rose. "I'll just tell Cook we'd like some biscuits with our tea," she said, and click-clacked out the room on her high heels.