Free Love in Bloom by Arlene James Page A

shop together. Oh, all the elements were there. The fixtures were all in place. The fresh flowers had been delivered. The painting had been finished and the shelves were stocked, but the place seemed a jumble. Lily couldn’t put her finger on what was wrong, so she simply asked God to show her what was missing.
    After saying that prayer, she decided to spend the majority of Saturday afternoon finishing the arrangements and delivering them to the various stores. Everyone seemed quite pleased, and she tried to take heart from that. Feeling that she had done all that she could, Lily spent the evening painting her furniture and puttering around the apartment. She went to bed that evening pleasantly exhausted—and woke the following morning deeply depressed.
    She missed her friends. She missed her church. She missed her old apartment, dinky and expensive as it had been. She missed her car, as pathetic as that seemed. Everything just felt all wrong, and this being Sunday, she didn’t even have the distraction of work to occupy her mind. Worry moved in and took up residence.
    What if she couldn’t make the shop a success? Bygones was banking on her and the others to make their businesses work. Suddenly it felt as if the town expected too much, needed too much. Lily knew, of course, that such defeatist thoughts were not of God and that she should get her mind off them.
    An image of the church by which Tate had driven her on Thursday came to her, and Lily briefly considered walking there. It couldn’t be more than six or seven blocks, but she hadn’t noted the service times so didn’t know when to arrive. Besides, she’d never been bold enough to walk into any place uninvited and unannounced all alone.
    Well, she would just have to have church by herself. So determined, she made herself presentable, fetched her Bible from her bedroom, perched on the chaise, which was quickly becoming her preferred piece of furniture and began to read aloud from the eighth Psalm.
    “‘O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.’”
    A tapping came at her door, and she looked up from the Bible as if expecting a guest to materialize in the center of the room. But of course she had locked her door the night before. It was easier to take the girl out of Boston than to take Boston out of the girl, after all. Keeping her finger inside the Bible to hold her place, she quickly rose and moved into the tiny entry to let in her guest.
    Miss Ann Mars hopped into the room like a bent, white-haired sparrow, wearing hat and gloves. “Hurry now,” she admonished gently, smiling at the Bible in Lily’s hands. “We’ll be late for church.”
    “Oh! How did you know? Th-that I’d want to go, I mean.”
    Miss Mars smiled and took the Bible from her hands. “An old lady learns to notice things, like how a certain someone always prays over her meals. Quickly now.”
    Laughing, Lily ran to pull on her best dress, a soft navy blue floral print with a hem that frothed inches above her ankles. She tossed a long slender lavender scarf about her neck. As she stepped into flat shoes, Miss Mars called out that she’d meet Lily downstairs. Grabbing her keys and handbag from the bedside table, Lily softly sang the words that she had read earlier.
    “‘O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth…’”
    Even in Kansas.
    * * *
    The back driver’s-side door of the familiar blue sedan stood open. Lily reached inside and laid her Bible, with its soft dark red-leather binding, on the seat. Coraline Connolly twisted to look over her shoulder from the driver’s seat. Miss Mars had taken the front passenger side.
    “Thank you so much for the ride,” Lily said, slipping into the car. “I’ve seen you stopping for Miss Mars before.”
    Coraline chuckled. “I’ve been picking up Ann for services at the Bygones Community Church for the better part of a decade. It’s no trouble to pick up