The Flower Girl

It was the first week of college and there was a September rain when he saw her. She had flowers in her hair. The song popped into his head.

"I saw her sitting in the rain

Raindrops falling on her

She didn't seem to care

She sat there and smiled at me

And I knew (I knew, I knew, I knew, I knew)

She could make me happy (happy, happy)

Flowers in her hair, flowers everywhere"

He smiled at her, and she returned a radiant grin that lit up her face. It was love at first sight, for both of them. Her name was Daisy, and he was to learn that she was aptly named. She would always smell like flowers. He lost his heart, and she seemed happy to lose hers, to him.

He, Lonny, worked most nights and, on the weekends, so their time together was more limited than he would have liked. Still, they spent every minute together that they could, eating and studying in a joyful closeness. A lot of time was spent at the apartment her parents had arranged for her, where they had make-out sessions, and went at it hot and heavy. However, Lonny respected her and was content to proceed at her pace. She was demur and virginal.

It wasn't until Thanksgiving when her parents came to visit and stayed at Daisy's apartment that their love affair faltered. Her parents took one look at his eight-year-old Camry, his K-mart clothes, and heard how he was working his way through college. Then his romance began to feel doomed. While he was working, her parents encouraged her to go out on dates with the son of a business partner, Richie, a wealthy SAE frat boy with a brand-new BMW convertible. Richie, and the other wealthy SAE brothers were the class of people her parents expected her to associate with, not a middle-class drudge like Lonny.

When Lonny called or knocked at the door, Daisy's parents looked at him discouragingly and informed him that Daisy was out with her boyfriend, Richie. When he reached Daisy on her cell phone, she assured him that she was only dating Richie to please her parents.

But her parents stayed for three weeks, during which time Lonny and Daisy failed to meet. Richie was taking Daisy to nightly parties, and even on the phone Lonny could tell that Daisy was high or drunk. Tales of her as a party girl at the SAE house filtered back to Lonny, and when he finally got Daisy alone after her parents left, he made his great mistake.

Daisy was nervous around Lonny. They hugged and kissed, but it didn't feel the same to Lonny. Daisy was pulling away, putting him off. And when he told her he loved her, she burst into tears.

"I'm sorry, Lonny. I'm so sorry." Daisy wept. Lonny held her chin and tried to look into her eyes, but she refused, pulling her face away and casting her eyes to the floor.

"What did you do, Daisy? What have you done?" He felt a coldness, a hardness settle on him. "Did you sleep with him? Did you sleep with Richie?"

Daisy threw herself on the couch, her chest heaving with her sobs. "Please, please." she managed to say. "Please, Lonny, forgive me."

But Lonny didn't. He got up and left Daisy, smelling of flowers even in her grief, crying on her couch.

Daisy hated herself then. Richie had gotten her drunk and introduced her to cocaine and some pills he had given her, telling her to "Trust me. You'll have a wild ride." It was wild. She woke up in the morning in his bed. The previous night was lost in an after-haze of drugs.

She called Lonny daily, and showed up at his work, begging forgiveness, but his heart was hurt and hardened against her. She finally gave up. At that point, Richie stepped up and salved her broken heart with more cocaine and more drugs. Her parents were happy to hear that Richie and she were now an item, and Daisy became a full time party girl. Richie spent more time at her apartment than at the frat house.

By the second semester of college, Daisy and Richie failed to attend more classes than they showed up for. They were both on academic probation first but were finally expelled at the end of the semester. Rather than go home for the summer, they convinced their parents that they would make up some of their classes during the summer and remained at the college, living in Daisy's place.

During the summer, Richie's parents realized that they were dealing with a problem and cut off the boy's funds. Suddenly, the cocaine river dried up, with their dealer refusing to extend credit to the couple. They used up Daisy's savings, buying cheaper heroin and finally crack and meth. When Daisy's rent for two months was spent instead on getting high, she was evicted and Richie and her were reduced to couch surfing with the few friends they had left.

When Lonny returned to school after working the summer break on the oil rigs in the gulf, he purposely avoided looking for Daisy. He felt that she'd made her choices, and he wasn't included.

But then one night, he got a call from the frightened girl. Richie was sick and unable to meet with their dealer, Wallace. Daisy had to go, and asked Lonny to come with her. He was hesitant, but she pleaded with him. Her fear was palatable, so finally he agreed.

When he drove up to the abandoned building that she and her boyfriend were now squatting in, Lonny didn't recognize Daisy. Her arm was red and threatening to bleed where she nervously raked her nails over it again and again. She twitched, and her teeth were darkened. He could see needle marks in the crook of her elbow. She tried to give him a smile, but it failed to beam like her smile used to.

Somehow, she still managed to smell like flowers.

As he followed her direction to the pusher's address, Lonny snuck glances at the girl who had filled his dreams. He felt like he had failed her. Had he been willing to forgive her, would she be the addict she had obviously become? He wondered and regretted his past decisions.

At the dealer's, Daisy had Lonny remain in his car, telling him it might take a while, since Richie already owed Wallace and she was short on funds. She said she would need to "negotiate". She also mentioned that his car might not be safe, unattended in that neighborhood.

Lonny sat in his car for over an hour. He was tempted to go up and find out what was taking so long, but the looks he got from figures walking by in the dark convinced him that he needed to stay with his car. He couldn't afford to have it damaged or stolen. He sat and prayed that Daisy would return.

When she did, she was clutching her purse to her chest. As soon as she got in the car, Lonny began driving back to her abandoned building. He wanted to cry.

Daisy no longer smelled like flowers. The odors of sex rose from her, filling his car. He could see a glob of cum in her hair. When he asked what had taken so long, Daisy hesitated, and then said that Wallace had some friends there, so it took longer than she thought it would to "negotiate".

Lonny remained silent the rest of the ride and when Daisy exited the car, she looked at him for the first time and smiled her stained teeth smile and said, "Thanks." Then she ran into the building.

Lonny cried that night and wondered again how much his pride was to blame for Daisy's downfall.

He didn't hear from Daisy again, but in January he had heard that Richie had been found in the squat, frozen stiff, with a needle in his arm. Lonny tried to reach out to Daisy, but the squat was now boarded up and no one knew where to find Daisy.

The image of his addicted love haunted Lonny. He felt that he had to do something, so mid-February he returned to Wallace's, risking his car on the street while he went upstairs to the dealer's flop.

Wallace was a small, wiry black man, with his hair in dreads and piercings in his nose, lips, and ears. He had a gold tooth. He laughed when Lonny asked about Daisy.

"That whore?" Lonny bristled at Wallace's description of the girl he still thought of as the Flower Girl. "Man, she came here and partied with us for a whole month. She'd do whatever we wanted as long as she got her fix. I think we stretched that pawg's cunt and asshole seven ways to Sunday." The dealer laughed. "Finally, she got so skanky I sold her to Snake, the pimp down in the Gauntlet." The Gauntlet was the infamous part of town known for whores and drugs. Lonny shivered as he thought of Daisy there. Wallace continued, "He gives her just enough drugs to keep her selling her shit."

Maybe it was a white knight fantasy, but Lonny desperately wanted to rescue Daisy. He could get her into rehab and maybe she could recover enough to have a good life.

Lonny cruised the Gauntlet for three nights before he recognized Daisy. He realized that he had seen her on previous nights but had failed to comprehend that this decimated wreak of a woman was the beautiful, lively Flower Girl.

Daisy was wearing hot pants and a tube top with her midriff exposed. At first Lonny thought she had a scarf wrapped around her, but as she sauntered over to his car, he realized it was a tattoo of a snake wrapped around her body with the flared cobra head rising out of her tub top, in the space between her wide spread breasts. Looking at the other hookers parading by, he realized that several had snakes tattooed on them. One big breasted woman whose two breast were squeezed together in a straight line, had the head of a rattle not between her breast, but snaking up and lying on top of her right tit. Snake branded his stable.

Lonny was staring at the cobra's head as Daisy leaned on his open window and pulled down her tube top, freeing her breasts for his viewing. "Looking for a date, honey?" Daisy drawled.

Daisy used to call him honey, but now it was just a sad parody. Her teeth were badly stained, her breath fetid and there wasn't a hint of any flower fragrance. Daisy smelled like she looked, in great need of a shower.

She didn't recognize him. He could almost see her eyes rolling around in her head, she was so buzzed. There was nothing left of the flower girl to save.

"No thanks," Lonny responded, as he slowly pulled away from the curb.

"Suddenly the sun broke through (see the sun).

I turned around she was gone (where did she go).

And all I had left was one little flower from her hair.

But I knew (I knew, I knew, I knew, I knew)

She had made me happy (happy, happy).

Flowers in her hair, flowers everywhere

I love the flower girl

Was she reality or just a dream to me?

I love the flower girl

Our love shall lead the way

To find a sunny day

I love the flower girl

Was she reality or just a dream to me?"