June Song Vignette: Fleur de Joie

[Dr Archeville]

It was a very busy day at Flowers By Design. A massive wedding the next day meant all hands were on deck, organizing and arranging flowers in the crowded back room. Stesha was crammed cheek by jowl with two other employees as they all put together identical table centerpieces in pink roses and lilies, tucking sprigs of lily of the valley here and there for extra interest and scent. It was boring work, with fifty tables to cover, but exacting enough that there wasn't a lot of unnecessary conversation. On the other side of the room, two more employees and Will, the owner, were putting together the massive altarpiece. Stesha had no idea how they planned to transport it without use of a hacksaw, but it was going to be magnificent. She wished she had a few hundred thousand dollars to drop on a wedding in Freedom City's biggest church. She wished she had a boyfriend at all, come to think of it. But she was awfully busy lately, and hadn't ever really had much luck in that department. She sighed wistfully, bending again to her work.

 

Suddenly, what sounded like a trumpet fanfare blasted through her mind. Before Stesha knew what she was doing, she was up off her stool, surveying the room as though it were the audience of an opera house. And before she could stop herself, she was... singing...

 

"On laundry day we wash our sheets,

Scrub them with detergent,

I wash mine just once a month

Cause I'm still a virgin!

 

Never in a boyfriend's bed

Or in his Ford Excursion,

Even though I'm 24,

I'm still a virgin!"

 

She ended on a triumphal note and then suddenly regained control of her body, while everyone was staring at her. Her face turned beet red. "Um... isn't that the funniest song you ever heard? I saw it. On TV. Last night. I'll be right back." She ran out of the room with little grace, locking herself in the bathroom. What the hell had just happened?