Published in Beyond Queer Words, Spring, 2024

“Would you like some orchids, pet?”

Amelia’s mother smiled down at me. She and Katie’s mother had arrived at school armed with bulging bags of flowers from their gardens. I had been to Amelia’s house and remembered the immaculate lawns bordered by neatly pruned hedges and rose bushes and the way you had to take your shoes off outside the front door.

“No, thank you.” I continued arranging the motley assortment of natives my mother and I had gathered the night before. She had done most of it. I had been more interested in running around with the dog, eventually collapsing with the dog stretched out and watching, Sphinx-like, while my mother bunched the flowers together and placed them in modest little bags. “You’d better explain that they are wildflowers,” she had said fretfully, ever worried about the collective eye of other adults. “Most people will be using flowers from their gardens.”

“Are you sure you don’t want some of these flowers, dear? There are plenty of them.”

I didn’t. I liked my natives. But I didn’t want to be rude, so I reluctantly accepted some forget-me-nots. I arranged the tiny wildflowers in delicate circles starting from the inside of the bowl and moving out, finishing with the forget-me-nots at the outer edge. I pushed each stalk carefully into the sand so the flowers would stand up straight. The other girls were pulling handfuls of brightly petalled carnations from the bags and sticking them into their bowls.

After school, everyone went down to the Begonia Festival to hear the winners announced. Katie and I took first prize together. Katie was nowhere to be found. The festival lady put the coins into my hand. “Make sure you share it with Katie.”

Remembering my mother’s advice, I said, “They’re wildflowers.”

She snorted. “The forgot-me-nots certainly aren’t wildflowers.”

I turned to look for Katie as my mother came up behind me beaming. Then I spotted my friend Michael outside the pavilion and ran to join him. My mother came over after a few minutes with Katie’s mother. I handed Katie her half of the prize money.

“That’s her boyfriend,” my mother laughed, pointing at Michael.

“Oh!” Katie’s mother giggled.

I turned my back on them, and ran after Michael.

Later that week, our teacher announced that we would be doing a workshop with a woman from the Environmental Society.

The woman’s name was Earth.

The teacher told us this with a strange expression, as if he was trying not to laugh.

Earth had dark hair which was shaved so short her scalp showed through it. The whole of both of her arms and shoulders were tattooed with a fantastically complicated design incorporating plants and flowers. She wore shorts, and an audacious snake wound up one of her legs.

Earth started talking about endangered animals. She moved up and down the rows of students as she talked. I was listening, but only with half my attention. The other half was studying this strange woman, her face, her figure, her tattoos… and groping for something in my mind.

“She looks….weird,” I whispered to Katie and immediately regretted it. It wasn’t what I meant.

“I know,” she whispered back.

Earth gave us an activity to start and moved to the front of the room, talking to the teacher while kids mucked around or did the exercise. I kept stopping to glance up. Sneaking looks at her. The teacher was standing in an awkward position, as if he wasn’t quite comfortable.

In the car on the way home I struggled to convey the moment to my mother. “The woman had her head shaved and lots of tattoos,” I said, inadequately.

“A lesbian?” my mother said sharply.

The strange word hung between us uncomfortably. I wanted to say ‘No,’ sensing she was saying something bad about Earth, but something about the subtle disapproval in her face reminded me exactly of the way the teacher had looked at Earth.

‘Yes,’ I said slowly. Smiling.

I thought of Earth and the strange thrill I had felt when I first saw her. I wanted to say that everything she thought she knew about me was wrong. That I had glimpsed my own future in the woman I had met today.

But I didn’t say anything. I just stared at the road ahead, flanked with lavish floral plantings, red and orange and purple blooms arranged in neat explosions of colour along the nature strip.