The Language of Flowers

In a flashback, a nine-year-old Victoria and Meredith travel to Victoria’s last possible foster placement. Victoria throws an old baby bottle at Meredith as she drives. Meredith bribes Victoria with food to behave, then explains that this is her final opportunity for adoption. Because of her age, she will soon be placed in group homes permanently. Victoria thinks about the group home that they just left, explaining its abuse of the children there.

Meredith and Victoria arrive at the farmland outside of San Francisco and reach a large white house. Meredith drags Victoria up the porch, where Elizabeth, her new foster mother, steps outside and touches Victoria’s shoulder. Victoria runs away as Meredith explains she doesn’t like to be touched. Meredith leaves as Victoria hides in wine grape vines—but is quickly found by Elizabeth. Despite Victoria’s kicking and screaming, Elizabeth does not let her go, escorting her to the house.

In the present, Meredith lectures Victoria. They arrive at the Gathering House and Victoria is escorted to her new room, which has 12 weeks of rent covered. She locks the door and ignores Meredith, who knocks on the door and demands to know her plan. Victoria ignores her until she leaves $20 and a note reading “Buy food and find a job” (15). Instead, Victoria spends each morning drinking a gallon of milk and converting the plastic into small planters. She steals dirt from the neighbor’s garden and grows flowers collected from different parts of the city. She avoids Meredith, staying away from the house when her car is there.

Meredith tricks Victoria, hiding her car and waiting in the halfway house’s kitchen. She berates Victoria for not having a job and says that she has to want it, confusing the younger as to her meaning. Victoria spends her final week at the house transferring her flowers to a park, planting them atop a hill near a play area. She packs what she can carry, including a flower dictionary and a book about the language of flowers, before sneaking out and away from Meredith’s waiting car.

Victoria lives in the woods by her flower garden, listening to children play each morning on their way to school. She survives on food samples from delis and spends most of her time looking for new flowers to plant. One night, she is awoken by a drunk couple who kiss in her garden but do not notice her. The sound of their intimacy disturbs her. The next morning, Victoria approaches a florist and asks if she is hiring. Because Victoria doesn’t have experience, the woman offers her five dollars to unload her truck.

In the past, Victoria takes a hot bath and goes downstairs to where Elizabeth waits at the dinner table. Victoria is skinny, having lost five pounds while being forced to eat only frozen peas by a previous foster mother. At the dinner table, Elizabeth makes it clear that Victoria can eat what she wants; however, she must also wait at the table until she herself is finished eating. Victoria notices a bouquet of saltwort and tells Elizabeth that “‘You can’t poison me, or give me medicine I don’t want, or hit me—even if I deserve it. Those are the rules’” (28). Elizabeth tells her the flowers are not poisonous, then lists some poisons that she could choose depending on the message she wanted to send. She also explains that starwort means “welcome,” teaching Victoria how to identify it. Elizabeth stands up and Victoria hides food in her pockets, grabbing a spoonful of peanut butter to eat while they walk outside. Elizabeth gives Victoria her first lesson on the language of flowers, a tradition from the Victorian Era during which flowers were assigned secret meanings. Victoria throws her spoon into the bushes as Elizabeth talks about the foreman, his daughter, and school. When they return to the house, Elizabeth tells Victoria that she cannot come inside until she has found the spoon, locking the door.

In the present, Victoria walks around the neighborhood after unloading the florist’s truck. She noticed the florist’s exhaustion and purchases ribbon and a pearl-topped pin, then picks flowers from her garden to make a bouquet. She returns to the florist, who admires her work. The florist introduces herself as Renata, then tells Victoria to return at five in the morning next Saturday. A week later, Victoria waits outside of the shop, Bloom, at midnight to ensure she does not oversleep. Renata arrives and drives her to the flower market, a warehouse filled with wholesale flower vendors. Victoria follows her holding buckets of water and flowers, watching Renata haggle with the merchants. They stop by a lily vendor, who stares at Victoria and offers her a tiger lily. Victoria snaps the petals off, and Renata sends her back to the truck with her full bucket.

In the past, Victoria remembers other times in which she had been locked out of foster homes—including one event when she was five years old. She eats some of the food that she smuggled from the dinner table and scours the garden for the thrown spoon. She cuts her hands while tearing at thorn bushes, eventually revealing the spoon hidden beneath them. Returning to the porch, Victoria is let inside and throws the spoon at a set of blue glass bottles on the windowsill. One breaks and Elizabeth grabs Victoria, dragging her across the kitchen. She reveals that the bottles belonged to her mother and almost hits Victoria—but sends her upstairs instead.

Victoria climbs into bed and listens to the quiet. Elizabeth comes upstairs and sits on the edge of the bed, telling Victoria about her childhood and how cruel her mother was. Victoria is interested because Elizabeth treats her respectfully during this conversation. The two end the evening somewhat reconciled.

In the present, Renata and Victoria use the flowers from the market to make sunflower wedding bouquets and table arrangements. Renata leaves to deliver the flowers, taking the cash register money and asking Victoria to keep a log of customer purchases so they can pay the next time they come in. After cleaning the back room, Victoria meets Earl, an elderly man in need of a birthday bouquet for his granddaughter. Victoria uses her knowledge of the language of flowers to make an arrangement for happiness. When Renata returns, she pays Victoria and asks her to return the next weekend. Victoria buys four nights in a hostel and thinks about a strange man whom she saw at the flower market.

On Saturday, Renata picks up Victoria and tells her that Earl was impressed by her bouquet, emphasizing that his granddaughter was happy. Victoria is pleased, and Renata tells her about Earl’s next request—a bouquet for his wife, who is struggling to find inspiration and joy. At the flower market, the women make their purchases. Victoria interacts with the strange man and gives him rhododendron, meaning “beware.” The women return to Bloom and make flower arrangements. Renata once again charges Victoria with the shop, leaving the cash register money this time around. Earl arrives and Victoria arranges a special bouquet, and he tips her for her work. When Renata returns from delivering flowers, she takes Victoria out to dinner. They chat, and Renata offers Victoria an official job. When Victoria arrives at Bloom for her Sunday shift, the women go to the flower market again. Although the strange man’s booth is closed, he is waiting inside and offers Victoria mistletoe, meaning “I surmount all obstacles” (53).

In the past, Victoria wakes with scabs on her hands and looks for Elizabeth to clean and bandage them. Elizabeth says she would have accepted an apology even if Victoria had been unable to find the spoon, then relates to her behavior by explaining that she used to act out as a child to get her own mother’s attention. Elizabeth ends her story by telling Victoria, “‘I will love you, and I will keep you. Okay?’” (55). The two go to the farmer’s market, where they buy fresh fruit and vegetables. As they eat a snack, Elizabeth points to a teenage boy selling flowers out of the back of a truck. She tells Victoria that this is Grant, her nephew whom she has never met because of a falling out with her sister. Elizabeth claims to miss her for the first time, as she forces Victoria to hug her.

In the present, Victoria is shocked by the strange man and his supposed knowledge of the language of flowers. She resolves to give him another flower with a secret meaning to test whether or not he meant what the mistletoe said. Renata returns from the morning’s delivery and sends Victoria up a hill with a vase of flowers to deliver, slipping her first full paycheck into her backpack as she leaves. At the address, Victoria finds Renata’s younger sister Natalya, who has an illegal sublet room. It is an extremely small room, and Victoria agrees to rent it for $200 a month.

In the past, Victoria lounges outside after eating a large breakfast, listening to Elizabeth try to make a phone call. Elizabeth brings over mint tea, and the two have another conversation about the language of flowers. Victoria surprises Elizabeth by remembering all the things she had said before, leading her to remember bad experiences at school that labeled her unteachable. Elizabeth takes Victoria to the gate to meet Perla, the foreman’s daughter. Victoria has already decided against being Perla’s friend. However, Victoria gets Perla to cut a prickly pear cactus branch from the rest of the plant, then picks off all the spines to give the cactus fruit to Perla. Victoria then sends Perla home.

In the present, Victoria introduces Natalya, who is part of a punk band. Victoria walks the streets near the flower market, hiding from the strange man whenever she sees him. She decides to give him snapdragon for presumption, purchasing it before she works on Saturday so Renata will not see. The women work frantically to prepare arrangements for a needy bride. The next day, Renata sends Victoria to the market alone; she also has her open the shop. The strange man is waiting with paper tied with ribbon, which Victoria takes without a word. Inside, she finds a sketch of a white poplar tree, which she doesn’t find in her flower books. She then sees a note that the man left for her with directions for a Monday night date.

Victoria returns to the shop. At the end of the day, a woman comes in, claiming to have been sent by Earl, who wishes for another bouquet for his wife. As Victoria arranges it, the woman says that Earl wanted them to meet. He believes Victoria can make her a special bouquet for love. Victoria tells her to return next week. The next day, she goes to the public library and scans their books on the language of flowers. She finds that white poplar means time, but then notices that the books contain different meanings than the ones taught to her by Elizabeth. She spends hours looking at the books, clarifying discrepancies.

In the past, Victoria returns from her first day of school to Elizabeth soaking her injured foot. The night before, Victoria had lined Elizabeth’s shoes with cactus spines but was shocked when she was not punished. Elizabeth makes Victoria remove the spines from her shoes and helps her define misanthropy. She goes inside and leaves a voicemail for her sister, Catherine, before taking Victoria to find common thistle. Common thistle represents misanthropy, and Victoria picks a jar of it to give to Elizabeth.

In the present, Victoria continues to find discrepancies between her dictionary of flower meanings and the ones in the library. She realizes she is late for her date with the strange man and runs out the door, arriving at a donut shop. The man is there, and Victoria quizzes him about flower meanings, feeling better when his interpretations align with hers. They eat donuts, and the man asks where she has been for the last eight years. Victoria suddenly recognizes him as Grant, Elizabeth’s nephew. Victoria cannot believe he wanted to see her, while Grant believes the same. After Grant tells Victoria of his mother’s death, she shares her discovery from the library. They finish eating and go to a diner, where they compare their two dictionaries for more conflicting meanings. They debate the language and cross out words when they agree that they do not belong. The night passes with them eating and arguing meanings, ending at six in the morning when Victoria leaves to go home.