Spring has sprung, and with it, smiley faces. When yellow crocuses bloom all over town in the shape of an emoji during April’s first warm days, reporter Nero Storm is sent out to discover their meaning and origin.<br><br>Nero has little to smile about himself, what with dysfunctional family drama and a tragic love life. The previous fall, it seemed as if he might have finally met the man of his dreams in dog daddy, ride share operator, and charity organizer Z. Though the two spent but ten morning and evening car rides together, sparks flew. Unfortunately, at the end of that time, Nero witnessed a crime, and Z disappeared.<br><br>Now, as the rest of the world looks forward to a new beginning promised by spring, Nero is left to wonder. Are the smiley face flowers a message for him, and will he ever see Z’s smile again for real?

21 Smiles

“Did you know we hit twenty-one degrees above the normal temperature right here in Westchester five times in five years?” she asked me.


I did not, and my dressing roommate was a weatherman.


“One or two degrees happens often. Five, no big deal. Ten, even that’s not particularly abnormal. Twenty-one degrees was extremely rare not all that long ago, and yet it’s becoming the norm. Five times…Maybe that’s what the five flowers mean, the ones that some see as a mouth, I assume, according to your take.”


“I don’t yet have a take,” I countered, feigning neutrality, while totally believing until that very moment the flowers were, in fact, in the shape of a face.


“Twenty-one degrees either way over a long period of time is a matter of life and death to the normal existence of some plants and animals,” Dina stated. “Did you know these very bulbs need the cold of winter to bloom as much as they need the warmth of spring?”


Ah ha! Thanks to Google, yes, I did know that.


Chapter 7