She Screams About More Than Marigolds Now

After five years of working with her, I didn't know much about Kira. I knew she hated Marigolds, though. Like, absolutely despised them. But Kira was very dead, with no say about her folded hands or the single orange flower pressing into the cheetah print tattoo scattered across her collarbone up to her shoulder, which her little black dress exposed.

She looked pretty without the scowl she accessorized the outfit with at work a few years ago. We threw some kind of lame party. Christmas, I think. Kira used the bathroom to change into the number, rolling her eyes at compliments like someone forced her to clean up. The thing is the boss set no dress code and the rest of us wore jeans and ugly sweaters…so….

It also doesn't explain the sexy leprechaun costume she "had" to wear St. Patrick's Day during Pot O' Gold Bingo. Kira looked cute those nights. She was a cute lady. I always wished she'd be kinder to herself. 

None of that matters anymore. But if Kira lived through the accident, the Marigold she held would absolutely matter. 

Why would they give her a Marigold? Manny said something about Día De Los Muertos. Kira always wanted a unique burial, he'd explained. 

"Also, the color is nice against her skin, I thought." 

She always had such a beautiful complexion, even after, in her words, smoking medical marijuana stopped helping and she needed more. Beautiful for a while, anyway. I don't believe the weed made her move to harder stuff like so many said when they thought she couldn't hear. That's not how it works. 

But none of my business.

 It was just really sad. 

She turned twenty-seven in June, but her faded signature color, Jessica Rabbit Red, couldn't hide the blocks of white in her hair. Someone curled and arranged it so the strands and grown-out roots blended to make a kind of balayage moment.

Maybe the flower served as a small "screw you," to the burger Kira threw at Manny at lunch a month ago because he forgot about the extra tomatoes. He'd bowed his head and said, "oh my God, I'm so sorry" before scampering off, but the Marigold may be a symbol of his true thoughts.

Here you go, bitch. What are you gonna do? You got taken out by a car.

Manny devoted himself to Kira, or couldn't muster the courage to tell her off. I never figured them out. Sometimes I wondered if he hated her in secret, but no. I tried my best to fixate on the floor runner as he passed me to see the body, but you can't ignore the pain in a man's eye, that shellshock, the whites turning a little grey like a bed-side lamp went out. Manny loved her. The Marigold is sentimental.

Makes no sense to me why he put up with it all. They didn't even sleep together. Manny didn't like women, but they'd been best friends for twenty years, they both said. 

Again, none of my business.

 I did my best not to make Kira my business.

I always liked her, no matter how she scared the shit out of me, but I never pried. Not many at work agreed with my opinion of her. Kira had struggled to control her anger when she didn't drink.

When I first started as her bar-back every move I made earned a sneer and an eye roll. She would snatch glasses out of my hands, slam her fists on the counter top in front of bar flies who didn't flinch because she went after anyone and everybody, including them. Once she threw a drink at my head or taking to long to close. 

After that I managed to avoid Kira for a good year on a different shift until I saw her one day outside. It was ten in the morning and she stood sunning herself with a cigarette and a cocktail. Who cared? She had a day off. It was the first time I'd seen her that drunk, though, and it wasn't what I expected. Simply put, Kira became someone you wanted to be around.

She smiled, laughed, and talked to me. No slurring, no falling over, though she never did. She could hold her liquor. Her face had relaxed and I could tell she felt like herself. Her perfume couldn't mask the marijuana, but she left in an Uber and was chill when she was high. Honestly, now that she's dust I regret not having a J with her after work. The boss looked the other way because it helped her. It changed my views on Kira and people who struggle like her forever. We developed an understanding.

We weren't friends at all but she treated me kindly. Or kind for Kira. I still got yelled at a lot. It didn't bother me so much anymore. I chose to ask her about her squishy rescue dog and would give her Miso soup when I ordered sushi. The day she almost got fired because of some hot shot business owner trying to pull rank, I stood and defended her, sat in silence with her as she cried.

Then there were the Marigolds.

I never understood Kira's hatred of them, but oh, she hated them. Maybe it was due to her father, whose death she celebrated a few months back with a lot of Gin and a public announcement to the bar of how she hopes "the bastard rots in Hell." Maybe Kira mentioned him and Marigolds once. Maybe the scent made her nauseous. All I know is a boyfriend one Valentine's Day had sent them to the bar. The pair fought a lot and maybe the flowers were some kind of slight like the one I imagined from Manny. No clue.

I thought a fight broke out when I heard the vase shattering on the wall. Kira started screaming like you wouldn't believe then, screaming about how much she hated god-damned Marigolds. I stayed with her that night as she cried, too. I didn't dare ask about the flowers, but I stayed. And today I came to pay my respects, because she deserves that. Not many people seemed to realize, but she was human. 

We just got each other in a way I don't think anyone else did. 

Maybe that's why Kira is here standing beside me screaming about so much more now.

How she's burning. How I'm the only one who can help her.

I wish she'd go back to the Marigolds.