But nobody's buying flowers...

[shewhomust]

"Another regular at Gerde's Folk City was the Flower Lady, a middle-aged woman with a stocky build and a heavy walk. She always wore the same clean and neatly pressed shirtwaist dress of no particular color. Her faded yellow hair was in a neat bun at her neck. She carried a big bouquet of red roses and silently went from table to table at the club, offering her flowers for sale. She never spoke and she never changed her blank expression. A few of us speculated that she didn't speak English. Now and then someone would try to engage her in conversation, but when nothing ever came of it, she was left alone.

"'Here comes the Flower Lady' eventually gave way to no comments of any kind when she walked in the door, mak­ing her way past the bar to the customers sitting at the ta­bles. One warm evening a few of us were sitting outside on the loading dock around the corner from Gerde's and we watched a sleek black Cadillac pull up to the curb. The door opened and the Flower Lady climbed out with her bunch of roses. She took no notice of us or of our dumbfounded ex­pressions as she heavy-footed her way into the club to do her night's work."

A Freewheelin' Time, Suze Rotolo