Death of an Orchid Lover
The scent evoked memories of my father at the kitchen counter with a hammer and a brown hairy thing.
"Coconut," Gina said. "What smells like coconut?"
The guy who looked like Humpty Dumpty overheard her. He snatched a potful of plant off a table and rushed over. It was a mass of long skinny leaves erupting from bulblike bases. Its flowers, maroon and yellow and about an inch across, resembled old-fashioned airplane propellers with spotted tongues.
He stuck the thing in Gina's face. "Maxillaria tenuifolia," he said.
"Very nice," she said. "Would you please get it out of my nose?"
Humpty's forehead creased as he considered his faux pas. He pulled the plant back, cradling it against his substantial gut. "I only wanted you to enjoy the fullness of its fragrance."
"Which she couldn't do with leaves in her nostrils," said Sam Oliver.
We were at the Palisades Orchid Society's spring social. Throughout the spacious house overlooking Mulholland Drive, people darted from plant to plant, uttering "oohs" and "ahs" as they alit on one orch ...
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