The address detail is the same problem every Perth Amboy delivery has, and on this occasion it is the only real risk, because there is no service time or party to anchor the attempt. Most of the housing stock here is two- and three-family: blocks of it through the Second and Fifth Wards, up Hall Avenue and Fayette Street, through the Budapest section named for the Hungarian families who built it, across Dunham Heights toward the Fords line. One doorbell frequently serves three units and the name beside it belongs to whoever signed first. Downstairs doors open onto the sidewalk with nothing to leave a vase on. Upstairs units are often reached by an outside stair at the side of the house. So: floor or unit, the name actually on the bell, and a mobile number — for the recipient if they can answer the door, for whoever else is home if they cannot. The waterfront buildings around Harbortown and off Front Street have controlled entries and a management office, so there you want the building, the unit and a number the driver can call up on. None of this is exotic. It is one extra line in the instructions and it is the difference between a delivery and an attempt.
Last, what these orders are actually for, because in this city the no-occasion bouquet does a specific job. A large share of them are sent to somebody who lives alone — a widowed parent in the house the family grew up in, a grandmother on a second floor whose children have moved out to Old Bridge or Staten Island, a neighbor recovering from something with nobody checking daily. The flowers are the visible part. The knock at the door is the rest of it, and families here use it deliberately: a delivery on a Wednesday afternoon is a person standing at that door, a short conversation in the language the recipient speaks, and confirmation that everything is fine. If that is what you are doing, two things help. Ask for the card line in Spanish if that is what she reads — it is hand-written at no charge, and porque pensé en ti says more than a brand's suggested message. And rather than one large delivery, consider two smaller ones a few weeks apart, because the point is the frequency, not the size.