A DELIVERY OF FLOWERS A DAY SHOWS TRUE LOVE'S ON WAY.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

If this isn't a guy trying to get out of the doghouse, it must be love.

Every weekday since Maribel Martinez turned 26 in August, Javier Aranda has been sending her flowers at work.

Like clockwork, a delivery person from Conroy's Flowers walks into the West Hills Surgical Center with another bouquet for the cute, shy girl who works in admitting.

``It embarrasses her, but when she tells Javier to stop, the bouquets just get bigger,'' co-worker Peggy Sanfelippo says, laughing. ``At the end of the week, Maribel straps the bouquets into the seat belts of her car and takes them home.''

Home to Javier and their 7-year-old daughter, Indika, who's been asking her mommy why daddy has been buying her so many flowers all of a sudden.

``Because he loves me, and I think maybe he wants to ask me something,'' Maribel tells her.

He does, Javier says. He does.

They've talked about marriage since 1998, when Maribel got pregnant. There was never any doubt they would have their baby and that Javier and Maribel would live together and give their daughter a warm, loving home.

But there was doubt about getting married because they had to.

``We were young and we were scared,'' Maribel says. ``Our immediate concern was our daughter. If marriage came, it came.''

You may think you know someone when you've dated them for a long time, Javier says. But you really don't know them until you're walking the floor at 2 a.m. with a sick baby, and you're both crying because you don't know how to take away your baby's pain.

You really know them when the three of you are walking along the beach together, holding hands, and you feel like you're the luckiest guy in the world to have a family like this.

``I always promised myself that when I got a better job and made more money, I'd do something special for Maribel because she deserves it,'' Javier says. ``Well, I can now, but I don't want to scare her. I want to make sure she knows what she wants to do, that we both do.

``Because one day, instead of a bouquet of flowers, I'll be walking in with a ring.''

Yeah, it's expensive, these daily flowers, but when you're finally talking marriage, what's a few grand?

So, the phone rings again Wednesday morning at Conroy's Flowers, where owner Tasneem Saifee, and floral designer Margoth Rivas shake their heads and laugh.

``It's Javier with another order,'' Saifee says. ``Good luck.''

Good luck because it's tough for a designer to create a different floral arrangement for the same person for 30 straight days.

``He's so in love with her,'' Rivas says. ``Every day he writes a different message, but they all say basically the same thing. He wants to be with her forever. It's so romantic.''

So, no, it ain't the doghouse -- it's love.

The day the flowers stop coming, and Javier walks through the front door of the West Hills Surgical Center with a ring, she'll be ready to say yes, Maribel said Wednesday.

Because she wants to, not because she has to. Because she loves him and knows he has something important he wants to ask.

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com

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CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Floral designer Margoth Rivas delivers another bouquet of flowers to Maribel Martinez at her West Hills workplace.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer

(2) Javier Aranda, Maribel Martinez and their daughter Indika, 7, are shown.