Save the Date

Chapter 16

16

The wedding party looked to Cara like a group of trick-or-treaters who’d gotten lost on their way to Halloween. The bridesmaids wore matching short black spandex dresses that resembled overgrown tube tops, over black fishnet hose and short black bootees. The groomsmen wore black leather pants, and T-shirts with custom screen-printed designs featuring snarling befanged monsters.

The bridegroom was dressed in black leather pants, too, but instead of a screen-printed shirt he wore a metal-studded black leather vest over his bare chest. And he’d shaved his head for the occasion.

Laurie-Beth Winship’s choice of a wedding gown was equally quirky—she’d designed it herself, with a bodice made of her grandmother’s tightly laced 1950s corset, and a skirt made of layers of another grandmother’s Irish lace curtains—but somehow, the wacky creation totally suited her pale complexion and long red hair.

It was a remarkably relaxed group. There were no hysterics, no panic attacks, no death threats issued. Even Payton, the edgy investment banker/punk rocker groom, seemed to be having a good time, as he and Laurie-Beth held their two-year-old son, Levi, between them as they swayed to “Brown-Eyed Girl.”

Best of all, the wedding arch stood firm throughout the ceremony, even when little Levi managed to yank off one of the deer antlers while his parents were saying their vows.

It was actually a very original party, Cara decided, happy that she’d made a deal with the wedding photographer to document everything for her look-book at the shop. Although most of her Savannah brides still clung tightly to tradition, the Winship-Jelks wedding would show that she could deliver the goods no matter how outrageous the request. She was getting positively misty-eyed, sipping her second glass of blanc-de-blanc champagne, leaning against one of the steel support columns, watching the swirl of black-clad guests, as they laughed and danced and table-hopped around the cavernous warehouse, the multiple bloodred candles sending their shadows dancing across the rustic walls.

“I notice you’re not wearing black tonight,” came a low voice in her ear. “Even though the bride decreed an all-black dress code for her guests.”

Cara recognized the voice at once. She didn’t bother to turn and address him face-to-face. “I’m not a guest. I’m just the florist.”

He stood so close she could smell his pine-scented soap, feel the tickle of his beard on her bare shoulder, which sent a delicious shiver down her spine, which she instantly regretted.

“And yet, here you are. What color would you call that dress of yours?”

She looked down at the vintage orangish-pink silk cocktail dress she’d found on eBay. It was an old favorite that she’d worn to half a dozen weddings since buying it. It was obviously homemade, with sweet pinked seams, a metal zipper sewn into the side seam that dated it to the sixties, thin spaghetti straps, and hand-appliquéd daisies around the hem of the frothing full skirt.

“Hmm. I guess I’d call this coral.”

“Kinda pretty,” he said grudgingly.

“Kinda?” Now she did turn around. What she saw made her raise one questioning eyebrow. Jack Finnerty had ignored Laurie-Beth’s blackout edict, too. Instead, he wore a blue seersucker suit, a pale yellow button-down shirt, no tie, and battered brown Topsiders on his sockless feet. “You sweet-tongued devil, you.”

He was sipping a Moon River pale ale from a plastic cup. “I gather you did all these, uh, arrangements tonight. Mind if I ask what’s with all the black flowers and skulls and heavy metal?”

Her smile was tight. “The bride and groom tell me their dreams. I make it happen.”

She sipped her champagne and wished he’d go away.

“Do you do all the flowers for all the weddings in Savannah?”

“Just the cool ones. Do you come to all the weddings in Savannah?” she countered.

“Not all of ’em,” Jack said. “I guess I get around. It just happens I went to school with Laurie-Beth’s older brother. And Laurie-Beth and I went out a couple times. You know, way back in the day before she met Payton.”

“You went to school with Austin?” Cara asked.

“Technically. He was a couple years ahead of me in school, so we never hung out together much.”

“I see,” Cara said, gazing across the room at the brother in mention, Austin Winship, a towering six-foot-five presence, who at that moment seemed to be in danger of teetering facedown onto the grits bar the caterer had set up in the far corner.

Jack followed her eyes. “Ol’ Austin seems to have gotten pretty caught up in the spirit of the wedding festivities. Is he actually a real justice of the peace or something?”

“Oh, no,” Cara assured him. “Payton was dead set on not having a real minister for the wedding, so Austin got himself ordained into some nondenominational denomination, just for tonight.”

“Is this one of those peyote-eating churches, by any chance?” Jack asked. “Because even a casual observer, like myself, can tell that Austin seems to have ingested some kind of pharmacologically enhanced substance.”

That did make Cara laugh. “He showed up pretty glassy-eyed tonight. And I’m assuming that high-pitched giggle that he kept breaking into during the ceremony isn’t part of his day-to-day persona?”

“As I said, we weren’t really friends,” Jack said. “Austin missed his senior year at Country Day because his parents enrolled him in what was billed as an ‘alternative school’ out in Oregon.”

“Rehab,” Cara said.

“Exactly,” Jack agreed.

There was an uneasy lull in the conversation. Cara found herself wishing he’d go away and simultaneously hoping he wouldn’t.

Jack Finnerty made her nervous. He’d made her nervous every time she looked out the window of the shop over the past week and caught a glimpse of him running past, with Shaz trotting alongside. It made her nervous to realize how much time she spent gazing out that same window, hoping for a glance of him. And it made her desperately anxious when she found herself driving past his hovel on Macon Street, telling herself she was simply taking a shortcut to the Kroger, which was actually not a shortcut to the grocery store.

Jack Finnerty was taking up way too much space in her head. He’d looked so remotely elegant and reserved—and unbearably snotty—in his tuxedo the previous Saturday. And then when she’d opened her door Sunday and found him all sweaty and buff, standing on her doorstep with that look of chagrin on his face.

And now, damn him, he’d turned up here tonight, in his stinking seersucker suit, striking just the right note between hopelessly preppy and effortlessly casual. He was just a guy, one of these obnoxious Savannah guys who knew everybody and fit in everywhere without even trying.

He had to know the effect he was having on her, standing so close she swore she could see a bit of sawdust clinging to the lapel of his jacket. It was all she could do to keep herself from reaching out to dust it off. She could even see a place on his chin where he’d nicked himself shaving, a tiny dot of dried blood standing out from the dark stubble. She clasped her hands behind her back, just in case.

“How’s the dog?” Jack finally asked.

“Poppy? She’s fine. Happy to be home.”

“Any more accidents?”

He was being deliberately annoying. Cara frowned. “I told you, she’s housebroken.”

Which wasn’t completely true. If Cara left her alone for more than a few hours, Poppy would sometimes stand by the door, waiting for her to come home, even though there was a dog door that would let her out into the courtyard. Sometimes, Bert told her, Poppy would lie down in front of the shop door, staring at it, as though willing her to come back through it. Cara believed Poppy peed on the floor as revenge, or out of separation anxiety.

Was she really raising a neurotic puppy?

She gave Jack a sharp look. “How about your dog. Shaz? I’m guessing she hasn’t run away lately?”

“No,” Jack said. He leaned in even closer, his breath tickling her face. She took a half step backward. “Listen. Let me ask you something about Poppy. Would you say she’s moody?”

“Moody? No.” Cara laughed. “Why, is your dog moody?”

“She’s just not very… peppy. I thought all puppies were kinda bouncy and off the wall and crazy. But that’s not Shaz. She’s pretty quiet. Seems to sleep most of the day. And when I come home from work, she kind of looks at me. Like, ‘What? You’re back? Who cares?’ When I get ready to go out for a run, I almost have to drag her out the door. I was thinking maybe it has something to do with the breed.”

For just a moment, she was tempted to suggest that maybe it had something to do with him. But no. He seemed seriously worried about Shaz, and she was touched by his concern.

“I don’t think goldendoodles are particularly moody. I mean, yeah, Poppy sometimes lets me know she misses me when I’m working late, or not paying her proper attention, but mostly, she’s a happy camper. And if I don’t walk her at least twice every day, she lets me know I’m being a slacker.”

“Hmm,” he said.

“Is there a chance Shaz is depressed? I mean, has anything changed in her routine that would make her want to run away?”

***

Jack took a long swig of his beer. Hell yeah, he wanted to tell her. Everything had changed in Shaz’s routine. His, too. The minute Zoey walked out the door, it had all changed. He would have liked to have left, too. But he had bills to pay, and obligations to his brother, and their business. Anyway, where would he have gone?

It wasn’t that he actually missed Zoey that much. They hadn’t gotten along for months before she left. They quarreled constantly. Zoey couldn’t understand why they couldn’t travel, cut loose, have some fun. Couldn’t he get a real job in a real office, instead of coming home late every night, dirty and sweaty, his hands and hair spattered with paint, his clothes leaking sawdust with every step he took?

He couldn’t really blame her for resenting him. He’d had a good job as an insurance broker when they met a year previously. He drove a new BMW 750, had a sleek glass and chrome loft in a new development down by the river. He’d walked away from all of it, only two months after Zoey moved in, selling the loft to buy the crappy little freedman’s cottage on Macon Street, trading in the Beemer for a used F-150 pickup, leaving behind his slick suits for painter’s pants and a tool belt when he and Ryan started their historic-restoration business.

Jack had bedgrudgingly accepted Zoey’s crazy designer dog, christened with a name he couldn’t even spell. And then she’d taken off, leaving him and Shaz trying to figure out where it had all gone so wrong.

He glanced over at Cara’s empty glass, deciding to save her the dismal details of his dismal home life. “Is that champagne? Can I get you another? Or maybe you wanna dance?” He hoped he didn’t sound too eager. In fact, he halfway hoped she’d tell him no. Then he’d have an excuse to go home and drink some real liquor. Maybe he’d even think about hanging some doors, or finishing the tile in the hall bathroom.

“After Torie’s wedding, I didn’t think you liked to dance,” Cara said.

“Oh.” He looked away, his hands in his pockets, looking bored. “I’m okay with dancing. It was just that song. It’s stupid, I know.…”

“Torie told me,” she said, her voice gentle. “About your girlfriend.”

“Torie talks too much,” he snapped. “How about that drink?”

But now the bride and groom were making their way to the cake table. Laurie-Beth had commissioned a sculptor friend to make figurines of her and Payton, authentic down to the tiniest real flowers in her bouquet, for a cake topper. The caterer had asked Cara to stick around for the cake-cutting ceremony so she could help remove the sculpture before it came under attack from the Confederate-era sword Payton planned to use.

“Sorry, can’t,” Cara said, giving him a smile he hoped was full of regret. “I’m still on duty.”

She hurried off in the direction of the bride and groom, leaving Jack Finnerty staring at her back, at her bare shoulders, and her neck. She really did dress oddly, and yet, he thought she was by far the prettiest girl in the room that night, with her windblown butterscotch curls tied up with a pink satin ribbon. Her pink-orange skirt billowed out from around her tightly belted waist, and she reminded him of a tropical hibiscus blossom. Begging to be picked.