Save the Date

Chapter 20

20

By Friday morning, she’d not only gotten the signed contract for the Trapnell wedding, she had a $12,500 deposit check in her hot little hand.

“Awesome,” Bert said, when Cara showed him the check. “So, now you’re a full-fledged wedding planner?”

“As far as the Trapnells are concerned, I am.”

“We’re rich,” Bert said. “Wanna take your favorite assistant out to lunch?”

“You can have half my tuna sandwich if you like. We’re not rich. We’re not even solvent. Yet.” She nodded toward the pile of bills on her desk. “It took six hundred dollars to replace the compressor on the cooler. I spent close to five thousand dollars replacing the flowers for Torie’s wedding, which ate up half my profit from that wedding. And if I don’t pay my phone bill by two p.m. today, they’re going to cut off our service.”

“And then there’s the Colonel,” Bert said.

“There’s always the Colonel,” Cara agreed. “He gets paid first—ten thousand right off the top.”

“I thought he told you he wanted the whole magilla—twenty thousand,” Bert said.

“I don’t have the whole magilla,” she reminded her assistant. “But I get the rest of the Trapnell deposit two weeks before the wedding. If the sky doesn’t fall on my head between now and then—I should be able to fork over the rest of his money.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Bert said. “Speaking of—are we okay for Maya’s wedding tonight? She’s not one of our usual angsty brides, but she did text me this morning and ask if everything was okay.”

Maya Gaines wasn’t her typical Bloom bride. She was just out of design school at SCAD, and her flower budget was nearly nonexistent. Cara had agreed to take the job as a favor to Bert, who’d known the bride since elementary school. But also because Maya was hip and cute—and just plain nice. The ceremony—and the reception—would be at the Knights of Columbus hall just a few blocks away on Liberty Street.

“We should be fine,” Cara said. She pointed to the buckets in the cooler, which she’d filled with inexpensive “filler” flowers she’d picked up earlier in the morning at Sam’s Club.

“That’s all the stuff you’ll need for the boutonnieres,” she said. “Get started on those, and I’ll run over to Breitmueller’s to pick up the rest of Maya’s order. You can make the bouquets when I get back, and I’ll start on the table arrangements.” She looked around the workroom. “Did you pick up the Mason jars?”

“And the raffia, and the Twizzlers,” Bert said. “So, you’re really going to plunk red licorice sticks in those flower arrangements?”

“Along with red striped Pixy Stix,” Cara said. “They’re the bride and groom’s favorite candies. They’re Maya’s colors. And they’re cheap.”

“I guess,” Bert said, looking dubious.

“You mark my word. By tomorrow morning, those Mason-jar arrangements with Twizzlers and Pixy Stix are going to be all over Instagram and Pinterest.”

***

Cara was at the wholesale house, watching her sales rep total her tab, carefully adding up each item with her pocket calculator. Even an innocent ten-dollar overcharge could throw Maya’s tiny budget out of whack.

Without warning, Cullen Kane sidled over. He was wearing a loose-fitting blue linen shirt and white jeans, with a cluster of silver and leather bracelets on his right wrist. Cara, on the other hand, was wearing a faded orange sundress and rubber flip-flops.

He stood a little too close, invading her personal space.

“Hi there,” Cara said, taking a half step backward. “How are you?”

“Fine. But not as fine as you, apparently. Congratulations. I hear you’re doing the Trapnell wedding.”

She blinked. “Where’d you hear that? I just signed the contract last night.”

“Patricia’s a dear friend,” Cullen said. “We talk every night. I don’t mind telling you I was a little surprised. She felt badly about it, but it’s not as if I need the work.”

“Of course not,” Cara said.

Cullen came even closer. He smelled like Clinique moisturizer. He was so close she could see that he was actually wearing guyliner. Skillfully applied, yes, but it was still eyeliner.

“Any guesses why Brooke got her way and hired you?” he asked.

“Because it’s her wedding, and I’m good at what I do?”

“Don’t be na?ve,” he snapped. “Brookie is still pissed off that Gordon left Marie for Patricia. She can’t get it into her head that after years of being trapped in a loveless marriage, Gordon actually had the balls to be with a real woman.”

“A real woman named Patricia.”

“Exactly. Yes, Patricia. Who in no way broke up that marriage. Anyway, it’s been ages, but Marie still can’t deal, which means that her daughter can’t deal. And Brookie, PS, doesn’t actually give a rat’s ass about flowers, or any of this. So she’s torturing Gordon with all this wedding crap, just to get back at him. It’s all about retaliation with that girl.”

“Thanks for the backgrounder,” Cara said. “Or, at least, your theory of the background.”

“And I hear you’ve now signed on as wedding planner too. Quite a coup. Let me ask. Have you ever actually planned an entire wedding before?”

She felt her face grow hot. “Obviously.”

“A wedding with a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar budget? With a high-profile client like the Trapnells and Strayhorns? Were you aware that Patricia’s been in contact with Town and Country to have the wedding covered by them?”

Cara’s mouth went dry. Patricia hadn’t bothered to mention she was angling for a glossy society-magazine story about her stepdaughter’s wedding, but she shouldn’t have been surprised. The woman was dying for attention.

“As far as I’m concerned, all my weddings are high-profile,” Cara said. “All my brides are incredibly special to me, and I try to give each one exactly the day of their dreams. No matter what the budget.”

“How sweet,” Cullen purred. He glanced over at the table where her order had been assembled.

Cara’s buckets held bunches of cheerful Shasta daisies, red zinnias, yellow gerbera daisies, and Queen Anne’s lace. A grand total of $867, by her calculator.

“Looks like you’re doing a children’s birthday party,” he observed. “Let me guess. Circus theme?”

She chose to ignore the taunt. Instead she pointed at the masses of flowers covering the counter next to hers. It was piled high with exotic flowers, all in vivid tropical shades of orange, purples, hot pinks, and lime green.

“Gypsy wedding?” she asked.

He smiled blandly. “Just a dinner party Patricia is throwing tonight for Alexandra Skouras. Do you know her? She’s the new head of marketing for General Mills. She and her husband Creighton just bought a second home over at Palmetto Bluff.”

“Never met them,” Cara admitted. Or heard of them, she wanted to say.

Her sales rep had finished tallying her order, and silently handed her the receipt.

Ignoring Cullen Kane, Cara checked the total on the receipt against the one on her calculator.

“Looks fine,” she told the young woman, whom she hadn’t worked with before. “Just put it on my account, please.”

“Name?”

“Cara Kryzik. It should be under Bloom.”

The clerk tapped her keyboard, found Cara’s name in the system, but frowned.

“Um. It looks like there’s a hold on your account.”

Cara felt the blood drain from her face.

“Ouch,” Cullen said, under his breath. He gave Cara a mock sympathetic smile, and finally moved back to his own side of the counter. But Cara knew he was watching. And listening intently.

“That’s got to be a mistake,” Cara said quietly.

The girl shook her head. “I only know what’s in the system. This says you’ve got an outstanding balance.”

“Look,” Cara whispered. “I paid that bill yesterday. In full.”

“But it’s not been entered into the system,” the girl said.

“I get that,” Cara said, losing patience. “But the check is probably in your accounting office right now. Maybe it hasn’t been posted yet.”

“Probably not.” The girl shrugged and looked meaningfully over Cara’s shoulder, at another florist, who was hovering nearby with a bucketful of pink and white carnations.

“Okay. So what are we gonna do?” Cara asked. “I’d just write you another check, but I didn’t bring my checkbook with me. I literally just ran over here to get these flowers for the wedding I’m doing tonight. I can come back later. All right?”

“Nope,” the girl said. “Sorry. New policy. I can’t let you take any product out of here until that hold is lifted.”

“This is crazy,” Cara moaned. “I’ve never had this happen before. And I need these flowers.”

“Sorry,” the girl said, but clearly, she wasn’t sorry. She wasn’t even terribly interested in Cara, or her credit hold. “Next.”

The florist with the carnations stepped around Cara, giving her a quick, pitying look, the kind you’d give a crazy bag lady with a shopping cart full of recycling.

But Cara wasn’t budging, and she wasn’t leaving Breitmueller’s without her damn flowers.

“Call Wendy,” she told the girl. “Please.”

***

Thirty minutes later, they found Cara’s check in a stack of unopened mail on the bookkeeper’s desk.

“Cara, I’m so sorry,” Wendy Breitmueller said. They were sitting in her glass-walled office, located on a catwalk overlooking the warehouse. “Obviously, Janet didn’t handle that very tactfully.”

“No,” Cara said, remembering the looks of pity and contempt she’d been given by the other customers in the warehouse. “She didn’t. I was mortified.”

“She’s new,” Wendy said. “But I’ve explained to her that that’s not how we handle credit issues. You have my promise, it won’t happen again.”

“Hope not,” Cara said, standing. She looked down at her phone. Two texts from Bert had popped up while she was dealing with this latest snafu.

WHERE R U?

And then, NEED THOSE DAMN FLOWERS.

Wendy followed her to the office door. “I hear business is looking up. You’re doing the Trapnell wedding?”

“Damn!” Cara said. “Word travels fast.”

“It’s a small town,” Wendy said with a smile. “People talk.”

“People like Cullen Kane?”

“I think he’s jealous of you,” Wendy told her.

“Me? I’m no threat to him.”

“Anybody who gets what he thinks he wants is a threat to somebody like Cullen Kane,” Wendy advised. “Remember that.”