Chapter 61
61
Bert was seated on the living-room floor in what looked like the lotus position, his hands palm-up, resting lightly on his knees. He opened his eyes when he heard Cara come clomping up the steps from the shop.
“How did it go?” he asked. “Did you manage to lasso the runaway bride?”
“No.” Cara dropped her backpack on the floor and collapsed onto the sofa. Poppy took that as the signal to rest her muzzle in Cara’s lap, nudging Cara’s hand until she obliged with a head scratch.
“The wedding is off. Brooke called Harris and her parents this afternoon to let them know where she is and to say that she’s not coming back.”
“Oh, wow. Major bummer.”
Cara looked idly around the room. Bert had managed to pack up everything from her bookshelves, and now boxes lined the living-room wall. “What exactly are you doing?” she asked.
“Yoga. My AA sponsor says sober means sober, so no more drugs. He says the yoga will help with keeping me grounded and quitting the weed.”
“Sounds good. How long have you been doing yoga?”
“Counting this morning, twice. It’s very relaxing. You should try it.”
“Maybe later,” Cara said.
“Was Brooke shacked up with the geeky ranger like you figured?” he asked.
“She’s staying with him, but not sleeping with him. And she swears that calling off the wedding is not about the strip club or the geeky ranger or even about torturing her father and stepmother. I think she basically wants to hit the reset button with her life.”
“Hmm.” Bert slid forward with his hands under his shoulders, straightening his legs, lowering his head, and pointing his butt toward the sky. He held the pose for only a few seconds before dropping back onto the floor. “Ugh! Now I remember why I hate the Downward Dog pose. It makes all the snot run out my eyeballs.”
“Just out of curiosity, how are you learning yoga? Are you going to class?”
“Nah. Classes cost money, and I don’t like the idea of being in the same room with a lot of stinky, sweaty women. I just watch YouTube videos.”
“Makes sense. By the way, thanks for packing up all the stuff, Bert. I was dreading coming home to face that. But mostly I was dreading coming home without Brooke in tow.”
“I really thought you would pull this one off, Cara. I was sure if you found Brooke you’d be able to talk her into going through with things.”
“Me too. I even had a brilliant five-point plan worked out.”
“What happened?”
“I was outgunned. So that’s it. No humongous two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar wedding means no humongous check. Patricia called me to make that perfectly clear. I called most of our vendors during the drive back from St. Marys. Everybody’s disappointed. Nobody more so than me. I’ll have to talk to the Colonel in the morning to break the bad news. He’s going to pop a vein when I tell him I can’t send the rest of his money the way I promised.”
“He called today, by the way.”
“My dad?”
“Yup.” Bert got up and handed her a stack of pink message slips from the console table. “He tried calling your cell phone too, but said the calls wouldn’t go through.”
“Thank God for crappy reception on that island. I don’t think I could have dealt with talking with the Colonel today. Wait a minute. How’d he get my cell number?”
“Not from me,” Bert said.
Cara shook her head, then held up the other message slips. “Who are all these people? I don’t recognize the names.”
“Ahhh. Well, it seems your former nemesis Lillian Fanning has transformed herself into your own personal patron saint. The top three slips are all from brides or mothers of the brides wanting an appointment to talk wedding flowers, and two of them said Lillian referred them. The third girl, Taylor Vickers, and her mom, you’re seeing tomorrow at eleven because she just had a tragic breakup with her former florist, and the wedding is only three weeks away.”
“What florist did she break up with?” Cara asked.
“Some old mean queen named Cullen Kane.”
“What! Bert, I appreciate your trying to make things up to me, but I do not want to be poaching Cullen Kane’s clients.”
“It’s not poaching,” he assured her. “I met Taylor while I was um, seeing Cullen. You know he wines and dines all these brides when he’s trying to get them to commit, but she just discovered he’s doing another big wedding the same date and time as hers, at a church across town, and when you meet Taylor’s mama, you’ll understand that she is not having a florist double-book on her date. I ran into Taylor at Whole Foods this morning, and she remembered me and told me the whole sad story. I might have slipped her one of your business cards. Not an hour later, her mama called here.”
“You are shameless,” Cara said.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“I told the other two brides you’d call them in the morning. This one”—he plucked the top slip and waved it in front of her—“is from the general manager of that new boutique hotel that opens at the end of July in the old Kresge’s store downtown on Broughton Street.”
“The Ibis? Did he say what he wanted?”
“She would like to discuss your developing a signature floral look for the hotel. I told her Wednesday noon would be good for you.”
“Here? She can’t come here. The shop is going to be all torn up. We’ve got to be of here by Friday. And we’ve got to finish up all the stuff for that beach wedding Saturday.…”
“Relax,” Bert said. “Deep, cleansing breaths. In, out. Release the tension. You’re meeting her at their new lobby restaurant. She’d like you to bring along some concepts, which I told her you’d be pleased to do.”
“Concepts? I can’t just come up with a whole look out of thin air by Wednesday. I don’t know anything…”
Bert grasped her by the shoulders. “I got this. Okay? I went online and looked at the chain’s website. There are seventeen Ibis hotels, all over the country, mostly out West, in California, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado. This is their first property in the South. Each of the hotels has a different name and theme, keyed to the location. I printed out photos I found of their hotels in Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle. I think they go for a pretty eclectic, bohemian look.”
“You did all that? Today? On top of packing up my stuff?”
“I also finished off one of the oyster-shell chandeliers for Saturday.”
“How many do we have left to do?”
“Two.”
Cara groaned. “Then I guess I better go fire up the glue gun, huh?”