Chapter Five Shipping Charges Soothe My Soul
Chapter Five
Shipping Charges Soothe My Soul
“Then she just willingly paid all that and left?”
Regan and I are rehashing yesterday’s events yet again this morning while eating the still-delicious, but definitely slightly
stale, chocolate croissants. I didn’t have an appetite after Nikki left, so we voted to save them for today. Besides, Regan
ate two of them fresh at the Small Business Association meeting anyway.
“I should have charged her more,” I say between bites. “She barely even blinked at the price.”
“We’ll get her next time, tiger.” Regan laughs, wiping a few stray crumbs off the side of her lips. “I’m just proud of you
for holding up in the face of all that. It couldn’t have been easy. You could have called me, if you needed to.”
“I know, but I had it under control,” I only sort of lie. “There better not be a next time, though. I told her to find a florist
back in LA and leave me the hell alone.”
I’m paraphrasing, but it’s fine. That was what I meant, even if the words didn’t really come out that aggressive. I did my best, okay.
“Who did you tell to leave you the hell alone?” Johnny asks, walking out of the back room with several boxes of holiday decor
that Regan asked him to store at his mechanic shop across town. He has a massive garage with an attic at his place. Here,
space is at an absolute premium.
We almost couldn’t fit today’s shipment in the little room, which means there’s a giant cardboard case of flowers sitting
up front still waiting to be processed. It would be an eyesore, if we actually had any customers come in this morning.
“Nikki,” Regan and I say in unison.
“She’s here? Like here-here? In town? Or just in your phone?”
“Yep, here in the flesh,” I say. “She was, anyway. I’m hoping she’s gone by now.”
The words sound true, at least I hope they do, but the feelings beneath them are much more complicated. The truth is, I don’t
know what I’m hoping. Nikki leaving would be the best for both of us, probably. Certainly the best for me—but seeing her again
has stirred up so much.
“Want me to slap her?” he asks cheerfully. I know he’s kidding again, sort of—that was a catchphrase of a bit character on
our old show, and besides, Johnny has never hit anyone in his life—but it still gets my hackles up. I don’t know why I feel
protective of Nikki when I said ruder things to her face yesterday. It’s just . . . hard.
“You would never slap anyone, let alone a woman,” Regan says.
“That’s what her sidekick said in the show, Regan,” he says, with an exaggerated scowl. “Get with the program. I’m the sidekick now. It’s my duty to say my lines, lest I end up as big of a slacker as her former costar was! Right, Annie?
You get it.”
I laugh and shake my head, enjoying a nice low-key day with my friends after the dramatic events of the last forty-eight hours. Except speak of the devil and she shall appear or whatever, because Johnny has barely been gone five minutes when the bells over the door ring.
Nikki waves to me as she walks up to the counter. I start to tell her to turn back around, but Regan beats me to it.
“I thought Annie told you to get lost.”
“Annie?” she asks, raising an eyebrow as she looks at me.
“Only to my friends.”
“We were friends once,” she says, almost sounding a little sad.
“And now you’re not,” Regan says, crossing her arms and blocking the aisle that I’m in so Nikki can’t get any closer. “You
need to leave.”
I would kiss Regan for that, if I didn’t think it would make things even more awkward.
“I’m a paying customer,” Nikki says. “I need another order.”
“This is a private business. My private business. I decide who can shop here.”
“That’s homophobic,” Nikki jokes, clearly unbothered.
“It’s not homophobic to tell you that you can’t keep torturing your ex like this. Please go.”
“Usually, people are falling all over themselves to get me in their shops. It’s almost refreshing that you’re trying to turn
me away.”
I roll my eyes and step out from behind Regan, even though I’d rather spend all day hiding there. “Cut it out, Nikki,” I groan,
walking toward her. “What do you want? Why are you here?”
“Like I said, I need another order. You’re the best. You know I always want the best.”
“Fine, then let’s get it over with.” I sigh, pulling out an order form and trying to ignore the fact that my heart is practically
doing flips because she said I’m the best. She said she wants me. For two blinks, I’m a lovesick teenager instead of a woman who’s been through hell . . . but then I crash back to earth.
“How long are you going to do this for?” I ask.
Nikki leans against the counter. “Only as long as it takes to get you to talk to me about things.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“You had a lot to say the other night, though. What did you text me, again? ‘Fuck your book and fuck you’? That doesn’t sound
like someone without an opinion on things.” She tilts her head, her teasing look giving way to something more serious. “Seriously,
I just want to talk.”
The book. I had almost forgotten about it with the shock of seeing her again. Now that I remember, the fury returns fresh.
“You want my opinion? My opinion is that you don’t have any right to tell my story, but I know that’s never mattered to you
before,” I snap. “I’m not about to waste my time listening to you try to justify it. So, if you want to order, order—the money
spends the same even if I hate you. But then you have to get out.”
She frowns. “I’m not telling your story—I’m writing mine, Anne,” she says, and that foreign name on her familiar tongue twists
in my gut like a knife.
Nikki was never meant to call me that. She was never meant to know Anne even existed.
I hate this.
“Is there a story without Annie?” Regan asks, stepping up beside me. “Unless you’re just going to talk about what happened once
she stopped covering for you all the time, but then you wouldn’t have done the wink, right?”
Nikki narrows her eyes as she flicks them between us. I can tell she’s trying to puzzle out exactly what my relationship with
Regan is. I lean a little closer to my best friend, hoping that it gives Nikki the wrong idea. I know it’s awful of me, but
I want her to hurt too. I want her to think that she’s not the only one who has moved on. She seems so smug, so fine, after
seeing me all these years later. I want her to miss me or, even better, feel like she’s missed out on me.
“Do you want to order something from us or not?” I ask, tapping my pencil against the little order form again. A little divot appears as she scrunches her eyebrows
together at the word “us.”
“Y . . . yes,” she says, clearly caught off guard.
Good. Make her wonder.
She stares at where Regan’s shoulder presses against mine for another beat before opening my portfolio to one of my biggest
arrangements. It was the backdrop for the winner’s circle at a horse show I was hired to do a few months back. They paid extra
for us to deliver it and set it up even though it was way, way outside of our delivery area. It’s the biggest arrangement
I’ve ever done, and the one I’m most proud of. It’s also extremely not shippable.
Nikki taps the picture twice. “I want a statement piece like this.”
“For what?”
“To send to someone important,” she says, watching me, and I wonder if we’re playing the same game right now.
“You can’t ship something that size,” I say. “It’s almost three feet tall and six feet long. Regan had to help me set it up.”
“Fine, a miniature version, then. I just need something loud and splashy.”
“And you want this overnighted to your special someone again?” I’m fishing, and she knows it.
“No.” She smiles. “This is going to someone different.”
“Great,” I say, wondering if all these “someone different”s know about each other.
Not my circus, not my monkeys, I remind myself. Not for a long time.
That thought shouldn’t hurt, but it does. I pull the photo album toward me as a distraction while running through the options
in my head. It’s going to be tricky to keep the essence but change the finished product into something smaller and shippable.
“It might take me a couple days to make this,” I settle on. “I need to order in some of the flowers.”
“No,” she says. “I need it sooner.”
“Well, I can’t do it sooner. Not if you want it to be good. Tell your secret bang buddy that her gift is going to be a little
late.”
“Wow, you’re so funny I forgot to laugh,” she deadpans, quoting one of her own old catchphrases from the show. I almost wish
Johnny was still here, offering to slap her.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” she asks innocently.
“Don’t come in here with your old lines and your old smirks and your old perfume—”
“My old perfume?” She looks almost hopeful. “You do remember?” Her fingers trail up to the side of her neck as she smiles. “I used to always dab it right here so you would—”
I shake my head, not giving in. “Are you trying to make this as painful as possible for me?”
“No, I . . .” Her eyes shoot to the floor. “I’m sorry, that crossed a line,” she mumbles. “You can forget the design,” she
adds. “Just make something beautiful that can be overnighted, okay?”
“There’s going to be a rush charge,” Regan pipes up.
“That’s fine. Ship it here, please,” she says, grabbing my pen and scrawling down another LA address.
“That’ll be . . . six hundred and fifty dollars,” Regan says.
“For a bouquet?” Nikki scrunches up her face.
“No, for shipping and the rush charge.” Regan flashes a toothy grin. “The flowers are extra.”
Nikki rolls her eyes and plunks down her AmEx again, the heavy metal corner of the card digging into soft wood. I pick it
up and glance between Nikki and Regan, who seem to have devolved into some kind of deranged staring contest.
Perfect. This is all totally normal and great. Nothing is wrong here at all.
“So . . . I’m just making anything I want?” I ask slowly, waving my hand between them.
“Yes,” Nikki says, at the same time as Regan says, “No.”
Before I can reply, the bells over the door ring again and another customer walks in—one of the little old church ladies. She gets a bouquet of carnations once a week to bring to her husband’s grave. You could practically set your watch to her.
Nikki tips her head down, pulling her hair out of her bun and letting it fall around her face. I want to tell her that Mrs.
Dorian has very poor eyesight (and probably wouldn’t recognize Nikki even if she didn’t), but I’m enjoying how uncomfortable
Nikki looks right now.
“Maybe we should wrap this up,” Nikki says quietly.
“Fine by me,” I say. “You being in this shop every day is going to make people talk. Even with your stupid hair and hat, people
are eventually going to figure out who you are, and when they do, they’re also going to recognize me.”
She huffs out a laugh. “Nobody knows what I look like without my makeup. They accuse me of getting a nose job when my beauty
advisor switches my contouring. I don’t go out fresh-faced enough in LA for anyone to pick up on it.”
“As much as it kills me to admit this, yes they will,” I say. “You’re too famous for them not to.” I swipe her card and her
the full $850—$650 for the rush fee and shipping, plus $200 for the flowers. I feel like a jerk, but also, Nikki just covered
Regan’s mortgage payment on this place for the month. “Please, you’re going to cause a scene.”
She sighs. “If the only way I can get you to talk to me is by buying flowers, then I’m going to be here every morning. You
can get used to it or you can—”
“Wow, I see you’re just as good at respecting boundaries as you were before.”
“That’s not . . . no,” she says, stepping back like I burned her, but seriously, what did she think she was doing?
“Come on, Nikki. What’s it going to take to make you go away?”
She rubs the back of her neck. “I want you to . . . I was hoping that you would . . . help me with the book.”
“What?!” I shout, and then quickly switch to whispering. “What do you mean you want me to help with your book? I don’t want
there to be a book, Nikki!”
“That’s literally what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s not what you’re thinking. Is that diner we used to go to still
here? We could go there if you don’t want to talk here. Just hear me out, please?”
“Anything we needed to say to each other was said a long time ago.”
“That’s not true. Look, I don’t want to do this book if it’s going to upset you, but—”
“Then don’t do it, because it will,” I say, turning away to, I don’t even know, rush up to my apartment or something. I just can’t look at her and her pleading eyes for another second.
“Can we please discuss this like rational people instead of you running away again? Please?”
My nostrils flare and I bite back the venom I’m ready to throw at her for implying that I am the irrational one in this scenario. Me.
“You said we shouldn’t make a scene,” Nikki adds.
I glance at Mrs. Dorian and then back to Nikki just in time to see her sliding her signed card slip toward me. I blow out
a heavy breath. “I’m not.”
“You’re about to, though. Your nostrils are doing that thing they do when you’re about to lose it.
Come on, we have things to discuss either way.
I know you don’t owe me anything, but I would sincerely appreciate it if we could have a civil conversation like two people who used to love each other.
If you’d rather go through lawyers or whatever . . . it’s your call, I guess.”
Used to love each other, she said. Her words slice into the softest parts of me. Used to, used to, used to, used to.
I feel like I’m going to throw up.
“If I meet you at that diner, you’ll leave after?” I manage to choke out because I know as long as she’s here, I’ll never
be okay. Just like I know hiring a lawyer as high caliber as whoever is repping her these days is going to be totally unaffordable.
“Tomorrow at six?” she asks softly, dodging my question.
I squeeze my eyes shut, taking a steadying breath. “Tomorrow at six.”