Chapter 11 #2
“Aide,” Alma supplies. Pen hesitates, apparently not remembering Alma’s name. “Alma,” they say, unfazed.
“Right.” Pen’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Alma.” She turns to the rest of us. “And this is my groom, Josh; his best man, Eitan; my maid of honor, Calliope” —Pen glances at Louise to make sure she’s witnessing this— “and my newest bridesmaid, Ruby.”
“Hello, everyone,” Dominique says warmly.
“I’m Dominique. I’m the owner and lead designer at Baby’s Breath Bridal.
We specialize in luxury floral, and are here to meet every need to make your milestone look and feel perfect.
” She glances down at her clipboard. “You’ve put your deposit down for the gilded package, so today we’re going to talk about what that can include. ”
Penelope claps. “Perfect!”
Dominique walks to the long table that lines the center of the space. The table has three different centerpieces with slightly different sizes and designs. “The gilded package includes our biggest centerpiece.” She points to the largest flower arrangement on the table.
“Love.” Penelope nods.
“And we have some wiggle room for other floral installations. Miri mentioned we also need florals for—” Dominique checks her clipboard.
“Oh, Miri is no longer working with the wedding,” Pen says.
Dominique pauses. “Are you working with a new planner?”
“No,” Pen says, cheery and unfazed, “I downgraded our planning package to just include the day-of coordination.”
Dominique clears her throat. “Understood. Well, in our prior communication, Miri mentioned a chuppah, the aisle, a gift table, a photo booth, and a dance floor as areas that require floral attention.”
“Sounds right.” Pen nods. She squeezes my arm. Something about the Miri dismissal feels off. Why would Pen fire someone who was clearly doing such a good job? I remind myself that I don’t know enough to draw any conclusions.
“Well, we have an hour today,” Dominique continues, taking the Miri news in stride. “I’d love for you to browse and start thinking about what flowers you’re drawn to—type and color—and check out some of our example installations.”
Penelope gravitates toward a four-post structure opposite the main table.
“This is exactly what I’ve been dreaming about.” She points at the example chuppah.
“You’ve been dreaming about a chuppah?” Eitan asks.
Pen ignores him. “Aunt Lou! What do you think of a chuppah like this?” Penelope says ‘chuppah’ like hoo-puh and the sound grates on my soul.
“Baby, it’s pronounced chhh-uhppah,” Josh corrects her gently.
“That’s what I said!”
“You have to make the ch sound.” Josh makes it, sounding like he’s clearing about a pound of phlegm from his throat.
“Oh no, I can’t make that sound.” Penelope pats his shoulder. “I’m pronouncing it right otherwise.” She turns back to the chuppah decked head to toe in flowers. “It’s more expensive, but it looks like a fairytale.”
I wander toward the color-coded buckets of flowers.
“Right, Ruby?” Pen’s gaze zeroes in on me and the rest of the group follows.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat, suddenly in the spotlight. “It’s—something.” A bit gaudy for my taste, but I’ll find a groom before I voice my personal opinion on chuppah florals.
“Exactly. A fairytale.”
“It’s a bold choice.” Dominique nods. “A showstopper feature for the ceremony.”
“The ceremony that the rabbi said would last thirty minutes tops if he stretches it?” Josh asks, skeptical.
“The pictures will last a lifetime, baby.” Pen shoos away his doubt.
Her attention is caught by another installation, a kid in a candy store. It’s an eight-by-eight-foot checkered floor, and the ceiling is made up entirely of hydrangeas. “Ooooh, is this a dance-floor ceiling made of flowers?”
Dominique smiles. “Yes, that has been one of our most popular gilded activations for a long time, and recently brides have been loving the monofloral version.”
“Oh my God, love,” Pen gushes. “Can you imagine? The chuppah and the dance-floor ceiling matching? Iconic.”
$90,000 for one type of flower? As fancy as monofloral makes it sound, that seems a bit underwhelming.
“Aunt Lou, what do you think?”
Louise has plunked herself into her walker, staring off into space. “It’s all beautiful, hun. But isn’t it a bit excessive? Think about all the flowers that would go to waste.”
Pen watches Louise like she’s a toddler. “That just comes with the territory of the gilded package, doesn’t it?” Pen looks at Dominique.
“Well, we could do silk flowers,” Dominique offers, “to cut down on environmental impact.” Pen’s eyes widen with alarm. “Or switch to candles—another gorgeous option.”
“I want real flowers,” Pen whines. “It’s my wedding!”
Calliope smacks her gum loudly, eyes stuck to the ceiling.
“We don’t need to decide this second,” Dominique says.
“You can think about it, and while you’re here, you can look around and get a feel for which flowers you like.
Even if you don’t go monofloral, we can talk about one or two flowers that will be the focus of the centerpiece, and I’ll build the arrangement around that. ”
“Perfect.” Pen smiles before meandering toward the wall of flowers. She oohs and ahhs, bouncing between lilies and peonies.
Eitan stares intently at the white end of the wall, nibbling on his bottom lip. It’s a nervous habit he seems unaware of.
“Relax,” I whisper. “You look constipated.”
He barks out a laugh. Everyone looks at us and I shield myself in the calla lilies.
“Josh and I have the same eye color,” Eitan says. “What do you think?” He holds up baby’s breath to his eye. Josh’s desaturated blue eyes have absolutely nothing on Eitan’s glowing irises, but I hold my tongue.
“Uber bridal.” I nod. “Baby’s breath is a classic.”
Eitan pulls the bloom away from his eye in distaste. “I thought these were forget-me-nots.”
“Have you ever visited a botanic garden?” I laugh as I walk to the slim blue section on the other side of the whites. I extract a bundle of forget-me-nots and hold them up to Eitan.
“What about these?” The flowers appear purple next to Eitan’s eyes. “Mmm never mind. Wrong shade of blue.”
“Don’t flowers have meanings?” Penelope snaps her fingers, like she’s trying to conjure the meanings of flowers out of thin air. “Are there any flowers traditional to Jewish weddings?”
Dominique writes on her clipboard. “I can definitely do some research into that.”
I scramble to type Jewish wedding flowers into Google. Eitan peers over my shoulder. His shit-eating grin is bright enough to rival the sunflowers on the other side of the room.
“Not a word,” I mutter to him.
The results seem pretty inconclusive, beyond two obvious answers: olive and pomegranate. I say these two out loud, and look up from my phone in time to see Penelope stifling a laugh.
“Fruit sounds a little too…rustic for my taste.”
My cheeks heat.
“Not to worry.” Dominique smiles. “We have plenty of time. We’re going to create your dream arrangement.”
“I have no doubts,” Penelope says airily, gathering her bag and hooking her arm in mine again, walking us to the door. “Thank you, Dominique!” she says over her shoulder.
“Thank you!” I call, before I am whisked outside. Dominique waves us out, smiling politely as she continues jotting down notes from that chaotic meeting.
“It’s a scorcher,” Josh says as we all step out into the muggy terrarium that is a late June Chicago day.
“We’re going to the casino,” Louise declares.
“At 11 a.m.?” Calliope asks.
“We’re already halfway to Indiana.” Louise wheels her walker to the car. “You coming, Callie?”
Calliope shrugs. “Suppose, I don’t have any plans.” She gets in the backseat of Louise’s Mercedes, giving Pen a single, wordless wave.
“Thanks so much for coming, Aunt Lou.” Pen leans in to peck Louise on the cheek, the motion stilted. “Wasn’t this fun?”
“So fun, hun,” Louise says as Alma helps her into the passenger seat.
“Thank you…” Pen looks at Alma, forgetting their name again.
“Alma!” they say, rounding the car.
“Right, Alma! Thanks, girl.”
“Ope! Not a girl. But you’re welcome!” Alma ducks into the driver seat. The car glides away from the curb in the way only German engineering can.
And then there were four.
Pen mutters something to Josh about Louise, and he coos soothing tones back to her, stroking her shoulders.
I shield my eyes from the sun, which also allows me to avoid intruding on their moment. Now seems like a good time to go clean up that popcorn-tissue disaster. Maybe test out Eitan’s theory about talking to a stranger.
“Thanks for inviting me,” I say. “I’ll see—”
“No, we need to do something! This is a perfect day.” Penelope grabs my wrist. Code red. I’m not prepared for anything besides this florist appointment. “Let’s go to the beach!”
“I don’t have a suit,” is the first synapse my brain fires.
The second, third, and fourth synapses are not fit for public consumption: I can’t be away from my emotional support couch for this long.
I haven’t worn a bathing suit since before my body was hacked to pieces and sewn back together.
Only one person has seen my scars and they dumped me so, empirically, it’s a bad idea.
“Clara and Izumi are on the concrete. There won’t even be sand. And you can jump in with your bra. Who cares?”
I care! a disgruntled voice in my head asserts.
“I can’t swim,” I lie.
“Then just sunbathe, babe.” Pen’s attention shifts to her phone.
Eitan nudges me. “This is a good thing, Bathroom Girl.”
“Stop calling me that,” I growl under my breath. Yes, we know it’s a good thing! the same disgruntled voice hisses. I choose not to examine the use of plural we too closely.
“I’ll switch to Beach Girl if you say yes.” Eitan puts his hands together in front of his chest in supplication. He looks like a puppy who ate too much dog food and grew way too big.
I know I should say yes. This is exactly the kind of thing I have been waiting for. But I expected to have at least two business days to prepare for a social gathering. Psych myself up, create talking points. Select the perfect I’m back and better than ever! outfit.
“I was not prepared for this.”
“That’s the thing about socializing, you have to be able to do it without warning.”
I have no rebuttal other than to glare-grimace at him.
“We’re in,” Eitan declares as he puts his arm over my shoulder, and the other over Josh’s shoulder, forming one chain as we walk to Penelope’s car.