Save the Date

by Mary Kay Andrews

  “Bernice was my landlady, not a friend. I mean, I don’t even think she liked me,” Cara mused. “So I think it would be bad taste to show up at the service. We’ll send a nice arrangement instead. One of those old-timey ones on stands. Do we have any of those metal easel thingies left in the back, from Norma’s?”

  Bert got up to check the stockroom, but then Cara read the last line of the funeral notice. Out loud.

  “‘In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to charity.’”

  “Hold it,” she said, grabbing Bert’s shirtsleeve as he passed. “That nasty old bat! In lieu of flowers, my ass!”

  “She’s dead, and she’s still managing to give you the finger,” Bert laughed.

  * * *

  By late afternoon, Cara had Bloom’s front and back doors propped open and a large box fan positioned in the doorway, both as a ventilation aid and to keep Poppy from making another escape.

  She printed out a photo she’d taken of Brooke’s wedding dress, and had it taped to the wall just above her computer, while she leafed through online catalogues and sketched out ideas for the bride’s bouquet and the other arrangements for the wedding and reception.

  “That’s Brooke’s dress?”

  “Yes. Thank God she finally went to Atlanta and bought one before her mother and stepmother took matters into their own hands.”

  “Pretty plain,” Bert said, a note of disdain in his voice.

  The gown, of heavy duchesse ivory satin, was simple. Sleeveless, with a deep V-neck, it was fitted close to the body, flaring out into soft folds just below the knees. Cara pointed a finger at the detail at the waist. “This is antique lace, reembroidered with seed pearls. No other lace, no sequins or flounces, or any of that. Brooke’s a natural beauty, with a great figure. She doesn’t need anything more than this. No veil either. I’m just going to make a hair ornament with flowers, and she’ll use that to pin her hair back behind one ear.”

  The shop phone rang; she glanced over at the caller ID, and made a face before answering.

  “Hi, Patricia.”

  “Hi Cara. I just thought I’d touch base and make sure that you’ve got things well in hand for the wedding. Is the caterer a definite, because if not, I’ve got Carlos on notice to hold the date for me.”

  “Yes,” Cara said. “Fete Accompli is a done deal. Layne’s signed the contract, and I’ll send it over to you and Gordon for your signature. And when that’s done, you’ll need to put down a deposit.”

  “I understand,” Patricia said. “When can we schedule a tasting, for the menu for the reception? Cullen says he always suggests the bride’s family have a tasting at least a month before the wedding, so they can tweak anything they don’t like.”

  Cara found herself grinding her back molars. Patricia Trapnell was determined to micromanage this wedding, whether Brooke wanted her to or not.

  “Cara?” Patricia’s voice was sharp. “Are you still there?”

  “I’ll talk to Layne about that, and get a couple possible dates, and we’ll set that up based on Brooke’s availability.”

  “Brooke’s availability. That might be never,” Patricia huffed.

  “I’ll ask her mother to let her know it’s a priority,” Cara said, unable to resist getting in a dig.

  Which apparently went right over Patricia’s head.

  “Libba Strayhorn tells me that they’re thinking of having the old barn redone to have the after-party out there,” Patricia said. “Is that a good idea? I mean, a barn? Where horses have been?”

  “I toured the barn with Libba,” Cara said. “The horses haven’t been kept there in years. And Libba’s going to have it completely cleaned out and restored. We’ve done flowers for parties in barns and all kinds of unique settings in the past couple years. It’s actually not all that unusual an idea. And this will give Brooke and Harris an opportunity to relax and mingle with their friends in a much more casual atmosphere.”

  “Couldn’t they just as well do that in the house? Where there’s air-conditioning and running water?”

  Now it was Patricia’s turn to get in a dig. Which Cara, in turn, decided to ignore.

  “Was there anything else, Patricia?”

  “Hmm. Just going down my list. I assume you’ve gotten a firm commitment from the photographer? Cullen says she stays booked for months and months in advance. I know we’ll want to give her a list of shots we want taken, before and after the wedding. And Gordon is hoping to have Brooke sit for a portrait in her wedding gown.”

  “Yes. Meredith has assured me she has us on her books for July sixth. I’ll let her know about your request for a portrait, but that’s something you’ll need to take up with Brooke, since I’m assuming it needs to be done well before the actual wedding day.”

  “I’ll do that,” Patricia said. “Or rather, I’ll have Gordon do it. Brooke somehow doesn’t seem to receive any of my phone calls, emails, or texts.”

  Big surprise, Cara thought.

  “All right then,” Cara said briskly. “I’ll just get back to my flowers. Thanks for calling, Patricia.”

  After she’d disconnected from the call, Cara looked at the phone with distaste. This, she thought, was what she was in for, over the next five weeks. Weekly, if not daily, contact with Patricia Trapnell. When all was said and done, Cara was sure, she would have more than earned her wedding-planning fee for this event.

  * * *

  Cara went back to her catalogue and her sketches for the Trapnell wedding, and Bert worked efficiently through the phone orders, putting together hospital and birthday arrangements, answering the phone, and then going through their flower stock, to see what needed reordering.

  The room grew warmer and warmer. They drank what seemed like gallons of water, and Cara silently checked online, pricing room-sized window air conditioners—one for the shop, and one for her apartment.

  When the phone rang around three in the afternoon, Bert glanced over, crossed his eyes, and ignored it.

  “Lillian Fanning,” he told Cara. “If she’s paid her bills, I don’t see why we have to talk to her again.”

  “Maybe she wants us to do flowers for another event,” Cara said crisply, reaching for the phone. “Which is why I don’t want us screening calls. You never know…”

  “I know that woman, and with her, it’s never pleasant,” he shot back.

  “Lillian,” Cara said, her voice radiating warmth she didn’t actually feel. “So good to hear from you again. Are you all rested up from the wedding excitement yet?”

  “Mostly. Bill and I just got back from two weeks in Bermuda. The weather was nice, but the service! I can’t think why anybody would go there a second time.…”

  “Have the wedding proofs come back yet?” Cara asked. She really wasn’t in the mood to listen to one of Lillian’s rants this afternoon. “Please be sure to let me know when I can see them. I’d love to use some of them on my website. That photo of you and Torie, together on the dock, just at sunset, has to be great.”

  “The proofs aren’t back, which is just so annoying,” Lillian started. “I can’t even get into that right now. Listen, Cara, I’m calling about the silver.”

  “Silver?” Cara was hot and tired. And her mind was a blank.

  “My silver. The things you used for the wedding. The candlesticks, the bud vases, the punch bowl, and the epergne. They were all supposed to be returned to me after the wedding.”

  Cara noted that Lillian referred to the silver as things “you used.” They had, of course, used the Fanning family silver at the mother of the bride’s insistence.

  She closed her eyes and tried to think back, to the night of Torie’s wedding, and the Sunday afterward. She remembered rounding up all the pieces and checking them off against the inventory she’d taken, as she always did, when they used a client’s own pieces for an event. She’d done it the morning after the wedding.

  And she even remembered loading them into a large plastic bin lined with towels, to keep the
pieces from being scratched. She could see the bin in the back of the van. But what she could not remember was taking the bin back to the Fannings’ home.

  “Hang on a minute, Lillian, please,” she said. “Let me just check something.”

  She put Lillian Fanning on hold and turned to Bert.

  “I heard,” he said. “Her silver.”

  “Did we return it?” Cara asked, her voice urgent. “I guess maybe I was a little buzzed that night. I remember packing it up and putting it in the van, but that’s it. Please tell me we returned it all to her.”

  “I tried,” Bert said, already defensive. “I’ve been over there three different times in the last month, while I was out on deliveries. But nobody was home, and I definitely wasn’t gonna just leave it sitting on their doorstep.”

  “They were in Bermuda for two weeks..”

  He was unmoved. “Tell Lillian to take a chill pill. The silver is all still out in the van.”

  “The van?” Cara cried. “Half a dozen cars on this block have been broken into over the past six months. Why wouldn’t you bring it in here, where it would be safe?”

  “Here, where?” He gestured around the tiny, cluttered workshop.

  Without another word, she got up, hurrying toward the back of the shop, to where the van was parked. “Please let it be therepleasepleaseplease.” She felt acid rising in her throat. She unlocked the wrought-iron courtyard gate and stepped into the lane. The van was in its parking slot, which was boldly marked PRIVATE PARKING FOR BLOOM FLORAL.

  Her fingers were trembling so badly she had to hold the key with both hands to unlock the back tailgate. Finally, she flung the doors open, and with her heart in her mouth, shoved aside a packing blanket to uncover the plastic bin, filled with the Fanning family silver.

  Cara sank down on the tailgate to catch her breath, then jumped up quickly, the heat from the bumper searing the exposed flesh on her thighs. She grabbed the heavy bin, relocked the van, and went back inside.

  She picked up the phone. “Lillian?”

  “What on earth!” The older woman’s tone seared almost as much as that overheated bumper. “I was just about to hang up and call back.”

  “I am so, so sorry,” Cara exclaimed. “The silver is all right here at the shop.” No need to tell Lillian that her priceless family heirlooms had been riding around in her van since the wedding.

  “We did try to return it to you, after the wedding, but nobody was home, so we just decided to leave it here, for safekeeping, until we heard from you.”

  “You’re hearing from me now,” Lillian said pointedly.

  “And I’ll bring the silver back to you immediately. I’ll deliver it myself. Is now a good time?”

  “Now’s fine,” Lillian said.

  27

  “I’ll go.” Bert jumped up from his seat at the worktable. He pointed at the finished flower arrangements in the cooler. “It’s my fault Lillian’s pissed at you.”

  “I’ll do the drops at Candler and Memorial. There’s a funeral arrangement to go to Gamble Funeral Home too. Then we’ve got a delivery on the south side. I’ll head out to Isle of Hope after that, and personally deliver Lillian’s treasure right to her door.”

  “No, that’s okay. Just take care of the other deliveries. I’ll use my own car and take the silver back. Ultimately, it’s my responsibility.”

  “Please?” He gave her his winningest smile. “I want to. You were right. I should have at least brought that bin into the shop and let you decide what to do with it. It was pure laziness on my part.”

  “Well … if you really want to…”

  The phone rang and they both reached for it. And stopped, when they saw Lillian Fanning’s name on the caller ID screen again.

  “Now what?” Cara murmured.

  “Hi Lillian. We were just heading your way.”

  “Change of plans,” Lillian said, skipping a greeting. “I’m meeting a friend for drinks at the club. But I’ll leave a key to the back door. It’ll be under the lid of the gas grill on the patio. Just put the silver in the kitchen and leave the key where you found it afterward.”

  “We can do that,” Cara said, grateful that neither of them would have to experience their client’s wrath face-to-face.

  * * *

  She quickly put together a small nosegay of pink roses to fit inside one of Lillian’s silver bud vases. Then she helped load the flower arrangements into the built-in racks in the van while Bert put the bin of silver in the front seat.

  “There’s a key under the gas grill lid on the patio around the back of the Fannings’ house,” she told her assistant. “Put the little nosegay in the middle of the kitchen table, will you? Leave the rest of the silver in the bin, on the kitchen counter. And for God’s sake, be sure you’ve locked up tight when you leave.”

  He nodded and hopped into the driver’s seat. Then he stuck his head out the open window. “Okay if I keep the van and use it tonight, Mom?” He cocked his head to the side. “I promise to put gas in it. Pretty please?”

  Cara laughed despite herself. She could never stay mad at Bert for long, and he damned well knew it. And it wasn’t an unusual request. His own car was an unreliable seventeen-year-old Honda, which was why he mostly relied on his bike for transportation around town.

  “Okay, but make sure all your homework’s done first! And no riding around town picking up strange girls.”

  “No problemo,” Bert said. He backed up the van and drove slowly down the lane.

  28

  Shaz was sprawled on the floor in front the air-conditioning vent in the living room. When Jack came out of the bedroom Sunday morning, dressed in running clothes and holding her leash, she regarded him with total disinterest.

  “Up, Shaz,” he said. She yawned and stayed put.

  “Come on Shaz. Be a good girl. Let’s go for a run before it gets too hot.”

  He clipped the leash to her collar and tugged gently. “It’ll be fun,” he lied.

  It was nearly nine o’clock and the temperatures were already in the high eighties. But he’d worked long hours all week, returning home just at dark most nights, too worn out to do much more than take the puppy for a quick stroll around the block. A run, he decided, would be good for both of them.

  Most days, he took Shaz with him over to South Carolina and Cabin Creek, where he and Ryan had started work on the old barn. After only a week, they’d already worked out a routine. He and Ryan would leave Savannah while it was still dark, and by dawn the two men would be up on the roof, ripping off the old tin, exposing multiple layers of brittle tar, and then finally the wooden subroof.

  Shaz was happy to start the mornings romping around the pasture, sniffing the horses, but otherwise keeping a cautious distance. The rest of those hot days, she found a place in the cool dim of one of the old horse stalls, leaving only occasionally to drink from her bowl of water, or to investigate strange new smells and sights outside.

  During the worst heat of the day, Jack and Ryan loaded up the truck with the Strayhorn family’s decades of junk and hauled it off to the nearby dump. It was hot, exhausting work, but they had a deadline, so they kept up the pace, only taking a day off on Sunday—and then only at Torie’s insistence.

  Jack tugged again at Shaz’s leash now, and she reluctantly stood up and allowed herself to be led outside.

  They took their usual route, loping easily north down Habersham. The street was Sunday-morning quiet. They passed Broughton, Savannah’s version of Main Street, and ran through Warren Square, where a homeless man napped on a bench, and on to Bay Street.

  An early-morning breakfast crowd milled outside around the door at B. Matthew’s, and Shaz stopped abruptly, sniffing the aroma of bacon when the restaurant door was opened.

  “Later,” Jack said, tugging again. They continued west on Bay Street, where tourists stood in groups on street corners, consulting their maps, or aiming cameras at the photo-ready moss-draped oaks on the far side of the street.
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  After only a mile, Shaz was panting, and Jack’s shirt was drenched with sweat. He slowed to a walk, crossed Bay at Bull, and escorted Shaz to the shade under an oak, where he bought a bottle of water from a street vendor, uncapped it, and let Shaz refresh herself, laughing as she eagerly lapped the glugging water. He poured the last few drops of the water into his palms and splashed it onto his face, and they set off again.

  Man and dog ran up Whitaker Street, past the chic boutiques and home-furnishing stores, until they got to Forsyth Park. It was shadier here, and the sidewalks were already crowded with other runners, walkers, and skateboarders. After two laps around the park, he stopped and bought another bottle of water to share with Shaz.

  He set off north again on Whitaker, telling himself it would be natural for their route home to pass by the red-brick building on West Jones Street. And if Cara and her dog happened to be out for a Sunday walk, well, that would be just fine.

  * * *

  As it happened, Cara and Poppy weren’t out for a walk. But they were sitting on the stoop in front of Bloom. Or rather, Cara was sitting on the stoop. Poppy was sitting at the base of a crepe myrtle tree located in a planting bed of ivy in the middle of the sidewalk. The goldendoodle was staring intently up at the tree branches, where a large gray squirrel chattered indignantly.

  Cara had her hair tied up in a sloppy topknot, and she was wearing the least amount of clothing she could get away with in public, a short periwinkle-blue cotton sundress, and matching cheap blue flip-flops.

  The shop door was propped open with a box window fan, which she’d turned on in an effort to cool herself. Pages of the Sunday New York Times fluttered in the listless warm breeze from the fan, held down with a tall plastic tumbler of iced tea.

  She spotted the familiar figure of Jack Finnerty and his dog as soon as they turned onto her block, and she felt a little shiver of excitement, followed quickly by the dismaying fact of her appearance.

  Unable to sleep in the suffocating heat of the apartment, she’d been up since six. She’d fed Poppy, forced herself to eat a container of Greek yogurt and some strawberries for breakfast, and walked over to the coffee shop and newsstand on Liberty Street, where she picked up the iced tea and the Sunday paper.