“Now that I have you all gathered here,” Liv said, with a bit of a smirk on her face, “if you’re bagging merchandise for a customer, check the bags. This last order contained some defective ones. I tried to weed through them, but apparently I missed a few.”
Liv glanced at her watch, then flipped the sign to “Closed,” causing a round of applause. She took a low dramatic bow. “We may be closed, but we’ve got a full night of work ahead of us. So I hope you all brought your energy drinks and most comfortable shoes.
“So let’s crank up the radio and get started. Everybody gets to choose their favorite station for an hour. Then we’ll try to wrap it up and get at least a few hours of sleep.”
I did a quick head count. Although there were nine of us (Liv and me, Amber Lee, Shelby, Melanie, and Opie, all set up in various workstations around the store, and Darnell and his two teammates, assigned to fetch and carry and clean and run out for more food as needed) those “few hours of sleep” would be limited to a catnap. The thought of nine solid hours of floral design was exhausting—especially since we’d repeat it again the following day.
“Oh, and Audrey? The peach roses are here.”
I hightailed it to the walk-in. Although not from our usual supplier, the peach roses were just as vivid and fresh. I heaved a huge sigh of relief.
“With the rest of us working on funeral arrangements,” Liv said, “I think I can spare you and Amber Lee if you want to get a jump on the wedding flowers.”
Avoiding the crammed back room, Amber Lee and I set up an impromptu station in the consulting nook. The music of the hour was bluegrass. I had a hard time hearing anything but the mandolin, but that was okay. It gave me time to think. About the day—long. About the work ahead—impossible. About my own life—did I even want to venture down that alley? The alternative was thinking about Jenny, but that was even more discouraging than my own life at this instant.
I’d decided to start with the reception centerpieces. Carolyn had picked tall, elaborate arrangements. Years ago, table flowers used to be wide arrangements, maybe with a candle popped into the middle, low enough that the guests could see over and converse. Until some florist discovered you could put a full tall arrangement in an even taller pillar vase and allow the flowers to tower over the guests’ heads. Of course, that tall vase required a large base, and the flowers needed to be fairly symmetrical. I had yet to see one come crashing down, but I’d imagine the results would be disastrous.
Since the flowers for these arrangements are not placed in the vase but, rather, in a smaller container that rests on top, Amber Lee and I were able to construct them while seated. I kicked off my shoes and stretched my toes. Heavenly.
I demonstrated the first centerpiece, so Amber Lee could pick up and mimic the design. Bells of Ireland added the visual interest and seemed well suited to a wedding as they foretold good luck. White lilies, of course, meant purity or sweetness and made an interesting contrast with the darker peach roses that symbolized desire. I guessed purity and desire were a good combination for a wedding, even if no one noticed the significance but me.
The white snapdragon gave me pause, since it could mean presumption or even deception. But it also carried the meaning of gracious lady. What could be more typically Southern? So I tucked it in with little reservation.
As we filled in the remaining space with green Fuji mums, I had to chuckle. If a Victorian maid were to receive one of these mums, sometimes called spider mums, she might have started packing her bags. The message was elope with me.
I could imagine what a sudden elopement would do to the mayor’s blood pressure after all the planning and expense. But in a wedding arrangement, the flower could also symbolize liveliness. Carolyn had jumped on the idea of including this flower, with a flush on her face. At that point, I was glad she didn’t clue me in on her reasoning. Too much information.
As the reception arrangements grew in number, I sent the boys out to see if they could scavenge some cardboard boxes from the back alley or perhaps the grocery store. We’d be filling our coolers with complete funeral and wedding arrangements, and flowers don’t stack well. Liv slipped them some money and asked them to come back with pizza as well.
Before too long, in a familiar environment with plenty for my hands to do, my mood lightened. As Grandma Mae always said, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” I reasoned there might be something to all those old Southern Mama–isms she passed down.
At least I didn’t have a scowl on my face at ten-something, when a tap on the front door drew my attention. The radio had shifted to an old standards station, and Frank Sinatra belted out some corny song about the coffee in Brazil. Since most of our staff were still in the back room, I stood up, stretched, and went to the front door. The darkness of the night compared to the brightness of the shop made it difficult to see who was there.
But the closer I got to the door, the more I began to recognize the figure. Nick Maxwell, minus his baker’s whites. Well, before anyone gets the wrong mental image, he was wearing khaki pants and a sports shirt. And he looked just as good, if not better, in colors besides white.
“Hi,” he said shyly when I cracked open the door. “I saw the lights on.”
“We’re closed.” Lame. But after a long day it was the best I could do.
“I know that,” he said. “What I mean is, I just finished stripping out the carpet in the truck. When I saw the light, I figured you’d have a lot going on over here . . .” He seemed to look past me into the shop.
My tired brain refused to complete his sentences. I supposed that was a bad sign, wasn’t it? Aren’t compatible people always saying how they can complete each other’s sentences? But then again, since he had a girlfriend, it didn’t matter how compatible we were. Why did my brain keep going there?
“I thought,” he continued, “maybe you’d like more help. I don’t know flowers, but I’m a quick learner and good with my hands.”
“I’m sure you are.” Did I say that out loud?
“And . . .” He offered up two bakery boxes. “I brought some new cupcake flavors I’ve been working on. I thought I might find some beta testers here.”
“We’re not going to turn down those,” I said. “Come on in.”
I introduced him to our staff, both permanent and temporary. Moments later, the boys returned with the pizzas, and we cleared off a display table to accommodate them, some two-liter bottles of soda, and Nick’s cupcakes. I found a stack of paper plates left over from another all-night session and some extra plastic cups. No napkins, so we’d have to make do with paper towels.
Since all our table and counter space was taken up with floral arrangements in various stages of construction, most of us found spaces on the shop floor to sit. I joined Liv, leaning my tired back up against the main counter.
Nick fixed a small plate and sank down across from me. I looked up at him just when Frankie slid into a rendition of “The Way You Look Tonight,” which made it difficult to look at him at all.
Melanie broke the silence and asked about the upcoming football season. And soon the boys were up and trying to impress the girls—at least I think that was why they were demonstrating football plays in a florist shop.
The goth, Opie, covered her eyes. “How do you do that without getting hurt? All that tackling, ramming each other. I’m surprised you don’t break your necks.”
“Not if you do it right.” Darnell picked up a plastic pot and tucked it under his arm. “The key is to lead with your shoulder, not with your head. That way you have a broader surface to transfer force, and stress isn’t placed on the neck or spinal column.”
The football players demonstrated this in several variations, each one rowdier than the previous. If they were skilled florists, I’d love to be able to harness that energy. On the last play, Nick reached in and rescued a bucket of gerbera daisies somewhere around the
five-yard line.
While Liv flagged them all for unnecessary roughness, I snagged myself a chocolate cupcake. Beta testing, indeed. What was so unusual about a chocolate cupcake? And then I took a bite. The filling was something like a cherry cheesecake, and it was topped with a thick and luscious ganache. It was so wonderful, I didn’t want to swallow. I threw my head back and moaned in ecstasy.
“There’d better be more like that,” Amber Lee said. “I want a bite of paradise, too.”
When I opened my eyes, everyone was staring at me.
Nick laughed. “That’s a good name. Maybe I’ll call them a ‘bite of paradise,’ rather than ‘Black Forest cheesecake.’ Although . . . that’s the reaction I was going for.”
My cheeks flamed again, but my embarrassment proved short-lived. Soon everyone clamored around for their “bite of paradise,” and there was more moaning going on than Ramble had seen in a long time, at least since that food poisoning incident at the Moose lodge dinner.
Nick joined Amber Lee and me in the consulting nook, chatting amiably while he stripped leaves and thorns from our roses. I can’t say his hands survived unscathed, but he picked it up quickly enough.
“How was business at the shop today, Amber Lee?” I asked. She’d waited on customers and acquainted herself with a good portion of the business in the past, but we hadn’t left her in charge for any longer than a break time—until this week.
“I think I did okay,” Amber Lee said. “Except maybe that last customer.”
“Who was that?” Nick asked.
“Mrs. Burke,” Amber Lee answered. “Gave me flashbacks. I remember teaching her kids. She’d always end up in my classroom arguing with me and asking me to raise their grades. They were smart kids, mind you, but a grade is a grade.”
Nick nodded. “I think she just likes to get all she’s entitled to, and then some. She’ll come in the bakery and spend half an hour trying to pick out the biggest cupcakes. I mean, they’re barely different at all, but she’s got to have the ones she picks.”
“And she did rip us off,” Amber Lee said. “The replacement pens she picked cost two dollars more than the original ones. We should’ve charged her the difference.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But in retail, it’s not about fairness. It’s a small town. We want the customers to keep coming back, not hop on the highway and buy their flowers from some grocery store. We’ll make it up in the end.”
“It’s good business in a small town,” Nick added. “Going the extra mile sometimes. Like seeing Mrs. Whitney home today.”
“I’m so sorry about your carpeting.” I patted his wrist. I shouldn’t have done it. The old thrill of the touch came back. Anticipation, like climbing to the top of a roller coaster . . . but getting stuck at the top, waiting for two hours, and then riding in a lift with a sweaty construction worker with a receding hairline and a beer gut. Which is why I don’t ride roller coasters anymore.
“Ellen was in a sorry state when she left here, that’s for sure,” Amber Lee said. “Her husband would be rolling in his grave to see her back to drinking.”
“Back to drinking?” I asked. I’d known her to take a nip or two, but I’d never seen her that flat-out drunk. Grandma Mae would have said she was “drunk as Cooter Brown.” Who Cooter Brown was, we never did figure out.
“Back when they were running the restaurant, she’d dip into the wine,” Amber Lee said. “Her husband sent her to one of those high-priced rehab places near DC, where all the politicians and their wives go on the quiet and say they’re at some spa. They could afford it when he was healthy and the restaurant was booming.”
“Restaurant?” Nick asked.
“Yeah,” Amber Lee said, “a little Italian place just outside town. The spaghetti and meatballs would keep you filled for a week.”
“Ramble has an Italian restaurant?” Nick asked. “How did I miss that?”
“It’s not there anymore,” I said. “But it was quite the place to go when I moved here. Jenny told me that the Whitney family had all been restaurateurs—only more home-style Southern foods. When he married an Italian woman, his family were all up in arms. Could she cook?”
Amber Lee laughed. “But the joke was on them. She could cook like a dream. So they set up this restaurant and expanded and expanded. Despite the family warnings that any place serving polenta instead of corn bread didn’t stand a chance around here, it seems like people were tired of the same old, same old. They’d eat anything Ellen dished out. That place was hopping all the time.”
“Then what happened?” Nick asked.
“George Whitney got sick.” Amber Lee assumed a more somber tone. “Cancer. He passed away quick. Ellen kept the place going for a few months, but it just went downhill. You could see her heart wasn’t in it. And then she just let the staff go and barred the doors.”
And Ellen hadn’t been the only one to cut ties. Jenny gave me the old heave-ho about that time.
“It was tough on Jenny, too,” I said. “All that upheaval. She grew up working in that restaurant. I think she bused tables as soon as she could walk.”
“How’s Jenny doing?” Nick asked.
“From what I hear, not well,” I said.
“What’s the deal with the letters?” Amber Lee asked.
“You heard about the letters?” I asked. Of course she had. Amber Lee heard everything and saw everything. And often shared everything.
“It’s making the rounds,” she admitted.
“What letters?” Nick asked.
“Some spicy letters from Jenny to Derek, turning a little pathological at the end,” Amber Lee summed it up.
“That’s pretty much it, but there’s no proof that Jenny wrote those letters,” I said. “At least, she never signed them with her name. Besides, from what I hear, they were quite . . . explicit. And—I’m sorry—if anything, the Jenny I knew always seemed a bit of a prude.”
Nick frowned. “So it’s possible someone else wrote them. Maybe someone from Derek’s secret life.”
“Secret life?” Amber leaned forward.
I waved it off. “Ellen intimated that Derek had a gambling problem. So maybe the letters could be from someone associated with that lifestyle. Or who said the letters were new? Maybe they were from some old flame. Derek had a reputation for getting around.”
“A player,” Nick said, with just the right note of disapproval. It was getting pretty hard not to like this guy.
Amber Lee shook her head. “If you’re looking at old flames as suspects, the list is going to include almost half the population of Ramble—including the mayor’s daughter.”
I looked down at my half-completed table centerpiece and swallowed hard. “I’d forgotten that Carolyn dated Derek.”
“From what I gather,” Amber Lee said, “Carolyn did it to please her father, but she and Derek didn’t hit it off. At least that’s what her cousin told me.”
“If the mayor’s daughter ran with Derek,” Nick said, “maybe she could shed more light . . .”
The sentence trailed off, and we all worked silently for a while. Maybe quizzing Carolyn would prove fruitful. Perhaps she’d have some idea who could have written such letters to Derek . . . if she hadn’t written them herself. She certainly wasn’t as prudish as Jenny, but I wouldn’t call her crude, either. But then again, it’s hard to know what someone might write or do when they thought no one else would see.
But how do you interrogate the mayor’s daughter the week of her wedding?
Nick must have been thinking, too. “Why would Derek keep the letters if they were from an old flame?”
For almost a minute, the question hung in the air.
“Because they meant something to him?” I proposed.
“Or . . . he could profit from them,” Nick added.
“Blackmail?” Amber Lee’s gaze shot
to the ceiling.
“If they’re as steamy as everybody says, yeah, why not?” Nick said. “We know Derek had a gambling problem. And that means he’d always be looking for a source of income.”
“So,” I added, “he saves these old letters, written by someone concerned about her reputation, and then Derek uses them to raise capital to feed his gambling addiction? That’s repugnant.” And a motive. A good one. And one that pointed at someone other than Jenny, since the Whitneys no longer had that kind of money.
I leaned back to consider. If I took this half-formed idea to Bixby, he’d ignore it. The chief wouldn’t want to ruffle the mayor’s feathers for such a far-fetched idea. Not that I intended to ruffle any feathers, either. But I could keep my eyes open and poke around a little. And since I would be involved in the wedding, as both florist and guest, it couldn’t hurt to be extra vigilant.
“Do you need more flowers?” Nick asked.
“Maybe some more snapdragons and a few more bells of Ireland.” I held up a few so he could see them. He grabbed them to take with him. Good idea. Otherwise, I could imagine him coming back with gladioli.
Instead, he emerged with the proper blooms and one bird of paradise.
“I just had a great idea. What would you think if we put a bird of paradise on a bite of paradise? As a decoration?”
It sounded like one of those two-in-the-morning ideas. One that would not seem so great in the light of day. It didn’t even seem that great to me at the moment. “It would be remarkable, but I wouldn’t do it.”
I’m not sure where a crest is on a male human, but his was fallen.
“Not only is it one of our more expensive blooms, since it’s tropical, but it’s also toxic.”
“Surely people wouldn’t eat it.”
I neglected to tell him of one wedding where a couple of the groom’s fraternity buddies consumed half their table centerpiece between dinner courses. “They might not have to. A little sap of some flowers is all you need. I keep a list of edible flowers. If you still want to collaborate, I can make you a copy.”
Bloom and Doom Page 12
