The Walleld Flower

by Lorraine Bartlett

  Andy donned clean plastic gloves and started on the next pie. “You’re early tonight,” he said to Katie.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me?” she asked, indicating the tall, dark-haired boy who stood beside Andy, watching him assemble a pizza.

  “Sorry. This is Richie. Richie, Katie.”

  They exchanged pleasantries, and Andy let the boy take over making the pizza.

  “You’ve got a window open upstairs—in front,” Katie said. “Do you want me to go up and close it?”

  “Nah. I’ll do it later.”

  “It’s raining pretty hard,” she said.

  “Yeah, but it’s coming from the west.” He was right. The open window was on the east side of the building.

  “Okay. Oh, shoot! I just remembered I was supposed to confirm an appointment to see another apartment tomorrow. Do you mind if I use your phone?”

  “Sorry, but yeah, I do—this is my peak ordering time.” To prove him right, the phone rang. “What about your cell phone?” Andy asked and reached for the receiver.

  “I think it might need to be charged.” Katie dug in her purse. She located the tiny phone, checked the battery graphic, and noticed it didn’t yet need life support. She found the scrap of paper where she’d jotted down the number from a couple of days before, punched it in, and then stuck a finger in her right ear so she could hear.

  The call was answered on the third ring. “Hello, Mr. Hartsfield, it’s Katie Bonner. We spoke a few days ago about my coming to see your apartment. Have you rented it yet?”

  He hadn’t. She arranged to see it first thing in the morning, before Artisans Alley opened, so as not to inconvenience Vance, Edie, or Rose. With that settled, she folded her phone and put it back in her purse.

  Andy finished taking another order, handing it to the new boy. “How goes the apartment hunt?”

  “Nothing yet, and I’ve only got nine days before I’m out on the street.”

  “You have a lot of options,” Andy said. “Including the one I offered you.”

  “Right now living with you isn’t the one I’d prefer. How about offering me something to eat—that would placate me for at least an hour.”

  Andy smiled. “Richie, please make a small white pizza with double garlic, double cheese, and double pepperoni for the prettiest lady on earth.”

  “Oh, really, Andy, I’m probably only the second most beautiful woman,” Katie deadpanned. “And triple the garlic, will you, Richie?”

  “Then you’d better pucker up now, because I’m not kissing you after that,” Andy said and laughed.

  “I’ll go shut the window and wait for you upstairs.”

  Andy shook his head. “It’s Richie’s first night. I don’t want to leave him here alone. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Not at all,” Katie said, and tried to keep a frown from her lips.

  “Have a Coke while you wait,” Andy offered, and grabbed the ringing phone once again.

  Katie took a can of pop from the refrigerated case in the corner. That was twice he’d discouraged her from going upstairs. Very curious, especially since this morning he’d again refused to rent her the place. She sniffed the air. Was that paint she smelled behind the aroma of sauce and spices? No wonder the window was open, Andy was probably trying to dissipate the fumes. He should have used a non-VOC paint. Did painting the place mean he’d changed his mind and was going to rent the place? If so, why not just own up to it?

  Katie wasn’t about to argue and was glad she’d made the appointment to see the half house at the edge of town the next morning. Instead, she plastered what she hoped was a genuine-looking smile across her lips and forced herself to sound cheerful. “How’s that pizza coming, Richie?”

  “Another fifteen minutes, Ms. Bonner.”

  “Thanks.”

  Katie choose the seat farthest from the door to wait, and sipped her Coke. She didn’t dare pick up one of the well-thumbed magazines Andy kept in a stack on a small table under the front window. Who knew what kind of germs lived within the pages, and Katie’s little bottle of hand sanitizer was locked in her desk back at Artisans Alley.

  Not a minute passed before Sue Sweeney, owner of Sweet Sue’s Confectionary—Victoria Square’s heavenly chocolate shop—entered Angelo’s. Katie liked cheerful, plus-sized Sue, whose personality matched her shop’s name. “Hi, Andy,” she called. “Is my pizza up yet?”

  Andy looked at the stack of pizza boxes waiting to be filled. “Coming right up.”

  Sue nodded and looked around the shop, her face brightening when she spied Katie. “Hey, Katie, I heard you were arranging a bachelorette party for Gilda Ringwald?”

  Katie gaped, panicked. “Who told you that?”

  “Gilda,” Sue said in all innocence. “I hadn’t received an invitation yet and I wanted to make sure I didn’t have to be elsewhere on whatever night it’s planned for.”

  “Bachelorette party?” Katie repeated in disbelief, her voice squeaking. Where was she supposed to find time to arrange for a party with only ten days before the wedding.

  “Yeah,” Sue said. “So, where will it be held and on what day?”

  “I have no idea. Gilda and I haven’t spoken about it.” But they surely would—she’d make sure of that.

  “Pizza’s ready, Sue,” Andy called, with a large, sealed box in hand.

  Sue handed him a twenty and he made change. “Thanks,” she said and turned back to Katie. “You’d better get those invitations out in the mail tomorrow—or else you’ll have to hand deliver them.” She laughed and, with hands full of her purse and the pizza, she backed out of the shop. The cheerful little bell on the door rang after her.

  Andy shook his head ruefully. “Katie, you’re going to have to back out of that wedding. You haven’t got the time for all the stuff Gilda has planned.”

  “I can’t back out now. Edie’s already started to alter the matron of honor’s dress. I was Gilda’s second or third choice as it is,” Katie said, although she was unable to squelch that panicked feeling that continued to grow inside her.

  “Then you’d better find Gilda and pin down exactly what she expects you to do and when. Maybe you can recruit one of her other friends to help you with the arrangements, although why she hasn’t made them all herself is beyond me.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Pizza’s ready, Ms. Bonner,” said Richie, coming up behind Andy with the small cardboard box. He handed it to Katie.

  “Thanks. But I think I just lost my appetite.”

  “Then now’s the perfect time to give Gilda a call. Or better yet”—Andy gazed out the pizzeria’s plate glass window—“there’s a light on in her shop. You’d better go see her now.”

  Katie’s shoulders slumped. She wanted to confront Gilda like she wanted to grow a third leg. “Yes, sir.”

  Andy leaned across the counter to give Katie a quick kiss on the top of her head. Then he grabbed her shoulders, turned her about, and gave her a shove toward the door. “Do it now, before you lose your nerve.”

  Losing her nerve wasn’t what she worried about. It was more her temper.

  On the way to Gilda’s Gourmet Baskets, Katie dropped the pizza off at her car, and then hoofed it across Victoria Square’s parking lot. As Andy had said, there was a light on inside the shop. With her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, Gilda sat at the sales counter, gazing down at what looked like paperwork. Katie pounded on the door, and Gilda looked up, delight soon replacing her wary expression. She hurried to unlock the door.

  “Just the person I wanted to talk to,” Gilda said, and ushered Katie inside her shop.

  Katie loved the heady aromas that mingled inside the shop. Chocolate, vanilla, coffee, and the background scent of the many varied baskets themselves. “I bumped into Sue Sweeney. She mentioned something about a bachelorette party.”

  Gilda’s smile broadened. “Because there’s not much time before the wedding, I thought we could combine the bridal shower and th
e bachelorette party into one event. Won’t that be fun?”

  “Bridal shower?” Katie asked, warily. She hadn’t even thought far enough into the future to consider buying Gilda a wedding gift, let alone one for a shower.

  “Yes. One of the duties of the maid or matron of honor is to set up the bridal shower. I’m registered at the Bon-Ton, Lord and Taylor, Bed, Bath and Beyond, and—”

  “Stop, stop, stop!” Katie ordered. The panic was back. “Don’t you think it’s a little late to be planning all of this? I mean, doesn’t stuff like this need to be done well in advance?”

  Gilda giggled. “Usually. But this wedding is all such a spur-of-the-moment thing. And it is my first time at the altar. Don’t you think I deserve the wedding of my dreams?”

  Katie had been married only once, too, but she and Chad had gone to city hall, and the judge’s clerk had been their only witness. She hadn’t had the dress, the cake, or any of the pomp and circumstance.

  “Gilda,” she began, trying to keep her voice level. “You definitely should have the wedding of your dreams. But it takes a lot of time and, quite frankly, I don’t think I’m up to the task to provide it.”

  Gilda’s expression fell. “But you promised you’d be my matron of honor.”

  “I’m happy to stand up with you, it’s just the rest of it I can’t—”

  Gilda’s mouth began to tremble, and a single tear rolled down her left cheek. She sniffed. “This is supposed to be the happiest day of my life.”

  Katie wasn’t sure what to say. She started to stammer. “Th-th-this is all so last minute… I wasn’t prepared for…”

  “Don’t you want me to be happy on my wedding day?” Gilda asked.

  “Of course I do, it’s just—”

  A tear dribbled down Gilda’s other cheek.

  “I’ll do my best,” Katie said with resignation. If worse came to worst and she didn’t find a new apartment, she could always sleep in her car. It would be a little tight with two cats and their litter boxes, but Gilda would have her dream wedding day.

  Gilda brightened, wiping a hand across her eyes before handing Katie a piece of paper. “Here’s the list of wedding guests. Of course, you’ll only want to invite the ladies to the bachelorette party. It’s up to Conrad to figure out what he wants to do about the bachelor party.” She giggled like a schoolgirl.

  Katie scanned the list. There couldn’t have been more than twenty or so people on the list, and many of them were members of the Merchants Association. Hopefully that would make the preparations easier.

  “Now, I was thinking it would be nice to host a tea rather than an actual bachelorette party. Too bad the Square’s tearoom won’t be open until after the wedding—at least that’s the rumor that’s going around. I’m sure we could hold it at Del’s Diner, but it’s not very… oh, I don’t know… girlie, is it.”

  Gilda was nearly sixty and she wanted a girlie party? Katie would’ve thought a “Red Hat” gathering might have suited better, considering the average age of the wedding guests qualified them as baby boomers.

  “What’s your budget?” Katie asked.

  “My budget?” Gilda echoed, sounding surprised. She shook her head. “Oh, no, no. This is the matron of honor’s obligation. Look here.” She turned back for the sales counter, fished among the scattered documents, and came up with a piece of paper she handed to Katie, whose eyes nearly popped when she read the centered headline: Official Duties of a Bridesmaid. A long list of dos and don’ts followed. A very long list.

  “Now, there’s not much time,” Gilda said, and gently pushed Katie toward the door. “Give me a call when things are set up so I’ll know where to arrive. And don’t forget to mention the registry on the invitations. I’ve added that information to the end of the list.”

  “But—”

  “I’ve got tons of work to get done before next Saturday. Keep me posted,” Gilda said, and closed the door on Katie. She turned and watched as Gilda went back to her sales desk, climbed back on her stool, and replaced her glasses on her nose.

  Katie’s fist closed around the list, wrinkling the paper. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to wad it into a very tiny ball and throw it away.

  You agreed to be her matron of honor, a little voice inside her taunted.

  She just hadn’t known that Gilda—now forever known to Katie as the over-the-hill bridezilla—meant to work her to death in the process.

  Ten

  By the time Katie returned home, the cheese on her pizza had congealed into a new form of rubber. However, a few minutes in the oven revived it to an edible state and gave her time to search through the boxes marked “Living Room/Desk Drawers” for the phone book she’d packed the week before. As she munched her dinner, batting away the attentions of two cheese-loving cats, she made a list of numbers and started calling around. No one wanted to talk about booking a party on such short notice—and especially not at eight thirty at night. “Call in the morning when the catering manager is here,” seemed to be the mantra of every restaurant hostess she spoke with that evening. She couldn’t say she blamed them.

  “It’s not my fault,” she told Mason, who nudged his head against her knee, looking for another handout. She peeled a piece of cheese from the slice and gave it to him. Della demanded the same, and soon all she had left were bald patches of hardening crust.

  She read through the list of maid/matron of honor duties again. Some of them made sense: witness and sign the marriage license, make a toast—wasn’t that the duty of the best man?—and assist the bride with her dress and makeup on the big day. Even that last was pushing it a bit. Well, maybe if the bride was in her early twenties—but Gilda was near sixty.

  Why, oh why had she ever agreed to do this? Then she remembered—she hadn’t. Gilda had asked and assumed she’d say yes, plowing on ahead.

  And that’s just what Katie needed to do: plow on ahead and start making plans for the bachelorette party. Tossing the pizza box in the recycle bin, she found a pad and piece of paper, sat down on the couch—and immediately became a cat magnet—and started jotting down notes for the party. First up, invitations—or could she skip that part and just e-mail everyone on Gilda’s guest list? Considering the time crunch, that might be the best idea. And maybe she could find a pretty e-invitation online.

  Were they going to have to play stupid games—like Bridal Bingo? Katie rolled her eyes, jostling Della, who sat on her lap. The cat retorted with an indignant, “Brrrrpt!”

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  Although details of setting up the party were still heavy on her mind, Katie welcomed another bright spring morning. No rain—or snow—made it that much easier to load the back of her Focus with more boxes, before taking off for her appointment.

  Arriving at her destination, she glanced at her dashboard clock. Right on time. She double-checked the address on the pad before her. This was definitely the place. A look around the unkempt yard and the piles of trash at the end of the drive did not fill her with confidence. The apartment was empty—ready for immediate occupancy—as the man who’d answered her phone call had said. Judging by the garbage they’d left behind, it looked like the former tenants had left in a hurry.

  Katie got out of the car and walked up the cracked concrete path, taking note of the broken downspout and missing roof shingles, her feelings of misgiving growing exponentially. But she’d promised the landlord she would definitely consider the place. He’d been adamant that she agree before he would schedule the appointment.

  She rang the bell and the door was eased open almost immediately. A gray-haired, haggard-looking man in his late fifties or early sixties stood before her, a four-toed cane clutched in one hand, the newspaper tucked under his arm. “Ms. Bonner?”

  “Yes. And you must be Mr. Hartsfield.”

  “Come in,” he beckoned.

  The dark entryway wasn’t at all welcoming. Would this weird-looking guy bop her on the head with his cane, and—

/>   Get a grip, Katie scolded herself when the man lagged behind, his cane making a crackling sound on the sticky hardwood floor.

  “I’m offering the first month free,” Hartsfield said from behind her.

  Katie broke through the gloom into a bright but filthy kitchen. She walked to the center of the nearly empty room. The only furniture was a paint-spackled, wooden hard-backed chair, which Hartsfield promptly took. He straightened his right leg, massaging his knee.

  “I know it’s a pit.” His tone conveyed more than just weariness—desperation.

  “Did you have to evict your last tenants?” Katie asked.

  He nodded. “It took me nine months—and the courts—to get rid of those pigs. My sister rented it out while I was in rehab at the VA center in Batavia. Unfortunately, she didn’t bother asking for references.”

  Spray-painted epithets did not complement the wallpaper’s columns of dainty roses. A cupboard door hung from its hinge. Holes had been punched through the drywall at irregular intervals. Bare wires dangled from the ceiling where a light fixture had once been.

  “I figured if I offered a month’s free rent”—he caught her gaze and backpedaled—“maybe two—it might be incentive enough for the next tenant to do a little pre-move-in cleanup. Since my accident, I don’t have the stamina to do that kind of work, and I can’t really afford to have it done.”

  Katie sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Hartsfield squinted at her. “Bonner. I used to work with a Chad Bonner. He was an English teacher at McKinlay Mill High School.”

  “He was my husband.”

  “A fine man. I was in the hospital when he had his accident. I’m so sorry.”

  “So am I. What did you teach?”