‘Where are the others?’ I ask.
‘Lauren’s catching up with Drew,’ she says, ‘and Jess and Paige are corralling the family. No one ever told me Drew’s brother was so hot. Have you see that guy? He’s built like a fire truck. Muscles on muscles.’
‘Forget him.’
‘I’m not sure I can.’
‘Danielle,’ I hiss. ‘Focus for a second, would you? I need your help.’
I recognise the face she pulls all too well: Yes, Mom. It’s the face I get whenever I have to be the responsible one. I wish in that instant that I could pick her up and shake her until her teeth rattle in her fatuous party girl head. Is she really so dim as to think that I want to be the one calling up flower shops while everyone else gets to have a good time with brunch cocktails and fancy dinners? She can’t think that’s my idea of fun, can she?
Look at her. Probably. As far as she’s concerned, I’m Big Chief Stick-in-the-Mud, Queen of the Plan.
If it could be anyone else, I think – but I know it can’t. Paige will be better at keeping Drew’s side of the family entertained, and I trust Jess to keep a handle on things way more than I’d trust Danielle. It’s not as though I can get Lauren to help me out, either; she’s got enough on her plate right now.
So that means it’s me and Danielle. Trying to save my best friend’s wedding, all on our own, with literally hours to spare.
Great.
~~~
We make it to fourteen shops before time runs out.
To their credit, most of them were very apologetic about the fact that they couldn’t help us. Only two of them were completely incapable of holding back laughter at the idea of two people walking into their store and trying to outfit a wedding with flowers with a little over sixteen hours’ notice. Then again, by that point I couldn’t really blame them. The more I thought about it, the more nuts it sounded.
We’d failed. I’d failed. Whatever dream wedding Lauren might have planned for herself, it was looking increasingly likely that it would be a flower-free affair.
The guy in the last shop had seemed genuinely conflicted when we told him our sad and desperate tale. If it had been a movie, I’m sure he would have thrown back the curtain to the back room of his shop and revealed row after row of pristine table decorations, all neatly arranged and ready to take away, alongside the most beautiful bridal bouquet any bride could imagine. ‘Oh, these?’ my imaginary florist Prince Charming would say. ‘We had a last minute cancellation, so they’re all ready for you to take away. Better yet, they’re on the house. How about that?’
Instead he had just shaken his head, said ‘Sorry, ladies,’ and carried on getting ready to close up shop.
I slump down low outside in the street outside the store, crouched with my head in my hands, willing myself to be able to think just a little faster, just a little smarter, just a little better… but nothing comes. I’m flat out of ideas. The well is dry.
A figure stands above me, blocking out the early-evening sun. ‘Call her,’ Danielle says eventually. ‘You gave it a good try, but…’
She doesn’t have to finish the thought; my mind has already cycled through every relevant section of the thesaurus. But she needs to know that you fucked it up. That you fumbled the pass. That you failed, Eleanor. You failed, you failed, you failed. Just when Lauren needed you. Just like you knew you would, deep down. But that’s just your streak recently, eh? One failure after another?
‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘Not yet. Just… not yet, OK?’
‘She’s going to find out eventually! The wedding is tomorrow!’
‘I know that. That’s why we’re going to fix it. Tonight. All of us, between us. That’s what bridesmaids are for, right?’
‘How?’
Well, isn’t that just the sixty-four thousand dollar question? I think. Do tell us, Ella… how do you plan on weaselling your way out of this one? What’s the grand plan here?
‘I… I don’t know. But we’ll think of something.’
Paper, maybe? It’s a little kitsch, but origami flowers could work. Say it takes ten minutes to make a paper rose, with four of us, if we work all night, that’s… I run the maths through in my head, and the numbers sort of work out. That could be feasible. Maybe.
Maybe there’s a Staples close by. That’s not so crazy, right? Right?
I sigh. If only any of us knew how to make a paper rose. I know I don’t, and somehow Danielle doesn’t seem like the type. It’s a little late in the game to be taking origami lessons, what with everything else that needs to go on.
So much for that, then.
So much for everything.
The realisation that I’m fresh out of ideas hits me hard – harder than I would have liked, that’s for damn sure. I press my back against the wall of the flower shop and try my damnedest to stop the tears from welling up in the corner of my eyes. It’s bad enough that I’ve let Lauren down, but the last person I want to see me like this is Danielle.
Go on, I think. Gloat away. Get it out of your system.
She doesn’t, mercifully. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she says. ‘Stop crying and give me fifty dollars.’
‘Why?’
‘Just trust me, would you?’
It’s not the most encouraging argument, but at this point I don’t have much else to go on. I hand over the money, half expecting her to shove it in her bra and head into one of the nearby bars for a round of mojitos on me, but instead she takes a look in the reflective glass of the florist’s shop, shimmies her shirt down just enough to suggest the possibility of scandal, and heads back inside.
What use is that going to do? I think. Hell, if money was the issue, we would have been fine; Lauren’s flower budget was not insignificant at all, and I’m sure if it came down to making sure she got everything she wanted – or even a fraction of it – then she’d be happy to cover the bill.
A minute or two later she emerges from the shop, bearing a small rectangle of cardboard. She hands it to me with a smile on her face, pleased with what my fifty dollars has purchased. All of a sudden I understand the feeling a fairy tale character might have on being told that her son had just sold the family cow for a handful of supposedly magic beans.
ZACHARY KINGSTON FLORISTS, it reads. NEW ORLEANS, LA.
‘A business card?’ I ask.
‘Yep.’
‘For the store you were just in? The one who already said they couldn’t help us?’
‘Turn it over.’
There’s an address printed on the other side, barely legible; then again, what else could you really expect from a doctor? ‘What’s this?’ I ask.
‘A market,’ she says. ‘The market, in fact. That’s where you need to go.’
‘Danielle, look. I don’t see how…’
‘How I could have solved our problem when the great Ella Mossberg couldn’t? Is that what you’re saying? You think I just pulled down my shirt, flashed a little skin and he caved?’
‘No. Of course not.’
She grins. ‘Well, I did. Fifty bucks, a wink and a smile, and there you go.’ Danielle taps the card in my hand. ‘Flower wholesalers.’
‘Whatnow?’
‘At night, refrigerated shipments of flowers come in, and the florists buy whatever they want to stock their shops. Every city has one, somewhere around. They’re usually a big deal. You need to know someone to get in, and now we do.’
‘Every city? And every night?’
‘Sure. How did you think the florists got their flowers?’
‘I… I don’t know.’ It’s a fair question. I guess I always figured… flower fairies, maybe? Personal stocks? Delivery men in pristine white cotton aprons, like old-timey milkmen? It could have been anything. ‘How do you know about this?’
‘I told you,’ she says, ‘I’m from New York. I used to live down the street from the market in Brooklyn. Every day at four AM, there’d be people haggling over tulips at the top of their voice. It was a pain in my fucking
ass, is what it was.’
Oh, I’m sure of that – but it’s useful knowledge to have. Very, very useful.
I’m not sure where it comes from, exactly – in fact, if you’d told me a couple of hours earlier that I’d have my arms wrapped around Danielle in the middle of a New Orleans street, I would have thought you were insane – but the hug is real and heartfelt.
‘Easy,’ she says. ‘It’s just a business card.’
Except it’s not. Not at all. It’s so much more than that.
Maybe, despite everything, there’s a chance we might still be able to give Lauren the wedding she deserves.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The flower market is far busier than anywhere has any right to be at three in the morning. While most people would be safely tucked away in bed – where we’d be, if there was any justice in the world – we’re surrounded by a hive of activity. Then again, if the past few days have taught me anything it’s that everything in New Orleans is a hive of activity. At three AM, the city is just about getting started. It reminds me a little of the fish markets down on the docks in Chicago, where my friends would occasionally go to snag a great bargain – except in amongst the forklift trucks and loading pallets there are bright splashes of every colour under the sun, and the shouts of vendors mingles with a thousand different overpowering scents, each of them jostling for attention.
It doesn’t take us long to find what we we’re looking for. In among all the traditional reds roses and prom carnations, we soon come to a display of bountiful, beautiful white: lilies as far as the eye can see. I clutch Danielle’s arm excitedly. It’s all I can do to stop myself from throwing down my credit card and exclaiming that we’ll take the lot.
‘Can I help you girls?’ the stall’s owner asks. He’s a small man in blue overalls, like some sort of wish-granting flower-stall leprechaun.
‘We need flowers,’ I say. ‘Lots of them.’
He smiles. ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place,’ he says. ‘You got a resellers’ license?’
‘A… what?’
The old man sighs. ‘Come on, ladies,’ he says. ‘You know I can’t sell you anything unless you’ve got your florist’s license. No civilians.’
We do? I think. I’ve never even heard of a florist’s license.
‘But it’s an emergency!’ Danielle exclaims. ‘We came all the way out here because you’re the last damn place in the city that might…’
But he’s not listening. He just shrugs. ‘Sorry,’ he says, as though his hands are tied. ‘Nothing I can do.’
You could look the other way, I think. We’d probably be able to make it worth your while…
‘Or what?’ Danielle hisses. ‘You think the flower police are going to come and arrest us? You think you’re going to jail for selling us a few tulips?’
The man frowns. ‘I don’t like your tone, Missy,’ he says. ‘Do I need to call security?’
‘Security?’ she laughs. ‘At a flower market? Listen, buddy, I don’t know what you think…’
The little man glances over to the next stall; we’re making a scene, and there’s no way that’s going to act in our favour. ‘Leave it,’ I say. ‘Forget him, Danielle. We’ll figure something out.’
‘Like hell we will!’ she says, pulling her hand away from my grasp. ‘Let go of me, dick! I’m not done with this – I said, I’m not done!’
I manage to drag her out into the cool New Orleans air, but it’s a close-run thing. Danielle bull-in-a-china-shop routine draws stares as we go, but eventually she decides to stop trying to pick a fight with a sixtysomething florist and lets me lead her – if lead is the right word – away from the source of her outrage.
‘You OK?’ I ask.
‘What do you think?’
‘I think yelling at the flower guy at three in the morning isn’t going to help us out.’
‘You thought this whole thing was a bust anyway. At least I’m trying to do something.’
I grit my teeth, but it isn’t quite enough. ‘Because I’m not?’ I say. ‘Because I haven’t been busting my ass all day, trying to get these goddamn flowers while you sat on your ass and drank mimosas?’
I watch her tense up. For a moment, I’m convinced she’s going to spring at me – that we’re going to have a straight-up catfight in the middle of the parking lot outside a flower market at three in the morning, a thousand miles from home.
Right, I think. My hand clenches into a fist. If we’re going to throw down, I’m sure as shit not going to let her forget about it any time soon.
What the hell are you thinking? A street brawl? An assault charge? Over what, exactly? This isn’t you, Ella. This isn’t even close to you.
And yet my hand doesn’t relax. Whoever I am right now – whichever version of Ella I might be, whichever version of me stepped off the plane in in New Orleans – perhaps this is the kind of thing I do. After all, everything else I thought I knew about my life has been suddenly upended. Why not this too?
But Danielle doesn’t make a move; the moment passes, and she relaxes – not a lot, but enough. ‘You don’t like me all that much, do you, Ella?’ she says at last. Her voice is small, surprisingly calm. It’s unlike the Danielle I’ve come to know; if it weren’t for the fact that it was just the two of us in the parking lot, I would have sworn it came from someone else entirely.
‘I like you just fine.’ Considering.
Danielle shakes her head. ‘No, you don’t. I’m not blind. I can see it. You haven’t liked me from the minute we first met.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘That’s not a no, is it?’ She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. You just always seem to think you’re better than us. It’s like you think you’re better than everyone.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Is it?’ she asks. ‘You’ve always had that air of superiority about you. Like you’re better than us, because… what? You’ve known Lauren since you were kids? Like that somehow means you outrank us? That you care about her more than we do? And what about Drew?’
Oh, what about him? I want to snap, but I manage to hold my tongue. ‘Drew is…’
‘Not good enough for her?’
‘No.’
‘Yeah. That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?’
Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I was going to say – and not for the first time, either.
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘But you’ve met him, like, three times? Ever?’
‘Four.’
‘And that’s enough? You reckon you can get a good read on someone so quickly?’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Yeah, I do.’
‘Yeah, he’s a bit of a schmuck at times – but he’s a nice enough guy, and he’s madly in love with her. He’s crazy about Lauren. But that doesn’t stop you looking down your nose at him, does it? I’m guessing you made your mind up about Drew five minutes after you met him, and you’ve never bothered to change it. Same with me and Jess and Paige too. We’re all just Lauren’s party-hard, woo-girl friends. Doesn’t matter that we’ve all got lives outside of this weekend. That’s the little box you put us in. Because that’s easier than thinking of us as being real people, who actually care about her. It means you still get to be the person who cares about her most in the world.’ By the time I look at her, her face is puckered up with anger. It’s a strange expression. I’ve seen her look annoyed, I’ve seen her look disdainful, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her angry before. ‘You don’t know him, Ella,’ she says quietly. ‘You don’t know any of us. We’re more than you give us credit for.’
Oh really? I think. Is that so? Then why am I the one who’s been busting my hump to get everything sorted?
I shouldn’t say it. I know I should let it go – but I can’t. I can feel it bubbling up inside me, aching to break out. ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Sure you are. You and Paige and Jess… you all got to party with Lauren. Because that’s what she needed, right? She needed to ha
ve a little fun, to calm down. But all that stress doesn’t just disappear. It goes somewhere. It all flows to me, because I’m the person who knows how to deal with it. I’m the person Lauren knows will get shit done. I’m the person she trusted to make sure that everything went off without a hitch – and I fucked it up. The one time it mattered, and I fucked it up. And I did it while you were off drinking champagne and having a great time and no doubt complaining about what a boring bitch I am. How I’m always so focused on the plan that I can never just take the stick out of my ass and have fun. I know what people think about me, you know. I’m not an idiot. But someone has to be that person. And it’s always me. It’s always me. And that means it’s always my fault when it goes wrong.’
It’s always my fault.
With the flowers. With Carter. That’s the thing that no one seems to get. That’s the thing I can’t explain, no matter how hard I try.
I’m the one who has the plan. I’m the one who’s to blame when things go wrong. The buck stops with me, always. And who can live like that forever? Who can come to a place like New Orleans, where the entire city seems built on the idea of living for the moment, knowing that everything rests on their shoulders and can fall apart at any second?
I refuse to wipe my face dry with Danielle watching. I refuse to give her the satisfaction of seeing me cry, of knowing just how much this is all getting to me. I ball my hands into tight little fists, so tight that my nails dig into my palms and I feel the distracting sting of pain – anything, anything at all, that might stop me from losing control.
It’s a while before Danielle says anything. ‘You’re not the only one who feels that way, you know,’ she says.
‘Oh yeah? Because it sure as hell feels like that sometimes.’
‘Oh, stop being such a martyr,’ she snaps. ‘For God’s sake, Ella… we’re doctors. You think we don’t know what it’s like to have people rely on us? To have people look to us when there’s a crisis? That’s our job. And we screw up, people die. Did you forget that?’
‘No, but…’
Well, yeah. Sort of.
‘You know what I did the day before I drove down here?’ she asks. ‘I told a fifty-two-year-old woman her breast cancer was inoperable. That there was nothing we could do for her. That she’d be lucky to see the end of the year. That she might not even live to see her daughter graduate this fall. And then I washed my hands, and I pulled on my coat, and I tried not to think too hard about it. I came down here to have a good time, and I damn well did my best. Because I know I can’t fix everything. I go out there, and I leave it all on the field. Because I have to. But things I can’t fix, I accept. You might want to try that sometime. This is… it’s small stakes, Ella. In the grand scheme of things.’
Smooth: A New Love Romance Novel (Bad Boy Musicians) Page 14
