Page 31 of Save the Date
All that foraging put her behind schedule—she’d intended to get to the golf club by ten. She had her arms full—a huge cardboard box containing eight square glass centerpieces, plus the corsages in their clear plastic clamshell boxes. She looked around the nearly empty lobby, wondering where the party was being held.
Lillian Fanning hurried toward her. She wore a sleeveless coral sheath, matching sling-back heels, and a necklace of twined turquoise, coral, and seed pearls. “Cara!” she called. “We’re back here, in the grill.” Lillian looked pointedly down at the thin gold watch on her wrist.
“Hi, Lillian,” Cara said. “Sorry to be a little late.“
Lillian glanced over at the box. “Those look nice,” she said. “I’m so glad you could do this. I know it was short notice, but after seeing all the beautiful centerpieces you did for Torie, I just couldn’t settle for those dreary little half-dead flower sprigs the club puts out for luncheons.”
“Happy to do it,” Cara said, struggling to keep up in Lillian’s wake.
The tables in the grill had already been set for luncheon. Pale pink cloths covered the rounds, and somebody, Lillian, she assumed, had placed tiny wrapped boxes at each place setting. Cara hurried around the room, depositing the centerpieces where Lillian directed.
They heard voices coming from the doorway. “Oh good,” Lillian said, turning to see the first arrivals. “That’s Lindsay.”
“Then I’ll just get out of your hair,” Cara said. She unloaded the corsages onto a chair and made a beeline for the door.
***
She was streaking across the lobby when she heard a familiar voice call her name.
“Cara! Yoo-hoo!”
Vicki Cooper and a woman Cara didn’t recognize were walking toward her.
Cara pasted a smile on her face and wiped her palms on the seat of her capris. She was sweaty and her clothes were smudged with specks of mud from her morning of greenery wrangling, and she should have stopped back at the shop to change her clothes before delivering the flowers to the club, but time had been her enemy all morning.
Vicki Cooper, on the other hand, looked fresh as a daisy in a sleeveless black silk dress, silver wedge sandals, and chunky silver bracelets and hoop earrings. Vicki’s shimmery white hair hung to her shoulders. Her deep blue eyes were lightly made up and she wore a peach-colored lipstick. At sixty, Vicki looked like what Cara wanted to be when she grew up.
“Pretend you don’t see me,” Cara told Vicki, giving her a quick hug. “I’ve been playing in the dirt all morning, and I’m a big mess.”
“You look fine! Cara, I want you to meet Faith McCurdy. Faith, this is our favorite florist in town, Cara Kryzik. She did all the flowers for our son’s wedding, and she’s an absolute genius.”
The other woman was in her early sixties, dressed in a tidy shirtwaist dress, heels, and hose. “So nice to meet you,” she murmured.
“Faith’s nephew Tyler Carver is married to Lindsay Fanning,” Vicki said. “Is that what you’re doing here? Flowers for the baby shower?”
“Just delivered them,” Cara said. She looked around the lobby and saw several groups of women walking toward the entrance to the grill. “And I better move along.”
“Oh, don’t run off just yet,” Vicki protested, catching Cara by the arm. “Faith, you go ahead on. I’ll be along in a minute. I just want to chat with Cara for a moment.”
Vicki drew Cara to an alcove on the far side of the lobby, gesturing for her to sit on a settee looking out on the golf course.
“I won’t take a minute of your time,” Vicki started. “Just wanted to check. Did you hear from Marie Trapnell?”
“I met with her yesterday. Thanks so much for the referral.”
“Well?” Vicki raised an eyebrow expectantly.
“It’s… complicated,” Cara said. “Marie is very nice, and we hit it off immediately. But it sounds as though her ex-husband is the one who is really running the show. She says he’s got another florist in town he’s very interested in working with. I told her I understand…”
“What?” Vicki’s voice echoed through the high-ceilinged room. “Are you telling me Gordon Trapnell now fancies himself as an event planner?”
Cara looked around the room, uneasy at discussing a client’s private life, even if the client might not even turn out to be her client.
“According to Marie, Mr. Trapnell wants to be involved in every aspect of his daughter’s wedding.”
“Oh, puh-leez,” Vicki drawled. “Gordon doesn’t care a thing in the world about this wedding. He just wants to make a big show of being the adoring daddy to his darling Brookie, because he’s eaten up with guilt over his shabby treatment of poor Marie. Which he should be. But Brooke’s a smart girl. She has no illusions about Daddy Rat.”
“This doesn’t sound like something I need to get in the middle of,” Cara demurred.
