Page 43 of Save the Date
“Yes,” Cara said. “Usually I like to spend some time with the bride, to talk about what type flowers you like, color preferences, style. Maybe you have a Pinterest board, or some pictures from the wedding magazines you’ve been clipping, something like that?”
Brooke shrugged. “Not really. I guess I’m not much into that kind of stuff. Whatever you and Mom come up with, I’m sure I’ll like.”
This was a first for Cara. A bride who didn’t have pages and pages of carefully clipped or pinned wedding photoraphs. Earlier in the spring, she’d done flowers for a bride who’d actually been scrapbooking her future wedding since the age of twelve.
“No favorite color or flower?”
Brooke flicked the phalaenopsis blossom. “This is pretty.”
“That’s a start,” Cara said. “We can do some really pretty arrangments with orchids. Probably not just orchids though, right? I’m thinking maybe something very simple and natural-looking?”
Brooke nodded vigorously. “Yes. Definitely simple. I don’t want anything too…” She waved her hands in the air. “Too fluffy. Or show-offy. Do you know what I mean?”
Yes,Cara thought,I do: the exact opposite of what your father and stepmother are envisioning.
“Anything else?” Cara asked. “Besides orchids for your bouquet? What about your attendants? And the groom and groomsmen? Any particular flower your fiancé likes—or hates?“
“Harris?” Brooke shrugged. “He’s a guy.” Her face softened. “A sweetie, but he’s probably even more clueless than me when it comes to something like this. As far as Harris Strayhorn is concerned, as long as we have an open bar and some kind of barbecue at the reception, he’ll be happy.”
“Like a lot of grooms,” Cara said, laughing. “I can help you figure out the boutonnieres—maybe in Harris’s school colors or something? And we’ll need to talk about flowers for the reception, as well as the chapel at Cabin Creek. Patricia showed me the dining room, which is lovely. But Patricia wasn’t clear on whether you’ll be doing a seated dinner or a buffet, so that’s something we’ll need to talk about.…”
“All that?” Brooke twisted the solitaire on her ring finger with her right hand. Around and around, looking down at it and then back up at Cara. “Just, I mean, can’t you make all the flowers sort of all look like the same thing?”
Cara heard a faint ringing coming from the vicinity of Brooke’s jacket pocket, prompting the girl to start patting all the pockets of her jacket, searching for her phone.
“Oh geez. I have to take this. It’s the office. Hello?” Brooke’s eyebrows drew together, her narrow shoulders hunched over. “Right. Yes. Absolutely. I’m on my way in right now. I can do a conference call in ten minutes. Will that work?”
She was heading for the door, already immersed in business.
Cara cleared her throat, and Brooke turned.
“Look. Just talk to my mom, would you? The two of you can work it out much better than I could.”
“What about your father?” Cara asked. “I think he and your stepmother have some ideas.…”
“No!” Brooke said sharply. “Patricia already took over my dad. She doesn’t get to take over my wedding too. I won’t let her.”
“Well okay,” Cara said. “But they have another florist in mind. I’m actually not certain they plan to hire me.”
“It’s my damned wedding,” Brooke said, her jaw clenched. “And my mother and I am hiring you. Period.”
She threw open the shop door and hurried down the sidewalk.
19
The siege by Trapnells descended upon Cara Kryzik at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, right at closing time.
Brooke and Marie Trapnell arrived at the door, just as she was wheeling in the old-fashioned wooden garden cart full of potted plants from the sidewalk.
Brooke wore a black lady lawyer dress with a black-and-white-striped jacket, and an expression of pure misery. Her mother was dressed more casually, but the expression was almost identical to Brooke’s.
“Brooke, Marie, uh, well, how nice to see you,” Cara stammered. She heard a car door slam then, and glancing over, saw Patricia Trapnell step out of the silver Jaguar parked in a no-parking slot at the curb.
Her head whipped from the stepmother to the mother and daughter.
“Hi, Patricia,” Cara said. She felt her scalp prickle, and wondered if this was what the sensation of fight-or-flight was like.
“You’re about to close, aren’t you?” Brooke said. Brooke glared at Patricia, who’d joined them on the sidewalk. “Itoldyou, she closes at six.”
