Page 46 of Save the Date
“Great,” Brooke said. She took a last sip of iced tea, draining her glass, and stood. “I’m meeting Harris for dinner in ten minutes. I’ll let all of you deal with the rest of the details.” She put her hand lightly on Marie’s shoulder. “Okay, Mom?”
“Wait!”
The others looked at Cara in surprise.
“Your wedding dress? You’ve ordered one, right? I really need to take a look at it, and I definitely need to talk about your preferences for flowers for your bouquet and the reception.”
Patricia gave a derisive snort.
“She actually did buy a dress,” Marie said quietly. “It’s lovely. Very simple, very flattering for Brooke’s figure.”
“Do you have a photo?” Cara asked.
Brooke frowned. “No photos. But the dress is out in Mom’s car.”
“You bought a wedding gown off the rack?” Patricia shuddered. “Do I dare ask where you got it?”
“Some bride place in Atlanta,” Brooke said carelessly. “Mom can show you.” She started for the door.
“Brooke, honestly!’ Marie called after her. “Cara really needs to get these things settled. Can’t you call Harris and tell him you’ll be a little late?”
“You can deal with all that stuff,” Brooke said. “You know what I like, Mom. Just no orange. Or purple. Or red. Or yellow.”
With that, she stepped out of her black pumps, slipped on a fair of flats, and was out the door, striding down the sidewalk without a backward look.
Which left Marie and Patricia sitting at the worktable in Cara’s shop, separated only by a space of about three feet. Things got very quiet. Too quiet.
Cara jumped up. “Wine anybody?”
“Definitely,” Marie said.
“Unless you’ve got the makings for a dry martini,” Patricia said hopefully.
20
By Friday morning, she’d not only gotten the signed contract for the Trapnell wedding, she had a $12,500 deposit check in her hot little hand.
“Awesome,” Bert said, when Cara showed him the check. “So, now you’re a full-fledged wedding planner?”
“As far as the Trapnells are concerned, I am.”
“We’re rich,” Bert said. “Wanna take your favorite assistant out to lunch?”
“You can have half my tuna sandwich if you like. We’re not rich. We’re not even solvent. Yet.” She nodded toward the pile of bills on her desk. “It took six hundred dollars to replace the compressor on the cooler. I spent close to five thousand dollars replacing the flowers for Torie’s wedding, which ate up half my profit from that wedding. And if I don’t pay my phone bill by two p.m. today, they’re going to cut off our service.”
“And then there’s the Colonel,” Bert said.
“There’s always the Colonel,” Cara agreed. “He gets paid first—ten thousand right off the top.”
“I thought he told you he wanted the whole magilla—twenty thousand,” Bert said.
“I don’thavethe whole magilla,” she reminded her assistant. “But I get the rest of the Trapnell deposit two weeks before the wedding. If the sky doesn’t fall on my head between now and then—I should be able to fork over the rest of his money.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Bert said. “Speaking of—are we okay for Maya’s wedding tonight? She’s not one of our usual angsty brides, but she did text me this morning and ask if everything was okay.”
Maya Gaines wasn’t her typical Bloom bride. She was just out of design school at SCAD, and her flower budget was nearly nonexistent. Cara had agreed to take the job as a favor to Bert, who’d known the bride since elementary school. But also because Maya was hip and cute—and just plain nice. The ceremony—and the reception—would be at the Knights of Columbus hall just a few blocks away on Liberty Street.
“We should be fine,” Cara said. She pointed to the buckets in the cooler, which she’d filled with inexpensive “filler” flowers she’d picked up earlier in the morning at Sam’s Club.
