Page 9 of Save the Date
The man jogged on down the lane, and she crept along right behind him, honking her horn every few minutes, and hollering out the window. “Stop! Come here, Poppy.” She knew she looked like a lunatic, and she just didn’t care.
Poppy, the little traitor, seemed quite content to follow along behind her new friend, never straying or yanking at the makeshift leash as she sometimes did when Cara took her for her morning walk.
Finally, they reached a block on Macon Street. The houses here were simpler than the grand brick and stucco townhomes farther west in the historic district. Mostly single-story wood-frame homes, they were known as freedman’s cottages because they’d originally been built after the Civil War by newly emancipated slaves.
The runner paused in front of one of the least distinguished cottages on the block. Paint was peeling from the dingy white clapboards, a shutter at the window was missing several slats, and the faded aqua door seemed to be held together with duct tape. There was a wooden window box beneath the double window, but the plants were dried up and shriveled beyond recognition. The man propped his foot on the top step of the stoop and retrieved a key from a pocket in the tongue of his running shoe.
That’s when he looked over and spotted Cara, parked at the curb, the van’s motor idling.
“Beat it,” he called.
She held her cell phone up for him to see. “Give me back my dog or I’ll call the cops.”
“Get away from my house or I’ll call the cops myself,” he retorted. He picked Poppy up in his arms and climbed the rest of the steps to the doorway. He unlocked the door. Cara jumped from the truck and ran for the minuscule porch, but he was too quick. He stepped inside and slammed the door in her face. A moment later, she heard a deadbolt lock slide into place.
“Dognapper!” Cara pounded on the door with her fist. “Give me back my dog!”
“Crazy stalker woman, go away,” came the muffled reply.
She banged on the door, and looked around to ring the doorbell, but it was defunct, dangling by a single frayed wire from the dry-rotted doorframe.
Cara gave the door an ineffective kick, resulting only in a badly stubbed big toe.
“I’m calling the cops,” she screamed, her lips plastered against the doorframe.
“I already called ’em,” came back his voice.
She paced back and forth in front of the cottage, waiting for the police. Bert called, and she instructed him to load as many of the flowers as he could into his own car, and start ferrying them over to the church. Torie and Lillian Fanning called, too, but she let those calls go to voicemail.
While she paced, Cara studied the house, hoping the runner would somehow relent and release Poppy. The cottage was a puzzle. It sported a jaunty new-looking red tin roof, but there were cracks in the wavy glass of the front windows, and she could see that two or three of the clapboards were perilously close to falling off the house.
Cara called the police again. This time, a bored-sounding dispatcher informed her that the police had actual crimes to solve, and that an officer might not show up for another hour.
“But he’s got my dog,” Cara protested. “And he won’t even open the door or listen to reason.”
“Ma’am?” the dispatcher said. “Try to work it out like adults, why don’t you?”
She disconnected and walked back over to the house. She climbed onto the front stoop and peered in through the dust-caked window. The room inside held a battered leather sofa and a flat-screen television squatting on a sheet of plywood stretched across sawhorses. The room was littered with stacks of lumber, tools, and paint buckets. There was no sign of Poppy. She would have cried, but she had a wedding to get to.
4
“Did you find Poppy?” Bert asked, as she raced back into the shop.
“He’s still got her locked up,” Cara said. “And the police were no help at all.” She was pulling her sweat-soaked T-shirt over her head as she raced for the back stairs to her second-floor apartment above the shop.
“Never mind,” Bert called up after her. “I’ve already taken the altar arrangements, the pew bows and centerpieces out there. But we’ve still got the bouquets and boutonnieres and the buffet arrangements here, so hurry! I’ll get the van loaded. After the wedding, I’ll help you get Poppy back.”
Ten minutes later, she was back downstairs, her still-damp butterscotch-colored hair pulled into a careless French knot, dressed in a floaty vintage flower-sprigged pink silk garden-party dress, and pink cowboy boots.
The ride out Skidaway Road to the Isle of Hope was a nail-biter, but they pulled up to the quaint, white wood-framed Methodist church at exactly five o’clock, with only an hour to spare before the wedding.
Cara toted the cardboard carton with the bride’s flowers into the back of the church, where she was met by Lillian Fanning, her carefully made-up face contorted with anger and anxiety.
“Finally!” Lillian snapped, snatching the box of flowers from Cara’s hands. “I’ve been having heart palpitations for the last hour. Where on earth have you been? Didn’t you get any of my calls or texts?”
“So sorry,” Cara responded. “The battery ran down on my cell phone. But we’re here now. Bert’s taking the rest of the arrangements over to the reception. Honestly, Lillian. We have it all under control.”
“Mama? Is that Cara with my damn flowers?” A willowy brunette in a stunning strapless cream satin Vera Wang gown poked her head out the door of the bride’s room.
