Bloom and Doom (2 page)

I shrugged. Yes, my illustrious marriage success rate. Liv could have at least given me some warning.

Hanson combed his beard with his fingers. “I can work with that, anyway. Now, maybe a little background. What started your interest in flowers?”

“I’ve loved them ever since I was a little girl. Liv—Olivia Rose—and I used to run the hills outside Ramble collecting dandelions and buttercups, pussy willows and wild lilacs for our grandmother. That’s her in the picture.” I pointed to the display behind him.

Hanson rose to take a closer look at the photo. I took the opportunity to shoo Liv away. Except Liv didn’t budge.

Hanson tapped the photo frame. “I remember your grandmother and the little cottage with the flower gardens. We did a feature on it—headlined as ‘Mae’s Flowers,’ I think—about seven or eight years ago. Sad what’s happened to the place.”

I swallowed hard. “Those gardens weren’t always there, you know. Grandma Mae once earned quite a reputation for growing vegetables. She switched her attention to flowers when we were young.”

“Why’s that?”

“Partly my fault, I’m afraid. One summer when Liv and I were visiting—I think I was six, so she must have been eight—we found some new flowers to add to a bouquet we were making. Beautiful yellow and orange blooms. We gathered all we could find and tied them with Liv’s hair ribbon. We expected Grandma Mae to gush over all the pretty flowers. Instead she put her hands on her cheeks and kept repeating, ‘Bless your hearts.’ We’d pulled all the blooms from her vegetable garden.

“That afternoon we hopped into her old Volkswagen Bug and headed to the greenhouses for seeds and bulbs and flats of flowers. She showed us where we could plant our own flower garden. We’d add a little more every summer.”

“And now you and Liv have your own florist’s shop. How long has it been?”

“Five years. Well, five years since we bought the shop. It took us a while to get the business updated. The building needed more than a face-lift when we found it.”

“And how’s it going now?”

“Pretty well, I think. Liv manages the shop, and I coordinate the weddings. Of course we all pitch in when there’s a—”

My words were interrupted by a crash, as a whole shelf of potted hibiscus tumbled to the floor beneath Liv’s overzealous watering can.

I closed my eyes and counted to ten, breathing in the calming symphony of scents that is a flower shop. Not that many of the smells came from our cut flowers, since they were all stored in the coolers. But our signature scent came from our potted flowers, floral-scented candles, potpourri, and that little bottle of magic spray we surreptitiously spritzed on the tissue paper for all our boxed roses, since roses today don’t have the scent people expect them to. But when customers walk in, they invariably remark on how wonderful the flowers smell.

“Sorry about that.” I sent him a pleasant smile. At least I hoped it looked like a pleasant smile. “What was the question again?”

Hanson flipped off the voice recorder. “Never mind. I have enough to make it work, and it looks like your partner may need some help cleaning up.”

We shook hands, then he gingerly stepped around the floral casualties, potting soil, and shards of terra-cotta. Liv and I watched as he exited.

“Sorry.” Liv picked up a plant that had miraculously remained intact and firmed the dirt with her fingers.

“You could have waited until after the interview. You know I’d tell you everything.”

“Did we just meet? You know I can’t wait.”

That much was true. Liv always used to stalk the closets for presents. When she was a child, she’d shake and poke and pinch them. As a young teen, she’d unwrap and rewrap them. When she was in high school, I’d known her to replace the family’s tape with a removable variety. Of course, she taught me all her secrets.

“When I saw the watering can,” Liv said, “I figured it would look like part of the job.”

“I hope you haven’t drowned our entire stock.” I started stacking the largest shards of terra-cotta.

“That”—Liv tapped her forehead—“is why I didn’t put any water in the watering can.”

“You could have given me some warning about what he wanted to talk to me about,” I said. Even then, irritation was melting away. It was truly hard to be mad at bubbly, cheerful Liv.

“I figured you’d be more candid this way. And you did great. We’re sure to pick up a few more wedding appointments from the article.”

The bell signaled the arrival of a customer.

“You take that,” I said. “I’ll clean up.”

A sad-looking hibiscus sat in the pile of dirt. I transferred it to a pot. With a little tender care and a bit of luck, the patient would survive. I triaged a few more before sweeping up the remaining potting soil.

While Liv cashed out the latest customer, the bell rang again.

I looked up to see a man in baker’s whites standing in the door. At least I think they were baker’s whites, since he wasn’t Ricardo Montalban or Mr. Clean. Not all men can pull off the all-white look (case in point, Mr. Clean), but this one did. Perhaps due to the tanned muscles jutting from his short sleeves or the wavy locks of brown hair that crowned his head.

He reminded me briefly of a moonflower. Bright, strong, elusive.

He crossed the room to where I stood and towered over me. Since I’m five ten, that’s quite a trick. He flashed a smile and said . . . something.

The words seemed to hang in the air, but I had no recollection of them. Perhaps because I was thinking of the meaning of the moonflower.
I only dream of love.
“I beg your pardon?” What was wrong with me?

“Is there a manager about?”

“I . . . yes . . . I’m a manager. Well, an owner . . . a co-owner. My cousin and I . . .” I cleared my throat. I needed a do-over. I swallowed and forced a smile as I stuck out my hand. “Audrey Bloom. How can I help you?”

“Nick Maxwell.” He shook my hand, which we then both realized still contained remnants of potting soil.

“Oh, fiddleheads,” I said, employing one of the green words that passed for cussing in our small shop. “Sorry. I’ll get you a . . .” I ran to the back room, where I banged my head three times on the door of the walk-in, trying to knock sense into myself, then brought back a damp paper towel.

“Sorry,” I said again. “Occupational hazard.”

“No problem. For me it’s usually flour.”

I laughed politely and waited.

And he waited.

“Oh, the reason I came . . .” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a flyer. “I recently opened the Baby Cakes Bakery just down the street.”

“The new cupcake place?”

“That’s right. We started out with cupcakes. Now we’re trying to branch out into weddings. Like those cupcake arrangements in the bridal magazines. And full-sized cakes, too.”

“
You
read the bridal magazines?”

He raised his hands in the universal symbol of surrender. “Guilty. Another trade hazard, I’m afraid.”

I chuckled. “I know. I coordinate weddings for the shop, so I have a stack of them on either side of my couch. I use them for coffee tables.”

“I usually read them at the library.”

“Hey, if you ever want to come over and check out the back issues, my apartment is just a couple of blocks from here.” Oh, great. Without thinking, I’d just invited a stranger to my apartment. He was probably married anyway. I looked to his ring finger. Empty, but that didn’t always mean anything.

“I . . . uh . . . I might just do that. By the time I get to the library, the brides have ripped out half the pictures anyway.”

“And brought many of them here, I’m afraid.”

Nick looked down at the flyer in his hands. “Oh, I wondered if it would be possible to place some flyers in your shop. If you want, I could put something advertising the Rose in Bloom in the bakery.”

“I have some business cards.”

“Great. I’ll bring a stack of flyers over later today.” He started backing toward the door. “Oh, I forgot. Do you have any small bouquets? Nothing fancy.”

I pointed to the self-service cooler. “Something like that?”

My jaw tightened as he picked out a tasteful arrangement of tulips and daffodils. If he had a wife or girlfriend, it would be better to find out now, before I made an idiot out of myself and did something silly like . . . inviting him to my apartment to look through bridal magazines.

• • •

“He’s not married,”
my assistant, Amber Lee, said the moment I made it to the back room. Amber Lee was a tall, African American woman with a hint of gray in her tight-cropped hair and a deep-throated laugh more infectious than pinkeye in a day care center. A lifelong resident of Ramble and former schoolteacher, she’d taught at least one child from every family and could still dish up dirt on most, but never in a mean way. She struck me as more the kindly grandmother type, looking over all her children, warts and all.

I went for innocence. “Who’s not married?”

Liv laughed. “Mr. Baby Cakes, of course.”

Amber Lee grinned. “Can’t fool us. I saw you checking out the baker’s buns.” She batted her eyelashes and put a hand on her hip. “‘Why, I’ve got
plenty
of bridal magazines in my apartment. Stop over any time.’”

Liv swatted Amber Lee’s arm. “Give the kid a break.” Although only two years older, Liv had a nasty habit of referring to me as “the kid.” She turned back to me. “Don’t let a little teasing dissuade you. The baker is pretty—”

“Hot?” Amber Lee tried. “Sweet? Smoking? Well-done?”

I rolled my eyes. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Even if I were ready for another romance, he bought flowers for someone.”

“That’s new,” Amber Lee said. “I haven’t heard anything about a girlfriend. Let me see what I can find out.”

“What kind of flowers did he buy?” Liv asked.

“Pink tulips and daffodils.”

“And what do those mean in that supersecret language of yours?” Liv asked.

“Pink tulips represent
care
and
compassion
. Daffodils represent
regard
. Or
vanity
.”

“But if we want to sell them, we say they mean
regard
.” She wagged her finger at me. “In either case, not the most romantic flowers one can choose.”

I shrugged. Choosing flowers was romantic enough.

I was sweeping the floral detritus, the stems,
leaves, and wilted petals that collect on the floor, from the back room when the bell over the door signaled a last-minute customer.

“I’ll take care of it.” Liv left off counting spools of ribbon and set down her clipboard. She returned a moment later. “You’re on, kid. The Whitneys are here for their bridal appointment.”

I glanced at the clock, where the second hand inched toward the top of the hour. Seven p.m., our closing time. “And only four hours late. How considerate.”

Liv gestured that I lower my volume, looking like a concert conductor signaling the tuba section to make a massive decrescendo. I’d know because Liv
is
the conductor of Ramble’s town band. Such a petite conductor, in fact, that they had to build a special platform in the gazebo in Ramble’s town square so she could be seen over the music stands.

And I do, in fact, play the tuba, which, in my defense, is a difficult instrument to play softly.

People often don’t believe we’re cousins. Although our mothers were identical twins, each of us got our looks from our fathers. I grew tall with dark hair and complexion. Liv was named for her olive skin, which turned out to be a mild case of jaundice that dissipated shortly after the ink on her birth certificate dried, or so the old family story goes. Instead, Liv was petite with fair hair and skin, with cute freckles that were the bane of her teen years.

“I already suggested they come back tomorrow,” she said, “but you know how Ellen is. She insists it’s urgent.”

I thought of my aching feet. At least I could sit down during the planning appointment. “You go home to Eric. I’ll lock up when we’re done.”

“You sure, kiddo?” Liv was already gathering her purse. “I can’t understand why they even came to us, considering. Look, if you don’t want to do this alone, I can stay. I’d imagine it would be a bit uncomfortable, since Jenny . . .”

“Don’t dramatize it, Liv. Jenny and I were friends. We drifted apart. It happens. I got this. Now, shoo.”

As Liv scooted out the back door into the alleyway, I steeled myself to meet the Whitneys, not giving in to the urge to run outside and drag Liv back. I was twenty-nine, after all, old enough to deal with difficult customers and awkward relationships. Heaven knows, I’d had my share of each.

I darted into our small restroom and changed into a lavender dress. Early in our business, Liv found an article that hypothesized that a wedding coordinator sold 28 percent more wedding flowers when dressed as for a wedding. Since I didn’t have the data to argue with her, I wore a dress for bridal appointments. I ran a brush through my hair, pulled it up into a quick knot, then practiced my best friendly smile in the mirror. It would have to do.

“There you are, Audrey. I wondered if everyone had gone home.” Ellen Whitney had paged halfway through our stack of bridal books. Her coral-colored sandals tapped the floor of the gazebo in nervous energy. Of course those coral sandals were topped by an extra-large coral pantsuit; a coral necklace, bracelet, and earrings; and a coral lipstick that made her Italian complexion sallow. Ellen was decidedly monochromatic, and never in a good way.

“The shop would have been dark and locked if you were just a minute later.”

“Glad we made it here in time, then.” Ellen continued foraging through the books, with no hint of apology for missing their earlier appointment or holding me up at this late hour. “I’d forgotten how many details there were in planning a wedding . . . and on such short notice.”

I grabbed my notebook and started a clean page. “When is the big day?”

“Three weeks.” Ellen didn’t bat a coral-tinted eyelid. “April twenty-seventh,” she added, naming a date closer to two and a half weeks away. “We wanted to avoid the hot weather.”

Her daughter, Jenny, bit on a well-chewed fingernail. That might be her major source of calories these days. When Jenny and I were close, often capping a Saturday morning garage-sailing expedition (or is it sale-ing?) with a stop for chicken sandwiches and waffle fries, she equaled her mother in girth. When she lost all the extra poundage, however, she deserted me for her new anorexic friends from the fitness center. I missed my companion in cholesterol. But she’d kept off the weight, and I was happy for her.

“Mrs. Whitney,” I started, “with such late notice I’m afraid—”

“Oh, but you must,” Ellen insisted. “Everything else is all arranged. The church, the hall, the dresses, the cake.” She counted off the items on her coral-tipped fingernails. “All we have left is the flowers, and with you being a friend of Jenny, I assumed . . .”

Jenny slumped further into her chair. “Mother, maybe we could do imitation flowers. Some of them looked almost real.”

“Imitation flowers?” Ellen bellowed. “At what is sure to be the wedding of the season? You can’t marry into the Rawling family using cheap silk pansies. I’d be the laughingstock of Ramble.

“Really, Audrey.” She turned to me with a smirk of challenge on her face. “You must see how an opportunity to provide the flowers for such an occasion would be a boon to your business. After all”—she gestured to the empty shop—“you’re not exactly packing them in here.”

I felt my cheeks turn a peony pink.
Of course the shop is empty. We’re closed, you dragonwort.
Only I didn’t say that. I paused for a moment, caught the calming scent of lavender still in the air, and went with that. “You didn’t let me finish. Of course we’ll do our best to accommodate your wishes, but with such little lead time, certain flowers, especially tropicals, might be difficult to obtain.” I deliberately turned to Jenny and sent her an encouraging smile. “Now, perhaps we should start with what the bride has in mind.”

Despite my attempts to direct my attention to Jenny, Ellen would have her way. When we were all done they’d ordered a lackluster bouquet composed of black and white anemones with accents of, of all things, pussy willows and scabious seed heads (even the name should give people a hint) and with more filler than my high school paper on the French Revolution. For that I’d gotten a D. But I determined to make these flowers into something wonderful. I remembered Jenny sharing stories of her embarrassment at being stuffed into too-small bridesmaid’s dresses as all her thinner friends married before her. How exciting that the little wallflower would now be the blushing bride.

But Derek Rawling? The few occasions he deigned to speak with me, he’d impressed me as being what Grandma Mae used to call wanton—the prodigal son
before
his appointment with the swine.

Ellen would consider him a good catch, though. Looks. Old money. Even if he was considerably older than Jenny. Still, no one had been able to reel in the town’s resident playboy to date. I wondered what it was about the thinner, but still somewhat socially awkward, Jenny that had baited him.

• • •

The next morning
as I sipped my instant coffee and added Jenny’s flowers to our upcoming orders, I grew more depressed. I had stewed over it the night before with Chester. Well, I stewed while he chased his well-chewed, neon green toy mouse and played hide-and-seek with my favorite pair of earrings. I’d yet to find one of them, but I had grown more optimistic about Ellen’s color scheme. I recalled a recent bouquet with similar colors—or lack thereof—and textures that made the cover of a major bridal magazine. I scavenged my apartment for the issue and saw that the writer had characterized the bouquet as “earthy, bold, and strikingly different.”

For a moment I tried to convince myself that sweet Jenny could pull off earthy, bold, and strikingly different.

But worse than that, the language of the flowers was all wrong. While many guides suggest that the anemone signifies
expectation
, the old-time Victorians declared it meant
forsaken
. And the dried accents Ellen had chosen? The scabious is the symbol of
unfortunate love
. And the pussy willows represent
motherhood
. Perhaps Ellen’s stamp of approval on this union? Then again, black, white, gray, brown . . . could just be another of Ellen’s failed color experiments. Not a great way to start off a life together. Perhaps Jenny and I could sit down and talk about it.

The alleyway door opened and Amber Lee bustled in, removing an old-fashioned hair bonnet and shaking the remains of our latest April shower into the utility tub. She spied my cup, glanced at the empty pot I’d spurned in favor of the quicker and easier instant, then rolled her eyes before preparing a fresh pot of real coffee.

I couldn’t blame her. Both of us found the seven a.m. shift difficult. Amber Lee had kept schoolteacher’s hours until two years before. She’d confided in me that she’d expected retirement to be like the summer vacations she’d long enjoyed. But by October, she was climbing the walls. She checked if the school district needed substitutes, but they talked about more budget cuts. Her love of flowers drew her to us, and we gave her an audition during one of our busy periods. She took to the job like she was born in a garden, and we’d been expanding her duties ever since.

She poured some of her high-test into my empty mug, and only then did we talk. She pointed at the paperwork. “I see Ellen and Jenny did come in yesterday after all. Did they say why they were late?” She hid a smirk behind her coffee cup.

I could sense a story coming on. “Why? What did you hear?”

“One of my former students is now a secretary down at the church. And she saw Ellen there raising a ruckus with Pastor Seymour.”

I couldn’t imagine anyone drawing ire from the kindhearted, elderly minister. “What in the world about?”

“Well, it seems Ellen presented him with
her
order of service for the wedding—in fifty-two easy-to-remember steps. I guess they’d gotten to number fifteen when he fell asleep. To my way of thinking, at eighty-three, you’ve earned the right to nod off now and then. Let’s just say Ellen was not amused. She stayed right there until he promised to study up on her list.”

“Poor Pastor Seymour . . . and poor Jenny.”

“I can’t help thinking the kid is getting the short end of this deal.” Amber Lee wagged a finger for emphasis. “And from what I heard, it
is
a deal. The word is, Ellen and old man Rawling were more involved in making this happen than Jenny and Derek.”

My next sip of coffee turned bitter in my mouth. “The rumor mill doesn’t always have it right, you know. Like the time everyone in town insisted Clara Kettering was dying from a large tumor and—”

“And it turned out to be triplets. I hear you. But this would explain a few things. Like why Jenny is all glum but Ellen is beaming from ear to ear. Consider who stands to benefit from this match.”

I pulled on my black florist’s apron and glanced at the next orders to be prepared. “But why would Jenny go along with that—and why would Derek?”

Amber Lee pulled out a step stool and retrieved a box of vases from an upper shelf. “Some are saying Jenny planned the whole thing to get her hands on Derek’s money.”

“That sounds like mean-spirited jealousy.”

“I knew you would defend her, even after she dumped you.”

I reached up to grab the box from Amber Lee. “She didn’t dump me. We just . . . grew apart.”

“Uh-huh. If that’s the way you want it. But I agree with you,” Amber Lee said. “I’ll wager some old flame of Derek’s started that bit. Derek has enough brokenhearted old girlfriends to string from here to Richmond. And I don’t see Jenny playing the role of money-grubbing manipulator, either—at least not without a big push from mommy dearest.”

“But that doesn’t explain Derek’s thoughts turning to orange blossoms.” I sighed. I
wished
they’d ordered orange blossoms.

“That’s where old man Rawling comes in, so I hear. He’s been wanting good ol’ Derek to settle down for quite some time now, and he has his hopes set on Jenny as the one to do it.” Amber Lee set the step stool back into place.

“For Jenny’s sake, I hope it works.”

Amber Lee slit open the box with a utility knife. “Mark my words, Audrey. That kind only settles down when he’s good and ready. Or dead.”