Elly in Love (The Elly Series) (35 page)

Thirty minutes later, Elly, Anthony, and Snarky Teenager all looked at the massive pile of flower boxes on the design table, the floor, the shelves, and in the backroom and hallway.

“Whoa,” breathed Anthony.

Snarky Teenager wiped her eyes, which were now running with mascara, making her look like a tragic beauty queen. “Totally. I thought that there were a lot of boxes for the Kepke wedding….”

Even Elly was stunned into silence, something that was abnormal. “Well….” There was a moment where even the air seemed to let out a long exhale around them. Elly stepped forward, the water squishing out of her tennis shoes, which she knew would forever stink. Using her bright-pink box cutter, she sliced open the thick top of the box, pulling up the sharp cardboard to look inside. A strange whiff of air hissed out of the box when she opened it, and she was struck by how cold the box still was. She ran her finger down the plastic lining and came away with a light frost on her finger. “Huh.” She began pulling out the billowy clouds of tissue paper and damp (freezing) newspaper piles. Finally, she reached the plastic liner and sliced it through with her blade, reaching down to pick up some weak-necked nerine lilies. She held them up in the light, her hands expertly running over their thin pink lips and strawlike bright-green stems. Pollen fell off the first bloom she picked up, and the stem lay limp across her hand, unable to stand on its own. Its pink lips were withered and brown, almost black. “This is dead,” she remarked. “The rest?”

Anthony began rustling through the rest of the lilies, pulling out bunch after bunch. “These are dead, too!” He shook his head. “And freezing!”

Elly took a few quick steps to another big box that was marked “Garden roses.” She slit open the top and plunged her hands down into the box. The roses were freezing as well. She held up a dusty tan rose, pulling back the petals one by one. They trickled down to the ground like snow. The head was so pliable that she could squish it between her fingertips. “Dead,” she whispered. Then louder.
“Dead!”

There was an eerie moment of silence as the Posies workers stared at each other in wide-eyed fear, then the store exploded in total anarchy. Like a bunch of wild animals, the three of them descended on the boxes with their box cutters, ripping and slashing the boxes and checking the contents of each freezing container.

“Dead!”

“Dead
!”

“These are dead, too!”

“The orchids … oh no.
Dead!
The tropicals are all dead!”

Elly’s hands were shaking as she ripped open a box of striped dutch tulips. Their limp heads fell from the stems as she picked them up. She lifted her head and surveyed the store, with the hundreds of open boxes littering the floor. “What the
hell
?” she asked through gritted teeth.

Outside, a car door slammed.

“Grab him!” she yelled. “Hurry!”

Anthony and Snarky Teenager scampered outside into the blinding rain. Elly pushed her hands up against her eyes as a wave of panic crashed over her.
The flowers were dead. The biggest wedding of her career and they were dead.
The wedding was tomorrow night, the wedding of Lola Plumb, a name that every American recognized. She heard a slight clicking sound, and looked up to see two camera lenses trained straight on her. Greg was silently mouthing excited words as he captured what would surely make for riveting TV.

She closed her eyes and had an image of waves crashing over her, burying her beneath the foamy waters. She counted to ten as she allowed herself to mentally sink beneath the waves. She let the panic run its course through her curvy body, allowed her mind to entertain every nightmarish scenario (not that she needed to make it much worse, this was pretty much her nightmare come to life), and then she began praying silently.
Please Lord, please let me be wise. Let me handle this with grace. Please let the editors be sympathetic.

And please help me not murder whoever is responsible for this. And Dennis too.

And one more:
please be with Keith. I’m not sure why I’m praying for him. Amen
.

Then she opened her eyes. Snarky Teenager pushed the agitated driver forward, her hand clutched around his collar. Anthony was standing behind him with his hands outstretched. “I had nothing to do with this,” he reassured her.

Snarky Teenager let go of his collar. The man was soaking wet and staring at the ground.

Elly walked over and gently took Snarky Teenager’s hand in her own, removing it from the man’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean to actually
grab
him. I meant that in a, you know, metaphorical way. Let’s try not to get sued.”

Snarky Teenager brushed off her hands as if she had touched something disgusting. “Whatever. You should say what you mean next time.”

The man shuffled forward. Elly gestured to the boxes, rain dripping from her still-soaking hair. “What happened? Why are
all
these flowers dead? You do realize, and I hope your boss realizes, that this was about thirty
thousand
dollars’ worth of flowers?” Elly turned to Anthony. “I need you to get the store camera and take pictures of each and every box of dead flowers. Make sure the time stamp is on the pictures.”

He nodded. “You got it, boss.”

She turned to her young apprentice, who was looking more and more panicked. “Get Mary on the phone.
Now
. This is absolutely an emergency. Wake her up.” She pulled her hair back into a high ponytail and jogged back behind the desk. The man kept staring at the floor, sniffling slightly. Elly stared back at him
. Breathe
, she told herself.
Breathe.
“What is your name?”

“Andy.”

“Andy, what happened here?”

The driver looked at the floor. “It’s only my third week at this job. I’m probably going to get fired.”

“Probably?” snapped Elly, before she thought better of it. “How did this happen?”

He shrugged. “I was talking on the phone to my wife the whole way—we have a newborn, I never see her now with this job—and I guess I forgot to check the temp after I stopped in Phoenix. It was so hot there, so I thought I would just give them an extra blast of really cool air….”

“And you left it on.”

“I guess.” He ran his hands nervously through his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I just forgot, it was such a little thing, just a button really….”

Elly began to feel very sorry for Andy. He was obviously in agony, and even though Elly felt like screaming, that wouldn’t help anyone
. I will punch a lot of pillows later
, she thought.
And after that, I will eat a lot of Dove chocolates.

“I’ve got Mary!” yelled Snarky Teenager. Elly snatched the phone from her outstretched arm.

“Elly?”

“
Mary.
I’ve got thirty thousand dollars of dead—
dead
, as in frozen dead—flowers here. If they had gotten too hot, I would have a prayer, but these will never recover. They are all beyond saving. I’ll have Anthony send you the pictures within the hour, but I need to know what you can do for me
right now.”
She heard Mary rustling and quietly whispering to someone.
Her husband, no doubt. Not everyone was sad and alone.

“Elly, I’m heading into the office. I’m not sure what I can do. You need to design tomorrow, correct?”

“No. I need to start designing
today
. The wedding is tomorrow
night
, but the photo shoot for the cameras is in the afternoon. We need to be completely camera-ready, with everything designed, by about nine a.m. tomorrow morning. We were planning on pulling an eighteen-hour-plus workday today. My extra design staff will be arriving here soon.” She took a deep breath. “
There are no flowers, Mary
. They are all dead. I have nothing to design with. Tell me how you will fix this.” Elly heard only silence on the other line.

“I’m sorry, Elly, I am so sorry. You are one of our favorite clients, but I understand if you want to sever this relationship after this. Even if I
flew
you my best flowers, it would still take a day to get together all the flowers, get them to the airport, and charter a flight to the airport. Then you would have to arrange their transport from the airport. I’m not sure if a refrigerated plane is available, which is why we normally use the van. We would cover the cost, of course, but….” There was a pause.

“And?” Elly asked nervously.

“Even if I did every single thing I could, Elly, we couldn’t get these flowers to you before maybe nine p.m. tonight, which….”

“Which would leave me no time to design.”

Mary let out a whispered sentence—Elly could tell that her beloved provider was trying to hold back tears. “I’m so sorry, Elly. I don’t know what else to say. I’ll be firing Andy when he returns.”

Elly looked over at Andy, who was staring blankly into the damp dawn. “Actually, can I have him today? If he can help us, then would you reconsider that? I feel bad for him—it was an accident that could happen to anyone. I’m extremely stressed and angry, don’t misunderstand me, and your company will absolutely reimburse whatever measures we need to use to fix this, but it was a very small, honest mistake that is causing a huge crisis.” Elly felt the eye of the camera on her. She tried to look calm and composed, but she clutched a pen so tightly that it was beginning to snap, and she was pretty sure her blond hair was falling out.
I can look forward to my new gray hair,
she thought with a grimace
. They call me chubby grandma around these parts.

The front door clanked open and Elly looked up to see Kim carrying a sleeping Hadley in through the front door. She saw Elly on the phone and widened her sea-glass eyes. “What’s going on?” she mouthed.

Elly held up a finger. “Mary, if there’s nothing you can do for me right now, I need to let you go. I’m sorry I’m not calling with better news. I’ll have Anthony email you those pictures in a few minutes. And I’m going to need you to reimburse my account immediately, so that I can have those funds to buy a new shipment from God knows where.”

Mary sighed. “Elly, it might take me a few days to….”

“We don’t have a few days. We have about two hours to get this figured out. Make it happen, Mary. I need a full refund in my account within an hour.”

There was silence on the other end. “I’ll get that processed this morning.”

“Thank you. I’ll be in touch.” Elly hung up the phone, panic buzzing in her ears. Kim shuffled Hadley to her other shoulder, his sweet baby face totally unaware of the travesty happening around him. The cameras turned to catch Elly and Kim’s conversation. A boom mic hovered above Elly’s head. “The flowers are dead. Frozen.”

“WHAT?”

“I know. I have to make some calls.”

Kim turned her head. “Can I lay him down upstairs in the apartment? He’ll be out for a few more hours, and I can help you.”

“Sure.” Elly motioned to the staff to follow her. The cameramen followed. She needed to talk to the staff. Alone. But the only place without cameras was…. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she snapped at the operators.

“Oh.” They backed off a bit, but kept their cameras trained on Anthony and Snarky Teenager, who were standing beside the boxes.

Elly opened the door to the bathroom and began gesturing to Anthony silently. His eyes met hers and he gave a silent nod. “I have to go to the restroom, too.” Snarky Teenager joined them.

The inside of the bathroom was cramped. Usually there was only enough room for one person. Snarky Teenager wedged herself into an ant-sized pocket behind the door, and Anthony stood unsteadily on the toilet lid. Elly looked around. “We are definitely going to update the bathroom after this wedding.”

“Word.”

Elly saw shadows underneath the door. “Flush the toilet!” Anthony pushed down on the handle and a roaring filled the room. “Okay. Mary can’t get the flowers here in time.”

They both gasped. “But how …? We can’t….”

“I know.” Elly rubbed her temples. “The only answer is that we are going to have to buy all the flowers here, in St. Louis. The flower markets are open. It will just be a situation where we are just going to have to buy what they have on the shelf.”

They both paled. “What about the rare garden roses?”

“We won’t have those.”

“The nerine lilies?”

“Nope.”

“Orchids?”

“Only what we can buy.” The toilet gave a gurgle as the Posies staff considered what that meant. Snarky Teenager looked at her fingernails. “This sucks. I mean, this is like going to be on TV, and we don’t have the flowers we need and the flower market won’t have the same type….”

“Yeah.” Elly ran her fingers through her damp curls. “I know. It’s the worst. But I think if we spend all day freaking out, then we will just be in the same boat that we are now. We can’t panic, we have to act. If we freak out, we will miss this tiny window where we can come up with a solution.” Elly saw the waves again, threatening to pull her under. The only way to stay above the rising tide of total devastation was to kick
. There would be no drowning of Elly Jordan today.
“Here’s what we are going to do….”

There was a sharp knock at the bathroom door.

“We’re busy!” Elly yelled. “Doing lady things!”

“Elly?” It was Kim’s voice coming through the door.

“Hold on!”

“Elly, I need to talk to you.” Kim was mumbling, and Elly could tell that she was trying not to be heard by the cameras.

“I’ll be out in a minute, just hold on.”

“Elly.
I need to talk to you right now
.” The door jerked open, and Kim was standing in front of it, bathed in the light from the studio, Hadley on her hip. “Elly. Dennis is gone.”

Elly looked up in confusion. “What?”

Kim handed her a note. “The door was open upstairs, just totally open. This was on the kitchen table.”

Elly’s hands began shaking as she unfolded the note.

I’m sorry for what I said about your mom.

Things are just better without me.

Goodbye,

Dennis

Elly didn’t remember running upstairs. One minute, she was huddled in the bathroom with her employees, and then next, she was flying up the stairs to her apartment. She stepped inside the open door. The kitchen and living room were a disaster, but that wasn’t anything new.