Slay it with Flowers (4 page)

“What happened across the street?” she asked, as I pulled an order and gathered my supplies.

I gave her as much information as I had, including the info about the Emperor’s Spa that I’d heard from the ladies in the coffee parlor. I stopped short when Grace walked in.

“You needn’t stop on my account, dear,” Grace said. “I could hear you from the other room.”

“Before you say anything, I do remember my vow, and I intend to stick by it.”

I glanced at Lottie, who was trying hard not to laugh.

Lottie had already finished the first wire order and was nearly done with the second, so I tackled number three, plus a phone-in order. By noon we had finished them and broke for lunch. I grabbed a turkey sandwich at the corner deli, then, because it was such a beautiful day, I hopped in my Vette and took off for a quick spin on the highway.

I thought best when I was sailing along the open road with the top down and the radio on. Since I was still puzzling over how to approach my ex-fiancé about the groomsman situation, going for a drive seemed a good idea. I took Lincoln Street, the main road east through town, passing neighborhoods of old Victorian houses, aluminum-sided ranch homes, and cedar two-stories, past a park with baseball diamonds, tennis courts, swing sets, and sweaty kids, to Highway 49. From there I headed north toward Lake Michigan and the Indiana Dunes State Park, where I’d spent many summer afternoons swimming, sunning, and climbing the sand hills.

The Indiana Dunes covered more than two thousand acres of primitive landscape on Lake Michigan’s southern shore, most of which were wooded and contained the most diversified flora and fauna of the Midwest. I knew this because I had to memorize it for a forestry course in college. What I learned from actually hiking those woods was: 1) use a trail map so you don’t get lost; 2) wear long pants to protect against poisonous vines; and 3) always use insect repellent.

Besides its proximity to Lake Michigan, New Chapel was also an hour’s drive from Chicago—as long as there was no snow, construction, traffic, sun spots, or anything else that could prevent a driver from reaching a cruising speed of fifty-five miles an hour. New Chapel had the advantage of being near a big city without the disadvantage of
being
a big city.

Getting back to Jillian’s dilemma, as I saw it I had to convince Pryce that it would be in his best interests to keep my cousin happy and therefore engaged. Why? Well . . . because Claymore would be heartbroken without Jillian.

Claymore? The original tin man? Pryce would get a good laugh out of that.

Okay, then, because Pryce deserved to be best man and Punch didn’t.

Too egotistical on Pryce’s part.

Because if she called off the wedding, Jillian would keep her three-carat diamond ring.

Bingo.

The next problem was when to talk to Pryce. My preference would have been Friday night at the country club because it would have presented the perfect opportunity to corner him without the rest of the bridal party in attendance. But Jillian would never have the patience to wait until the end of the week. She could barely make it to the end of a sentence.

Every Friday my family ate dinner at the country club, mostly because my mother had always dreamed of being able to. For a girl raised on a farm, being a member of an exclusive club was the epitome of high society. For the wife of a cop, however, it was an unattainable goal. But now that her sons were members, my mother considered herself as good as in. As she put it, “Blood is thicker than thieves.” She’d always had a problem with metaphors.

Coincidentally, the Osbornes also ate dinner there on Fridays, which was convenient when Pryce and I were engaged and awkward thereafter. Because his parents were still horrified that their son had almost married a law school reject, our families had taken to sitting at opposite ends of the dining room so we could politely ignore each other. Thanks to Jillian, that was no longer possible.

Friday night dinner was out, as was a phone call. Pryce hated receiving personal calls during business hours, and I couldn’t call him at home because he’d blocked my number. Like I would ever phone him again. That left showing up at his condo, the place where I was to have resided with him in holy matrimony, and I really didn’t want to do that.

Still without a solution, I reached the end of the highway, did a U-turn at the entrance to the state park, and headed south again. Ten minutes later my cell phone rang, so I exited onto a side road and pulled over to answer it.

“Abigail?” my mother said breathlessly, as though she were on her treadmill. She hated to waste time on the phone, so she usually combined it with some form of exercise.

“Hi, Mom. What’s up?”

“Aunt Corrine is having a get-together for Jillian”—pant, pant—“and her bridal party tomorrow evening. You’ll be able to come, won’t you?”

There it was—my opportunity to talk to Pryce. “You bet I’ll be there.”

“Seven o’clock. Oh, and Abigail, I’ll be by the shop later this afternoon. I have a surprise for you.”

I gasped inwardly. Not
this
afternoon! Not when the Monday Afternoon Ladies’ Poetry Society would be meeting in the parlor. “Mother!” I called. “I have to meet with a customer this afternoon. Can you make it tomorrow instead? I’d sure hate to miss your surprise.”

I winced, expecting a lightning bolt to zap me for lying.

“Abigail, how sweet. Of course I can bring it tomorrow. I’ll see you then.”

I dropped my phone in my purse with a groan and made a mental note to warn Lottie and Grace that another surprise was on its way. At least I had averted one potential disaster.

In addition to being a kindergarten teacher, my mother fancied herself a clay sculptress and used my shop as her private art gallery, expecting me to sell her creations for her. I humored her because she was my mother, but Lottie felt no such loyalty and usually managed to sneak the worst of the lot to the basement storage area.

Two weeks ago my mother had brought over a circle of neon-hued, anatomically correct, male monkeys doing the hula, with their hands raised over their heads to hold up a circle of glass. We’d dubbed it the Monkey Table. She’d unveiled her creation just as the poetry society adjourned, and we’d almost had to perform CPR on several of the members. The sight of those cavorting, naked apes was just too much for them.

Since I’d turned off the highway short of my usual exit, I took a different route into town and ended up on Concord Avenue, a north-south business thoroughfare that happened to pass right by the Emperor’s Spa. I got a red light and stopped. On the opposite corner, set far back on the lot, was a very drab wood-framed house separated from the beauty shop next door by dual gravel parking lots.

I wouldn’t have noticed the shabby building if it hadn’t been for the plain white sign on a tall post near the street that proclaimed in bold blue letters EMPEROR’S SPA. There was a phone number underneath but nothing else, not even the normal items you’d expect to see, such as,
Facials: 20% off.
That was definitely odd.

The light turned green, and I pulled forward with traffic, doing a quick check of the spa’s parking lot. No cars. The windows were covered on the inside with white paper, so it was impossible to tell if the spa was open. Then I spotted a tiny cardboard OPEN sign someone had slipped beneath the white paper on one of the windows. They certainly weren’t going out of their way to attract customers. Or maybe they didn’t have to.

Just as I was about to pass I caught a glimpse of black hair and a bright flash of color on a small form darting from the rear of the old house across the gravel lot to the rear of the beauty salon. One of the masseuses going for a haircut?

I was tempted to pull into the salon’s lot and check it out, but I recalled Marco admonishing,
“Remember your promise not to meddle.”

Just to prove I was a woman of my word, I didn’t stop. Instead, with one last wistfully curious glance, I drove on.

When I returned to Bloomers, Grace was serving tea and scones to the poetry group in the parlor, and Lottie was hard at work in the back, where I could hear her humming a Willie Nelson tune. I tiptoed past the parlor doorway—I always avoided the parlor on Monday afternoons—stuck my head through the curtain to wave to Lottie, then, for the next hour, I manned the front counter.

As I rang up a credit-card purchase for a young couple, I could hear the particularly loud voice of one of the poetesses as she shared her newest ode:

After four more verses on the delights of casseroles, she received a hearty round of applause for her efforts, and even a few
“bravas.”

That
was why I avoided the parlor on Monday afternoons.

The rest of the day zipped by as Lottie and I put together more orders, including an arrangement of colossal proportion for the New Chapel Savings and Loan. They had redecorated the lobby and were having an open house to celebrate. I’d had to practically beg for the job, but I wasn’t above a little humble begging if it would bring in more customers. I hummed along with Lottie as we worked together on it, already hearing the
ka-ching
of the cash register.

“Three more customers came in today with the coupons you had printed up last week,” Lottie told me as I stripped a long-stemmed Abraham Darby rose of its thorns. The apricot yellow flower with its unique, fruity fragrance was one of my favorites. “The coupons seem to be working.”

“That’s good, because the contest is a bust.” I’d tried two new promotional gimmicks, a coupon for ten percent off a purchase of twenty dollars or more, and a contest called “What’s My Vine?” The person who came up with the cleverest name for an ivy in a hand-painted sprinkling can won a bouquet of flowers on the date of their choice. In the three weeks the contest had been running we’d had only eleven entries, and the drawing was two days away.

“Live and learn,” Lottie said. “Your cousin’s wedding will give us more exposure. How many people are invited?”

“Two hundred for the wedding, four hundred for the reception.”

“And her father has to pay for all those mouths?” Lottie let out a low whistle. “I’m glad I have boys, even if there are four of them.” She stripped more roses, muttering, “Four, big, loud, brawling, eating machines who think the floor sweeps itself, the food cooks itself, the clothes wash themselves . . .”

Grace came through the curtain to hand me an order and a wicker basket. “Mrs. White would like to pick this up at four o’clock today. Will that be a problem?”

I looked at the order. The woman wanted a summery table centerpiece in pink, yellow, and white. I had just the combination in mind: a variety of buttercup called
Ranunculus asiaticus,
and a creamy pansy called
Viola x wittrockiana
for the yellows; dark pink Gerbera daisies and pale pink peonies for the pinks; and scented jasmine and Madonna lily for the whites. It would be gorgeous. “No problem,” I said.

“Also, I have a hair appointment at noon on Thursday. Would you mind if I switched lunch hours with you?”

“Not at all.”

As Grace turned to go back through the curtain, I asked, “Isn’t your hair salon right next to the Emperor’s Spa?”

“Yes, it is,” she replied carefully. “Why?”

Who better to ask what was going on at the spa than the girls who worked at the hair salon next door? But could I tell Grace that? Only if I wanted a lecture. “How are their manicures?”

“You don’t get manicures.”

I held out my stubby nails. “It’s high time I started.”

A
t my announcement, Lottie and Grace glanced at each other. They knew I’d never waste precious dollars for fingernails I’d only break anyway. I winced as Grace went into her statesman’s pose, holding the edges of her sweater as though they were lapels. “It was Samuel Johnson who said, ‘Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the
last.
’ ”

Lottie clapped enthusiastically. We were always impressed by Grace’s ability to find a quote for every occasion. Usually I joined in the applause, but this time I pretended to be absorbed in picking goo off my knife, hoping to avoid further lecturing.

“You know what that means,” Grace said, unwilling to let it go.

“I have a great and generous mind?”

“It means curiosity will be your undoing.” With a final nod, Grace marched through the curtain.

“You can stop picking at that blade,” Lottie said quietly. “I’m not going to ask why you suddenly need a manicure. You know what my motto is. Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“You’re a wise woman, Lottie Dombowski.” I couldn’t see any reason to burden her with my plans anyway. With four teenaged sons, she had enough on her plate.