Slay it with Flowers (6 page)

My mother patted my cheek. “I’m so pleased you’ll be getting to know Jillian’s college friends. Who knows? Perhaps you and Pryce will be able to mend fences, too.”

I smiled benignly and made a grab for the cream. Mend fences with Pryce? Those fences had not only been dismantled, but the wooden slats had been burned and their ashes scattered over the ranch. This filly was free.

My Aunt Corrine and Uncle Doug lived in a small, exclusive subdivision on the north side of New Chapel, where the streets were curved instead of straight and nothing as common as a sidewalk was allowed to mar the rolling green lawns. Their large, two-story brick home was built on a hill and had a walk-out lower level that opened up onto a brick patio in the rear.

That was where I found Jillian and her bridesmaids, their tall, lithe bodies draped over chaise longues, wearing gauzy blouses and silk pants, their nails done, their hair perfect, the toe rings on their manicured feet glittering. I had on a pale blue denim skirt and white peasant blouse that had probably gone out of style the day before I bought it, and my toes sported nothing but a few stray hairs.

Jillian handed me a chocolate martini and introduced me to the girls. There was Onora, the finicky maid of honor, with red, pouting lips, porcelain skin, and sleek ebony hair to her waist, giving me a bored nod of acknowledgment; Ursula, perched at the foot of Onora’s lounge chair, with her angular Germanic looks, pale lipstick, and light blond hair, giving me a friendly but distant smile; and Sabina, a bubbly, dishwater blonde with rosy cheeks and lips, and blue eyes that seemed a little too bright as she hopped up and came over to shake my hand.

“Abby, hi! I’m Sabina. I’ve heard so much about you. A florist. That must be really exciting.”

More exciting than this evening would be.

“The boys aren’t here yet,” Jillian informed me. “They went golfing today.” At twenty-five, they were hardly boys. Then again, I hadn’t met them. Some boys never grew up.

She tapped the face of her slender watch. “They should have arrived six and a half minutes ago. But you know how old college chums are when they get together. Oh, I’m sorry. I know that’s a sore subject for you.”

“I graduated from college, Jill.”

She patted my arm comfortingly. “But it was such a struggle.”

I took a gulp of martini to keep myself from strangling her. I sat down on a wicker settee next to Sabina, who seemed the friendliest of the lot, and spent the next half hour nursing the drink—which, if not for the fact that it had chocolate on the rim, would have been in the nearest potted plant. From the talkative Sabina I learned that Onora ran an upscale boutique in Manhattan, Ursula managed a home health care business, and Sabina worked as a stockbroker trainee. Not a flunk-out among them.

I was saved from the tedium by Claymore, who walked out through the patio doors followed by Pryce and another of the “boys.”

Claymore and Pryce were easily identifiable as brothers. Both wore tasseled leather loafers, crisply pleated slacks, Izod polo shirts with matching sweaters draped over their shoulders, and had perfectly tonsured brown hair and fair skin. Both were also anal-retentive. The only difference between them, other than age, was that Pryce was a corporate lawyer and Claymore was a CPA. I couldn’t help but contrast their garb with Marco’s standard outfit: black boots, tight jeans, and tighter T-shirt. In my mind, Marco had them beat hands down.

Jillian jumped up and flew into Claymore’s arms as though he’d just returned from a two-month walkabout. “I’ve been worried sick, thinking something terrible had happened to you.”

She had certainly hidden it well.

“We were waiting for Punch and Flip,” he told her, craning his neck out of her way as she straightened his collar and adjusted the drape of the sweater. “Are they here?”

“Of course not, silly. They’re with you.”

“As you can see, dearest,” he said tensely, “they’re not. Flip had mentioned wanting to take photographs around town, and you know how he is when he’s taking pictures—completely absorbed. We waited at the hotel for a while, then figured they’d come along eventually.” He glanced around at the rest of us and asked nervously, “We did the right thing, didn’t we?”

“You always do the right thing,” Jillian cooed. She gave his outfit a final tweaking, then grabbed Bertie’s hand and pulled him across to where I sat. “Bertie McManus, this is my little cousin Abby,” she said as I rose to meet him.

I winced at the word
little.
She’d pay for that remark. She knew I had height issues.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Bertie said with a big smile and an Irish lilt.

We shook hands. “Dublin?” I asked.

“County Clare, to tell the truth, not that I always do. Will you tell me where you got that lovely dark red hair that poor Jillian missed?”

I gave her a smug smile and turned my full attention to my new friend. I liked Bertie right off. He didn’t put on the affectations the Osbornes did. He had a pleasant face, wore ordinary khakis and a short-sleeve shirt, and had a modest job with a small advertising agency in Manhattan. He was my kind of people.

Jillian handed out more martinis—I took a pass, opting for white wine—and we waited another half hour for the missing boys, making small talk until my eyes glazed over. The only thing that kept me from nodding off was Claymore’s anxious pacing. He was a walking mass of nerve ends. Finally, Aunt Corrine came out, conferred with Jillian, then waved us all into their lower-level family room, where a buffet had been set up.

We had just finished loading our plates with an assortment of delectable finger foods and were perched on leather sofas and chairs around the spacious room when a muscular, jock-type guy ambled into the room. He had short, thick brown hair, the tips dyed blond, a square jaw, and a gold punching-bag earring dangling from one earlobe. His face was flushed, as if he’d just run a mile, and his clothes looked like they’d been put on in a hurry. I noticed Onora scrutinizing him from the other side of the room, but I couldn’t tell what she thought behind that emotionless expression she wore.

“Punch!” Jillian cried, causing Claymore to drop his quesadilla. “Where have you been?”

“I went to the lake and lost track of the time.” The way he’d spit that out, he’d obviously practiced it.

“Where’s Flip?” Sabina asked, watching the doorway.

Punch glanced around. “Isn’t he here?”

“We thought he was vith you,” Ursula said, a little of her Germanic accent coming through.

“Did something happen to Flip?” Sabina asked, starting to look distraught.

“Have a drink and unwind,” Pryce said to Punch. “You look like you could use it.”

Punch took the glass, then caught sight of me sitting on a sofa between Jillian and Bertie. He sauntered over, his small, beady eyes assessing my boobs. “You must be the flower girl.” He leaned over to say with a leer, “You be sure to let me know if your
blooms
need fertilizing.”

“You must be Paulin Chumley,” I said, ice dripping from each word. “Chump, isn’t it?”

He grimaced, then turned to Pryce. “You were right about those thorns, man. Know what I would have done if I’d been engaged to a broad like her?”

“That’s enough, Punch,” Bertie said in a quiet but firm voice.

Punch swung around to face him, puffing out his chest in true bully fashion. “What are you gonna do, Mr. Small-time Ad Man? Write a nasty advertisement about me?”

“Wouldn’t do much good,” Bertie said evenly. “You couldn’t read it anyway.”

Punch’s nostrils flared and his huge, meaty hands curled into fists. Anticipating an ugly scene, I was about to jump up and say something brilliant, such as,
“Hey, we’re not five years old, are we?”
when suddenly a glass shattered across the room.

I looked around Punch’s thick body to see Pryce grab a handful of paper napkins and bend down in front of Onora’s chair, where her empty martini glass lay in pieces. Onora sat like a stone statue, her face utterly composed, but her eyes were on Punch and they were livid. Obviously, she had dropped the glass to break up the confrontation. Also obvious was that she was not going to forgive Punch for dumping her anytime soon.

“Didn’t I tell you Punch was obnoxious?” Jillian hissed in my ear before jumping up to help Pryce.

I wish I could have said the evening got better, but it merely got hotter, and that applied to tempers as well as the temperature, as we sat around on the patio, torches burning to ward off mosquitoes, waiting for Flip to arrive. The general consensus was that he had gotten a flat tire, otherwise nothing would have prevented him from being there. Apparently he was extremely conscientious when it came to his friends.

The only dissenting opinion was Punch’s. He had a few choice comments about Flip being self-centered, moody, and sullen, but I chalked that up to Punch’s contentious nature. Nevertheless, it made the others testy and they were quick to rush to Flip’s defense.

At ten o’clock, unable to stifle any more yawns, I rose.

“Leaving us already?” Sabina chirped cheerily. She was on her fourth martini and feeling no pain. Thankfully, Pryce had agreed to drive the girls back to their hotel. He was always the designated driver because he never allowed himself more than one drink. He also applied that rule to friends.

I said my good-byes and escaped into the coolness of the house, followed by my cousin, who grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop before I could make the stairs. “Aren’t you going to talk to Pryce?”

“Oh, right.” I paused to think. “Tell him your mother has a question and wants to see him upstairs.”

I waited in the kitchen, and when Pryce appeared, I said, “Jillian wanted me to have a word with you.”

He gave me a wary look. “About what?”

“About your brother. Why don’t you walk me to my car?”

“Sorry. Jillian’s mother needs my expert legal advice.”

“That was just a ploy to get you away from the group.”

Watching his ego deflate was always a rewarding experience, even if my ploy did backfire. As we headed for the Vette, I caught my aunt peering from an upstairs window. Within minutes I knew she’d be on the phone with my mother, telling her she’d seen us leaving together. I didn’t even want to think about all the explaining I was going to have to do.

“What’s the problem with my brother?” Pryce asked, crossing his arms and frowning down at me as I leaned against the door of my Vette.

“No problem, just a request from Jillian. She wants you to be the best man.” I slapped my arm, hoping I’d nailed the mosquito that had just bit me. The neighborhood didn’t have streetlights, only decorative lamps at the end of each driveway, which didn’t make much of a dent on the darkness.

“It’s not my decision,” Pryce said. “It’s Clay’s.”

“Wrong. It’s yours, because if Punch is best man, Onora will
not
be maid of honor, and if Onora backs out, Jillian will call off the wedding, and if Jillian calls off the wedding, she will keep that three-carat diamond ring Claymore probably went into hock to buy her, and if she keeps the ring, Claymore will hate you forever.”

He glared at me. “I’ll talk to Clay.”

“I thought you’d see the wisdom of it.”

I slid into my car as Pryce strode back to the house. I had just inserted my key into the ignition when Punch came out of the house. Pretending not to see me, he jogged over to a dark SUV, got in, and sped away. The moment he turned the corner, Onora glided out, got into another car, and left. Not that I really cared, but it seemed pretty obvious she was tailing him.

I started the ignition, turned on my radio, and drove off in the opposite direction, glad to be leaving that bunch behind. I still had to get through the shower, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, and the reception, but that was only four events. I could handle four events.

 

Simon’s wet nose pushing against my chin woke me up minutes before my alarm went off the next morning. He had an inner clock that never failed. I snuggled with him a few moments, then hit the alarm’s Off button and got up to dress for my walk at the track. The phone rang just before I left, and I grabbed it so it wouldn’t wake Nikki, snoring soundly across the hall.

“Abby?” Jillian’s voice—panicky, on the verge of tears. Nothing unusual about that, only that she was awake so early. “Claymore just called. Flip didn’t come home last night. Something must have happened to him.”

“It’s still early,” I said, trying to think what to do. “Don’t let fear override your common sense.” Common sense? Jillian? What was I saying?

“This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me!” Jillian wailed in my ear.

“No, it’s not. Vomiting on your high school gym teacher because she wanted you to climb the rope was the worst thing that ever happened to you.”

“I’d just had my nails done. Who could blame me? Oh, Abby, what if Flip is lying dead in a ditch somewhere? Do you know what this will do to my wedding?”