"Your wedding dinner?" Brooke shot her stepmother a malicious smirk.
Patricia had the grace to blush. "Well, yes, as a matter of fact."
"They"re not doing my wedding reception," Brooke said.
"We"ve got lots of fabulous caterers in Savannah," Cara said, desperate to fill that awkward moment. "I work with Layne Pelletier of Fete Accompli a lot. In fact, she did Torie Fanning"s wedding."
"That food at Torie"s wedding was wonderful," Marie said. "Especially that salmon tartare thingy on the corncakes."
"Harris adores salmon," Brooke said. "Let"s go with Layne."
"She"s good, I suppose," Patricia allowed. "I know the Fannings were pleased with what she did."
Cara looked back at the "game plan." "Okay, well, this does look like a fairly ambitious event. Full bar with premium brands, wine service with dinner..."
"My friends all drink beer," Brooke said pointedly. "But, whatever...."
"Dancing after dinner," Cara went on. "Disc jockey?"
Patricia"s waxen face took on something close to a look of pain. "An orchestra," she said. "If the kids want to have a DJ, they can do that at the after-party."
"We might be hard-pressed to book an orchestra at this late date," Cara warned. "In fact, it might be tricky to get the best vendors, working this close to the date, especially Layne. She usually stays booked up months and months ahead of time."
Patricia reached back into her Fendi bag for her phone. She tapped a b.u.t.ton, looked up at the others. "I"m calling Carlos at Simple Elegance. We have a relationship. I"m sure if the others are busy, he"d be willing to accommodate us."
"Patricia!" Brooke glared at her stepmother. "Cara is our wedding planner. Can"t you just let her figure this out?"
The older woman sighed, shrugged, put the phone away.
"I"ll start making calls right away," Cara said. "If we can"t get Layne, I do know Carlos at Simple Elegance, as well as several other people. But again, no promises."
Marie glanced over at Brooke. "Honey, couldn"t we could just wait until fall, October, say?"
"No." Brooke shook her head vehemently. "I"ve got another huge civil trial coming up this fall. Harris has a conference in San Francisco. It"s July or nothing." She glanced from Marie to Patricia. "July sixth. It"s the anniversary of our first date."
"Impossible," Patricia muttered.
"I"ll make it work. Somehow," Cara said. She sounded more positive than she felt. A big-budget wedding in six weeks? Was she nuts to think she could pull it off?
"Great," Brooke said. She took a last sip of iced tea, draining her gla.s.s, and stood. "I"m meeting Harris for dinner in ten minutes. I"ll let all of you deal with the rest of the details." She put her hand lightly on Marie"s shoulder. "Okay, Mom?"
"Wait!"
The others looked at Cara in surprise.
"Your wedding dress? You"ve ordered one, right? I really need to take a look at it, and I definitely need to talk about your preferences for flowers for your bouquet and the reception."
Patricia gave a derisive snort.
"She actually did buy a dress," Marie said quietly. "It"s lovely. Very simple, very flattering for Brooke"s figure."
"Do you have a photo?" Cara asked.
Brooke frowned. "No photos. But the dress is out in Mom"s car."
"You bought a wedding gown off the rack?" Patricia shuddered. "Do I dare ask where you got it?"
"Some bride place in Atlanta," Brooke said carelessly. "Mom can show you." She started for the door.
"Brooke, honestly!" Marie called after her. "Cara really needs to get these things settled. Can"t you call Harris and tell him you"ll be a little late?"
"You can deal with all that stuff," Brooke said. "You know what I like, Mom. Just no orange. Or purple. Or red. Or yellow."
With that, she stepped out of her black pumps, slipped on a fair of flats, and was out the door, striding down the sidewalk without a backward look.
Which left Marie and Patricia sitting at the worktable in Cara"s shop, separated only by a s.p.a.ce of about three feet. Things got very quiet. Too quiet.
Cara jumped up. "Wine anybody?"
"Definitely," Marie said.
"Unless you"ve got the makings for a dry martini," Patricia said hopefully.
20.
By Friday morning, she"d not only gotten the signed contract for the Trapnell wedding, she had a $12,500 deposit check in her hot little hand.
"Awesome," Bert said, when Cara showed him the check. "So, now you"re a full-fledged wedding planner?"
"As far as the Trapnells are concerned, I am."
"We"re rich," Bert said. "Wanna take your favorite a.s.sistant out to lunch?"
"You can have half my tuna sandwich if you like. We"re not rich. We"re not even solvent. Yet." She nodded toward the pile of bills on her desk. "It took six hundred dollars to replace the compressor on the cooler. I spent close to five thousand dollars replacing the flowers for Torie"s wedding, which ate up half my profit from that wedding. And if I don"t pay my phone bill by two p.m. today, they"re going to cut off our service."
"And then there"s the Colonel," Bert said.
"There"s always the Colonel," Cara agreed. "He gets paid first-ten thousand right off the top."
"I thought he told you he wanted the whole magilla-twenty thousand," Bert said.
"I don"t have the whole magilla," she reminded her a.s.sistant. "But I get the rest of the Trapnell deposit two weeks before the wedding. If the sky doesn"t fall on my head between now and then-I should be able to fork over the rest of his money."
"Sounds like a plan," Bert said. "Speaking of-are we okay for Maya"s wedding tonight? She"s not one of our usual angsty brides, but she did text me this morning and ask if everything was okay."
Maya Gaines wasn"t her typical Bloom bride. She was just out of design school at SCAD, and her flower budget was nearly nonexistent. Cara had agreed to take the job as a favor to Bert, who"d known the bride since elementary school. But also because Maya was hip and cute-and just plain nice. The ceremony-and the reception-would be at the Knights of Columbus hall just a few blocks away on Liberty Street.
"We should be fine," Cara said. She pointed to the buckets in the cooler, which she"d filled with inexpensive "filler" flowers she"d picked up earlier in the morning at Sam"s Club.
"That"s all the stuff you"ll need for the boutonnieres," she said. "Get started on those, and I"ll run over to Breitmueller"s to pick up the rest of Maya"s order. You can make the bouquets when I get back, and I"ll start on the table arrangements." She looked around the workroom. "Did you pick up the Mason jars?"
"And the raffia, and the Twizzlers," Bert said. "So, you"re really going to plunk red licorice sticks in those flower arrangements?"
"Along with red striped Pixy Stix," Cara said. "They"re the bride and groom"s favorite candies. They"re Maya"s colors. And they"re cheap."
"I guess," Bert said, looking dubious.
"You mark my word. By tomorrow morning, those Mason-jar arrangements with Twizzlers and Pixy Stix are going to be all over Instagram and Pinterest."
Cara was at the wholesale house, watching her sales rep total her tab, carefully adding up each item with her pocket calculator. Even an innocent ten-dollar overcharge could throw Maya"s tiny budget out of whack.
Without warning, Cullen Kane sidled over. He was wearing a loose-fitting blue linen shirt and white jeans, with a cl.u.s.ter of silver and leather bracelets on his right wrist. Cara, on the other hand, was wearing a faded orange sundress and rubber flip-flops.
He stood a little too close, invading her personal s.p.a.ce.
"Hi there," Cara said, taking a half step backward. "How are you?"
"Fine. But not as fine as you, apparently. Congratulations. I hear you"re doing the Trapnell wedding."
She blinked. "Where"d you hear that? I just signed the contract last night."
"Patricia"s a dear friend," Cullen said. "We talk every night. I don"t mind telling you I was a little surprised. She felt badly about it, but it"s not as if I need the work."
"Of course not," Cara said.
Cullen came even closer. He smelled like Clinique moisturizer. He was so close she could see that he was actually wearing guyliner. Skillfully applied, yes, but it was still eyeliner.
"Any guesses why Brooke got her way and hired you?" he asked.
"Because it"s her wedding, and I"m good at what I do?"
"Don"t be nave," he snapped. "Brookie is still p.i.s.sed off that Gordon left Marie for Patricia. She can"t get it into her head that after years of being trapped in a loveless marriage, Gordon actually had the b.a.l.l.s to be with a real woman."
"A real woman named Patricia."
"Exactly. Yes, Patricia. Who in no way broke up that marriage. Anyway, it"s been ages, but Marie still can"t deal, which means that her daughter can"t deal. And Brookie, PS, doesn"t actually give a rat"s a.s.s about flowers, or any of this. So she"s torturing Gordon with all this wedding c.r.a.p, just to get back at him. It"s all about retaliation with that girl."
"Thanks for the backgrounder," Cara said. "Or, at least, your theory of the background."
"And I hear you"ve now signed on as wedding planner too. Quite a coup. Let me ask. Have you ever actually planned an entire wedding before?"
She felt her face grow hot. "Obviously."
"A wedding with a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar budget? With a high-profile client like the Trapnells and Strayhorns? Were you aware that Patricia"s been in contact with Town and Country to have the wedding covered by them?"
Cara"s mouth went dry. Patricia hadn"t bothered to mention she was angling for a glossy society-magazine story about her stepdaughter"s wedding, but she shouldn"t have been surprised. The woman was dying for attention.
"As far as I"m concerned, all my weddings are high-profile," Cara said. "All my brides are incredibly special to me, and I try to give each one exactly the day of their dreams. No matter what the budget."
"How sweet," Cullen purred. He glanced over at the table where her order had been a.s.sembled.
Cara"s buckets held bunches of cheerful Shasta daisies, red zinnias, yellow gerbera daisies, and Queen Anne"s lace. A grand total of $867, by her calculator.
"Looks like you"re doing a children"s birthday party," he observed. "Let me guess. Circus theme?"
She chose to ignore the taunt. Instead she pointed at the ma.s.ses of flowers covering the counter next to hers. It was piled high with exotic flowers, all in vivid tropical shades of orange, purples, hot pinks, and lime green.
"Gypsy wedding?" she asked.
He smiled blandly. "Just a dinner party Patricia is throwing tonight for Alexandra Skouras. Do you know her? She"s the new head of marketing for General Mills. She and her husband Creighton just bought a second home over at Palmetto Bluff."
"Never met them," Cara admitted. Or heard of them, she wanted to say.
Her sales rep had finished tallying her order, and silently handed her the receipt.
Ignoring Cullen Kane, Cara checked the total on the receipt against the one on her calculator.
"Looks fine," she told the young woman, whom she hadn"t worked with before. "Just put it on my account, please."
"Name?"
"Cara Kryzik. It should be under Bloom."
The clerk tapped her keyboard, found Cara"s name in the system, but frowned.
"Um. It looks like there"s a hold on your account."
Cara felt the blood drain from her face.
"Ouch," Cullen said, under his breath. He gave Cara a mock sympathetic smile, and finally moved back to his own side of the counter. But Cara knew he was watching. And listening intently.
"That"s got to be a mistake," Cara said quietly.
The girl shook her head. "I only know what"s in the system. This says you"ve got an outstanding balance."
"Look," Cara whispered. "I paid that bill yesterday. In full."
"But it"s not been entered into the system," the girl said.
"I get that," Cara said, losing patience. "But the check is probably in your accounting office right now. Maybe it hasn"t been posted yet."