She starts to her left, working her way around the room. I sit through check-ins with makeup artists, hair stylists, photographers, videographers, security, drivers, a DJ, musicians, decorators, and even Meredith’s assistants. God, what an awful job that must be.
Lorenzo gives a quick rundown of meals he’s doing, ending with the reception’s fettuccine alfredo.
“Last and least . . . oh, pardon me! I meant, last but not least, of course,” Meredith says, eyes dancing as she smirks at me. That was intentional, for sure. What does she have against me? “The flowers.”
She can be petty if she wants, toss insults my way, and call me ‘flower girl’, but I’m on top of things. I did the checks with Janey and everything looks good. The boxes arrived and have been sorted and refrigerated.
So take that, Meredith! Check, check, checkity check.
“Excellent,” Meredith says evilly. “I’ll need to add a simple assignment to your daily list, then, since you’re so caught up.” She’s daring me to argue, but there’s no need. I can tackle whatever she’s going to throw at me. “Claire and Cole have a lunch photo shoot. We’ll need a centerpiece for the table, nothing obnoxious,” she warns, as if that’s ever a risk with my arrangements, “but rather something romantic and tropical. I’m sure you can do something that will be serviceable.”
Of course, I can. And it’ll be a hell of a lot more than ‘serviceable’.
Meeting adjourned, Janey and I make our way to the floral cooler. But as we round the corner, I’m greeted by a horrible sight—a man in dirty coveralls with a toolbox at his feet. But he’s not the awful thing.
The worse sight is the open door of the cooler and the rapidly wilting and dying flowers!
Hundreds of roses, orchids, baby’s breath, daisies . . . and those are just the ‘regular’ flowers. There are also special-order ranunculus and dahlias that are irreplaceable.
Tears threaten to spill over, some of sadness and some of anger. Both are hotly burning my eyes.
“What happened?!” I yell as my hands fist at my sides. “It was fine yesterday!”
The old guy grins with a shrug. “That’s how breakdowns work. One minute, they’re fine. The next, they aren’t. Cooler compressor blew.” He scratches at his oily hair. “Just installed it a month ago.”
“Ugh! Now what do I do?” Lamenting the situation isn’t useful, but starting to figure out a solution definitely is. To the mechanic, I’m all business. “My flowers are dying or already dead. First, is there another cooler we can use?”
He shakes his head sadly.
“Move then,” I tell him, helping him get the hell out of my way. When he steps out of the doorway, I slam the door shut. “Need to keep it as cool as possible inside. And I need a technician here, pronto. Like genie-poof him here right now.” I blink hard and jerk my head like I can make help magically appear.
Nothing happens.
“I’ve got a fella on the way,” the man says helpfully.
“Good. I need . . . I need . . .” My roll of sensible action falls to pieces and the tears flow over. “Damn it! I need to go back twenty-four hours and stop this from happening.” Mania is setting in, my mind swirling out of control.
No! This can’t be happening!
I imagine Claire’s tearful sadness as she cries out, ‘I trusted you, Abi!’ And Meredith’s glee as I prove her right that I can’t handle this.
Janey grabs my shoulders, shaking sense back into me. “You’re losing it, Abs. Focus! Now what?”
I point a finger at the maintenance man. “I’m going to handle this, but I need the manager here when I get back.” I point to the floor between us to indicate where I expect the manager to be.
The mechanic holds his hands up fearfully. “That’s above my paygrade, lady. I can’t just get the manager down here.” He throws his voice as though that’s a crazy suggestion.
An evil thought occurs to me, and I use it now, though I won’t actually do it. “You heard about the Kennedy-Johnson wedding? You heard about the Bitch Boss who’s planning the whole thing?” He nods and my case is made for me. “Get him here.”
“C’mon,” I tell Janey. Grabbing clippers, I growl out, “There are flowers all over this island. I’m going double-oh-seven, with a license to steal some flowers from the grounds.”
Janey’s eyes widen and then she smiles, “Doo-doo-do-do, doo-doo-do-do, dododoooo!” The James Bond theme song says she’s on board with my outlandish idea.
We run along the path, despite the common sense to not run with scissors. But there are too many people and the plants near the walkway are too plain. I need something more, something better.
We diverge off, heading into the thicker greenery of a garden area. A greenhouse!
Yes! There’s got to be something in here that I can use for this arrangement.