Save the Date (16 page)

Her head whipped from the stepmother to the mother and daughter.

“Hi, Patricia,” Cara said. She felt her scalp prickle, and wondered if this was what the sensation of fight-or-flight was like.

“You’re about to close, aren’t you?” Brooke said. Brooke glared at Patricia, who’d joined them on the sidewalk. “I
told
you, she closes at six.”

“But not for you,” Cara said quickly.

“Of course not,” Patricia said, her voice silky, as she neatly sidestepped Marie and Brooke. “We’re so sorry to catch you like this, on the spur of the moment, but as I was just explaining to Brooke, if we’re going to pull off this wedding, we simply have to start nailing down the details. Now.”

Patricia reached into the large buff-colored calfskin bag that dangled from her shoulder. Cara, who told herself she only read
In Style
magazine to keep up with wedding trends, recognized the handbag as the $3,500 Fendi bag she’d drooled over in a recent issue.

“Here,” Patricia said, thrusting a document into her hands. “This is the game plan we’ve finally managed to hammer out.”

“Game plan?” Cara said dumbly, glancing down at the multipage dossier.

“For our wedding, of course,” Patricia said.

“
My
wedding. Mine and Harris’s,” Brooke said.

“Which her father and I are paying for,” Patricia added.

Marie coughed quietly.

“And her mother, of course,” Patricia said, giving Marie a curt nod.

“Does this mean you want me to do the flowers?” Cara looked directly at Brooke.

“Yes,” Brooke said, nodding vigorously. “And everything else, too. Flowers, food, all that stuff. Can you?”

“Brooke, I’m flattered to be asked, but, I’m not a wedding planner—I can give you the name of several people locally who’d do a wonderful job. I work with most of them.…”

“That’s what I suggested,” Patricia said. “What we need is a professional planner to pull together all our vendors, the photographer, the caterer, the cake baker, the band, the valet-parking people…”

“I want Cara,” Brooke said. She crossed slim, freckled arms over her chest, and in that moment, Cara found new admiration for this bride who’d suddenly acquired a backbone. “She’s done tons of weddings for lots of girls I know, right?”

“Well, flowers for the weddings,” Cara said cautiously.

In fact, she’d been a de facto wedding planner lots of times, mostly for small weddings, as a favor to her budget-minded brides. And she’d complained, privately, to Bert, that she might as well have charged for the service, though she never had.

“See!” Patricia said. “Brooke, we’re not talking about some little cake and punch affair at the American Legion hall. Your father has budgeted two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Cara was about to agree with Patricia. Why get in over her head?

But then the figure she’d just mentioned floated before Cara’s eyes. A budget of $250,000. Not just a measly $10,000 for flowers. A quarter of a million smackers. Of which she, as the wedding planner, could expect to be paid twenty percent.

Suddenly, dollar signs danced merrily in the humid afternoon air. That much money could wipe out her debt to the Colonel. No more phone calls, emails, or terse text messages. No more ramen-noodle dinners. She could buy a new cooler for the shop, get a reliable car. Her mind swirled with all the possibilities.

Why shouldn’t she plan Brooke’s wedding?

“Look,” Cara said, “we don’t have to stand out here in the heat, debating this. Why don’t you all come inside and sit down? I’ll make us some iced tea—or we can even have a glass of wine, if you like, and we can discuss the pros and cons.”

*   *   *

Cara found the pitcher of peach iced tea in the fridge, glancing longingly at the bottle of pinot grigio on the rack in the door. When this ambush was over, she promised herself, that bottle would be empty.

While the ladies sipped their tea, Cara skimmed over the “game plan.” Brooke jiggled her foot impatiently and pulled out her phone, texting a mile a minute.

The first line of the document was a surprise. “Two hundred fifty guests? Really?”

“I know,” Brooke said, not bothering to look up from her phone. “Crazy, right? And you should see the list. People I’ve never met. People I haven’t seen since, like, ever. If it were up to me, we’d have fifty, tops.”

“It’s not up to you, though, is it?” Patricia set her tea glass down on the tabletop with a clatter.

Marie looked up at the ceiling and hummed under her breath. This discussion, Cara sensed, had been going on for hours, if not days.

“Apparently, not,” Brooke muttered.

Cara read on. “Passed appetizers during cocktail hour. Seated dinner.… Will the dining room at Cabin Creek hold two hundred fifty people?”

“Easily.” Patricia said. “According to Libba Strayhorn, they can open up the doors between the dining room and the twin parlors and entrance hall and easily accommodate that many.”

“It’ll be awful,” Brooke said. “A mass of hot, sweaty, hungry, overdressed social climbers, all pawing at me and grabbing for the last piece of shrimp.”

“Brooke…” Marie gave her daughter a warning look.

“So…” Cara did some quick math. “Maybe do cocktails and apps in the entry hall as people are entering. We’ll have scattered high-top tables around the perimeter of the room. For flowers—maybe just some bud vases on the high-tops?”

“Whatever.” Brooke was texting again. Marie reached over and gently took the phone from her daughter’s hand.

“Do you have a caterer in mind?” Cara asked, directing the question at Marie.

“Well…”

“Simple Elegance does all the best events in town,” Patricia put in. “They did an amazing job for a dinner for us a few years ago.”

“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 button, 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 glass, 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 space 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 assistant 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 assistant. “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 cluster 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 space.

“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.