“Wow,” breathed Snarky Teenager as she took pictures with her phone. So that’s what an unlimited budget could buy. The ombré pattern leapt out from the floor, a gradual transition from white to dark pink, one petal at a time. They had worked swirls into the design, inspired by the Hokusai paintings of the great wave. Huge crests of pinks tinging with white swirled over the floor. It was incredible and strange at the same time. “That,” breathed Snarky Teenager, “looks awesome.”
Elly looked at her watch. It was almost noon—how had that happened? She turned to mention something to her blond coworker, but she was already making her way down the stairs to start on the next project: setting up the huge candelabras draped with white dendrobium orchids, something stark and simple to set off the elaborate floor design. She watched as Snarky Teenager made her way to the front, directed some of their hired workers on how to help her, and began mounting the elaborate orchid display. She watched the way that she navigated the workers, and how she quickly adapted to the fact that the candelabra was about four feet larger than they had been told. She directed those around her, and incorporated herself physically into the set-up, something that Elly always struggled with. A tiny piece of jaded shell broke off her heart and Elly found herself surprised in the best sort of way. Somehow, without her even noticing, Snarky Teenager had become manager material. She no longer needed Elly’s directions or guidance. She had handled the flower crisis—undoubtedly the biggest crisis in Posies’ history—with grace under pressure. Elly found her eyes swelling with tears. The girl was ready. She wasn’t wearing a bra, but she was still ready. Her fears about the new store evaporated into the wide loft, and Elly felt everything falling into place. Something was subtly telling her to let go of the reins and trust. Elly tried to listen carefully.
“Hey! Hey!” Elly looked down to where Snarky Teenager was staring at her with her arms raised in confusion, her loud voice echoing through the farmhouse. “Are you going to just, like, stand there and dream about bundt cakes or are you going to help us?”
Elly grinned in spite of herself.
She left the farmhouse a total mess, leaving Snarky Teenager, Anthony, and two workers behind to finish the decor, taking Kim and the rest of the hired hands over to the reception. Kim was grinning the entire ride over.
“What are you smiling at? Aren’t you exhausted?” Elly was. Her back was throbbing from bending over the pews like some sort of panda scaling a bamboo, and the pain was starting to make its way around to her ribs and jaw.
Kim wrapped her fingers around the steering wheel and tilted her high ponytail to the side. “Nothing. I’m smiling about nothing. I’m smiling about the wedding.”
Elly tilted her head as she massaged her soft belly. “You are lying. I can tell. Do you think I don’t know when you are lying by now?”
Kim bit her lip. “I’m just happy to be delivering with you, that’s all. I miss this! I miss crazy deliveries and designing and movie stars….”
“We’ve never had movie stars before. We did have that one really mean lady who was a soap star in the eighties.”
Kim laughed. “Lucille B.? Oh, I love her! She only wants red carnations. It’s so adorable. But seriously, Elly, I’ve noticed something about you today.”
Elly squinted. “What is that? That my boob sweat levels have reached a catastrophic level?”
“No. It’s that for the first time in a long time, you aren’t complaining about Dennis. For the past few months, every time we get together, you’ve complained about Dennis, and that was fine with me, because you had plenty of reasons to complain, and you know, your drama is like, mah stories, but….” Her azure eyes twinkled in the warm white light coming through the windshield. “You seem much happier. About Dennis.”
Elly pushed her sweaty hair out of her eyes and shrugged. “We’ll get there. If I had grown up with my father instead of my mother, I would be Dennis, only with a weakness for wine. Can you imagine how terrible I would be?”
“True story.” Kim pulled the van up to the curb with a jerk. The flowers inside the van bounced and swayed. “Are you ready for this?”
Elly stared up at the Fabulous Fox Theater, the same place that she had met Lola for lunch that day. It seemed like a million years ago. This place, a St. Louis staple of art and theater, would be the place where St. Louis would host its most famous wedding to date. The outside, which was sort of unremarkable, was already being transformed by a film crew. Black umbrellas were being hoisted around a building that had hosted the likes of Nat King Cole and Mae West. The crowd of cameras and unidentifiable people all dressed in black—was that like the uniform for Hollywood?—parted and Elly saw Gemma Reynolds stomping toward the car, a clipboard in her hand, dressed head to toe in a sharp white suit.
“Oh, crap,” muttered Kim, and bolted out of the door. “I’ll begin unloading!”
“Wait, don’t leave me here!” Elly tried to grab Kim’s arm.
“No way! You are my best friend, but she’s terrifying. Sorry, love you, you are a wonderful person!” Kim scampered off with two oblong boxes of navy vases filled with a single pink ranunculus.