Save the Date (12 page)

Patricia Trapnell was scanning the room as she walked. She spotted Vicki Cooper, gave her a bright smile and a finger wave, then turned back toward her friend.

“She knows better than to try to speak to me,” Vicki said bitterly.

Cara saw an opening and went for it. “Thanks for the backgrounder on the Trapnells, Vicki. It’s probably a good thing to get the whole story before I meet with the husband. But I have a feeling this is all going to be moot, if Patricia is that close to Cullen Kane.”

She stood up to leave, but Vicki seized her by the arm.

“Look, Cara. I know you don’t want to get involved in some messy intramarital showdown. All I’m saying is, don’t back down just yet. I’m thinking Marie is about to get fed up with Gordon’s dictatorial bullshit. And when she does, she’s going to want Brooke’s wedding to be everything that girl has dreamed of since she was in pigtails. You’re the one who can give her that. Right?”

“Maybe,” Cara conceded. “Guess I’ll just have to wait and see how the interview goes.”

12

The courtyard garden behind the little shop on Jones Street was what convinced her not to leave when Cara was considering moving the shop after she inherited it from Norma.

Cara told herself that she stayed out of convenience. Plus, there was the space itself—high-ceilinged and airy, with a wide front window looking out on the street, a serviceable office nook, and a nice-sized workroom that could be curtained off from her showroom. There was space in the showroom for her flower cooler, and shelves that held the various unusual and vintage containers and knickknacks she sold in addition to her flower arrangements. There was a dedicated parking space out back for the delivery van. And the block itself was a good one, on tree-shaded West Jones Street, surrounded by private residences as well as a handful of discreet businesses: a trendy women’s boutique, a gift and card shop, and a pair of antique shops.

On the downside, she’d had to put hours and hours of sweat equity into transforming the place from Norma’s to Bloom: sanding and refinishing the floors, painting the exposed brick walls, and having display shelves and tables built. It was only when her costs began to mount up that she’d had to go to her father, hat in hand, to beg for a loan.

She might have been okay after that, if life hadn’t happened. If the van hadn’t needed a whole new suspension. If the computer hadn’t died, if she hadn’t had to pay for expensive photography to showcase her portfolio on her website. If. If. If.

Still, most days, she was at peace with the decision to stay on Jones Street and live above the shop. And the thing that that made her heart really sing about her new home was that pocket-sized courtyard garden. It was surrounded by a high wall of aged Savannah gray bricks, and the design was simple, two narrow rectangular planting beds outlined with more brick and a border of dwarf boxwoods.

A brick walkway bisected the space, and there was a small brick-paved patio.

When she’d inherited the lease from Norma, the beds were overgrown with chickweed, privet, wild onions, and morning glories that spilled over the borders and onto the basketweave brick walkway. A ginormous wisteria vine with a trunk the size of her waist had taken up occupancy in the right rear corner of the courtyard, and its tendrils had wound their way clear around the brick walls and up a neighbor’s two-story-high camellia.

Busy with remodeling the downstairs, she’d had no time to spend on that garden, until her marriage crumbled and she’d retreated to the apartment on the top floor of the building.

Cara had barely unpacked her clothes before starting her assault on the garden. Every morning at daylight she had donned jeans and work gloves and headed out to the courtyard to do battle for a couple of hours before going to work in the shop. She hacked down most of the wisteria and weeded the borders for what seemed like weeks. Her hands were left blistered, and callused, and every night when she soaked in the claw-foot bathtub in her upstairs apartment, she got a kind of grim satisfaction from viewing what she saw as the battle scars from a failed marriage.

Leo called. He texted. But when he dropped by the shop, Bert gave him the cold shoulder and glared at him with undisguised loathing. Leo suggested counseling. That’s when Cara suggested he get their house listed and sold, because she needed her share of the equity to grow her business.

Leo gazed at her with his round blue eyes—the ones she’d gazed into on her wedding day, when he’d promise to love her forever. “It was a mistake. All right? How many ways can I tell you I’m sorry? Didn’t you ever make a mistake you came to deeply regret?”

“Yes,” Cara said gravely. “Marrying you. Believing you would be faithful was a mistake. That’s my big regret.”

*   *   *

When she’d cleared out the invaders in her courtyard, she’d been thrilled to find the bones of a lovely old garden. Hiding in the shadow of the wisteria she found a beautifully mottled marble birdbath with a bowl shaped like a sunflower. With Bert’s help, she’d dragged it into the center of the courtyard and dug out a circular bed and planted lavender, rosemary, creeping thyme, and three different varieties of scented geraniums at its base.

As the weather warmed up and spring arrived in Savannah, she was thrilled when an unnamed heirloom rose she’d pruned back sprouted new canes and brought forth a froth of delicate white blossoms with orange-tipped centers.

When one of her elderly spinster Jones Street neighbors died, Cara went to the estate sale and bought two huge old terra-cotta pots, which she dragged home in a rusty little red wagon she’d found in a trash pile down the lane. She dumped out the hideous cast-iron plants that had filled those pots for decades, and in their place she planted a pair of lemon trees.

She planted banana trees in the far corner of the beds and underplanted them with hostas, ferns, and ruffly bicolored caladiums.

Leo called one day to tell her the house was under contract. The next day, when she knew he’d be at work, she drove the van over to the house, and let herself into the back gate. With Bert’s help, she loaded up the only furniture she really wanted from her previous life, a pair of teak Luytens benches that had been a wedding gift from her father.

She doubted Leo would notice they were missing. The only time he went into their backyard was to mow the grass or practice his backswing.

Cara searched the Savannah Craigslist ads for weeks before she finally found a square teak outdoor table. She added a market umbrella and placed her benches on either side of it.

When spring came, even if it was raining or storming, Cara stole away to her courtyard garden for an hour or two. She’d light one of the red-currant candles she sold in the shop and then have her dinner sitting at the table. She sipped wine while she plucked weeds or snipped herbs, or just sat, with Poppy at her feet, watching the stars, listening to the rustle of the birds in the treetops.

Sometimes Bert would join her. He’d donated a pair of weather-beaten Adirondack chairs to the garden. They would sit back on the chairs, not talking. Cara would sip her pinot grigio and Bert, a recovering alcoholic, would occasionally sneak a joint—although this was not something she actually approved of.

“Gimme a break,” Bert would say, closing his eyes, tilting his head skyward and blowing smoke through his nostrils. “I quit drinking. You can’t make me give up all my vices.”

*   *   *

Thursday night, after putting together dozens of Mother’s Day arrangements for delivery, Cara and Bert were sitting in the courtyard garden. Bert slapped at a mosquito and sighed. “Here it comes. Skeeter season. Makes me want to move to Maine. I hate those little fuckers.”

“They have stinging black flies in Maine, Bert,” Cara pointed out. “And mud. Months and months of mud. Not to mention snow.”

“Never mind,” he said lazily. “So—did I hear right? You’re actually going to interview for the privilege of doing that Trapnell wedding?”

“Yessss,” she said, already regretting what she thought of as her capitulation. “I really like Marie Trapnell. And Vicki Cooper tracked me down at the golf club Tuesday and begged me to at least consider taking the job if they offer it. Brooke’s father, Gordon, called me today to set up an appointment for ‘a chat.’ He wants me to see the Strayhorns’ plantation house, so I can get an idea of where the wedding is being held. So yes, I’m going over to Cabin Creek tomorrow, hat in hand, to present my ideas for the wedding.”

“Want me to tag along?”

“Normally, I’d love to have you accompany me. It looks pretty fancy, don’t you think, to introduce you as my assistant and have you carry my photo book and bow and scrape like a minion?”

“Bowing and scraping? Not in my job description.”

“Anyway, I need you at the shop tomorrow to finish up with the Mother’s Day orders. And don’t forget, we’ve got Laurie-Beth Winship’s wedding Saturday. But don’t worry, I promise to bring back a full description.”

13

Somebody, at some point in the Strayhorn family history, had a puckish sense of humor. Cabin Creek? Cara drove slowly down the bumpy crushed oyster-shell drive. Age-blackened live oaks dripping with thick curtains of Spanish moss shaded both sides of the roadway, their trunks dotted with clumps of dark green Resurrection ferns, and the trees were underplanted with hedges of azaleas, past blooming, but still lovely. A rail fence separated the drive from a vast green pasture, and a trio of horses grazed outside a weathered barn. At the end of the quarter-mile drive, a weathered cypress sign was nailed to one of the trees.

SLOW DOWN. SMALL CHILDREN. LARGE DOGS. OLD MEN.

The house loomed ahead. Cara had read up on Cabin Creek in a book about low-country plantation homes. The property had been a land grant from King George III, but the original homeplace, described as a two-story wood-frame cabin, had burned in the early 1800s, and the Strayhorns, who’d done well with cotton, rice, and indigo, built themselves a showplace to display all that wealth.

Cabin Creek was no longer a cabin. Not by any stretch of the imagination. The main house was a three-story Greek Revival beauty, with a two-story-tall portico supported by four thick Doric columns. A widow’s walk topped the portico. Large wings sprouted from each side of the main house, and the estate was set on an expanse of deep green lawn, with foundation plantings of carefully clipped boxwoods.

Cara followed the drive around to the right side of the house, as Gordon Trapnell had instructed, where she found a gravel car park adjoining a low three-bay garage. She parked her own car next to a sleek silver Jaguar, and walked around to a smaller side entrance marked by a pair of miniature versions of the front columns.

Before she could ring the doorbell, the door opened. A stocky middle-aged woman dressed in faded blue jeans and a grubby T-shirt pushed open the screen door. An army-green ballcap with an embroidered Cabin Creek logo shaded the woman’s round, ruddy face.

“Are you the florist?” she asked.

“Uh yes,” Cara said, taken aback. Funny way for a butler to dress.

The woman extended her hand and opened the door wider. “Great! So glad to meet you. I’m Libba Strayhorn. Come on in. I was just getting ready to go out to the stables, but Gordon and Patricia are inside. I’ll show you the way, then let you all talk.”

They were in what was obviously used as a mudroom by the Strayhorn family. It was high-ceilinged, with a marble floor, but simple wooden benches lined each side, and wall-mounted hooks held jackets and coats. Muddy boots were lined up beneath the benches, and a pair of shotguns rested casually in one corner.

Libba walked quickly, the soles of her riding boots clacking against the marble floor. Cara followed her through a pair of double doors into a formal parlor with an immense fireplace mounted by a fancy gilt-framed mirror. Stiff brocade-covered Empire-era settees and armchairs faced the fireplace. Libba didn’t slow. Instead she led Cara through yet another doorway, into a cypress-paneled library.

Gordon Trapnell and his wife were sitting at a felt-topped game table near the fireplace. “Cara?” he asked, standing to shake her hand.

He was short, maybe only an inch or two taller than Cara, with thinning dark hair, carefully combed across his high-domed head, and a neatly clipped mustache. He wore silver wire-rimmed glasses, a pale pink logoed Polo shirt, and dark dress slacks.

“Yes, hello, Mr. Trapnell.”

“Call me Gordon.” He turned toward the woman seated to his right and beamed. “And this is Patricia, my wife.”

Cara had only caught a glimpse of Patricia Trapnell at the golf club earlier in the week, just a blur of blond hair and cheekbones.

Patricia’s silicone-plumped lips widened into what she probably thought was a smile. But her skin was stretched so tightly over the high cheekbones, it really resembled more of a grimace. Her pale blue eyes had an almost Asian tilt. Her face was skillfully made up, and her blond hair gleamed in the low light of the library. She was dressed in a cobalt-blue silk blouse.

“Hello, Cara,” she said, her voice husky. “We’ve heard so much about your work. And of course, we loved what you did for Torie Fanning’s wedding last week. Please sit, and tell us about your ideas for Brooke and Harris.”

“I’m going to leave you experts to it then,” Libba Strayhorn said, and she hurried out of the room.

*   *   *

Cara took a deep breath and opened her iPad. “These are a few ideas I came up with for the church, and the reception,” she said, tapping an icon on the screen that read “Trapnell Wedding.”

“Of course, everything is very preliminary,” she said. “I was able to find pictures on the internet of the ballroom and the chapel here at Cabin Creek, but it would still be helpful for me to see them in person, just to get a sense of the scale of the spaces.”

“Of course,” Gordon Trapnell said. “We can walk around and show you the layout after we chat. Libba has graciously given us the run of the place.”

“I forgot to ask Marie—how many guests?”

Patricia sighed deeply. “That’s been a matter of controversy. Brooke and her mother have some quaint notion about a small, intimate affair. But they totally overlook the fact that with Gordon’s and my extensive social and business contacts, not to mention the Strayhorns,’ we’re talking about three hundred people minimum—and that’s cutting the guest list right to the bone.”