Save the Date (13 page)

“To the bone,” Gordon said, nodding agreement.

“And do you have a budget in mind?” Cara asked.

“Not really,” Patricia said. She gave Gordon a warm smile, then reached over and squeezed her husband’s hand. “How do you put a price tag on a father’s love for his only daughter?”

“Exactly,” Cara replied.

Really? This is about demonstrating love for Brooke? Not about showing your “extensive business and social contacts” just how much money you have to throw around on an overblown wedding your kid doesn’t even really want?

Cara tapped an icon marked “Centerpieces.” “Since it’s a July wedding, I thought we might stick to cooler colors, blues, greens, white, cream, maybe some lavenders and silvers.” She glanced from Brooke to Gordon. “Are those colors Brooke likes?”

Gordon glanced at his wife for guidance. Patricia rolled her eyes. “Brooke doesn’t really have much of a sense of color at all, bless her heart. Or style, for that matter. As far as I can tell, she wears navy blue or black suits to work, and she lives in running clothes on the weekend.”

“Oh.”

“
We
thought, that is, Gordon and I thought, it might be exciting to do something really dramatic with the tables. We were at a wedding in Charleston last month, that was simply
stunning.
The designer had spent time in India, and he designed these amazing pierced brass vessels and low tables, with piles and piles of cushions and Oriental rugs, and there were no flowers at all, just flickering lights, and piles of exotic fruits, pomegranates and what have you, and the tablecloths were embroidered, with mirrors…”

“No flowers?” Cara said blankly.

Then what the hell am I doing here?

“But we wouldn’t want to copy that look, not exactly,” Patricia added hastily. “And anyway, that was just to give you an idea of the kind of emotions we’d like to elicit with our event.”

It’s a wedding
, Cara thought.
And it’s not actually your wedding. It’s Brooke’s and Harris’s.

“What we’re looking for, Cara, is something absolutely original,” Gordon said.

“Something that hasn’t been done in Savannah. None of those tired old post-deb looks you see all the time,” Patricia added. “And to be perfectly honest, Cara, we have looked at a presentation by another designer which was beyond amazing. So I guess what Gordon is asking from you, is to be amazing.”

Cara looked down at her iPad.
Screw this. Be amazing? That’s your design mandate?

She willed herself to smile. “Would you like to look at some of my ideas now?”

Patricia scrolled rapidly through the photos and sketches Cara had assembled, and five minutes later, handed the iPad back.

“Interesting,” she said. “Lots of silver vases and such. Very traditional though, wouldn’t you say?”

“Well, yes. I assumed that since the wedding and reception were being held in a historic home, you’d want the flowers to fit in with the setting. But I’m not necessarily tied to any one look. We do lots of cutting-edge weddings. In fact, tomorrow, we’re doing the décor for a wedding in an old cotton warehouse down on River Street, and the bride requested an industrial, steampunk look, with some goth elements mixed in.”

“Goth?” Gordon looked to his wife for interpretation.

“Oh, you know, Gordie. Those kids who wander around with their faces made up with white powder and black-lined eyes and lips, like something out of a Halloween fright show.”

“People do that at weddings? Adults?” He shook his head. “Thank God Brooke was never into that sort of thing.”

Cara couldn’t help herself. There was no way these people were going to hire her, so why not have a little fun with them? “Instead of tablecloths, we’re topping the tables with long sheets of rusted corrugated tin, from old farmhouses. And we’re doing centerpieces with all black flowers, and animal skulls.”

Patricia’s pale eyes bugged out slightly. “Not … real animal skulls.”

“Oh sure,” Cara said cheerfully. “The groom is a big hunter, so he’s collected things over the years from his own kills and walks in the woods. I’ve managed to incorporate rattlesnake rattles in the bride’s bouquet, strung on strips of deer rawhide. Plus, I’ve been buying additional skulls and antlers online for months now.”

“Dear God,” Patricia said faintly. She looked a little ill.

“And we’re having a tattoo booth,” Cara added. “I’ve designed a custom tattoo that combines the bride’s and groom’s initials and their wedding date. It’s the first one I’ve designed, and I’m really very proud of how it turned out.”

“Who in hell
are
these people?” Gordon demanded.

“Laurie-Beth Winship?” Cara said. “She’s marrying Payton Jelks.”

“That’s not Frank and Elizabeth Winship’s child, is it?” Patricia asked. “I know they have a daughter, but Laurie-Beth was in Brooke’s debutante class. Surely they wouldn’t sanction something like that.…”

“It is,” Cara said. “Do you know the Winships? I just love them. So adventurous. Elizabeth has already promised that she’ll get tattooed tomorrow night, but I think Frank is a little squeamish about needles, so he’s just going to do the henna thing. You wouldn’t think a radiologist would be, would you? Squeamish, I mean.”

“Dear God.” This time Gordon and Patricia said it as a duet.

14

Cara climbed uneasily to the top of the scaffolding, eight feet off the ground. She aimed the can of black spray paint at the age-blackened brick wall and began writing, in big, looping letters.

LUV WILL KEEP US 2-GETHER.

She looked down at Bert, who was holding the piece of paper that acted as their script. Bert, it turned out, was afraid of heights. The next time she hired an assistant, she vowed, she would have to ask prospects about their phobias. But for now, it was what it was. “What next?”

“Mmm. Says here ‘Laurie-Beth (heart) Payton.’”

Cara walked a few paces down the catwalk, and clambered up to the next level, the paint can tucked into the waistband of her jeans. She painted the next phrase, walked four feet to the left, and looked down. “Next?”

Bert had to crane his neck to see her. He cupped his hands to form a makeshift megaphone. “‘You are the sunshine of my life.’”

She remembered that one. It was the title of Laurie-Beth’s parents’ favorite song from their own courtship. She sprayed the phrase on the wall, using the last little bit of the spray paint. She tossed the can to the ground and began the slow climb down.

Bert still had his eyes tightly closed when she reached the concrete floor. “You can look now,” she said, touching his arm.

He did. The two of them walked around the cavernous warehouse, surveying their handiwork.

“Fanfuckintastic,” Bert said.

And Cara, despite all her initial misgivings, had to agree.

Laurie-Beth Winship had read one too many wedding magazines, stayed too long on Pinterest. Despite her mother’s tearful pleas for a nice, traditional reception at the Oglethorpe Club, or the Chatham City Club, Laura-Beth had proclaimed she wanted a “real” venue for her wedding.

Unable to find a wedding planner willing to execute her vision, Laurie-Beth had appointed Cara her de facto “imagineer.”

This cotton warehouse belonged to one of Elizabeth Winship’s great-uncles, but it hadn’t been used in at least thirty years. They’d had to hire a commercial cleaning crew to come in and steam-clean the brick walls and pressure-wash the grease-soaked floors. After that, the one existing bathroom, which consisted of nothing more than a urinal and a sink, had to be gutted and rebuilt into a proper unisex facility—while still keeping to Laurie-Beth’s “industrial” look.

It would have been cheaper, Cara thought, to just build a new warehouse. But she kept that thought to herself, and gamely soldiered on, buoyed by the thought of the handsome fee the Winships were paying her.

So here they were, on the Friday night before the Winship-Jelks wedding. It was nearly midnight, and she and Bert had been working all evening. They’d hung miles of safety lights, spray-painted graffiti on everything that didn’t move, and strung canvas painters’ dropcloths from those rusty steel girders to form a backdrop for the newly built bandstand constructed of old wooden pallets Cara had liberated from the back of a nearby building supply.

The oversized wooden cable spools that would act as cocktail tables had been wheeled into place, and tables, improvised from corrugated metal spread over sawhorses, were arrayed around the dance floor.

“You really think the flowers are okay?” Cara asked Bert.

He shrugged. They’d cleaned out two local feed and seed stores of every galvanized bucket, tub, and horse trough in stock. These were now filled with leafless branches that had been spray-painted black, and strung with white lights and chains made of beer-can pop-tops. On every tree, Cara had wired bunches of carnations, dip-dyed in bloodred and black.

More dyed black flowers filled recycled aluminum cans on the tabletops, which were interspersed with Cara’s carefully curated assortment of animal skulls.

“It’s sure as hell original,” Bert said. “And that’s what she wanted, right?”

“If Tim Burton married Alice Cooper, I think this is what their wedding would look like,” Cara muttered. She yawned. “Let’s go. I’m dead on my feet, and we’ve got another loooong day tomorrow.”

She pulled the van to the curb in front of Bert’s apartment on St. Julian Street. “See you in the morning.”

“Hey. You never told me how your meeting with the Trapnells went,” Bert said, his hand on the passenger door.

“It went. The plantation? Cabin Creek—it’s unbelievable. If it weren’t for the bride’s father and stepmother, I’d love to design a wedding in that house. But those two? Gordon and Patricia?” She made a face. “It’s the first time I’ve ever hoped
not
to get hired.”

“Then why bother to talk to them?” Bert asked. “We’re not exactly hurting for work, Cara.”

“I know, I know. I keep telling myself that. But I really liked Marie, the mom.”

“That’s your problem, Cara,” Bert said, interrupting. “You like
everybody
. You get sucked into their dramas, become a part of their family, and then get stuck in the middle of their shit. You’re a florist, honey, not a family therapist!”

“You’re wrong. I absolutely don’t like Gordon, and it took me about five seconds to decide I detest Patricia. But Marie—she’s a different story. She’s sort of a lost soul, and I just get the feeling Patricia will totally mow her and Brooke down, if I don’t get the job. But don’t worry. They are so
not
going to hire me. I told them about everything we had planned for Laurie-Beth’s wedding and they were really and truly appalled. Anyway, Patricia is totally gaga over this Cullen Kane guy from Charleston.”

“Oh yeah,
him
,” Bert said, with a sneer. “Just what Savannah needs. Another flower fairy.”

Cara laughed and gave his shoulder a gentle shove. “Go on, get out. We’ve both got to get our beauty rest. See you in the morning.”

15

Cara caught sight of the stranger just as she was finishing the last details of the elaborate arch she’d constructed out of fallen tree branches, Spanish moss, deer antlers, grouse feathers, ivy, and dried hydrangeas. Since it was where Laurie-Beth and Payton would stand to say their vows she wanted to make sure an errant antler wouldn’t fall off and bonk the couple on the head. Concussions were never fun at a wedding.

She’d arrived at the cotton warehouse late Saturday afternoon, already behind schedule.

He was standing just inside the propped-open door of the warehouse, his arms crossed over his chest, and a late-afternoon ray of sunlight seemed to catch and illuminate his blond tresses, almost like a halo. He wasn’t a guest; the wedding wasn’t for another two hours, and anyway, he was dressed casually, in designer jeans—7 For All Mankind, she was sure, a silky black T-shirt, and black motorcycle boots. He had deliberate beard stubble, piercing green eyes, and he was tall enough and slender enough to be a runway model.

But she knew he wasn’t. The hair was the giveaway. She’d seen it on his website.

He was watching her, spying on the competition, and he didn’t care if she knew. Should she confront him, ask him to leave? But that would make him think she had something to hide. She decided to ignore him, for now anyway.

Cara stood on the top rung of her stepladder, and steadied herself with both hands on the side supports of the arch. She made another pass with the picture wire, looping it around and around Payton Jelks’s prized ten-point antlers, which she’d secured to the top of the arch, then tying it off on the backside of the arch, where it wouldn’t be seen.

She reached into the bag of extra feathers and dried flowers she’d slung over her left shoulder, pulled her glue gun from the holster she’d rigged on her belt, and went to add another cluster of dried hydrangea blooms, leaning ever-so-slightly to the right. Which was a mistake. It was like a slow-motion cartoon. She tried to counteract the wobble, inching to the left, but she overcorrected, and it was too late. She grabbed for the right tree branch. Also a mistake. It came away in her hand, and she tumbled to the concrete floor.

And her arch, her gorgeous, forest-fantasy arch, came tumbling right down around her.

She fell flat on her ass, but instinctively shielded her head with her arms, as antlers and branches and feathers rained down around her. She felt a sear on her calf, felt the hot glue gun ricocheting onto the floor.

“Shit!”

He was at her side in a moment, kneeling down beside her, pulling her to a sitting position.

“Hey! Are you okay?” He brushed feathers and moss and dried hydrangea petals from her hair and shoulders.

“Shit!” she repeated, looking around at the ruins. “Shit. Damn. Hell. Piss.”

He laughed, throwing his head back, displaying a set of perfect white teeth in contrast to his perfect golden tan. Actually, he was prettier than a runway model. He looked like something off the cover of a paperback romance novel. Biker boots and all.