"My order was very specific. I said absolutely no mums in the
bouquet, and you sent an arrangement with three!"
Kayla Paruso knew that customer service was paramount to the
success of Kayla's Blooms. That was the only thing that kept
her smiling at Mrs. Vance, who came into the shop every week
with a complaint. The elderly woman had been widowed only a
year ago and Kayla figured if nitpicking about floral
arrangements kept Mrs. Vance going, then so be it.
"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Vance. I'll send out a new arrangement
tomorrow morning. Tell you what, I'll throw in a new vase for
the inconvenience. Please pick one from that lower shelf and
let me know what time you'd like the delivery."
"You know, in Europe it's considered bad luck to give mums.
They're funeral flowers!" Mrs. Vance's dentures clicked as
spittle flew from her mouth.
Poor thing.
"I didn't know that. Thanks for letting me know. Please do feel
free to pick out a vase." How her voice stayed so upbeat was
beyond her. Her older sister, Melody, had told her it was the
way she'd spoken since childhood—always sounding as though she
was excited and happy to see the person she was chatting with.
Mrs. Vance walked over to the shelf of vases, the heels of her
stylish shoes tapping on the hardwood floor Kayla had sanded
and re-stained two years ago, before she opened Kayla's Blooms.
The lights were bright and her eyes were painfully dry after
almost fifteen hours in the shop. It was time to call it a day.
"I'm glad you were here to deal with her." Jenny, her
assistant, spoke quietly behind Kayla. Her hands flew as she
pulled off florist paper and wrapped bouquet after bouquet of
fresh flowers, finishing each with a colorful spring bow. The
Passover and Easter holidays kept them working around the clock
and Kayla was grateful for every order called in.
Even for Mrs. Vance.
"It's all part of the job, right? Besides, she did make it
clear, no mums."
"That's my point. They weren't mums, not technically. They were
asters. And she's never mistaken them for mums before."
"You're right. We have to give her some leeway. Her daughter
stopped in last week and told me she's thinking of placing Mrs.
Vance in a memory care unit. The flowers looked like mums to
her, and that's all that matters. It's no problem for us to
make her up a new arrangement."
"Unless every other customer wants the same treatment."
"It's our policy to replace any unsatisfactory order, and that
won't change." She wasn't going to try to explain to Jenny how
hard and complicated the aging process could be, especially
when dementia came into play. "Why don't you head home after
you get these into the water buckets?"
"You don't have to tell me twice. What time do you need me
tomorrow?"
"Eight o'clock is fine. I may be out on deliveries, but you can
open the shop."
"I can come in earlier. You can't keep working at this pace."
"Don't worry about it. I need you fresh and chipper to face all
the customers tomorrow. I thrive on this pace. My schedule
isn't going to let up until after wedding season. This is why I
got into this business—to keep moving."
"There's 'moving,' and there's the hamster wheel."
Kayla smiled but ignored Jenny's comment. Jenny was still in
college, and spent three of her weekdays commuting to school,
working for Kayla on the other two and filling in as needed.
She was allowed to have her own opinion. It would be too easy
to tell Jenny how much her life would change over the next few
years. It was in those years that Kayla herself had realized
she wanted to build a life with the permanence she'd never had
as a child. Her childhood had been nomadic, spent moving around
with her government-employed parents. Starting a new business
had been a tremendous challenge but her patience had paid off,
since the flower shop was all hers. And so far, it was
operating at a profit.
Her cell phone vibrated in her apron pocket and she reached for
it, her interest piqued when she saw the caller ID.
"Gloria, what can I do for you?" The Silver Valley mayor's
wife, Gloria Charbonneau, was a new addition to her client list
and could bring in an untold number of orders if she spread the
word about Kayla's quality product. Kayla found the woman a bit
high-strung, but couldn't really fault her—her husband had
become mayor in a quickly thrown together election when the
previous mayor of Silver Valley, a suburb of Harrisburg, PA,
had been indicted for embezzlement.
And it was a charge that Kayla didn't believe one bit. She'd
worked with Mayor Donner over the past two years and found her
to be a locally grown politician who knew the area and its
people, and did her best to get things done as needed. Amelia
Donner was well-known in Silver Valley and many of the locals
were still very upset at her sudden expulsion from office. Not
to mention their wariness about the slick man who took her
place, Tony Charbonneau. Mayor Donner had been a quintessential
politician but she wasn't a criminal.
But apparently Kayla's opinion didn't stand up to the courts
that were still working to put the former mayor behind bars for
her alleged crimes.
"This isn't about my usual order, Kayla. I need something
bigger, and soon." Gloria Charbonneau's "usual" was a white
centerpiece with seasonal flowers and a touch of color,
depending upon the month and her mood. Replaced weekly, it was
part of the standingorder list that was the backbone of Kayla's
shop.
Last week's color choice had been black. Gloria preferred a
contemporary style with a generous helping of gaudiness thrown
in.
"Tell me what you need."
There was a long pause and when Gloria finally spoke it wasn't
with her usual conviction.
"The mayor's, that is, our daughter is having a short-
notice wedding. Next Saturday evening, at the Weddings and More
Barn. Are you familiar with it?"
"Of course." Her older sister had used the venue three years
ago, and her yoga friend Zora had mentioned it as a possibility
for her upcoming wedding to an SVPD detective. The same guy
Kayla had tried dating with no luck. Followed by another cop
she was still trying to forget, months later. But Rio hadn't
been just another cop, another date. They'd had something
special, or so she'd thought. Until she'd realized how
dangerous his job really was. She needed stability, not
constant worry that her life's partner would be killed in a
shoot-out.
Always the florist, never the bride.
And that was what she wanted, she reminded herself.
"Can you pull this off in a little more than a week?"
"That's what I do, Gloria." As she spoke soothingly to the
woman known for her perfectionism, Kayla's mind raced with all
that would need to be done between now and next Saturday. On
top of the Easter weekend.
She'd be decorating a wedding as she ignored the sad state of
her own love life.
"Cynthia doesn't know what she wants yet, in terms of a theme.
I've asked my husband if his assistant can get some photos of
the venue for me to use to brainstorm before I meet with you."
Kayla wondered why Gloria wasn't using her own administrative
assistant, whom Kayla had spoken to many times about floral
deliveries.
"That sounds good, and if you don't get the photos before
tomorrow, I have some of my own." She was grateful again for
her nomadic childhood with parents in the United States Foreign
Service. She'd learned early on that organization paid huge
dividends during crunch times such as when they'd had to move
across the globe to a new country and report to a new school,
all within a week. And Cynthia Charbonneau's wedding was going
to be the definition of crunch. "Why don't we meet
sometime tomorrow and nail down the details?"
"I can come by your shop anytime."
"That'd be wonderful. Is eleven o'clock okay?"
"I'll see you then."
Kayla allowed herself a quick fist pump and a wink at Jenny.
"We just landed a wedding for next weekend."
"Do they want pastel eggs in the arrangements?"
Jenny held up one of the thousands of pale lavender, pink,
yellow and blue floral picks she'd placed in arrangements over
the past few days. Kayla laughed.
"Probably not."
"I want this vase." Mrs. Vance held a large crystal-cut vase
that she'd found on the top shelf. Kayla had all but forgotten
about her sweet but persnickety customer.
"That's not one of the vases from my bouquet collection, Mrs.
Vance."
"How much more will it cost me?"
Kayla didn't hesitate.
"Nothing. You've been so patient, I'll throw it in and have
your new flowers out in the morning, sometime before ten
o'clock. Does that work for you?"
Mrs. Vance beamed.
"Yes."
If only all of her customers could be made happy with a simple
vase.
Kayla locked the shop's door almost an hour after Jenny left,
two hours past closing time. The night air felt good on her
cheeks. Warmer than inside, where she had to rely on
refrigeration and air-conditioning to keep her stock fresh.
She was going to have to run into the Port of Baltimore to pick
up flowers for the wedding next week. It might even have to be
an extra drive added onto her usual pickup. Jenny couldn't do
it due to her class schedule, and Kayla still hadn't hired a
much-needed additional assistant. Soon, after the madness of
the holiday weekend, she'd get on that.
She felt buoyed up as she calculated her revenue. Last year
she'd feared the shop wouldn't last another six months, but the
recession seemed to be lessening and people were still falling
in love, getting married and dying. Funerals were a big part of
her business and she appreciated the chance to be of comfort to
grieving families and friends in their times of need.
Her florist van smelled of blooms and mud, a combination she
loved. The van's purchase had been one of her smartest business
decisions and she'd spared no expense, from the refrigerated
back area to the up-to-date dashboard, which she used now to
place a handsfree phone call.
"Hello?" Rob Owings, the owner of the Weddings and More Barn,
answered on the first ring.
"Rob, sorry to bother you so late."
His chuckle made her smile.
"No such thing this time of year. Let me guess, it's about the
Charbonneau wedding?"
"Yes. I still have the key from the Rotary dinner last week—"
"Sure, go on in and plan to your heart's content. I left the
front lights on. Cynthia stopped by last weekend to check it
out."
"Sounds like she was happy with it."
"I wasn't there when she checked it out. I had to give the key
to Gloria to pass on to her. Gloria signed for the wedding when
she returned the key."
"They're willing to pour a lot of money into a shortnotice
affair." She knew the deposit had to have been hefty for the
three hundred guests they planned on.
"Yeah, I thought that was a little weird, but I'm not
complaining." Rob had three kids, one in college, and had lost
his wife to a drunk driver two years ago. Kayla had done the
flowers for her funeral and also attended.
"I hear you. Thanks, and I'm sure we'll be talking more over
the next week."
"You bet."
Instead of driving toward the small subdivision where she
lived, she turned right and headed out of town, toward the farm
fields that surrounded Silver Valley.
The moon was a crescent against the star-spangled night sky,
the edge of sunset still on the western horizon. Kayla could
get sucked into work and not step outside for hours on end, but
deliveries and special events like this kept her out and about.
You're aiding the enemy.
A worm of guilt crept into her serenity and she let out an
exasperated breath. Ever since last Christmas, when she'd
delivered a bouquet of flowers to Zora, not realizing they were
from a serial killer, her mind had been on overdrive. It was
too easy to think that the rumors about the new mayor were true
—that Tony Charbonneau was some kind of criminal who'd found a
way to get rid of the previous mayor and get himself elected in
short order. Even if the accusations against the previous mayor
proved false, it didn't mean the new mayor was anything but
lucky or extremely ambitious. Perhaps a bit of both.
And his wife had highend tastes, which at times bordered on
eccentric, usually in response to the most recent episode of
her favorite reality TV series. She'd even send Kayla a video
clip of one of the shows, demanding that her bouquets have the
same shape. Kayla liked how her unique requests kept her on her
artistic toes. It was easy to fall into the routine of everyday
arrangements, and Kayla wanted to offer her customers something
they couldn't find anywhere else.
The barn was dark but the LED light at the side entrance
flooded the area as if it was daytime. Kayla was familiar with
the building since she'd provided flowers for several weddings
and graduations here over the past few years, first as a
freelancer, taking contracts and storing flowers in her garage
and kitchen refrigerator, and then after the shop opened, she'd
been able to handle more volume.
The barn looked forlorn and dark in the spring night. Rob
usually left a couple of lights on inside, on timers, but with
his other job managing a dairy farm, he had his hands full. It
was easy to let something small slip his mind. Kayla knew the
feeling all too well.
Like how they'd put the most colorful aster blooms, normally
more available in the fall, in Mrs. Vance's bouquet, when Kayla
knew darn well that the woman would see them as plain old mums.
She hadn't been expecting Mrs. Vance to label them harbingers
of death, however.
Her van bounced up the worn path through the field beside the
large white barn and she winced as she hit a deep rut. She
pulled off the muddy path and onto a dry patch of dirt. Better
to walk a few hundred yards to the barn than risk wrecking her
van in the dark. Spring thaw had a way of turning the hard clay
soil of South Central Pennsylvania into thick, sucking mud not
dissimilar to the mud fields she'd seen in the Netherlands as a
child. Back when Dad had worked at the Hague and Mom had taken
long hours away from her job as a private contractor to take
Kayla and her siblings, Melody and Keith, on long sojourns
through Europe.
Her favorite had been in the tulip-growing region of the
Netherlands. Holland had opened her nose and her eyes to the
brilliance of bulb flowers, from hyacinths to parrot tulips.
She hadn't been happy as a child unless there was dirt under
her nails from helping her mother plant rows and rows of bulbs,
seeds and rose bushes.
Her parents had indulged her when she proclaimed she was going
to be a florist and own her own shop. They'd breathed an
audible sigh of relief when she'd been accepted to Penn State
and majored in horticulture. They assumed she'd end up in
research.
Instead her passion for dirt and flowers grew. But rather than
being streamlined like a standard Dutch tulip, she'd behaved
like the sprawling parrot tulip with its petals falling
haphazardly, spreading her interests into the cultivation of
hybrids while running her own florist shop and design studio.