Out of the Blue Bouquet (Crossroads Collection)

by Amanda Tru

  Brooke, however, had not been so lucky. Coffee dripped from where it landed as the rich, brown brew now coated her hair, arms, clothes, shoes, the floor, Helen’s decorations, the ugly ceramic toad that caused the whole problem...

  And the order lists.

  Brooke grabbed at the lists, adding her “Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!” to Tylee’s.

  She snatched them off the soaked counter. Part of her desperately denying that the papers were dripping with coffee, she shrugged out of her gray cardigan, placed the papers on a clean spot on the tile floor, and used her sweater to frantically blot at the brown mess.

  Seeing what had happened Tylee rushed to the restroom and returned with a handful of wadded up paper towels. “I’m so sorry!” she fretted.

  Accepting the paper towels, Brooke began blotting with those as well. But when she lifted a paper towel to discover that part of the printed list had stuck, torn off, and come along with the paper towel, she felt burning behind her eyes and a sob catch in her throat.

  It was no use. As much as she wanted to rewind time and pretend that the scene in front of her eyes was just a nightmare that hadn’t actually happened, the order lists were ruined, and there was nothing she could do to fix them.

  “What can I do to help?” Tylee asked, wringing her hands. “I’m so, so sorry!”

  “It’s not your fault,” Brooke said, closing her eyes on the unfortunate reality in front of her. “It was an accident.” While sheer panic was her overriding emotion, what anger she did have was entirely directed at Helen’s ugly toad. While she bore no ill will toward Tylee, she thought the toad might meet with an unfortunate accident of his own before Helen returned.

  Lord, help me know what to do here! she prayed while forcing herself to take deep breaths.

  Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked at the brown-streaked mess before her.

  “You said you could access the order program on the computer?” She asked Tylee.

  “Yes,” she nodded eagerly. “But I can’t access any orders from the website. That’s a separate program with a different password.”

  Brooke studied the papers. “I think we might be okay,” she said hesitantly. “The order sheets for today’s deliveries are ruined. But this one for the online deliveries isn’t bad.”

  She bent over the paper, not wanting to move it for fear of it tearing. It had been the furthest away from the coffee, and while the others had been soaked, there were only streaks of coffee marring this one, and most of the damage was around the edges.

  Pointing at the list, she showed Tylee. “See, I can still read all of the floral shop names and most of the phone numbers. Some of the phone numbers are gone, but I should be able to just look those up since I have the shop names. The column for last names is fine, and even the instructions just have a few splotches. Theses streaks here are covering up a few first names, but most of the letters are still there. I think we can figure them out.”

  “I see what you mean!” Tylee said, relief filling her voice.

  Brooke pointed to a row, “Look at this one. It says Sam Jones. But see the streak? It looks like it may be blotting out some other letters, but I can’t be sure. I think it actually might be Samuel Jones. The ‘J’ is a little cut off too, so maybe not.” Brooke sighed. “If we play it safe and send it to Sam Jones, it should still make it to the correct person, even if the name was originally ‘Samuel.’”

  “It’s like a puzzle!” Tylee exclaimed.

  “I’ll start making the calls and marking things off the list, while you find the local orders on the computer,” Brooke instructed swiftly.

  Tylee headed off for her task, and Brooke quickly got a phone and dialed before she could doubt herself. In the next few minutes, she got Samuel Jones connected with his Thanksgiving bouquet.

  Taking a deep breath, she next dialed Seoul, South Korea.

  The phone rang several times, and Brooke mentally prepared herself to leave a message. Then the line clicked as it was picked up. A muddled voice mumbled something she didn’t understand.

  “Hello?” Brooke said. “This is Brooke from Crossroads Floral in the US. I’m calling to place an order via NetFloral.”

  “Yes, yes,” the man responded. “No orders at night.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” Brooke said, feeling like an idiot. She hadn’t done the math to realize that it was currently the middle of the night in South Korea. This poor man likely had his business and home in the same building, and she had just awakened him.

  “I can call back in the morning!” she said swiftly, thinking she’d need to check a time zone map and do the math in order to know what time to call back.

  “No, no,” the man assured quickly. “I take order now.”

  The man was very nice, but it was obvious English was not his first language. His words were choppy, and Brooke was nervous that he wasn’t understanding what she was saying. She so wished that she could either send the order via the Internet, as it was originally intended, or speak Korean. Since neither was a current option, she pushed forward.

  She read aloud the information for the order and the address. After each bit, the man would say, “Yes, yes,” and Brooke could tell he was writing it down. She then asked him to repeat the information, and he did so perfectly. She even read off the message for the card, after which, the man said “Yes, yes,” and again recited it back correctly

  Feeling relieved that she was obviously wrong in her initial concern, Brooke finally gave the name of the recipient.

  “Jolene Gregory,” Brooke said, careful to give slow and clear pronunciation. Thankfully, this was one name that wasn’t badly damaged by coffee, and Brooke painstakingly spelled, “J-O-L-E-N-E.”

  “Yes, yes,” the man said, and Brooke heard the scratching of a pencil. Then he repeated, “J-O-E.”

  “No,” Brooke said quickly. “Jolene Gregory. The name is Jolene. J-O-L-E-N-E.”

  “Yes, yes. J-O-E—,” and he held the sound of the “E” for a very long time, before finishing with a quick, “Gregory.”

  Brooke was at a loss for words in any language. She very much admired anyone who spoke more than one language, and at the moment, she desperately wished she was one of them! Her parents had insisted she take French and German classes as a child. While she didn’t do half as well speaking either of those languages as her Korean friend spoke English, she really wished those German classes had been Korean instead. How was she supposed to communicate when the language barrier appeared insurmountable?

  “Can you please write down the exact letters I say?” Brooke said, trying yet again.

  “Yes, yes,” the man confirmed.

  “J-O-L-E-N-E, then put a space and write these letters, G-R-E-G-O-R-Y. Do you have it?”

  “Yes, yes. Jolene Gregory.”

  Brooke felt a wave of relief. This was the first time he’d pronounced it correctly. “Yes, that’s right,” she said.

  “Good, good,” the man said. “Now I go to bed.”

  “No!” Brooke said quickly. “Can you please spell me the letters one more—”

  But he had already hung up.

  Brooke sighed, momentarily resting her head in her hands. Lord, please help that order to get to the right person! With the right last name and the right address, she really hoped it would make it, even if the first name was spelled wrong.

  Hoping that the South Korea order would be the most difficult of the day, Brooke looked at her list, telling herself she couldn’t fall apart until she was done. But anticipating the next few orders on the list did nothing to boost her confidence.

  “Hey, Tylee,” she called, her brow furrowing in confusion. “I have two orders for the same town—Tracey, Oregon. But one of the addresses is too ‘coffeed’ to read. Do you think both orders go to the same address?”

  “Oh, I remember looking at those orders! I think they are having a bachelorette party or something. Did you look at the description for what they want for the order?” Tylee laughed.
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  Brooke looked at the instructions. Even though no one could see her, she blushed, thankful that she wasn’t the florist needing to fulfill that specific bouquet request!

  Tylee was right. It was obviously a joke bouquet for a bachelorette party, which meant the order placed right after that one was probably the real bouquet to make up for the joke! The time stamp showed the orders placed about two minutes apart, and since Brooke had never heard of Tracey, Oregon, it must be a small town. While the street address on the first order was unreadable, but the one for the second order was thankfully very clear.

  Brooke smiled in relief and marked a little line on the list, indicating that the two orders went together. “Well, we’ll be sure both bouquets make it to the bride in Tracey. They’ll definitely need the second one to make up for the first. And I’m glad I don’t have to make either one! I just don’t know that I can actually read off these instructions and not die of embarrassment. If we ever get one of those orders, Helen will have to put that one together without me!”

  “You know you wouldn’t have to ask Grammie,” Tylee shot back. “She’d insist on doing it herself anyway!

  “You’re probably right.” Brooke sighed and looked down at the phone number. Then she noticed a number beside it. “There is a fax number on this one! I’ll just type out the order information and fax it over. That way, there’s no chance of mistakes, the florist will see exactly what the instructions are, and I won’t have to give them!”

  Brooke hurried over to the computer and scooted Tylee off. Two minutes later, she was printing out the information. She hurried over to the fax machine and sent the order. In another two minutes, she received confirmation that it had been received.

  “Whew! That one was easy!” Returning to the lists, she sat back down on the floor and studied what she still had left to do. A few of the remaining orders had fax numbers as well, and Brooke made quick work of those.

  The last order was the first one she had intended to do before the coffee catastrophe. With determination, she pressed the numbers to dial a country she had never heard of before.

  “Hi! I’m calling from Crossroads Floral. We are a part of the NetFloral co-op, and I have an order that was placed on our site for your area. We don’t have the automated settings right yet, so I need to phone the order in directly.”

  “Oh, yes!” said the woman on the other end of the line. “We’ve received several of those orders. And the automated system doesn’t seem to be working right for anyone yet. Lots of florists are having to make calls. Let me get the order information, and we’ll get it right out.”

  Brooke’s relief was so great that she actually started shaking. Not only did this overseas florist speak perfect English, but this was Brooke’s last online order, and she’d just found out that placing all the orders by phone was relatively normal!

  “I’m glad you caught me,” the florist said. “We’re just about to close for the day.”

  Brooke looked at the clock, thankful that it was only nearing lunchtime in her time zone. She had too much work to do for it to be any later.

  “I’m ready whenever you are,” the woman announced cheerfully.

  “The order is for a ‘bouquet of flowers native to Eyjania,’“ Brooke quoted carefully.

  “We can do that!” the florist chirped.

  Then Brooke read the info for the accompanying card, followed by the address for the delivery.

  The woman read the correct address back to Brooke, and then asked, “And the name on the order?

  Brooke bit her lip nervously. This was the tricky part. While she was reasonably certain about all the other info, the name was almost totally obscured with coffee stain. Plus, it looked to be a name she wasn’t at all familiar with. “I’m not sure of the pronunciation,” she said honestly. Maybe Catri? Or Calrin? It’s C-A—”

  Brooke paused, was the next letter an L or a T?

  “T-R-I,” she said, finishing quickly.

  “Got it!” the woman said confidently. “And the last name?”

  “I’ll be honest,” Brooke said self-consciously. “We had a bit of an accident. The last name is mostly obscured on my order list, and I’m unable to print out another. The most I can be absolutely sure of is that it starts with an ‘S.’“

  “Then ‘S’ is what we will go with,” the woman said, not missing a beat. “It looks like the address is an apartment building. It shouldn’t be difficult to find the correct person with the first name and the first letter of the last name.”

  “Thank you so much!” Brooke said, relief flooding through her.

  “Thanks for calling!” the friendly woman replied. “I actually called NetFloral technical support yesterday, and they said they should have all the bugs worked out soon. I certainly hope so! I personally like this co-op a lot! We’ve had a lot of orders on our site for around the world, and I think it’s pretty fun! And we get commissions on all those orders!”

  “Yes, I hope things work out,” Brooke replied. “It would be awfully nice to not have to make phone calls for each order.” Not to mention a whole lot less stressful if coffee is involved.

  Brooke hung up the phone and would have put her head in her hands to weep in pure relief if she didn’t still have a mountain of work to do with the local orders.

  The phone hadn’t been down two seconds before Tylee called from where she sat at the computer. “Ummm, Brooke? Can you come look at this? I’m in the program, but want to make sure everything is right before I print.”

  “We need to hurry,” Brooke glanced at her watch as she headed for the computer. “We are already behind. I need to get the flowers arranged and ready for you to deliver.”

  “I have today’s date in the search box, which brings up this list,” Tylee explained.

  “Looks good,” Brooke said quickly. “Click print.”

  “The weird thing is that it still isn’t pulling up the Dylan Masters order.”

  “Maybe since Helen just added it this morning, it isn’t showing up as an order for today. Usually, we take same day orders on paper and Helen logs it later. It should come up if you do a search for just his name.”

  The phone rang. “I’ll get it,” Brooke said. “Click print! We’re running out of time.”

  By the time Brooke finished with taking down the info for a same day order on the phone, Tylee was proudly waving four sheets of paper. “These two are for you, and these are for me,” she said, handing Brooke the lists. “I got the Dylan Masters order added and made two copies. You can work on the arrangements while I get the cards ready. Then I’ll match them up and be off.”

  Brooke grabbed the sheets and headed to the back of the store. Breathing deeply, she let the smell of the flowers and plants reach all the way to her toes and calm her frayed nerves. For Brooke, there was nothing like the smell of a flower shop!

  Thankfully, Tylee had managed to print off the instructions separate from all the address and other order info. That always made things so much easier. Taking a deep breath, she looked at the first order and began assembling a dozen red roses into a large vase.

  “Ugh!” she called to Tylee. “We have a lot of orders today! It looks like close to twenty. After I get the first ten done, you should go deliver and come back for the last ones. Whenever I finish, I can help you with the deliveries.”

  “Sounds like a good plan,” Tylee said. “I’m getting all the cards ready. Love must be in the air! I have a lot of, ‘Had a wonderful time last night,’ and ‘You’re beautiful.’ Even a few, ‘Can’t stop thinking of you.’ There’s a couple ‘Happy Anniversary,’ and ‘Happy Birthday,’ but those aren’t nearly so fun.”

  “You’re such a romantic, Tylee,” Brooke shook her head. “To me, those just sound like we have way too many Dylan Masters-types in town.”

  “That’s because you’re bitter and unhappy,” Tylee said brightly. “If someone did something romantic for you, you would assume they were hiding something.”

  “O
uch!” Brooke said dramatically. Then, “But isn’t there always an ulterior motive?”

  “No!” Tylee shot back. “But how would you know that? You haven’t been on a date in forever.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Brooke admitted. “And while I may not be completely happy, I’m perfectly content to watch romance from behind a bouquet of flowers.”

  She didn’t mind making small talk with Tylee, but she wasn’t going to bare her heart and explain why she wasn’t interested in dating. Tylee was too young, idealistic, and romantic to understand.

  Brooke hadn’t ever been one to date a lot. The few she’d dared to call boyfriends had quickly lost the title and done enough damage to her heart that she was reluctant to let any other man make an application.

  Several dozen roses, a live plant, and five mixed bouquets later, Brooke sent Tylee on her way while she worked on finishing the orders. By the time the last rose was in place, Brooke’s back was hurting from standing so much, and she was exhausted. Tylee arrived back just in time to match the cards with the flowers, and then they divided up the remaining orders. Brooke loaded her share into her car and locked up the flower shop. She really hoped reports didn’t get back to Helen that they had closed early, but that was the only way they’d get the orders delivered at a decent hour. Besides, Brooke was so tired and out of sorts that if the phone rang with one more last minute order, she thought she would scream!

  Fortunately, the orders that had come in for tomorrow didn’t look to be nearly as much, and as long as Helen was back, she should be able to get caught up on some purchase orders for supplies and hopefully recover from today. However, if Tylee brought her coffee again, she would immediately pour it down the drain!

  Brooke made quick work of the deliveries, and she really didn’t mind it. She always enjoyed seeing the looks of happiness when someone received flowers. Pulling up in front of an office building, she glanced at the clock in her car. This was the last order, and it was five minutes before 5:00. She grabbed the large bouquet of roses and hurried into the building as fast as she could. The delivery was for a Kiffany Terrel. If the office where Miss Terrel worked closed at 5:00, Brooke could be in trouble for not making the delivery in time.