Save the Date

by Mary Kay Andrews

  “We’ll bring in air conditioners.”

  “Ryan and I are going over there tomorrow to check it out,” he told her.

  “Speaking of weddings.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief. “Where were you last night?”

  “Last night? I dunno. Home, I guess. We worked late, finishing up at Ryan’s house. Why?”

  “I did the flowers for a wedding—and you weren’t there. I thought you went to every wedding in Savannah.”

  “Who got married?”

  “Emily Braswell and Rob Mabry.”

  He shook his head. “Never heard of ’em. They must be new in town.”

  “As a matter of fact, her father was just transferred here last year by the Army Corps of Engineers. And the groom is from Macon.”

  “Then that explains it. Nice wedding?”

  Cara leaned over and picked a dead frond from a fern, crumbling the browning leaf between her fingertips. “It was okay. Bert and I give them about a fifty-fifty chance.”

  “Of what?”

  “Surviving.” She shrugged, and one of the skinny straps of her tank top slipped off her shoulder. She left it there, and it distracted him for a moment, affording him a tantalizing glimpse of the pale skin of her upper breast.

  He looked away, and then back, and by then, she’d adjusted it. Too bad. It was a nice view. Nicer even than all these cool green and white flowers. Now, what had he been about to say? Oh yeah.

  “You rate their marriage chances? That seems pretty cynical.”

  “You see as many couples as I do, work with as many crazy brides and overbearing moms as me, you’d be cynical too,” she said calmly. “I’ve only been in business for myself two and a half years here, and I can’t tell you how many couples don’t even make it to their first anniversary.”

  Poppy stirred, getting to her feet and staring intently at the brick wall running along the back of the courtyard. A squirrel paused there. Shaz saw the squirrel, too, and both the dogs went bounding toward their intended quarry. Instead of scampering away, though, the squirrel held its ground, chattering angrily at the two dogs four feet below, who were now balancing on their hind legs, whimpering and pawing ineffectively at the brick.

  “Shaz!” Jack called. “Down!” The dog ignored him.

  “Poppy! Leave that squirrel alone,” Cara added. “I swear, it’s the same squirrel. He does this every day, just to torment poor Poppy.”

  After a moment, the squirrel, bored with the contest, took off again, and the dogs, defeated, ambled over to the water bowl, where they took turns drinking, until the empty water bowl clanged loudly against the brick walkway.

  “Just out of curiosity, why do you refer to the squirrel as a he? Did you see something I didn’t see?”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Cara said crossly. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m a man-hater. That’s why I think all marriages will inevitably fail, and why all annoying squirrels must be male.”

  Jack laughed despite himself. “What was wrong with yesterday’s couple? Why are they doomed?”

  “For one thing, the groom was unbelievably domineering. He had to have a say in every detail. He even picked out Emily’s gown.”

  “That’s unusual?”

  She stared at him as though he’d grown a third eye in the middle of his forehead.

  “Are you kidding? Yes, it’s unusual. There’s an old superstition that says it’s bad luck for a groom to see the bride’s dress before the wedding.”

  “Or?”

  “Or his testicles will turn black and fall off. I don’t know, Jack. I just know this guy was controlling and domineering, and it doesn’t bode well for the marriage.”

  “I see. Anything else? So, he’s the only one at fault?”

  “No, of course not. After all, Emily allows him to boss her around about all this stuff. When she gets fed up, she sulks and then cries. Buckets and buckets of tears.”

  “Oooh.” Jack grimaced. “I hate a crier.”

  “Me too!” she exclaimed. “But it’s an occupational hazard with my job. Now that I think of it, I’ve only done flowers for one wedding that that didn’t involve at least one tearfest or temper tantrum.”

  “And that was?”

  “Last Friday night’s wedding, as a matter of fact. Maya and Jared.”

  He nodded. “I don’t know Jared that well. He only worked for us a year or so. But Maya’s always been pretty chill. So, how did you guys rate their chances?”

  “Mmm. Bert and Maya have been best friends, forever. He gives them a hundred percent. Says he’s positive they’ll make it.”

  Jack studied her face. “But you’re not so sure.”

  “Shit happens. People change. What seems like a sure bet, suddenly turns into a sucker bet.”

  “Is that what happened to you?”

  Cara didn’t answer. She got up, turned on the hose, and refilled the water bowl. On the way back to the table, she paused to right a flowerpot one of the dogs had upended.

  “Cara?” He said it gently.

  25

  Her glass was nearly empty. She stared down into it, wondering if she should make an excuse, get up, offer a refill, hope he’d forget the topic while she was away. Somehow, she doubted it. She hadn’t known Jack Finnerty long, but she could tell he was very focused when he wanted to be.

  “Why do you want to know about my marriage?” she asked finally.

  He stared, apparently taken aback. “Is it still painful to talk about?”

  “It’s not my favorite topic, no. But I’m over him, as I told you before.”

  “Yes. You did say that.” He waited.

  Cara sighed. “He cheated on me, okay? He had a little girlfriend, and they’d have their twosomes every other week, at a motel out by the airport, when he was supposed to be at a sales meeting in Atlanta. I was too dumb to realize what was going on. When I found out, I ended it. I moved out, stayed a while with Bert, then rented this apartment, upstairs over the shop.”

  “And that was it? No counseling, no attempt at a reconciliation?”

  “Now you sound like Leo,” she said. “Why would I want a reconciliation? Or need counseling? He was quite clearly in love with somebody else. No need to prolong the inevitable.”

  Did she sound bitter? she wondered. Maybe that was because she was bitter.

  Jack had gotten quiet again. He sat back on the bench and took a sip of the iced coffee. All the ice had melted. She should really ask if he’d like another. But did she even want him to stay? What was the point of all this?

  “The woman he cheated with. Are they still together?”

  She felt her face go pink. “He says not. But then, he’s a liar. And a liar will tell you whatever they think you want to hear.”

  “I’m not on his side, you know. I never even met the guy.”

  “His name is Leo,” she said. “Leo Giardinella. He’s in sales with Great South Office Products. He plays golf with an eight handicap, and he’s an Auburn fan, even though he never went to Auburn, and you’d probably like him a lot. Everybody likes Leo a lot. You never met anybody who didn’t like Leo. He could totally sell ice to Eskimos. My dad? The Colonel? He still thinks it’s somehow my fault our marriage broke up.”

  “What about your mom? What did she think of him?”

  Cara shrugged. “She died while I was a freshman in college. But knowing her, she would have loved Leo too.”

  She was suddenly close to tears now, and he’d just told her he hated a crier. So maybe now he’d leave, and she was pretty sure she didn’t care if he did.

  “For the record, I went to Georgia Tech,” Jack said evenly. “I tried golf, but I don’t have the patience to chase a little white ball around all day. I run, and sometimes I play tennis. And Leo? Your ex? He sounds like an asshole.”

  “He was,” she said, sniffing.

  Jack got up and came around the table and sat down on the bench beside her. With his little finger, he wiped away the huge tear that was welling up in her right
eye. And then he leaned in, and he very gently kissed her.

  “You wanna get some lunch?” he asked.

  * * *

  The Firefly Café was on Habersham Street near Troup Square. They leashed up the dogs and walked over, sitting at a café table outside. Cara ordered a crab salad and Jack had the patty melt and fries, and they sat in the sunshine, eating and talking about not much of anything.

  Shaz and Poppy lolled in the shade under their table, strategically positioned for stray bits of food.

  As usual, Jack seemed to know half the people who walked past, or were seated nearby.

  Cara sat, a look of amusement on her face as he chatted with two elderly ladies still in their church clothes, at a table nearby.

  “What?” he said, when he turned back to her. “They play bridge with my aunt Betty. Irene O’Conner, the one with the pink hair? Her daughter is Meghan’s godmother.”

  “Do you ever go anyplace where you don’t know somebody?”

  “I’ve lived here all my life, and my parents and grandparents did too. Is that a crime? Don’t you know a lot of people in—where’d you say you grew up? Akron?”

  “Columbus. And I know some people, but nothing like you. Anyway, I only finished high school there. Went away to college, met Leo, and eventually we moved down here to Savannah.”

  “Why Savannah?”

  “Leo had a job offer. It was a promotion and a pay raise, and it seemed like a good idea. I didn’t have much of a career going in Columbus, so there was no reason for me not to move. Even though I didn’t know a soul down here.”

  “And no reason to move back up there after your divorce?”

  “The Colonel, my father, wanted me to move back. But by then I had the shop, and I was determined to make it work.”

  “And just as determined not to let the Colonel boss you around?”

  She helped herself to a French fry from the paper basket that held his sandwich. “Look. I love my dad. I really do. He’s tried to be supportive, in his own way. After Norma, the former owner, moved away and left me the business, the Colonel loaned me the money to make the improvements to the building and buy my equipment. I’m the creative type, not a finance genius, but he sent me books about drawing up a business plan, and bookkeeping, and all that.”

  “I sense a but.”

  Cara looked away. “Sometimes I think he wants me to fail. Things haven’t been going so great. I’ve had a lot of capital expenditures—car problems, computer problems, equipment problems. Everything costs more than it should, and it’s all stuff I didn’t anticipate. And it took a long time for the business to start coming in.”

  “I don’t know anything about flowers, but I’ve seen a lot of yours at all these weddings lately, and they looked pretty damn impressive to me. And I do know Torie, and Lillian Fanning. They wouldn’t have hired you for Torie’s wedding if they thought you were no good.”

  “I am good at what I do,” Cara said. “But I’m an outsider in Savannah. These girls here, it’s like a closed society. If you didn’t go to Country Day or Savannah Christian or St. Vincent’s you might as well be from Mars.”

  “But you did Torie’s wedding. And that bizarro wedding for the Winships. And Maya’s. And it sounds like this clambake the Trapnells and Strayhorns are planning is pretty extreme.”

  That stopped her cold. She was whining. And God knows she hated a whiner, almost as much as she hated a crier.

  “You’re right,” she said, straightening her shoulders. “You’re absolutely right. It’s just that it’s taken so long, and I’m still not really in the black. And stuff keeps happening to me.…”

  She filled Jack in on the broken cooler and the spoiled flowers, and all the rest of her financial woes.

  He listened calmly, nodding, not judging.

  “My dad wants his money back,” Cara said, taking a deep breath. “And I can’t blame him. When I borrowed it, the deal was that I’d start making payments in February. But I haven’t. I couldn’t. Not while keeping the lights on in the shop.”

  “And you explained that to him?”

  “I tried. But the Colonel is the Colonel. He hears what he wants. And what he wants to hear is that I give up. He wants me to admit defeat, move back home, and be a dutiful daughter.”

  Cara felt her fists clench and unclench. “But I can’t. I just can’t!”

  “Then don’t,” he said lightly. “Look, I know starting a new business is hard. Especially in a new town, where, as you say, you don’t really know anybody. Ryan and I have been here all our lives, and it’s been an uphill battle for us.”

  “Really?” It was hard to imagine anything was difficult for this charming Irishman, who’d apparently never met a stranger.

  “Hell yeah,” Jack said. “For one thing, our timing sucked. I quit my job, put all my savings into buying tools, equipment, all of it, everything it takes to start a new business. Our plan was to do high-end historic-restoration projects. And it would have been a good plan, except the economy was still stalled. People who’d bought an old house in the historic district had paid top-of-the-market prices and now, planning to renovate, they find out they’re already underwater on their mortgages. That hundred-thousand-dollar kitchen we were supposed to build for them? Forget about it. New master suite? Not in the master plan anymore. It wouldn’t have been so bad, if it had just been me. But I’d talked Ryan into coming in with me. And we had guys. Masons, carpenters, electricians. We had to let everybody go. Everybody who was expecting a paycheck, counting on us, we had to let go.”

  She leaned closer across the table. “How’d you survive?”

  “We lived lean. Took whatever crappy jobs we could get. Our family’s friends felt sorry for us, so they’d hire us to hang some Sheetrock, build a garage, replace a deck. I sold my condo downtown and bought the place over on Macon Street. It was a foreclosure. Ryan, he’s actually got a teaching degree. He did some substitute teaching, hired on as an after-school soccer coach at the Y. And we just kept at it.”

  “And you’re okay now.”

  “Finally. People are feeling better about the economy. The people we did those little jobs for, they were happy with the work. They’re calling us back for bigger projects. And they’ve told their friends.”

  “So, a happy ending. You’ve got a good business, friends, a house, a dog.”

  “But in the meantime, Zoey left me. She got tired of hanging around, waiting for me to come home from work, to make her my number-one priority.”

  “You’ve still got the dog,” Cara said, looking away.

  “And I’ve got high hopes for everything else,” Jack said. “There’s this girl I keep running into at weddings…” And then he did it. He actually winked at her.

  “You make me actually feel like I’m not a hopeless cause,” Cara said, sitting back in her chair, feeling herself actually relax.

  “You’re a work in progress, darlin’,” Jack said. “Same as me.”

  26

  It was nearly 10 a.m. when Bert finally walked through the front door at Bloom. He dropped the morning newspaper on the worktable and headed straight to the coffeepot, ignoring Cara’s pointed stares.

  When he sat down at the worktable, he sipped from his mug and began leafing through the morning’s phone orders. His hair was mussed, his beard unshaven, and it looked as though he’d slept in his clothes—either that, or he’d been rolled by a mugger.

  He caught her watching him. “What?”

  “Late night last night?”

  “Maybe,” he said, running his hands through his hair, which only made it worse. He stared her down. “And no. I haven’t been drinking. Because I know that’s what you’re thinking. But I haven’t.”

  He had her there. She had wondered. He’d worked so hard for his sobriety. She knew too well how it was with an alcoholic, though. They were always just one drink away from a fall.

  “Would have been nice if you’d called to let me know you’d be in late.” She k
ept her voice deliberately mild. It was unlike Bert to be late, or to fail to let her know he’d be late.

  “Sorry,” he said, looking contrite. “It won’t happen again.”

  He mopped his forehead with one of the pink message slips. “Jesus, it’s hot in here. What’s going on with the air-conditioning?”

  “It’s been out since Friday night. I had to sleep with all the windows open over the weekend. I’ve left half a dozen voicemails for the Bradleys, but they haven’t bothered to return any of them. I’m thinking of running over to their house. In fact, I was waiting for you to get here so I could go.”

  “Oh,” Bert said. “Oh, crap. I forget you don’t get the paper. Um, there’s actually a pretty good reason you haven’t heard back from Bernice.”

  “Such as?”

  Bert flipped the Savannah Morning News open to the obituary page, and trailed a bony finger down the listings until he came to a block of type.

  “Oh damn,” Cara said. “That’s awful. I didn’t even know she was sick.”

  Bradley, Bernice, 91, of Savannah. Joined the band of heavenly angels Friday, after a brief illness. Predeceased by husband Alvin P. Bradley. Survived by faithful daughter Sylvia Bradley, 73, of Savannah. Funeral services, Tuesday, at Fox & Weeks Hodgson funeral chapel.

  “Now I feel just terrible. I’ve been cussing Bernice all weekend. The last message I left on their machine, I even threatened to buy a window unit and subtract it from next month’s rent.”

  “You shouldn’t feel bad about that,” Bert said. “That old biddy was so cheap she squeaked when she walked. And her daughter’s just as bad. There’s a reason Sylvia’s a dried-up old maid. She’s just as mean and stingy as her mama. The two of them have been living in that big house on Forty-fourth Street in Ardsley Park for decades, and even though everybody knows they’re rolling in the dough, the place looks like it’s falling to pieces.”

  “Still, it’s not nice to talk bad of the dead,” Cara insisted. She was still reading Bernice Bradley’s obituary, the details of her membership in the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Eastern Star, her thirty-year employment with J. C. Penney’s.