The wedding planner stood up. “Ladies!” she cried, raising a hand to her temple. “Let’s remember whose special day this is.”
Olivia smiled at her. “That’s right,” she said. “If you don’t all stop arguing, I’m going to pick that yellow taffeta dress you all hated.”
There was a collective gasp and everyone shut up.
The silence was broken by Olivia’s grandmother, a sweet-looking lady in a pale blue suit.
“That redheaded gal did look like a canned ham!” she said in a superloud whisper.
“Mom! Turn up your hearing aid!” cried Olivia’s mother.
Everyone burst into laughter, including the redhead. “I told you!” she said.
“Ladies!” called Corinne again. “Need I remind you that the dresses need to be ordered this weekend? We have to come to some decision or you’re all going to be walking down the aisle naked on May nineteenth!” She looked at Mom. “And we can’t order the flowers until we decide on a color!”
What a mess! I craned my neck to steal a glance at Ashley, who was sitting on the floor looking smug. That made me mad. She was actually enjoying the fact that things were spiraling out of control!
I stared at Mom, silently begging her to speak up. This wouldn’t be happening if Gran and Gramps were here, I thought. We are going to lose this wedding if she doesn’t do something fast. But Mom looked defeated. Olivia and her friends weren’t giving her anything to work with. There were too many opinionated people in one room. Olivia just needed to make up her own mind. Suddenly I had an idea.
I cleared my throat. “Olivia,” I said. She turned around and looked at me quizzically. So did everyone else, Mom included. I gulped, but kept talking. “Suppose you were walking down Fairfield Street and decided to stop in our store and buy yourself a bouquet of flowers. What colors would you choose?”
Olivia thought for a moment. “I like bright colors,” she decided. “Purples, pinks, and reds.”
Catching on, Mom gave me a grateful smile. She walked over to the flower refrigerator and began pulling out red sweet peas, purple anemones, and some bright pink roses. She cut the stems and began arranging them this way and that. “This is one of my favorite color combinations,” she said. “Bold, beautiful, very joyful.” She began wrapping bright pink ribbon around the stems. Then she got a kind of aha! light in her eyes and turned around so no one could see what she was doing. I fidgeted nervously. Mom was either going to come up with something that would knock Olivia’s socks off. Or she was about to lose the sale forever.
When Mom turned around I saw that she had tucked several strawberries that were left over from our lunch into the center of the bouquet.
“Ta-da!” she said.
“Strawberries?” said Mrs. Post. “How interesting!” And by “interesting” I am pretty sure she meant “bizarre.”
“Yes,” said Mom. “I think that fruit adds a fresh and fun element. The bouquet is playful, yet elegant.”
Sure, it looked pretty. Pretty strange, too. What would Olivia say?
Olivia stared at the flowers, her brow wrinkled. Mom handed the bouquet to a cute brown-haired girl wearing a navy blue sweater dress, who obligingly held the flowers bridesmaid-style, waist high. The flowers really stood out against the dark background.
“Have you thought about neutrals?” Mom asked. “See how the flowers pop against the rich navy blue of her dress?”
A smile spread across Olivia’s face. “Yes!” she said excitedly. She looked around at all her bridesmaids. “And navy blue looks good on everyone!”
“I do look good in navy,” agreed the redheaded bridesmaid. “Plus, I went to ten weddings last year and no one did fruit.” She nodded solemnly. “It’s very unique.”
This sealed the deal for Olivia. “It’s … perfect!” she cried.
Relief shot through me, and everyone sighed with happiness. Everyone except Ashley, that is, who was staring at me with open hostility. I smiled at her sweetly, which I knew burned her up inside. Too bad for you, Ashley, I thought. Flowers on Fairfield is back in business!
“Ladies?” said Corinne the wedding planner. “Remember that silk chiffon empire-waist dress? Totally flattering and it definitely comes in navy. That bouquet would look amazing against it.”
Olivia looked around at the bridesmaids. They were all jostling one another to take a turn holding the beautiful bouquet. “That’s it!” she said. “Let’s go back to the store right now so they can take everyone’s measurements!”
As everyone began to get on their coats and grab their purses, talking excitedly, Mom and I grinned at each other.
But my happiness was short-lived. Because the shop bell jangled. And to my annoyance, in walked Rose, Aster, and Poppy. What were they doing here?
Poppy immediately ran up to my mom, wrapping herself around her leg and hanging on for dear life. The bridesmaids all oohed and ahhed. “How cute!” they exclaimed.
“What are you doing with all these ladies?” Poppy wanted to know while Rose and Aster whispered to each other about who knows what.
When Mom explained that Olivia was getting married, Poppy disentangled herself and walked over to Olivia. “A wedding!” she cried. “Then you need a flower girl.” She cocked her head at Olivia. “Pick me!”
I groaned.
“So sweet!” said a bridesmaid.
Olivia laughed and told Poppy she had already promised the job to her fiancé’s niece, but that Poppy could be her alternate.
“That’s like being an understudy!” exclaimed Rose. “If the flower girl can’t perform on the day of the wedding, then the part belongs to you!”
This seemed to satisfy my little sister and she retreated behind the counter. I stole a glance at Mom, but she didn’t look embarrassed by Poppy at all. I seemed to be the only one who was totally mortified.
But just as Olivia was about to leave, Poppy came rushing back over.
“Bride lady!” my sister squealed. “I want to ask you a question!”
Olivia leaned down so she was at Poppy’s level. “Yes?” she asked.
“Where’s your tail?” Poppy asked in all seriousness.
Olivia wrinkled her nose in confusion. “My tail?” she said.
“Yeah, your tail,” said Poppy. “I thought you would have a tail.”
As Olivia smiled and turned away, my stomach sank. Surely Poppy wasn’t about to say what I thought she was about to …
“You sure don’t look like Godzilla!”
Mom and I glanced at each other in dread. I’m sure my eyes were bugging out as much as Mom’s were. Luckily, Olivia had left just in time and hadn’t heard. But someone else had.
“Godzilla, huh?” said Ashley. She gave me a knowing smirk and walked out the door.
Chapter Six
School was over for the day and we were all crowded in the hall, doing the usual locker gymnastics. Everyone was maneuvering around one another, pulling out books and grabbing our coats and backpacks.
“Hello, Delphinium,” said Ashley from behind me.
I didn’t even look away from my locker. I knew that she’d be standing there, flanked by her handmaidens, and dressed in some fashionable outfit, with an impatient sneer on her face.
“Can I help you, Ashley?” I sighed, looking back at her. Right on all counts. She was wearing matchstick jeans and a soft-looking pink sweater that almost came to her knees. And had extralong sleeves with thumbholes. My fingers seemed to have a mind of their own and were practically reaching out to touch it to see if it was cashmere. I folded my hands under my armpits so I wouldn’t be tempted.
She leaned in, scowling. “So you think my cousin is a Bridezilla, huh?”
I quickly turned away so she couldn’t see my guilty expression. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, busying myself in my locker. My stomach was tight with worry.
Ashley tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned around again she had a big smile on her face. “Oh, I think you do
,” she said. Then she sauntered off with her handmaidens, and they stopped to whisper in front of a nearby bank of lockers. Rachel leaned against one of the lockers. It belonged to Maria Gonzalez, who at the moment needed to get her trumpet out for band practice. But of course Ashley and her friends didn’t notice. I rolled my eyes and turned back to my locker.
Suddenly I heard an annoyingly familiar boy’s voice behind me.
“What kind of name is that, anyway?” the boy snorted. “It’s just … weird.”
I nearly mis-shelved my Spanish textbook. Ashley was bad enough to deal with, but now here was Bob, the bully from gym class.
Bob was the torturer of anyone who could somehow be considered different. This included the bespectacled, the too short or too tall, the kids with braces, the kids who didn’t wear “normal” clothes, and as I was well aware, the oddly named. I automatically assumed he was talking to me.
I spoke into my locker as my hands clenched and unclenched. “I thought I told you I was named after …” I started to say.
“Well, Bob,” said another voice. “I’m named after Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. Heard of him?”
I spun around. It was Hamilton!
Hamilton wasn’t getting annoyed and flustered like I did when Bob bothered me. He wasn’t throwing his milk carton at him and getting detention like the unfortunately named Dilbert Pickles. No. Hamilton was just standing there, hands in his pockets, casually talking to Bob like he wasn’t the dumbest bully in middle school history.
“Um, yeah, I’ve heard of him,” Bob said uncertainly. (With his history grades, I seriously doubted that one.) “But at least I’m not named after him,” he added. He looked around for support. Surely, we all agreed Hamilton must be humiliated for allowing his parents to name him something so silly!
Matt, one of Bob’s buddies, spoke up. “Is your nickname, um, Ham Sandwich?” he asked Hamilton.
I winced. Talk about dumb and dumber!
“Um … no,” replied Hamilton. He looked like he was trying hard not to smile.
Bob thought that was hilarious. “Yeah, Ham Sandwich!” he said. “That’s your new nickname!”
Hamilton just shrugged, which made Bob even madder. “What, are we boring you, Ham Sandwich?” he asked, getting red in the face.
Suddenly, I found myself walking right up to Bob and Matt. “Excuse me,” I said. “Are you guys always this unfunny, or is today a special occasion?”
“Shut up, Delfingerprints,” Bob muttered.
“And who are you to make fun of people’s names?” I went on, pointing my finger in Bob’s face. He backed away from me. “I mean, how unoriginal. If you say your name backward, it’s still … Bob.”
Bob scowled. He couldn’t argue with that one.
“Good one, Del!” shouted Mike Hurley from where he stood at his locker across the hallway.
“Ham Sandwich!” Mike’s best friend, Carmine Rizzo, added with a snort. “That was totally lame!”
“Yeah, completely lame!” Penelope Peterson chimed in. Carmine, who had a huge crush on her, looked pleased.
Bob and Matt looked at me, furious that the tables had been turned. “Well, your names are dumb!” Bob finally said, backing down the hall.
“Yeah, walk away!” Mike called after them. “Come back when you can come up with a real insult!”
Hamilton picked up his backpack and walked over to me. “Wow, Del,” he said, his eyebrows raised. “That was quick!”
I shook my head. “I can never come up with anything when I’m the one being picked on!” I admitted.
“What a jerk,” he said. “I don’t get guys like that. They feel better by making other people feel bad about themselves.”
I nodded, thinking about Ashley. She could never resist an opportunity to make me look silly in front of other people. “Welcome to Sarah Josepha Hale Middle School,” I said.
“Well, you showed Bob,” Hamilton said. “I bet it will be a day or two before he makes fun of you again, Delphinium Bloom!”
I grinned at Hamilton. Then I had to look away. I felt suddenly weirdly self-conscious. What is wrong with you, Del? I thought. I focused on his feet, which today were encased in beat-up work boots.
“There’s one of him in every school,” said Hamilton. “And if you’re lucky, there’s only one.” He looked at me. “It’s not so easy having a weird name, is it?”
I shrugged. “Nah.” I thought for a moment. “But it beats a lisp,” I said.
Hamilton laughed and explained that his dad had picked his name. “He’s a history buff and he loves Alexander Hamilton. He’s his favorite Founding Father,” he added, his eyes lighting up.
I nodded. I didn’t know anyone who had a favorite Founding Father. In fact, I’d be surprised if I knew anyone, my college professor dad excluded, who could name them all.
Hamilton was not done extolling the virtues of his namesake. “He led soldiers into battle during the Revolutionary War, he founded the Bank of New York, he was the first secretary of the treasury, and he wrote most of the Federalist Papers,” he explained. I made a mental note to Google “Federalist Papers” when I got home. They sounded important. He smiled. “And he also founded the New York Manumission Society to help end slavery,” he said. “He was a man ahead of his time.”
I searched my brain for any random bits of Alexander Hamilton information I may have stored there. Yes! “Wasn’t he killed in a duel?” I asked.
Hamilton’s face clouded over. Yikes. Maybe that wasn’t the best factoid to start with. “Yeah. Aaron Burr shot him. What a loser.”
“Well, Alexander Hamilton sounds really great,” I said. I decided to change the subject before I said anything else upsetting. “My weird name is not quite as interesting as yours. I’m just named after a —”
“Flower, I know,” said Hamilton. I stared at him, startled, and he smiled at me. “I think Delphinium is a really cool name.”
I blushed from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes. “Um … thanks,” was all I could come out with. I had never met another kid, let alone a boy, who had ever heard of delphinium before. How random! I thought.
Hamilton sighed. “I guess … You know, I don’t get to see my dad as much as I’d like to since Mom got remarried and we moved here,” he said. “So I think that makes me more mad when people make fun of the name he picked, you know?”
“Well, you don’t show it,” I said. “You seemed so cool about it.”
He laughed. “Oh, I was just trying to look cool,” he said. “I was pretty mad inside.”
My mind started racing. Who was he trying to look cool in front of? I wondered. I tried to remember who had been standing in the now nearly empty hallway … Penelope Peterson? Maria Gonzalez?
Hamilton threw his backpack over his shoulder and gave me a salute. “Bye, Delphinium. See you tomorrow.”
I watched him lope down the hallway, and smiled as he jumped up to hit the EXIT sign above the door at the end of the hall. I smiled all the way home, too.
I was in such a good mood I didn’t even complain when I had to set the table for the second night in a row because Rose still wasn’t home from rehearsal. And I didn’t say anything when Dad announced we were having leftovers again. And it was his tuna casserole, which is bad enough the first night. Hot canned tuna — which culinary genius invented that one?
But as I was loading the dishwasher, I had a sudden, awful thought. I remembered someone else who had been in the hallway that afternoon. Could it be that the person Hamilton was trying to look cool in front of was … Ashley Edwards?
I wanted to think the boy had better taste than that. But it was a definite — and unpleasant — possibility.
Chapter Seven
The next morning, over hot chocolates in the cafeteria, I filled Becky and Heather in on what happened in the hallway with Ashley — and Hamilton.
“I can’t believe you didn’t call and tell us last night
!” Heather cried, slamming down her copy of Us Weekly.
I blushed. I hadn’t called Becky or Heather because after dinner I’d done my homework and then stayed up late reading about Alexander Hamilton on Wikipedia.
“I’m just impressed you stood up to Bob,” Becky said, her brown eyes widening. “You usually never come up with comebacks until days later!”
“I know,” I said. “Isn’t that weird?”
Becky beamed. “I’m proud of you, Del!”
But Heather just studied me, a funny look on her face.
“What?” I said.
“I recognize the signs,” she said, nodding solemnly. “You’ve got it bad.”
“Got what?” I asked warily.
“A big old crush,” she said, smiling at me.
I shook my head at her. “We’re just friends, Heather!” I exclaimed.
Heather just kept smiling at me. I sighed. Heather had a new crush every few weeks, so she thought she was an expert. Becky, on the other hand, looked a little disappointed in me. But she had nothing to worry about. I didn’t like like Hamilton. He was a boy friend. Not a boyfriend. End. Of. Story.
After school I decided to call the store to see if Mom needed any help. Dad answered the phone instead.
“Flowers on Fairfield,” he said. “Serving Your Floral Needs Since, um …”
“1912,” I finished. “It’s me, Dad,” I said. “How’s everything going?”
“Pretty good,” he said. “I’ve been working on the books and I’m happy to say that your grandparents left things in great order.” Then he lowered his voice. “Del, did you clean up your mom’s work space again?” he asked. “She’s a little annoyed.”
I winced. I had stopped by the store as Mom was closing up the night before and secretly organized her space. It was such a mess — piles of discarded ribbon, soaking-wet floral foam, shears, hot-glue gun all in a jumble. But it seemed as if Mom wasn’t very grateful. Not one bit.
“Yes,” I said. “I guess she doesn’t want to thank me?”
“On the contrary,” said Dad. “She’s going crazy looking for her shears. And her floral tape.”
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