Elly in Love (The Elly Series)

  There was an eerie moment of silence as the Posies workers stared at each other in wide-eyed fear, then the store exploded in total anarchy. Like a bunch of wild animals, the three of them descended on the boxes with their box cutters, ripping and slashing the boxes and checking the contents of each freezing container.

  “Dead!”

  “Dead!”

  “These are dead, too!”

  “The orchids … oh no. Dead! The tropicals are all dead!”

  Elly’s hands were shaking as she ripped open a box of striped dutch tulips. Their limp heads fell from the stems as she picked them up. She lifted her head and surveyed the store, with the hundreds of open boxes littering the floor. “What the hell?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  Outside, a car door slammed.

  “Grab him!” she yelled. “Hurry!”

  Anthony and Snarky Teenager scampered outside into the blinding rain. Elly pushed her hands up against her eyes as a wave of panic crashed over her. The flowers were dead. The biggest wedding of her career and they were dead. The wedding was tomorrow night, the wedding of Lola Plumb, a name that every American recognized. She heard a slight clicking sound, and looked up to see two camera lenses trained straight on her. Greg was silently mouthing excited words as he captured what would surely make for riveting TV.

  She closed her eyes and had an image of waves crashing over her, burying her beneath the foamy waters. She counted to ten as she allowed herself to mentally sink beneath the waves. She let the panic run its course through her curvy body, allowed her mind to entertain every nightmarish scenario (not that she needed to make it much worse, this was pretty much her nightmare come to life), and then she began praying silently. Please Lord, please let me be wise. Let me handle this with grace. Please let the editors be sympathetic.

  And please help me not murder whoever is responsible for this. And Dennis too.

  And one more: please be with Keith. I’m not sure why I’m praying for him. Amen.

  Then she opened her eyes. Snarky Teenager pushed the agitated driver forward, her hand clutched around his collar. Anthony was standing behind him with his hands outstretched. “I had nothing to do with this,” he reassured her.

  Snarky Teenager let go of his collar. The man was soaking wet and staring at the ground.

  Elly walked over and gently took Snarky Teenager’s hand in her own, removing it from the man’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean to actually grab him. I meant that in a, you know, metaphorical way. Let’s try not to get sued.”

  Snarky Teenager brushed off her hands as if she had touched something disgusting. “Whatever. You should say what you mean next time.”

  The man shuffled forward. Elly gestured to the boxes, rain dripping from her still-soaking hair. “What happened? Why are all these flowers dead? You do realize, and I hope your boss realizes, that this was about thirty thousand dollars’ worth of flowers?” Elly turned to Anthony. “I need you to get the store camera and take pictures of each and every box of dead flowers. Make sure the time stamp is on the pictures.”

  He nodded. “You got it, boss.”

  She turned to her young apprentice, who was looking more and more panicked. “Get Mary on the phone. Now. This is absolutely an emergency. Wake her up.” She pulled her hair back into a high ponytail and jogged back behind the desk. The man kept staring at the floor, sniffling slightly. Elly stared back at him. Breathe, she told herself. Breathe. “What is your name?”

  “Andy.”

  “Andy, what happened here?”

  The driver looked at the floor. “It’s only my third week at this job. I’m probably going to get fired.”

  “Probably?” snapped Elly, before she thought better of it. “How did this happen?”

  He shrugged. “I was talking on the phone to my wife the whole way—we have a newborn, I never see her now with this job—and I guess I forgot to check the temp after I stopped in Phoenix. It was so hot there, so I thought I would just give them an extra blast of really cool air….”

  “And you left it on.”

  “I guess.” He ran his hands nervously through his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I just forgot, it was such a little thing, just a button really….”

  Elly began to feel very sorry for Andy. He was obviously in agony, and even though Elly felt like screaming, that wouldn’t help anyone. I will punch a lot of pillows later, she thought. And after that, I will eat a lot of Dove chocolates.

  “I’ve got Mary!” yelled Snarky Teenager. Elly snatched the phone from her outstretched arm.

  “Elly?”

  “Mary. I’ve got thirty thousand dollars of dead—dead, as in frozen dead—flowers here. If they had gotten too hot, I would have a prayer, but these will never recover. They are all beyond saving. I’ll have Anthony send you the pictures within the hour, but I need to know what you can do for me right now.” She heard Mary rustling and quietly whispering to someone. Her husband, no doubt. Not everyone was sad and alone.

  “Elly, I’m heading into the office. I’m not sure what I can do. You need to design tomorrow, correct?”

  “No. I need to start designing today. The wedding is tomorrow night, but the photo shoot for the cameras is in the afternoon. We need to be completely camera-ready, with everything designed, by about nine a.m. tomorrow morning. We were planning on pulling an eighteen-hour-plus workday today. My extra design staff will be arriving here soon.” She took a deep breath. “There are no flowers, Mary. They are all dead. I have nothing to design with. Tell me how you will fix this.” Elly heard only silence on the other line.

  “I’m sorry, Elly, I am so sorry. You are one of our favorite clients, but I understand if you want to sever this relationship after this. Even if I flew you my best flowers, it would still take a day to get together all the flowers, get them to the airport, and charter a flight to the airport. Then you would have to arrange their transport from the airport. I’m not sure if a refrigerated plane is available, which is why we normally use the van. We would cover the cost, of course, but….” There was a pause.

  “And?” Elly asked nervously.

  “Even if I did every single thing I could, Elly, we couldn’t get these flowers to you before maybe nine p.m. tonight, which….”

  “Which would leave me no time to design.”

  Mary let out a whispered sentence—Elly could tell that her beloved provider was trying to hold back tears. “I’m so sorry, Elly. I don’t know what else to say. I’ll be firing Andy when he returns.”

  Elly looked over at Andy, who was staring blankly into the damp dawn. “Actually, can I have him today? If he can help us, then would you reconsider that? I feel bad for him—it was an accident that could happen to anyone. I’m extremely stressed and angry, don’t misunderstand me, and your company will absolutely reimburse whatever measures we need to use to fix this, but it was a very small, honest mistake that is causing a huge crisis.” Elly felt the eye of the camera on her. She tried to look calm and composed, but she clutched a pen so tightly that it was beginning to snap, and she was pretty sure her blond hair was falling out. I can look forward to my new gray hair, she thought with a grimace. They call me chubby grandma around these parts.

  The front door clanked open and Elly looked up to see Kim carrying a sleeping Hadley in through the front door. She saw Elly on the phone and widened her sea-glass eyes. “What’s going on?” she mouthed.

  Elly held up a finger. “Mary, if there’s nothing you can do for me right now, I need to let you go. I’m sorry I’m not calling with better news. I’ll have Anthony email you those pictures in a few minutes. And I’m going to need you to reimburse my account immediately, so that I can have those funds to buy a new shipment from God knows where.”

  Mary sighed. “Elly, it might take me a few days to….”

  “We don’t have a few days. We have about two hours to get this figured out. Make it happen, Mary. I need a full refund in my account within an hour.”

  There was s
ilence on the other end. “I’ll get that processed this morning.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be in touch.” Elly hung up the phone, panic buzzing in her ears. Kim shuffled Hadley to her other shoulder, his sweet baby face totally unaware of the travesty happening around him. The cameras turned to catch Elly and Kim’s conversation. A boom mic hovered above Elly’s head. “The flowers are dead. Frozen.”

  “WHAT?”

  “I know. I have to make some calls.”

  Kim turned her head. “Can I lay him down upstairs in the apartment? He’ll be out for a few more hours, and I can help you.”

  “Sure.” Elly motioned to the staff to follow her. The cameramen followed. She needed to talk to the staff. Alone. But the only place without cameras was…. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she snapped at the operators.

  “Oh.” They backed off a bit, but kept their cameras trained on Anthony and Snarky Teenager, who were standing beside the boxes.

  Elly opened the door to the bathroom and began gesturing to Anthony silently. His eyes met hers and he gave a silent nod. “I have to go to the restroom, too.” Snarky Teenager joined them.

  The inside of the bathroom was cramped. Usually there was only enough room for one person. Snarky Teenager wedged herself into an ant-sized pocket behind the door, and Anthony stood unsteadily on the toilet lid. Elly looked around. “We are definitely going to update the bathroom after this wedding.”

  “Word.”

  Elly saw shadows underneath the door. “Flush the toilet!” Anthony pushed down on the handle and a roaring filled the room. “Okay. Mary can’t get the flowers here in time.”

  They both gasped. “But how …? We can’t….”

  “I know.” Elly rubbed her temples. “The only answer is that we are going to have to buy all the flowers here, in St. Louis. The flower markets are open. It will just be a situation where we are just going to have to buy what they have on the shelf.”

  They both paled. “What about the rare garden roses?”

  “We won’t have those.”

  “The nerine lilies?”

  “Nope.”

  “Orchids?”

  “Only what we can buy.” The toilet gave a gurgle as the Posies staff considered what that meant. Snarky Teenager looked at her fingernails. “This sucks. I mean, this is like going to be on TV, and we don’t have the flowers we need and the flower market won’t have the same type….”

  “Yeah.” Elly ran her fingers through her damp curls. “I know. It’s the worst. But I think if we spend all day freaking out, then we will just be in the same boat that we are now. We can’t panic, we have to act. If we freak out, we will miss this tiny window where we can come up with a solution.” Elly saw the waves again, threatening to pull her under. The only way to stay above the rising tide of total devastation was to kick. There would be no drowning of Elly Jordan today. “Here’s what we are going to do….”

  There was a sharp knock at the bathroom door.

  “We’re busy!” Elly yelled. “Doing lady things!”

  “Elly?” It was Kim’s voice coming through the door.

  “Hold on!”

  “Elly, I need to talk to you.” Kim was mumbling, and Elly could tell that she was trying not to be heard by the cameras.

  “I’ll be out in a minute, just hold on.”

  “Elly. I need to talk to you right now.” The door jerked open, and Kim was standing in front of it, bathed in the light from the studio, Hadley on her hip. “Elly. Dennis is gone.”

  Elly looked up in confusion. “What?”

  Kim handed her a note. “The door was open upstairs, just totally open. This was on the kitchen table.”

  Elly’s hands began shaking as she unfolded the note.

  I’m sorry for what I said about your mom.

  Things are just better without me.

  Goodbye,

  Dennis

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Elly didn’t remember running upstairs. One minute, she was huddled in the bathroom with her employees, and then next, she was flying up the stairs to her apartment. She stepped inside the open door. The kitchen and living room were a disaster, but that wasn’t anything new.

  “Dennis! Dennis!” Elly began checking each closet. “Dennis!” She ran down the hall to his room. Everything was gone. His backpack, his stinking pile of laundry, his nerdy books. Her hands shaking, Elly touched the eject button on the computer hard drive. It opened, and showed World of MageCraft still safe in its pocket. Oh no. She spun around and saw the neat stack of papers by the pillow. Her eyes grew wide as she looked down at the papers for the DNA test that she had ordered. When they came in the mail, she had shoved them under her bed, telling herself that she would think about that after the wedding. Dennis had found them. No wonder he had left. She looked around the empty room and a tear fell down her cheek. Oh Dennis. She read his note again.

  A new fear rose inside of her. It was unfamiliar, perhaps stronger than any other feeling before it. It was protective, overbearing, and paranoid. She had a sudden longing to wrap Dennis in her arms and take all the ills of his world away. His face was beautiful in her memory, a perfect reflection of her own. She ached for him with a fierceness that surprised her, and her heart began to clutch fearfully in her chest. Elly Jordan was suddenly more afraid than she had ever been in her life. She had to find Dennis. She had to find him now.

  Snarky Teenager burst through the door. “What is happening? We have to figure out the flowers.”

  Elly looked up from the note. “I have to go find Dennis.”

  “He’s probably at the video-game rental store.”

  “No. He left.” She handed Snarky Teenager the note.

  As she read the note, her eyes grew misty. “Oh God. Do you think he would …?”

  Elly’s mind whirled with wild fear. “Yes. And I didn’t help with that. Ah, I’m so stupid!”

  “You aren’t. You did all you could.”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  Snarky Teenager shook her head. “Elly, I care about Dennis too, but this wedding….”

  Elly stood up and began taking off her overalls and apron. She quickly pulled on jeans and a long-sleeved maroon shirt. “You can handle it.”

  Snarky Teenager’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. Take care of it.”

  “But …,” she sputtered, “we have no flowers. The wedding is tomorrow night. Elly, it’s BlissBride!”

  “You can do the interview.”

  “But….” For once, her perfectly aligned features looked absolutely sincere. “Elly, this is your big moment. The one you’ve been waiting for.”

  Elly pulled her wet hair back into a bun and began shoving clothes into an overnight bag. “I don’t care. Dennis is …,” she paused as a hot tear rolled down her cheek. “I denied Dennis the privilege of being my family. And he’s my only family. I’m not sure what else is worth living for. I don’t want to let Lola down, and I trust that you won’t. Go to Baisch and Skinner. Hit up Florist Row with our checkbook. Call the wholesalers. Have them hold everything for us that is pink, white, champagne, and any and all shades of blue. Have Anthony go to the farmers’ market and buy them out of dahlias. You will have to adapt the contract to what you can buy. We’re going from elegant flowers to a more native, wild look.”

  Snarky Teenager stared at her with huge eyes. “Elly. I can’t do this. I can’t. I’m only in high school. What about Lola’s bouquet?”

  Elly reached out and patted her cheek, trying to calm them both. Elly’s heart was racing, threatening to burst out of her chest. Her panic over the dead flowers was nothing compared to this; that was a drop in the ocean. Over and over again in her head, she saw Dennis’s blue eyes, so broken and trusting during their fight. The way he slouched over when he walked or sat, the very posture of someone that life had disappointed. He was her brother and she had let him down. WHY had she ordered that test? Dennis. Dennis. Dennis. His name played over
and over in her mind. She looked up into Snarky Teenager’s eyes. “Make Lola’s bouquet last. But if you have to do it, I’m not worried about it. You are an incredible designer.”

  Then she hugged her, and to her surprise, she felt her tiny body hug back, with a surprising fondness. “I will. I will do this for you.”

  Elly smiled at her. “I believe in you. I always have. Use Anthony. Use Kim. Use every one of the extra hands. Delegate.”

  “I don’t even know what that word means.”

  “You will.” Elly shoved a pair of sandals onto her feet and zipped up her bag. She flipped open her phone and began dialing.

  “You can’t report someone missing for twenty-four hours, I think. Don’t you watch TV?”

  Elly looked up from the phone. “I’m not calling the police. I’m calling someone better.”

  “Who?”

  Elly felt herself grip the phone. “I’m calling Keith.”

  “But you don’t even know where Dennis is.”

  Elly pressed her lips together and looked at the letter on the bed. “Actually, I think I do.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Two hours later, Elly and Keith sat silently on a plane with an empty middle seat between them, a purchase that Elly thought well worth the two hundred dollars. They both stared straight ahead in their seats, Elly praying that Keith had not seen her epic struggle with the world’s tiniest seatbelt.

  An overly tan flight attendant leaned over Elly with a lethargic smile. “Do you need any help? A seatbelt extender?”

  Elly stiffened in her seat, feeling her face turn bright red. “No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

  Keith narrowed his eyes at the flight attendant. “We’re fine. I’ll take a Guinness and she’ll have a glass of Riesling.”