Read Online Available Darkness Season 2 by Platt + Wright - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Platt + Wright
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corner to corner with flowers.
Every bloom had to be at His Father’s Holy Grace Church by five to noon, or Hannah would surely get screamed at by Cori Truman, the city’s biggest, flashiest and most grand standing wedding coordinator.
This wasn’t just a wedding — bread and butter for any florist who knew how to build and bill them — it was the biggest wedding gig Hanna’s Bucket Boutique had ever done. The bride belonged to Mr. And Mrs. William Graham, Las Orilla’s closest cousin to power brokers.
Judy Graham, mother of the bride, clicked with Hannah moments after first setting her Manolos inside Hannah’s small shop a year before. Hannah had a front fridge stuffed with blown open Leonidas roses; big and brown, in many shades of exploding copper, but about to die. Judy oohed and aahed as Hannah handed her the bundle, wrapped in brown paper with a drop of blood, fresh from a small cut on Hannah’s pinkie.
Judy spent $1,200 in candles and orchid plants to say thank you.
While there were a half dozen flower carts dotting the coast for 10 minutes in either direction, cheap chain grocery stores and at least six other quality shops within driving distance, with far more experience and staff, all who could have conceivably done the wedding as well as Hannah, and most of them probably better, Judy insisted that she do the job.
And so here she was, battling traffic and rain to recover lost time from her morning disaster. Hannah was either too stupid or too inexperienced to know about the effect that ripening fruit had on flowers. She had never filled her cooler to spilling before and had to ask Mr. Fanaroff from the Taco Beach next door if she could use his fridge. Of course, Mr. Fanaroff would do anything for Hannah, including allowing use of his cooler, filled with avocados and tomatoes and everything else that makes Mexican food delicious.
Thank the Good Lord above, Hannah had only loaded the bridal party’s flowers into Fanaroff’s fridge, wanting to keep them separate after packing everything else into her cooler. By morning, the fruit in the fridge had turned her flowers translucent. Hanna had been smart, or at least scared enough to over-order, so she had plenty of flowers, though not enough time to arrange them all. She raced through the morning, and rushed to finish the same bouquets she’d spent half the previous day making in less than an hour.
It wasn’t Hannah’s fault, exactly , but she wasn’t being paid to deliver excuses. Her rather substantial check was in exchange for a promise that she would deliver flowers beautiful enough to make Becca Graham weep from memory when telling her granddaughter about the best day of her life four decades later.
The job could make or break Hannah’s Bucket Boutique.
Her dashboard clock read 11:51 a.m., and 20 minutes away.
Hannah’s phone buzzed with a text — Jenny her assistant calling from the church, where she was waiting with the wedding coordinator Cori Truman who had strongly advised Mrs. Graham to use a different florist. Anyone, other than Hannah, would do, according to Cori.
“WHERE ARE YOU?”
Hannah reached down and texted back, “15 minutes out, I hope. Be there soon. Sorry!”
Hannah stared out the window through the ragged smears left behind by her fraying wipers, cursing herself for forgetting to change the blades, again, after having her oil changed at Bud’s the week before.
Aren’t they supposed to check stuff like that?
She thought they were, but perhaps it was one of those things you were supposed to specify, no matter how obvious you figured it was. Hannah imagined calling the garage, complaining, and being told, “Sorry, ma’am, we saw that your wipers were hanging by strips like noodles, but if you didn’t ask, we didn’t fix!”
Because of her rotted wipers, Hannah was forced to drive even slower than the already slower-than-molasses traffic, and focus on the blurring lights ahead as she navigated the street.
The
Every bloom had to be at His Father’s Holy Grace Church by five to noon, or Hannah would surely get screamed at by Cori Truman, the city’s biggest, flashiest and most grand standing wedding coordinator.
This wasn’t just a wedding — bread and butter for any florist who knew how to build and bill them — it was the biggest wedding gig Hanna’s Bucket Boutique had ever done. The bride belonged to Mr. And Mrs. William Graham, Las Orilla’s closest cousin to power brokers.
Judy Graham, mother of the bride, clicked with Hannah moments after first setting her Manolos inside Hannah’s small shop a year before. Hannah had a front fridge stuffed with blown open Leonidas roses; big and brown, in many shades of exploding copper, but about to die. Judy oohed and aahed as Hannah handed her the bundle, wrapped in brown paper with a drop of blood, fresh from a small cut on Hannah’s pinkie.
Judy spent $1,200 in candles and orchid plants to say thank you.
While there were a half dozen flower carts dotting the coast for 10 minutes in either direction, cheap chain grocery stores and at least six other quality shops within driving distance, with far more experience and staff, all who could have conceivably done the wedding as well as Hannah, and most of them probably better, Judy insisted that she do the job.
And so here she was, battling traffic and rain to recover lost time from her morning disaster. Hannah was either too stupid or too inexperienced to know about the effect that ripening fruit had on flowers. She had never filled her cooler to spilling before and had to ask Mr. Fanaroff from the Taco Beach next door if she could use his fridge. Of course, Mr. Fanaroff would do anything for Hannah, including allowing use of his cooler, filled with avocados and tomatoes and everything else that makes Mexican food delicious.
Thank the Good Lord above, Hannah had only loaded the bridal party’s flowers into Fanaroff’s fridge, wanting to keep them separate after packing everything else into her cooler. By morning, the fruit in the fridge had turned her flowers translucent. Hanna had been smart, or at least scared enough to over-order, so she had plenty of flowers, though not enough time to arrange them all. She raced through the morning, and rushed to finish the same bouquets she’d spent half the previous day making in less than an hour.
It wasn’t Hannah’s fault, exactly , but she wasn’t being paid to deliver excuses. Her rather substantial check was in exchange for a promise that she would deliver flowers beautiful enough to make Becca Graham weep from memory when telling her granddaughter about the best day of her life four decades later.
The job could make or break Hannah’s Bucket Boutique.
Her dashboard clock read 11:51 a.m., and 20 minutes away.
Hannah’s phone buzzed with a text — Jenny her assistant calling from the church, where she was waiting with the wedding coordinator Cori Truman who had strongly advised Mrs. Graham to use a different florist. Anyone, other than Hannah, would do, according to Cori.
“WHERE ARE YOU?”
Hannah reached down and texted back, “15 minutes out, I hope. Be there soon. Sorry!”
Hannah stared out the window through the ragged smears left behind by her fraying wipers, cursing herself for forgetting to change the blades, again, after having her oil changed at Bud’s the week before.
Aren’t they supposed to check stuff like that?
She thought they were, but perhaps it was one of those things you were supposed to specify, no matter how obvious you figured it was. Hannah imagined calling the garage, complaining, and being told, “Sorry, ma’am, we saw that your wipers were hanging by strips like noodles, but if you didn’t ask, we didn’t fix!”
Because of her rotted wipers, Hannah was forced to drive even slower than the already slower-than-molasses traffic, and focus on the blurring lights ahead as she navigated the street.
The
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