Elly repeated the speech she had said to so many: “I don’t know that I have ever seen such a stunning bride, and I see a lot of brides.” Elly bit the inside of her cheek. She meant every word, each time she said it. Each bride was beautiful. In the back of her mind, however, she knew which bride had been the most beautiful. Lucia, the woman who had married her ex-husband. Thinking her name didn’t cause her spasms of pain like it used to. Now Lucia’s name elicited nothing more than annoying twinge in her heart. It was liberating. Jonna walked toward her, a gorgeous muslin dress shifting loosely around her body. Elly smiled and placed a crown of rust-orange waxflower on her honey curls. Jonna was a true hippie, ripe and earthy. She had been so laid-back throughout the process, and Elly had loved working with her. The mother, not so much. But Jonna had been simply lovely.
The bride wrapped Elly up in a quick hug. “Thank you so much for everything you did for us. My bouquet is … oh …,” she clapped her hand to her mouth, “oh my goddess. Are those oranges?”
Elly looked at up at her, concealing her mild annoyance. “Yes, remember that we talked about having fruit accents to make it a truly organic bouquet? And those are organic oranges, the perfect color to accent your crown and your bouquet. I bought them straight from a farmer’s market as you suggested….”
Moving so fast she made Elly jump, the bride flung herself away from the bouquet and pressed up against the cement wall. “I’m allergic to oranges! I can’t even touch them! Oh my goddess, get them away from me!” The mother of the bride ran to her daughter and scowled at Elly. “I should have known the help would be useless! Jonna can’t have a physical breakdown on her wedding day! How could you possibly dream of putting oranges in the bouquet? What is wrong with you?” She gently rested her hand against Jonna, who was hyperventilating.
“Can’t believe oranges …,” gulp, gasp, “oranges on my wedding day….”
Elly took a step back and put her hands up. “Everyone calm down. I can remove the oranges with no problem.” She tried to look sympathetic even though inside she was fuming, “Jonna, why didn’t you tell me that you were allergic to oranges?”
Jonna shrugged, her flower crown pushed up against her face. “I thought you would just know. I’m sorry.” With a smile that was as real as her tan, Elly reached for the bouquet and tenderly withdrew the oranges, one by one, their fat heads bouncing on tiny wooden sticks. Then she removed all the flowers that the oranges had touched. She looked up at her bride, who was literally clinging to her mother with terror. Elly’s stomach clenched uncomfortably and she felt guilty for causing Jonna panic on her wedding day. But really, didn’t you think it might be important to tell me that you are deathly allergic to a certain fruit when you requested fruit in your bridal bouquet? Elly’s hip bumped the table and one of the removed oranges rolled off it, bouncing in the bride’s direction.
Jonna screamed and climbed on the table. “Don’t let it touch me! Mom!”
The mother pressed her body over her daughter’s as if shielding her from a bullet. It would have been admirable if it hadn’t been an orange.
Elly picked it up and put it back on the table. “Everyone is going to be okay,” she said, more to herself than to them. She took a deep breath and centered herself, staring at the bouquet that now had some large, gaping holes in it. She pulled floral wire out of her apron and stretched one of the strands of plum grapes down its length. She wrapped the wire around it, securing the grapes to the stick, cut it into a few small pieces and then began arranging them over the hole where the oranges had been. In a stray bucket, she found some extra olive leaves and tucked them around the looser stems. Taking her spray bottle, she misted down the entire bouquet and then wiped down the areas around where the oranges had been.
Jonna, her mother, and an exhausted-looking maid of honor watched her with wide, panicky eyes. Elly gently set the bouquet back onto the table. “There. That should be perfect. You can’t even tell something is missing, and the grapes still give it that organic, harvest feeling.”
Jonna climbed down from the table and crept forward hesitantly. “This might be a lot to ask, but is there any way that we could still have some orange in this? I mean, I know we took out the oranges but I would still like that orange color….”
Elly silenced her with a raised eyebrow.
Jonna gave an apologetic shrug. “Actually, you know what? I think this will be fine.”
Her mother looked at her with disbelief. “But honey … if you want orange….”
Jonna waved her hand. “I think that the goddess inside is telling me that orange is not in the plan today. Let’s trust her kind spirit. The oranges can return their energy to the Earth now.”
The goddess would not be the only one telling her that there would be no orange today. Jonna looked down at the bouquet, and the smile Elly was waiting for finally crept across her face. “Actually, it’s perfect. More perfect that I could have ever imagined.” She reached out and pulled Elly into a tight hug while Elly held her orange-tainted hands out in front of her, not wanting to touch the bride. She cleared her throat.
“I’m so glad. Everything else is ready for you, blessings on your wedding, and thank you for using Posies florist!”
Back in the hallway, Elly leaned her head against the cool cement walls. These brides will kill me someday. Allergic to oranges? Seriously.
The maid of honor poked her head around the door. “Pssstt….”
Unsure of what was happening, Elly crept forward to her. “Um, yes?”
“She’s not really allergic,” the maid of honor whispered. “She just really doesn’t like oranges. She thinks she is allergic, but she’s not. So don’t worry too much.”
“Good to know,” Elly whispered back. So glad I just had a heart attack. She made her way out to the hallway, gathering buckets and tools along the way. “Note to self,” she said out loud, “add fruit-allergy question to consultation form.”
Arriving in the sculpture atrium, Elly pursed her lips together and gave a low whistle. Snarky Teenager trotted around the corner, a phone number written on her tiny hand.
“Elly! Oh my gosh. You should see the guy I just talked to. I’m pretty sure he surfs. Like, in the ocean. I didn’t know it until now, but I think I have a thing for surfers. Actually, I think I’m going to marry a surfer.” They had entered the museum’s ballroom, which was a gross exaggeration in Elly’s mind, seeing how it was a small windowless concrete block. The only bright spot in the room was the flowers on their Posies cart.
“So, what happened to Basir?” Elly asked. Her assistant’s last boyfriend had been Russian. Or something. Either way, he was a sweet boy and up until recently, she had been crazy about him.
Snarky Teenager gave a nonchalant shrug. “I got the feeling that he was more into the relationship than I was. When went out to the clubs, he wanted to dance with me as opposed to just dancing around me.”
Elly started placing square cherry wood boxes bursting with white anthurium onto the tables. “I don’t know how to say this, but that doesn’t actually sound like a real problem.”
“It is when he thinks he owns you. He wanted to hold my hand everywhere we went, wanted me to meet his mother, bought me a necklace….”
Elly started adding tiny chocolate cosmos to a perfectly square white cake as sarcasm dripped from her mouth. “You’re right. That sounds absolutely awful. How did you ever live with him for so long?”
Snarky Teenager rolled her eyes. “Elly. You don’t understand. He looked at me like I was the center of his world. Those brown puppy dog eyes were cute at first, but then all the sudden it was absolutely suffocating.” She gave a loud sigh. “He did look fantastic in the nylon briefs I bought him, though.”
Elly raised her hand. “I really don’t want to hear about that.” Okay,