This Summer Will Be Different(5)

I opened my mouth to reply, but then I spotted the green ceramic toad next to the sliding door. My stomach dropped, fast and hard, like an anvil from a cliff’s edge.

“Oh my god.”

Bridget gave me just three rules for the trip.

Number 1. Eat your weight in oysters.

“You’re Bee,” Felix said.

I was shaking my head, even though he was right. I was Bee.

Number 2. Leave the city behind.

I tore my sight from the toad, under which I knew was a set of keys.

“You’re Wolf,” I murmured. “You’re Bridget’s . . .” The nausea hit me with such dizzying force, I couldn’t finish the sentence. I covered my mouth with an unsteady hand.

And Number 3. Don’t fall in love with my brother.

“Yeah,” Felix said. “Bridget’s my sister.”





1





Now

Nine Days Until Bridget’s Wedding





I study the illustration on the table in front of me, frowning. It’s more detailed than my typical sketches. Sometimes, just to show off, I’ll whip up a simple line drawing while a client watches. But I’ve been working with flowers for more than five years, and I don’t need to mock up the archways and chuppahs anymore. This time, though, I’ve carefully rendered each leaf and petal, shaded them in greens and blues and whites. But it’s still not right. Floral archways are my specialty, and this one has to be spectacular. Breathtaking. Perfect. Because this is the arch Bridget will stand beneath when she and Miles promise to love and cherish each other, forever, in front of their friends and family. It’s where they will share their first kiss as a married couple. Bridget’s dad is walking her down the aisle, but I feel like I’m giving her away, too. My best friend, soon to be married.

“I think something’s missing. It needs more drama,” I say to Farah. She’s my second in command at In Bloom and has worked here almost as long as I have. She’s a poet with an impeccable eye and a creative soul that was catnip to my aunt. Farah says arranging flowers helps her art. She likes her eyeliner smudgy and black and her clothing bright. Today it’s neon orange bike shorts.

I spin in my stool to face her. “What do you think?”

She hums, then shuffles the papers so that all my sketches of Bridget’s flowers—the centerpieces, bouquets, boutonnieres, swags, and various other arrangements—are lined up together. “You’ve got so much plant material here, there may not be room for the guests.”

Farah has a manner that oscillates between indifference and disdain. It took months of working together before I saw her full smile, the cute gap between her front teeth, and months after that to learn the attitude is mostly bluster. Farah brings her black Lab, Sylvia, to work with her, and she’s a doting dog mom. Sylvia’s sleeping under the table now, her nose on my foot.

“You think it’s too much?” I ask.

She slits her espresso eyes my way. “You don’t usually overthink the design like this.”

It’s true. Aunt Stacy showed me how to properly care for flowers, both in the garden and the vase, and she delighted in handing down her tricks. But my sense of balance, of color and form—that’s innate. And once I’m flowing, the way my hands take over for my brain is magic. The quick snip of shears against stem is my favorite sound.

“You have an eye, my darling,” my aunt used to say. “A gift that cannot be taught.” Stacy was an actor before she was a florist. Her claim to fame was a recurring role as a busybody Italian relative on the Canadian teen drama Ready or Not and three seasons with the Stratford Festival. She was full of proclamations, and she doled them out with grandeur.

“I know,” I say to Farah. “But . . .” I drift off.

“It’s Bridget,” she finishes.

“Yeah. It’s Bridget.”

My best friend has the mouth of a sailor, the heart of a mother lion, and a frightening passion for lists, label makers, and spreadsheets. And in true Bridget fashion, she’s overseen wedding planning with surgical precision. There’s a color-coded binder and a shared Google calendar for the myriad appointments—both her fiancé, Miles, and I have access to it, as well as her files with vendor and bridal party contacts, a day-of schedule, and ceremony musical selections.

The flowers are the only thing she’s abdicated control of. She’s given Farah and me free rein, and we’ve spent hours scheming about how to make the Gardiner Museum look like the most magnificent greenhouse. Peonies and roses, lilies and ranunculus, trailing ivy and asparagus fern and magnolia leaves.

Bridget will love whatever I do. She’s my most vocal advocate, my loudest cheerleader. My only cheerleader now that my aunt is gone. She’s the one person in my life whose love and support come freely and without conditions. She believes in me more than I believe in myself. Her wedding day flowers are a chance to say thank you, to pay her back for everything she’s done for me. They will surpass anything I’ve ever done. They’re my gift to her. And I want my gift to make her cry.

I give my forehead a gentle, frustrated bonk on the table, startling Sylvia. I offer her a scratch behind her ear, and she settles back down.

The bell over the door chimes, and I bolt upright, smiling at the young man who’s just walked in. He’s dressed nicely and looks nervous. A first date, I’m guessing. Maybe it’s an important date. A proposal? I have a nose for this sort of thing, and Farah and I run an unspoken contest to see who guesses right. Maybe he’s asking his partner to move in with him?