Floral Depravity Read online

  “So you can bring the flowers the day of the wedding,” Kathleen said. “And stay for the grand feast. Of course, it will be too dark to go back, so you’ll have to stay the night. And I suppose you might need help carrying everything.”

  “I . . . I guess I will. We’ve never made a delivery to the middle of the woods before.”

  “And you’ll need to come in costume.” Andrea gnawed at her cuticle. “I don’t suppose you have a medieval dress in the back of your closet.”

  “She’ll just have to rent something,” Kathleen said. “I mean, it won’t be truly authentic, but it’ll do the job for someone coming for the first time.”

  “Most of the regulars own their own medieval wardrobe?” I asked.

  “Most of the regulars make their own wardrobe,” Kathleen said. “Stitched by hand. Some even spin their own fibers and weave and dye their own cloth.”

  “That must take—”

  “Some old-timers work on their clothing all year long,” Andrea said. “A few even sew extra to sell—a truly authentic garment can go for thousands. We’ve been working on the wedding dress for simply ages. Made the pattern based on an oil painting. A lovely blue.”

  “That’s where we get our ‘something blue’ tradition,” Kathleen said. “And you’ll bring the bachelor’s buttons for the festivities later?”

  “They’re going to be a riot,” Andrea said.

  I nodded, but I could feel my cheeks turning peony pink. To the Victorians, the flower known as the bachelor’s button often symbolized celibacy or the blessing of being single. Apparently in medieval times, “blessings” took on a whole new meaning as young women would hide the flowers in their clothing, and the bachelors would be tasked with finding them.

  Although, despite the research involved, Andrea’s order ended up being small—just her bouquet, a wreath for her hair, and the extra bachelor’s buttons—I decided this might just prove to be the most memorable wedding yet.

  “There’s a nice costume shop that has some decent stuff,” Kathleen said. “But they sell out early.”

  “Of course, you can add the rental charge to our bill,” Andrea said.

  “Andrea,” Kathleen said, “I’m sure Audrey wouldn’t mind renting her own. After all, we just invited her to the wedding.”

  Andrea shot her a look. “It’s only right, Mother. It’s part of the expense of getting the flowers to the venue. We can always bill it to good old Dad.” She turned to me. “It seems he can’t make it to the wedding, even to walk his own daughter down the aisle.”

  I barely squelched a sigh. Fathers weren’t usually that interested in flowers, but it was nice to know they’d be involved with the wedding and in their daughters’ lives. My sigh came anyway. After all, perhaps someday I’d be faced with the same reality: walking down the aisle alone or choosing some arbitrary male substitute.

  She jotted down the name of a costume shop onto a sheet of scrap paper and handed it to me. “Just remember, they sell out fast.”

  * * *

  I arrived at Grandma Mae’s cottage with only my suitcase and a smile. Okay, I also had a sleeping bag, food in a cooler, an old Coleman lantern, and a couple of flashlights, since the power wouldn’t be turned on until the morning. And carpel tunnel from signing all those documents.

  Eric, as property manager for the Rawlings—the most recent owners and neglectors of my new home—had been by earlier to build some impromptu porch steps, since the old ones had been torn off to ensure anyone foolish enough to try to climb them wouldn’t fall through, hurt themselves, and sue the Rawlings. Not that even the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the most ardent Avon lady had the dedication to climb those rickety stairs.

  Just getting to the stairs through the jungle of a front yard was difficult in the twilight. But I didn’t stop for the burrs that were clinging to the hem of my jeans as if I were dressed in Velcro. I’d waited so long. I pulled the key from my pocket. I didn’t want to put it on my ring with my ordinary keys, at least not yet.

  The lock turned hard. I worried that the key would break, but finally it yielded. Just another thing to have oiled. Eventually. Just like the hinges on the squeaky door that announced my arrival.

  Home.

  The walls seemed to squeal it. I closed my eyes—probably a good idea, because the place was truly a shambles; even my enthusiasm for the cottage couldn’t hide that fact. But I paused to breathe in the memories. Grandma Mae bustling at the old electric stove. Liv and I sitting at the table on a rainy day with a fresh box of sixty-four Crayolas between us. I could almost still smell them. We’d giggled until one of us had the hiccups and we slid from our chairs to the floor. Grandma chided us, but we could see she didn’t really mean it. The twinkle in her eye gave her away, and her shoulders shook in quiet laughter when she turned back to the stove.

  The old stove was still there, and I had a sudden craving for a cup of instant coffee, only that wasn’t going to happen. Not until there was electricity. Along with water. Eric had promised to help with all of that. But not until the morning.

  I lit the old lantern while I still had enough light to do so and cleared a spot in the middle of the living room floor for my sleeping bag. The floorboards squeaked and groaned with every motion.

  The air felt stale and foul, so despite the coolness of the evening, I pushed open the only window that wasn’t stuck or broken and boarded up.

  So, with too much energy to sleep but too little light to do anything productive, I climbed into the sleeping bag and planned what I would do with the little cottage. I’d give the outside a new coat of white paint, and maybe an archway in the front dripping with wisteria: Welcome, fair stranger. Of course, it would take me weeks just to weed the old garden. Almost easier to start new. But preserving any of Grandma Mae’s plantings was well worth the extra effort.

  Nick and a few others had promised to help me move in. I’d bring my cat over last, since I wouldn’t want Chester to run away from strange surroundings when the doors were open.

  He hadn’t been out of that apartment much since I brought him home from the SPCA, except for an occasional excursion to hide under my neighbor’s truck—and the dreaded trip to the vet’s office. He’d whine the whole drive, then hop on the scale and refuse to budge. Yes, he was a bit pudgy. Maybe living in the country would be good for him—all those birds and rabbits to watch from the window.

  I was still thinking about Chester, so when I heard the plaintive little meow, I thought I’d imagined it. Old houses have strange noises—I knew that ahead of time—but when I heard it again, I could tell this was definitely an animal sound. I scooted out of the sleeping bag and grabbed the flashlight.

  The little cry sounded again, followed by what cat owners recognize instantly as the sound of claws in the screen.

  I swung the flashlight beam to the open window, and there, crawling halfway up the battered screen, was a tiny jet-black kitten. It mewed again.

  “Where’s your mama?” I asked.

  It answered me with the most pitiful series of mews, as if it were pouring out a tale of woe and sadness. My heart melted for the thing.

  “I’d let you in, but you need your mother.” The kitten was so tiny and bright-eyed, but fur matted in spots, that I doubted if it had been fully weaned. Still, I searched in my cooler for an appropriate bit of food and decided to try a smidgen of turkey salad from my sandwich. I grabbed two foam plates and a bottle of water and went outside, half expecting it to run away. But it didn’t.

  I poured water into one plate and put the turkey on another, setting both on the little temporary porch, then peeled the kitty away from the screen. I winced as the wires popped.

  She trembled in my arms but didn’t fight me. I put her by the food and she sniffed it. Then a little pink tongue came out and tried the turkey. She licked it to death, leaving most of it on the plate and then sniffed at
the water, but wasn’t even lapping it effectively.

  “You’re not even weaned yet, are you?”

  I scanned the flashlight across the yard, looking for the reflection of eyes, hoping to find a mama cat for this little thing. Meanwhile, the kitten started weaving around my legs and purring. I picked her up and cradled her against my shoulder, and she let out a contented sigh.

  “All right, kitty. If no one in the neighborhood claims you, you can stay here with me.” I mentally added buying a bottle and kitty formula to my burgeoning to-do list.

  “I just hope Chester doesn’t have you for breakfast.”

  Chapter 2

  “Audrey, please tell me it’s not much farther.” Amber Lee set down her box of flowers and dislodged her full-length skirt from a thorny weed. “I never would have agreed to this if I’d known the wedding was taking place in the middle of the woods. The costume shop is never going to give me my deposit back if this dress is torn.”

  I swatted a mosquito that had braved the fog of DEET I’d misted all over my body, then pulled the map out of the bodice of my dress. “At least you got to wear a decent outfit.”

  Amber Lee looked every bit the medieval matron, but all the costume shop had left by the time I remembered to get there was a serving wench’s outfit that exposed a little more cleavage than I was willing to show. At least they also had rented me a decent cloak which I could use as a cover-up, despite the fact that it was mustard yellow. But I’d converted that to a makeshift backpack of sorts—to carry more of our floral supplies—until we got a little closer.

  “I don’t understand why they hold this thing in the middle of the woods,” she said.

  “From what Kathleen and Andrea told me, they figured if people have to carry their own supplies, they’re much less likely to bring in anything that is historically inaccurate.”

  “I doubt they need to worry about anybody lugging a generator and a mini-fridge through this jungle. If I have to go much farther, they’re not getting any of these flowers, either. How close are we?”

  I studied the hand-drawn page. “According to the map,” I said, “we’re either almost there or hopelessly lost.”

  “Such fair maidens could never be lost.” Nick Maxwell stepped out of the brush and dipped into a courtly bow.

  I couldn’t help a chuckle. Okay, maybe it sounded more like a guffaw, but I was used to seeing Nick in his white baker’s clothes. Instead, he’d donned tights and a belted sleeveless (but thankfully long) tunic over a blousy work shirt.

  As he rose from his bow, he stopped briefly at chest level, then his face colored. “Audrey, that getup. Are you sure you want to wear—”

  I tugged up the bodice as high as it would go. “All they had. What about you? I thought you said you had your very own set of armor.” When I mentioned I would be providing the flowers for a medieval wedding, Nick had boasted that he was quite involved in the re-creations in college.

  “Ah, but in these fair woods, milady, knights are in abundance, and we have lords and ladies aplenty. Even a jester or two, but today they were more in need of a humble baker. Who else can prepare the trenchers or the sweet cakes for the great feast afterward?”

  “Cake?” Amber Lee asked. “Oh, this just got better.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” he said. “They’re more of a sweet roll, and not very sweet at that, by today’s standards. Traditionally, guests stack them up in a pile to see if the bride and groom can kiss over the top of it.”

  “Sounds more romantic than smooshing cake in each other’s faces,” I said.

  “I always thought that was a horrible waste of cake,” Amber Lee said.

  “Here, let me take that.” Nick relieved Amber Lee of her box of bachelor’s buttons. “It’s not much farther. I was just out collecting kindling.”

  “Kindling?” she asked. “If we’re not getting a proper cake, please tell me we’re having a campfire. I haven’t had a decent s’more in ages, and I know all the words to ‘Kumbaya.’”

  “Don’t let the anachronism police hear you say that,” Nick said. “Europeans didn’t know about chocolate in the Middle Ages, so you shouldn’t find any in the camp.”

  “That must be where the evil comes from,” she said.

  Nick raised his brows. “Evil?”

  “In mid-evil. No society can be truly good without the influence of chocolate. I think that’s in the Bible.”

  “Preach it, sister,” I said, and high-fived her.

  Nick frowned at us. “I don’t know if anybody explained this, but you might want to limit conversation like that to when you’re alone. Some of the more serious participants are hypersensitive about modern language and behavior seeping into the encampment.”

  “Sorry,” Amber Lee said.

  “At least a bonfire will be fun,” I said. “Maybe it will drive away some of these insects.”

  “The kindling is for the oven, I’m afraid,” he said. “All period correct. They had to hire me, since I’m the only one who knows how to regulate the temperature without using a thermometer.”

  “You never fail to amaze me,” I said.

  He winked and then led us along what seemed a much more traveled path, which opened up into another time and place. If I were an expert, I probably could have told you the date and location, but the best I could narrow it down to was Europe sometime in the Middle Ages. We’d wandered into a medieval marketplace bustling with period correctness.

  All except for the man in modern clothing and carrying a video camera.

  “Brad?”

  He turned around.

  “What are you doing here?” I said.

  “Surprise!” He looked me up and down. “I was just telling Nick here that I hoped to see more of you, and I guess I got my wish.”

  I tugged up the bodice of the dress again.

  Brad, here? No, that’s not how it was supposed to be. Nick was the one who was here, the one who took me out for pizza and occasionally beat me in Scrabble. Brad was the one who flirted with me on the phone, long-distance, from wherever his crew was filming their latest reality show. That was the problem with compartmentalizing. Life had a nasty way of breaking down those perilous walls, like when someone tips your takeout container and the pickle juice leaks into your chocolate cake.

  He chuckled. “Seriously, I got the funding I needed to shoot the pilot I told you about.”

  “Your documentary on the re-creationists? What was it? Mid-Evil?”

  “Nah, they canned that title. Copy department wanted something with knights in the title. The leading candidate is now Steamy Knights.” He rolled his eyes. “Whatever it takes to sell it. But it’s not a documentary. It’s a reality show, so I’m looking for plenty of fireworks between the serious historians and the weekend hobbyists. Hope to get some good footage of the festivities tonight, if my crew ever arrives.”

  “They’re letting in a film crew?” I said. “I would have thought that violated their strict rules.”

  “Normally, it would have,” Nick said, eyeing Brad’s modern clothes. “But the powers-that-be have decided a documentary is good for the encampment.”

  “Audrey, there you are!” Andrea, now a proper medieval bride, picked up her skirts and rushed toward me. “I can’t wait to see the flowers!” In her long pale blue gown, she looked like she’d stepped out of a painting from one of their dusty history books.

  Kathleen Randolph had described the dress details to me ad nauseum, assuring me it bore no hint of historical anachronism. All I recalled was that blue represented purity in medieval times, making it a popular choice for a wedding.

  Designing a bouquet that pleased both mother and daughter, however, took considerable research. We’d finally compromised on white roses. These were not the roses found in modern bouquets, however, but an older variety. Rosa alba, and boy, did Liv have
fun getting her hands on these.

  Of course, Kathleen zeroed in on the fact that this particular white rose was the symbol of the House of York. She then went on, in great detail, to highlight the Wars of the Roses, but I think I might have phased out for that part. But these were luscious, fully open double roses with a golden center. They were gorgeous, but I was still a bit torn. The white rose generally represented innocence, and in one of Kathleen’s old books, she’d found a reference to Dante that claimed the white petals of these roses represented paradise and the golden center, God’s glory. But I found a later reference to the “York rose,” which I’m assuming these were, that said the flower had come to symbolize war.

  But that was the Victorian meaning, and these were the Middle Ages, right?

  Before I could debate the matter further, Kathleen bustled up, also in a lavish period gown. She waved a finger at Brad. “It appears I can’t tell you not to film the wedding, since you already have approval of the camp.” Kathleen glared at him, looking less than pleased at this development. “But can you be discreet? Stay out of sight?”

  Brad nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She turned to me. “Yegads, Audrey! What are you wearing?”

  “The dregs of the costume shop, I’m afraid.” I self-consciously pulled up the bodice, which had crept down again. Grandma Mae would be rolling in her grave. Actually, I wasn’t sure she’d be rolling as much as she’d be plotting her escape so she could drag me home by the ear and give me a good talking-to about modesty and dressing like a lady. “I do have a cloak, though.” I unfolded my makeshift backpack and pulled on the yellow cloak.

  A titter of laughter went up among the nearby bystanders, and Kathleen rubbed her forehead, as if she were trying to scrub away a sudden migraine. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

  Andrea laughed. “I was so happy to get my flowers, I didn’t even notice. It’s just like the book, isn’t it? At least it’s period-correct.”

  “Oh dear,” Nick said. “Audrey, you can’t wear that cloak.”