Save The Date Part 27

"No. I've not been through rehab. I'm strictly a social drinker. But I grew up with an alcoholic. I know the struggles they face to keep sober."

"Your dad?" the detective asked.

"My mom," Cara said.

She was still brooding about her police interview when the shop phone rang. She picked up the receiver, not even checking the caller-ID screen. "Bloom Floral Design," she said, trying to sound perkier than she felt.

"h.e.l.lo?"

Cara was so surprised, she nearly dropped the phone. The thready, high-pitched voice on the other end sounded just like her recently deceased landlady.

"Bernice?"

"Who the h.e.l.l is this?" the voice on the other end demanded. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"Uh, no. I'm sorry. This is Cara Kryzik. Is this Sylvia?" Come to think of it, Cara had never actually spoken to Bernice Bradley's daughter. She'd always dealt with the older of the two women.

"Yes, it's Sylvia."

Sylvia Bradley sounded eerily like her mother.

"Um, well, Sylvia, I wanted to tell you how very sorry I am about your loss. Your mother was a remarkable woman." It was the nicest thing Cara could say on the spur of the moment. "I'm sure she'll be greatly missed."

"Thank you," Sylvia said curtly. "I see you've been calling to complain about the air conditioner on Jones Street? Again and again? Don't you think it's pretty indecent to be hounding me like this, with my mother not even dead a week?"

"Um, I'm sorry. Truly, very sorry," Cara heard herself stammering. And then she remembered what Bert had pointed out. The Bradleys were the worst kinds of landlords. She paid a premium price for the town house on Jones Street, and had never been even a day late with her rent. The least she should expect from her landlady was a livable building. And when temperatures were in the nineties, that was definitely not livable. Not for a home, or a business.

Cara was emboldened by that thought.

"The thing is, my air conditioner is broken again. It's the third time this spring. It's been broken for ten days, and you know how hot it's been. It's bad enough that I have to try to sleep with no air-conditioning. But it's embarra.s.sing when I have clients, including brides, come into the shop, only to find it's like an oven. It's starting to affect my business, Sylvia. So I would really appreciate if you could get somebody over here to fix it. Today."

"That's not going to happen," Sylvia said flatly. "Even if I could get somebody on such short notice, which I can't. I have a lot of business to tend to, getting Mother's estate taken care of."

Cara's fuse snapped. "No disrespect, Sylvia, but that's not good enough. I've called you repeatedly, with no response, and I even sent a registered letter, so I know you've been notified. This week, I couldn't take the heat another minute. I bought a window unit and installed it downstairs in the shop. And unless you send somebody over here to replace the central unit, I'm going to buy a second unit to allow me to sleep upstairs."

"You do that," Sylvia said.

"And I'm going to attach the receipts and deduct them from my rent next month," Cara added.

There was a prolonged silence at the other end of the phone. Gotcha, Cara thought.

She heard paper rustling in the void. And another long pause.

"Maybe there won't be a next month," Sylvia said finally, with a dry, raspy chuckle.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Could she be hearing correctly? Was this shrew actually threatening her?

"Your lease expired in March," Sylvia pointed out.

"I know that," Cara said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. "But I had an agreement with Bernice. She was fine with me going month to month until June. Then she was going to have a new lease prepared. She'd talked about raising my rent, and I'd agreed, in theory, as long as she got the plumbing looked at and the air-conditioning problems resolved."

"Mother never said anything about that to me," Sylvia said. "Not that it really matters now. I was going to wait and notify you after the closing, but I reckon now's as good a time as any."

Cara felt her scalp p.r.i.c.kle. "Closing?"

"I'm about sick and tired of dealing with whiny tenants and their piddly problems," Sylvia said. "Mama might have put up with that mess, but she's dead now. Jones Street is sold. As of June thirtieth. You got a problem, take it up with the new owner."

"Wait!'" Cara cried. "You sold my building? Without even telling me?"

"Sure did," Sylvia said.

"What if I wanted to buy the building? You didn't even give me right of first refusal."

"Didn't have to," Sylvia said. "Anyway, the way I hear it, you're just barely hanging on over there as it is. Where would you get the money to buy a valuable property like that?"

"What!" Cara exploded. "Where did you hear something like that? That's a lie! My business is solid, and growing. Who did you sell it to anyway? You owe me that much."

"I don't owe you one sorry thing," Sylvia Bradley said. "I reckon you'll be hearing from the new owner soon enough. Here's a word of advice to you though. Start packing. I think he's got plans for that building that don't include you."

After leaving half a dozen voicemail messages for her lawyer, Cara finally got a callback, shortly before five.

"Hi Cara," Melinda Ennis said cheerfully. "How's the flower business?"

Melinda had been another gift from Vicki Cooper, a smart, savvy young Emory Law School grad who wanted a champagne wedding on a beer budget. Cara had managed to pull it off, and in return, the grateful bride had handled Cara's divorce pro bono.

"It was picking up," Cara said. "But after today, I just don't know. It's like the universe is conspiring to grind its heel in my face."

"What's going on?"

Cara quickly filled the lawyer in on the conversation she'd had with Sylvia Bradley.

"She won't even tell me who the new owner is," Cara said, a note of desperation in her voice. "Can she do that-legally?"

"Well, morally and ethically, it sucks," Melinda said carefully. "But since you no longer have a lease in effect, legally, your landlord is correct. She's under no obligation to you whatsoever."

"But that's not right! I've been in this building for over two years, and I've never even been a day late with my rent. I've spent thousands of dollars of my own money fixing it up. And the Bradleys did nothing-nothing to keep up the property. The plumbing, the electrical, the wiring, even the roof, all need work."

"Maybe the new owner will be more responsive," Melinda said soothingly. "It sounds like you've been a model tenant. So hopefully, he'll want to work something out and keep you happy."

"I doubt it. Sylvia said the new owner has plans for my building that don't include me. She actually suggested I should start packing."

"What a hateful old b.i.t.c.h," Melinda said with a sigh. "I wish there was something I could do to help here, but I guess you'll just have to wait until you hear from the new landlord."

"Isn't there any way I can find out right now? Some kind of court records you could look up?"

"Once the property's closed and the deed is registered, it'll be public information," Melinda said. "But not until then. Sylvia actually told you the closing isn't till the end of the month?"

"The thirtieth," Cara confirmed. "Three weeks from now. What if this new owner really does kick me out? How am I gonna find a new place I can afford, pack up and move in the middle of my busiest time of the year?"

"We're just going to have to be proactive," Melinda said. "You know what Savannah's like. Everybody talks about everything. Especially real-estate transactions. Tell you what. I'll go over to the courthouse tomorrow, do some poking around. I'll get Andy to tap into his old-boy network too. We'll figure out who the owner is, come up with an offer you can afford, and approach him before he has time to shop around for new tenants."

"You really think that could work?" Cara asked. She had serious doubts.

"It's worth a try," Melinda said. "But Cara? I don't want to scare you or anything, but in the meantime, just in case, maybe you'd better start looking around for a new address."

Cara looked around her tiny shop, and thought of the comfortable aerie she'd fashioned for herself upstairs. Her budget was stretched to the max already. A new address?

She wondered what her brides would think of a florist who lived and worked out of a petal-pink van.

35.

When the going got tough, Cara headed for the shower. She didn't know when she'd started treating the shower like a combination confessional and therapist's couch.

Maybe it had started when she'd first moved to Savannah. Leo was the kind of man who made friends effortlessly. Within a month of their move, he was having drinks after work with clients, weaseled his way into a golf foursome, was on a first-name basis with all their neighbors.

"Never met a stranger, that boy!" the Colonel liked to say of her ex.

It was harder for Cara. Every time she opened her mouth, people would stare at her and ask, "Where are you from?" And when she said Ohio they looked at her with pity. n.o.body could p.r.o.nounce her name-"Kryzike? Krisshick? What kind of name is that?"

"Krizz-ick," she'd say patiently. "It's a Croatian name."

To which they'd look even more puzzled. "Croatia? That's a country?"

She had little in common with the neighbors in their subdivision, most of whom were young mothers, who already had their own friends-their own play groups, their own supper clubs, their own girlfriends. They never came right out and said it, but the situation was clear. n.o.body was currently taking applications for new friends.

Once, that first fall after they moved in, out of desperation, she'd written out invitations to a soup supper and slipped them into the mailboxes of all eight houses on their end of the block.

She'd fixed a huge pot of Italian wedding soup, a salad, and an apple streusel pie, and set everything out on the dining room table, along with a gorgeous arrangement of fall flowers she'd placed in a hollowed-out pumpkin. Exactly one couple-Arnie and Sheila Jenkins, retirees who lived at the head of the street-came. They'd eaten their soup hurriedly, made lame excuses for why n.o.body else had come-"Georgia has a home game tomorrow"-and rushed off without even touching dessert. She would never forget the look of pity on their faces.

Cara had thrown the whole pie in the trash and retreated to the shower to weep and curse.

Friday nights during the spring were the worst. She'd come home from work, and see women standing in knots in the cul-de-sac, chatting, sipping from plastic winegla.s.ses, while their children circled on bikes or scooters. She'd smell the charcoal drifting from backyard grills, see couples hurrying to each other's houses with covered ca.s.serole dishes, or coolers tucked under their arms.

Cara would retreat to the shower. She'd stand under the shower and cry while she washed her hair. She'd curse the sn.o.bby neighbors and call them crackers and ignorant rednecks while she shaved her legs. While she was rubbing conditioner into her scalp she'd tell herself it wasn't her-it was them. She'd had friends back home. Lots of friends.

When her marriage to Leo crumbled, Cara hid in the shower. She could still remember that night-that awful Valentine's Day night-when she'd figured out he was having a fling with the dental hygienist. She'd locked herself in the bathroom and stayed in the shower for two hours, only emerging after the hot water ran out. Then she'd packed her bags and run away from home. And cursed again, when she realized she'd left a nearly new bottle of expensive shampoo in her old shower. Would the dental hygienist use it?

Now, two years later, just when she'd thought maybe her luck was changing, just when she'd managed to feather a new nest for herself, the tiny pink bathtub in her downtown apartment-the one Jack referred to as the Barbie dream tub-became her solace once again. Her building sold? Where would she go? Where would she get the money to start over? Not from her father, she knew. She already had a missed call from the Colonel this morning. He always called on the shop phone, thank goodness.

The old lead pipes in the town house knocked and shuddered when she turned on the spigot, and normally the hot-water heater took a full fifteen minutes to heat up, and would run out before she'd finished crying-or rinsing her hair. But today she was taking a cool bath.

Somehow, this time, when she stepped onto the bath mat, she felt a little better. Maybe Sylvia Bradley was mistaken. Any landlord would be an improvement over the Bradleys. Maybe the new owner would finally fix up the building and allow her to stay. And if not? This was not the only house in the historic district. Nearly every block had at least one "for lease" sign in a front window. She'd call her real-estate agent and start looking. At least, she thought, she had the Trapnell wedding coming up. She'd have to postpone paying off her debt to the Colonel. She'd just have to make him understand. He was her father-he'd have to understand.

The one good thing about sleeping on the shop floor was that she was up early every morning. By eight o'clock, she'd already finished making the four bridesmaids' bouquets for Sat.u.r.day's wedding. She'd pulled incoming orders off their internet server, and written up the phone orders so that Bert could get started on them when he got in at nine. She frowned, remembering the earlier confrontation with her a.s.sistant. He'd better get in at nine.

At 8:45, she was wheeling the vintage garden cart out to the sidewalk when she saw Jack's big black truck come down the block. She felt a little tug in her chest. It was pathetic and needy, but yes, she'd wondered if and when he'd call again.

He parked across the street and jumped out of the truck. He was dressed for work, blue jeans, clean white T-shirt, work boots. She found herself studying him, measuring him against Leo, Leo in his expensive sport coats and silk ties and spit-polished shoes. Leo with his salesman's smoothness. No. Make that slickness.

Jack Finnerty wasn't polished and he wasn't smooth, and his jeans were faded and ragged at the knee, and he looked so good right now she got a little weak in the knees as he crossed the street, bounded onto the curb, and grabbed her around the waist for a kiss.

"Some welcoming committee," he said, when he let her go.

"What are you doing in town?" Cara asked, smiling up at him. "I thought you were working out at Cabin Creek all week."

"Ryan's over there now, waiting on a lumber delivery," he said. "We found some old-growth heart pine that came out of a closed-up textile mill in Greenville, South Carolina, for the new floor for the barn." He hesitated, then frowned.

"You're not gonna like what I've got to tell you."

She sighed. "I guess you've heard. Probably Torie told Ryan and Ryan told you, right? Well, it's true. Somehow, I managed to lose Lillian Fanning's heirloom silver epergne. She's called the police, and now it's a whole big thing."

"Epergne? No, I don't know anything about that," Jack said, running a hand through his hair. "But h.e.l.l, that's bad enough. Lillian's not saying you stole it, right?"

"Not me. No. She's convinced Bert is a thief."

Jack rolled his eyes. "She probably misplaced it herself. It'll turn up."

"I hope you're right," Cara said. "Because the thing is worth like a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars."

His eyes widened. "Holy c.r.a.p."

"I know. So, what is it you have to tell me that I'm not gonna like? You're married? Carrying an STD? Come on, Jack, just spit it out and get it over with."

He picked a bloom from a potted gardenia on the garden cart and handed it to her. A consolation prize? "I'm here because your new landlord wants an estimate of what it's gonna cost to renovate your building."

"Well, at least you're not married, and you haven't given me a venereal disease," Cara said, making a weak joke.

"Did you have any idea your landlady was selling the place?" he asked.

"None. Sylvia finally returned my calls yesterday, and while I was in the middle of chewing her out about the air-conditioning, she dropped the bomb. Said it didn't matter because she'd sold the building. Without even telling me! And then she basically told me I should start packing, because the new landlord has plans that don't include me."

Jack nodded sympathetically. "It sucks. Big-time."

She grabbed the front of his T-shirt. "So who hired you? Who bought the building? Sylvia wouldn't even give me the satisfaction of telling me. I guess maybe she's afraid I'll call the guy and tell him everything that's wrong with the building before the sale closes."

"He hasn't hired us yet. But I get the feeling the guy already knows what all's wrong with the building. He's been in it a couple times, from what he told me."