Chương 3
“I asked whether the attachment was correct.”
“It was.”
“We didn’t provide those services.”
“You provided flowers for a donor experience.”
“That’s not what the line says.”
Vivienne looked at her. “Do you always speak this literally?”
“When I’m billing people.”
The answer came out before Nora had time to soften it.
Vivienne’s expression did not change. “The foundation allocates budgets across events. Some vendors are flexible about how services are categorized.”
“I can change the wording for work we performed. I can’t invoice for work we didn’t.”
“I’m not asking you to invent work.”
Nora waited.
Vivienne gave a small sigh, the kind people used when a waiter had misunderstood an order. “You consulted with my staff on the donor experience.”
“I discussed vase placement.”
“And preservation.”
“We put water in the flowers.”
A catering assistant passing behind them lowered his head quickly. Nora could not tell whether he was hiding a smile.
Vivienne’s gaze stayed on her. “You’re very young to be so certain about how businesses operate.”
“I’m not certain about businesses. I’m certain about that invoice.”
“Jo understands the relationship.”
Nora felt heat rise beneath her collar. “Then discuss it with Jo.”
“I intend to.”
Vivienne bent toward the flowers and breathed in, though the orchids had almost no scent.
“People make themselves difficult to protect principles they couldn’t afford to have if someone else weren’t paying their rent,” she said.
Nora’s mother came into her mind so suddenly that it felt like someone had opened a door.
Ellen Bell was not paying Nora’s rent. Since a bakery fire had closed the place where Ellen worked, the arrangement had been the opposite. Nora covered most of the apartment while her mother patched together catering shifts and decorated cakes from their kitchen for customers who still called her. They had stopped buying berries except when they were on sale. The check-engine light in Ellen’s car had been on since February.
Vivienne could not have known any of that.
It made the remark worse.
Nora smoothed the front of her service dress. “Is there anything else you need from me?”
A faint crease appeared between Vivienne’s brows.
“No,” she said. “I think you’ve been very clear.”
Jo returned four minutes later, windblown and irritated.
“What did she say?”
“That we’re difficult.”
Jo closed her eyes.
“I said we can’t use the invoice.”
Jo opened them again. “Exactly like that?”
“More or less.”
“Which means exactly like that.”
“She already knew.”
“Knowing is not the same as making her hear it.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“Not make her hate your face.”
Nora picked up a crate of cut stems. “My face wasn’t involved.”
“Your face is always involved. You have the least apologetic face I’ve ever employed.”
The rest of the afternoon went wrong in ordinary ways. A refrigerator door failed to seal. Two arrangements arrived at the terrace with broken stems. The event planner changed six tables from rounds to long rectangles and acted surprised that the centerpieces no longer fit. Someone misplaced the extension cords for the courtyard lights. By five-thirty, Nora’s feet hurt and the revised invoice had receded behind more immediate problems.
Vivienne disappeared upstairs to dress.
Daniel was supposed to return from New York before the reception began. At six, his chief of staff received word that his flight had been diverted to San Jose because of fog. No one knew whether he would arrive at all.
Vivienne took the news with an expression of practiced disappointment and then rearranged the evening around his absence. She welcomed the first guests alone. She moved through the hall in her champagne gown with a gold necklace at her throat, touching elbows, remembering spouses, asking about surgeries and college acceptances. Her attention was so exact that people warmed in it.
Nora watched her compliment a nervous young server on his posture.
Ten minutes later, Vivienne told the catering manager to replace him because his hands shook.
At seven-forty, the hall was full.
Nora and two other florists had been asked to remain until the speeches began, in case candles damaged arrangements or guests moved flowers. Jo was on the terrace repairing a centerpiece that a donor’s purse had knocked sideways. Nora stood near the service corridor with a small kit containing floral tape, scissors, pins, and extra ribbon.
Luis Ortega, one of the foundation’s temporary event coordinators, found her there.
He was thirty, maybe thirty-two, with an untucked shirt hidden beneath a fitted jacket. He had spent the afternoon carrying boxes no one else wanted to carry.
“You’re Nora, right?” he asked.
She nodded.
He looked toward the hall. “Did Ms. Hale talk to you about an invoice?”
Nora’s stomach tightened. “Why?”
“She asked me yesterday whether your company had sent the final one.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That accounting had the original. Then she asked me to download it from the vendor portal.”
“Did you?”
“I thought something was wrong with the file.”
“Was there?”
Luis rubbed his thumb across the edge of his phone case. “Not until after.”
Before Nora could ask more, a woman in a silver dress approached and requested help with a loose flower on her corsage. By the time Nora fixed it, Luis had been pulled away by the foundation’s finance director.
Nora saw him once more before the spill. He stood near the library doors speaking to Vivienne. Vivienne’s back was to the room. Luis’s face was visible over her shoulder.
He looked frightened.
At eight-twelve, Jo told Nora they could begin packing.
Nora crossed the entrance hall to collect the spare orchid arrangement near the staircase. Vivienne stood above it, speaking with two guests. A server approached carrying four glasses of burgundy wine on a silver tray.
Vivienne looked down at Nora.
For one second, neither of them moved.
Then Vivienne descended two steps, reached for a glass, and let her elbow strike the edge of the narrow table.
May you like
The vase tipped.
Nora caught it against her hip before it shattered, but the server startled. The tray tilted. One glass overturned and hit the floor without breaking. Wine spread beneath Nora’s shoes. The orchid arrangement slipped from her hands. White flowers scattered into the spill.
