“Unbelievable!” Lillian exploded. “You feel terrible? You lose the single most valuable family heirloom I own, and that’s the best you can do? Feel terrible? Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“N-n-n-no,” Cara squeaked.
“What do you intend to do about it?” Lillian demanded.
“What would you like me to do?”
“Have you called the police?”
“The police? Why would I call the police?”
“Because obviously, it’s been stolen.” Lillian looked around the shop. “Did you ask your assistant if he’d seen it?”
“Yes! He spent most of the afternoon looking for it.”
“And you believe him?”
Cara felt her scalp prickle. “Yes. I believe him. Bert has worked for me for two years. Why would he lie about something like this?”
“Why wouldn’t he? That epergne is worth thousands and thousands of dollars. What do you pay the man? Minimum wage?”
“I pay Bert a living wage,” Cara said, struggling to keep her temper. “He’s not a thief, Lillian. Or a liar. And neither am I. In fact, I resent your implying otherwise.”
“What do you really know about him, Cara? Do you run a criminal-record check before you hire these people?”
“I know that Bert Rosen is a decent, honest, hardworking person.”
“And how did you come to hire this decent, honest, hardworking person? Did he come to you with references?”
No,Cara thought.He came to me right out of rehab. And I hired him because I believe he deserved a second chance. And he still does.
Lillian took a step closer to Cara, and then another step. “I don’t give a good goddamn what you resent. You and your assistant are responsible for the loss of that epergne. It didn’t just get up and run away. It was stolen! And if you won’t file a police report, I will.”
“And then what?” Cara asked. She refused to take Lillian’s bait. “Is the epergne insured?”
“I’ll have to call our agent,” Lillian said. “And our lawyer.”
Cara felt first her right eye twitch, and then her left. Lawyer?
“Let me know what you find out,” she said finally. “Of course, if the epergne isn’t insured, I fully intend to pay for its replacement.”
Lillian gave her a pitying look. “How sweet. And how do you plan to come up with that kind of money?”
Cara chewed the inside of her mouth. She felt bile rising in her throat. She searched for some clever, searing retort to Lillian’s patronizing sneer. But she had nothing. Except that throbbing pain in her temple.
“Let me worry about that,” she said finally.
34
Cara was creating her sixth new-baby arrangement of the morning. It wasn’t a terribly creative endeavor—pink carnations, multicolored gerbera daisies, and white for mothers of baby girls, blue hydrangeas, daisies, and white carnations for those who’d delivered boys. Sometimes, she did dish gardens, with themed flowers tucked in. But she loved putting them together, loved the thought of new moms, smiling down at their own new creations, and then up at the candy stripers delivering their flowers.
She also loved the fact that few of the recipients of those arrangements had the time or energy to call up and bitch at her about misplaced epergnes or tacky-looking cupcakes.
True to her word, Lillian had reported the epergne as stolen to the police. On Tuesday, an apologetic Savannah police detective called to make an appointment to discuss the incident.
The missing epergne—combined with the hot sticky climate in her upstairs apartment—had kept her awake for two nights in a row. Finally, Wednesday night, Cara dragged a sofa cushion, pillow, and quilt downstairs and slept in the blissful cool of the workroom.
And Thursday morning, in the middle of all those happy baby flower arrangements, the detective arrived. She was a middle-aged black woman, who introduced herself as Zarah Peebles. “Zarah, like Sarah with a ‘Z,’” she said, handing Cara her business card.
