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“I should go check in on them,” she said.
“Or not. Violet has it covered.”
“I’m sure she does. I’ll bring Dahlia over anyway. Violet will be annoyed if I don’t introduce them. Who knows when my sister will be here again.”
“You might be the middle child,” Rose said. “But it seems like you’re the one that is holding your family together.”
She found that funny, but maybe it was right when it came to her sisters. She wasn’t close with her brothers like she was Ivy and Dahlia. As much as she hated the childhood she had, she still wanted that bond with her sisters to hold onto.
She didn’t think it was a control thing, but something told her if she didn’t make the effort she might not have it. Dahlia tended to get lost in her own world and time blew by her, but now she was wondering if her older sister had some issues too.
Ivy just floated through life and hoped that the wind didn’t knock her back too much.
Jasmine had always been the more grounded of the sisters. She wouldn’t say motherly at all, but maybe she was.
She knew that in the past few months of dating Wesley she was starting to look at her life differently now. Look at some kind of a future but was saying she had to hold back for him.
Maybe it was more she was holding back for her though?
She didn’t know anything anymore it seemed. Nothing more than she couldn’t wait until the rest of her family met him.
“I guess I am,” she said. “As much as anyone can hold them together.”
Her sisters had their hands full of things and were at the counter now. She walked over to see what they were doing, Poppy following and Rose going back to the jewelry counter to be by Daisy.
“Come over to this register,” Poppy said, opening one. “I’ll ring you out with the family discount.”
Jasmine smiled.
“You know what you need?” Ivy said. “Hand-held checkouts. They only take credit cards. When it’s busy, the girls on the floor can go to the line and see if people are paying with credit cards and ring them out easier.”
“Really?” Poppy asked.
“Yes. They’ve got them where I worked. If things got really busy and the lines long, those on the floor doing merchandising could pull customers over to a few spots that had bags tucked away. Ring them out and print their slips from that device and then send them on their way.”
“Interesting,” Poppy said. “I’ll have to bring that up to Lily.”
“I guess you’ve got good ideas in that brain of yours,” Dahlia said.
“I was good at my job,” Ivy said firmly. “It might not be glamorous like sitting at a desk all day long looking at numbers, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t work hard at it.”
Jasmine looked at Poppy and saw the raised eyebrow. “Ivy does sound like me. Sweetie,” Poppy said while she was ringing everything out and applying more than a family discount, “you be you. It took me a long time to figure that out. Everyone will be happier in the long run, trust me.”
“Thanks,” Ivy said.
Once they were cashed out, she introduced Dahlia to Daisy, then went to the flower shop and did the same with the staff there. She resisted the urge to check on anything in the back and then they went to her apartment knowing her parents were only about fifteen minutes out.
“I’m so excited to see Mom again,” Ivy said. “I haven’t hugged her or Dad since I left seven years ago.”
“It does seem like a long time,” she said.
“Too long. I knew I couldn’t get away fast enough,” Dahlia said, “but I haven’t seen them in nine years. I couldn’t get to Texas when you came, Ivy. I haven’t seen them since they came in for Jasmine’s graduation.”
Dahlia had driven to Georgia for that. To see Jasmine walk the stage and get her diploma and visit with their parents, Ivy and Chase too. It was the last time the five of them were together. When Chase started at Columbia a few years ago, her parents couldn’t help him get set up and asked that Jasmine do it since she was only a few hours away.
She’d had no problem with it. She helped him get his car and set up in his dorm, get his banking information and anything else he needed to get started. Chase was the most independent of them and was fine on his own though.
It wasn’t even five minutes that they were back at her place when Ivy heard the car door. She looked out the window, opened the door and ran down the stairs to greet their parents.
