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Because they were four women working alone, sometimes late at night—or early in the morning, as was the case today—they’d tried to make the building as safe as possible. There were sturdy doors and locks, monitored security, camera surveillance on the entrances, and the casement windows were all protected by some very thorny shrubbery. They had never had even a hint of trouble. The area was wonderful and, really, what idiot would break into an event planner establishment? Everything they did was paid for by check or credit card, so at any given time the only cash on the premises would be what they had in their wallets. A vending machine would be a better bet for a thief.
She pulled into her designated parking slot right beside the back door, and Madelyn’s Jag pulled in not five seconds later. A pink umbrella bloomed like a giant exotic flower, then Madelyn got out of the car under its protective cap. Jaclyn mirrored her mother’s actions, though her own umbrella was an ordinary black one. The rain wasn’t heavy, but she didn’t want to start the day with wet clothes and limp hair.
“I have protein smoothies,” Madelyn said, then she leaned back inside to fetch the promised drinks.
“What flavor?”
“Don’t look a gift smoothie in the mouth. Vanilla. I was out of strawberries.”
“I have a banana I’ll split with you. We can slice it into the smoothies, run them through the blender again.”
“Deal.”
She couldn’t juggle everything at once, so Jaclyn got her briefcase and left the banana and coffee in the car for a second trip, then hurried to unlock the door. The security system began beeping and she set her briefcase on the small demilune table stationed in the short hallway, then coded in the number to disarm the system. Madelyn moved past her, carefully maneuvering the umbrella, her own briefcase, and the two smoothies.
Five minutes later they were sitting at the conference table with their jazzed-up smoothies, going over the wedding for that evening, making certain no detail had been forgotten. Madelyn had turned on the small television in the corner and they both breathed a sigh of relief when the local weather showed clearing by lunch. “Thank God,” drawled Peach Reynolds as she breezed into the conference room in time to hear the weather prediction. She automatically started making a pot of coffee; she was one of those who drank coffee almost nonstop all day. “And while I’m giving thanks to the Good Lord, I’ll throw in my heartfelt gratitude for air-conditioning, because the humidity is going to be unbearable. Are y’all drinking those god-awful smoothies again?”
Peach—whose real name was Georgia, of course—scorned anything that even remotely resembled healthy eating, evidenced by the chocolate-filled Krispy Kreme doughnut she’d brought in. She had a cloud of bright red hair, slanted green eyes, and fifteen or twenty extra pounds that put her just the other side of lush. It was evidently a body type that was very popular with men, because she never lacked for dates, though it was fair to say her exuberant personality also had something to do with that. Madelyn was more low-key, but barely. The two of them together could work a room in a way that would turn any politician green with envy.
“We are,” said Madelyn. “But when you drop dead at the age of sixty from a heart attack caused by sky-high cholesterol, I promise I won’t add insult to injury by toasting your poor stiff, cold body with a nutritious smoothie. Because you’re my friend, I’ll break out the good whiskey.”
“Consider me comforted.” Peach took a bite of her doughnut, delicately licking the chocolate that oozed out. “But I’m going to be cremated, so you’d better toast me before I’m toasted, if you want to keep to that stiff, cold idea.”
“You are not.”
“Are not what?”
“Going to be cremated. You’ve told me you want a lavish funeral with all your ex-lovers weeping over your beautiful body as you lie there in the casket, which, by the way, you said you wanted festooned with white lilies, though I think festooning is in poor taste for a funeral, with a bagpiper piping away and white horses pulling your gun-wagon thingie to the cemetery. You can’t be beautiful in a casket and be cremated. They’re kind of mutually exclusive.”
“You don’t get a gun carriage,” Jaclyn said. “Heads of state get gun carriages. Think of the traffic nightmare. I’m pretty sure you’d have to have permission from the governor.”
“Well, rain on my parade, why don’t you?” Peach grumbled. “You’d think the one time a person could have everything she wanted was at her own damn funeral. At least play the songs I want, okay?”
“Sure,” Madelyn agreed, “as long as it isn’t ‘You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille.’”
“Spoilsport. Okay, how about Floyd Cramer’s ‘Last Date’? Get it? Because it will be.”
“You’re sick. Just sick. You won’t be here anyway, so what do you care? I’ll give you a perfectly lovely funeral, in keeping with Premier’s reputation and standards.”
“You’re turning my funeral into an event? I don’t know whether to be flattered or pissed that you’d use my death to promote the business.”
“Oh, honey, I promise you, your funeral will be an event. I’ll just have to make sure it’s a tasteful one.”
“Speaking of taste … Jaclyn, sweetheart, you do know your Saturday wedding is a rolling disaster, don’t you?”
Jaclyn looked up, her lips already twitching. “I began to get a glimmer of that when the bride insisted her eleven-month-old daughter, who isn’t the groom’s child by the way, be pulled down the aisle in a red wagon.” She couldn’t help laughing. The wedding was going to be hilarious, but as long as the couple was happy with the arrangements, her job was to make the wedding happen the way they wanted. Taste, or lack of it, wasn’t her call to make. “Diedra is thanking her lucky stars we have so much booked this week, so she can take one of the Saturday rehearsals instead of doing the wedding.”
“I’ll be so glad when this week is over,” Madelyn said, looking at the schedule on the board. Because they were so booked for the week, they weren’t trying to slot in any appointments; they had their hands full, since six weddings also meant six rehearsals. She rubbed her hands together. “Our bank account, however, is very happy. None of the checks bounced.”
“Glory hallelujah for that,” Jaclyn said wryly. “Now, if I can just get through all of today’s appointments with Carrie without anyone quitting, including me, the rest of the week will be smooth sailing in comparison.”
“Quit if you have to,” Madelyn said, her lips pressing together. “Don’t take any bullshit from her. The amount we’d have to repay would be well worth getting rid of her.”
Their contracts were prorated, so Premier got paid for the work they’d done to date. That protected them from being fired at the last minute and then refused payment because they hadn’t completed the job. Several times some frugal, or fraudulent—depending on how you looked at it—brides and/or mothers had tried that. Once they’d learned they couldn’t get the hefty fees repaid, every one of them had then decided that Premier’s services were just fine, after all.
“If we can just get past that magic point where she thinks she can change her mind and still have time to get what she wants done, I think we’ll be okay. Not happy, but okay.”
Madelyn rolled her eyes. “We’re already past that point.”
