13. Lurielle

Lurielle

The cool, vegetal smell of the flower shop instantly set her at ease.

There was nothing artificial here, no perfumed air or additional incense or vapor to telegraph what a high-end establishment it was in order to prepare whatever hapless bride walked through the door to loosen her purse strings. Compared to the several shops they'd visited in Bridgeton, The Perfect Petal was . . . perfect. At least, for her.

The front of the shop was a long wall of refrigerated cases. Two of the cases held floral arrangements that were already made – baskets and vases, just waiting for a personalized note to be dropped into the array on a pick. The rest of the cases held buckets of flowers, in every color and variety she could've possibly wished for. It might have been overwhelming at another time, but at this point, Lurielle was just ready to be done.

"I don't know, Bluebell. This is just a li'l local shop. Are you sure you wouldn't be happier with one of those designer –"

Khash cut off as she clamped her hand around his wrist, squeezing with all her might as an elderly Naga came out of the back room from around the corner, bowing slightly upon seeing them. His skin was the same color as one of the bronzed oak leaves trembling from the branches of the trees lining her street, seeming just as paper-thin and creased with age as those leaves. The tail behind him was a muted violet, banded in a deeper shade that she suspected was likely brilliant in his younger years. His hair was a shock of white, and he peered at her through tiny oval glasses. He looked like a kindly grandfather, the exact opposite of every single pushy salesperson she'd encountered in her short wedding quest. Perfect.

"What can we help you with?" The older gentleman gave her a kind smile, which Lurielle returned tremulously.

"I was hoping we could look at your wedding portfolios? I think I'd like to set up a consultation."

The Naga gave them several binders to peruse, telling them to take their time as he turned slowly with a lurching undulation back around the corner.

"It's not too late to cut and run, Lurielle."

Khash's voice was a low rumble, leaning sideways to talk into her hair. She made the same pspsp noise at him that she occasionally did to Junie when the terrier was acting particularly naughty in plain view.

"Will you hush? Why do you think I want to go to some fancy designer shop? Haven't we already walked out of three of those?"

Khash gathered himself up, clearly preparing to refute her point, but she jabbed a short, stubby index finger in his direction, stopping him before he began. "Zip it. I told you two weeks ago I wanted to just go with a local shop."

"Local is a relative, isn't it, darlin'?"

She scowled, forcing herself to take a deep breath and turn away.

She had learned the truth of the old adage "careful what you wish for". She should have been more careful before she put out into the universe that she wanted help planning her wedding. Should have been a bit more circumspect in where she was voicing her frustrations and her fears. And above all, she should have had her head examined before she allowed Khash to accompany her on all these appointments. She had started off unsure of what sort of wedding she wanted to have, but now Lurielle was pretty damn certain that obtaining her marriage certificate from City Hall would suffice.

"Bluebell, I don't think this place could do the flowers for the grand opening of a lemonade stand. Look at those shelves. You know what I don't see? A single one'a them twisty glitter sticks. Now how are you supposed to be an establishment of class if you're not puttin' height on our arrangements with some twisted up glitter?"

Lurielle ignored him, flipped open one of the binders, staring down at the page, her mouth dropping open. The arrangement was lovely. White roses and pink lilies, backed by what she had recently learned was white gladiolus, with palm fronds arcing in the background to complete the shape. The casket cover matched the standing spray perfectly – roses flowing into lilies flowing into gladiolus, with an edge of greenery. Lovely and coordinated and eternal. She snapped the book shut. Burials and memorials. She nodded with whatever cruel goddess of fate was laughing at her from afar. That's right, keep it up. Everyone's a comedian.

The next binder was, thankfully, actually full of wedding photos. Hand-tie bouquets, small clusters of posies, baskets for tiny flower girls. She paused at the page of flower crowns and other small arrangements to be worn in one's hair, admiring the half circlet worn by the bride in the photo. Perfect. The bouquets looked just as nice as she had seen online, table arrangements as big or as small as one wanted, with a selection of both examples. This is it. This is the place. Simple. Local. Done.

Since deciding what it was she wanted — a small Elvish-style ceremony here in Cambric Creek, one to which she could invite her grandmothers — Lurielle had been all too eager to hand the responsibility off to a wedding planner and wash her hands of the headache.

She could describe her wants in just enough detail that she was comfortable passing it on — an Elvish-feeling ceremony, but nothing that required any observance of old-fashioned traditions. It didn't need to take place at the sun temple. They didn't need to exchange promises in high Elvish, no one needed to barter with her for her hand, and she certainly didn't need all of the pomp and over-the-top extravagance of a club wedding. The endless flowers, the exchange of jewels, the wishing well — she didn't need any of it.

All she needed was a group of their family and friends, a picturesque tree, someone to perform the hand binding, and a small bouquet of flowers for each of her friends. That was it. A little ceremony and her blue dress and she would be happy. Khash and his clan could throw however large of a fire vow ceremony they felt necessary, and she would be there with bells on. She had decided her fitting room friend Vanessa was right. Outsource the dirty work.

She had never in a million years expected her plans to be hamstrung by the one person who'd claimed she could do whatever she wanted.

Khash had frowned when she mentioned the idea of hiring a wedding planner. "Bluebell, do you really think that's necessary? You're the one who said you wanted to control the budget, darlin'. I thought half the fun of getting married in the first place was plannin' the party."

Lurielle squinted at him from the other side of the kitchen the night he had the bald audacity to say that to her. "Said literally no one ever. Did you just hear yourself? The wedding industrial complex is a multi-billion-dollar machine and wedding planners are a vital part of that for a reason. Because it's too complicated for anyone sane to want to deal with! It would be so much easier to just hand it off to a coordinator then we can just show up on the big day and have a blast."

He's not argued with her, but she'd been able to tell he was pouting. You're hurting his feelings by cutting him out of the planning. Just because you don't like doing this doesn't mean he doesn't want to be a part of it. It's not just your wedding, after all. He'd been so sullen over it for the next several days that she'd relented, making appointments with both the florist off the highway and the multi-species, non-denominational moon temple in town, hoping to book their lovely party room.

It was then that she'd learned something heretofore unknown about her fiancé. Something, Lurielle realized after the fact, she should have already suspected. She already knew Khash liked the finer things in life and considered himself to be a refined gentleorc of good taste. What Lurielle did not realize was that his expectations were far loftier than her own, as judgmental as any elf dowager at the club, and that when he perceived that a competition existed for resources, it ignited some obstinate, competitive corner in his brain.

"I'm so sorry. We have the Hemming wedding in June and that's going to take up the bulk of our man-power in the lead-up. It's a week-long commitment we've already made. Just setting up for it is . . . Well, I don't even like to think about it right now. You know we're just a small non-profit, we don't have much staff for these types of things. If you wanted to push back to July, though, as long as it's not Mothweek, I'm sure we could fit you in."

The mothwoman was apologetic, if nothing else. Her long, spindly fingers knitted together before her, fluffy antenna bobbing as she gave Lurielle and Khash an apologetic smile.

Lurielle had been about to accept the compromise. July is going to be really hot and you're going to sweat through your dress, but what other choice do you have? Are you going to waste an entire year not being married when you should be combining your lives and making memories together, starting a family?

Ris had questioned her accelerated timeline for making things official and she had sidestepped the question, not wanting to voice her thoughts out into the world a second time. If you say it three times it might come true, like that woman in the mirror.

"I'm sorry, I don't think that's gonna work for us."

Her mouth dropped open, the sticky sweet voice coming from somewhere over her head without warning and without discussion.

"I'm hot just thinking about an outdoor ceremony in July. But thank you for taking the time to meet with us."

"What was that?!" she'd hissed as they crossed the parking lot. "July might be the best we can do!"

Khash looked down dubiously. "Lurielle don't even pretend your back's not itchin' at the thought of standing under that blazing sun. I've been to weddings before. I know nothing starts on time, no matter how well prepared you are, darlin'. You'll come out with your flowers and your ribbons, looking as pretty as a picture, and I'll already be a puddle in the grass. No, ma'am. If we're waiting until July, we can wait until September."

At the florist, later that same week, he gripped her hand, squeezing minutely, telegraphing his disapproval. They had barely crossed the threshold of the door on their way out before he began clucking his tongue.

"Bluebell, do I look like some anxious teenager taking you to the elder's promenade? My granddaddy didn't raise up no skinflint. I've seen bouquets at the supermarket that looked nicer than that."

As they drove home, she comprehended the uphill battle she was in for.

Khash had found fault everywhere they went. Boutiques in Bridgeton, a tiny shop in Greenbridge Glen — no one was safe from his pie in the sky expectations. For someone who had no opinions on the sort of ceremony she wanted, he suddenly had all the opinions in the world about particular businesses, the selection they had on hand, and what sort of display they would be able to do. It might have been easier if she'd been able to leave him home — which she might have done, had Ris or Silva been available a single time she'd called. Instead, he was there — willing, eager, and sabotaging her entire plan for a small, simple affair.

It wasn't completely his fault. She was forced to concede that he was not the only one who had seemingly become an expert wedding planner overnight. Everywhere they went, businesses that had previously advertised reptilian first molt ceremonies and lunar celebrations for the mothfolk were now certified wedding authorities, specializing in the institution of matrimony, no longer honoring the moderate and reasonable prices featured in their existing catalog.

All she wanted to do was plan something small, and between her fiancé and the business owners, Lurielle felt thwarted at every turn.

She didn't have time to let her frustration bubble over. Before they'd even had a chance to flip through the first book, the back doors came bursting open. It was a different Naga, harried and frazzled, younger than the elderly gentleman who'd greeted them, but clearly a relation.

"Hi, I'm so sorry. There's been a mistake."

Lurielle's eyes widened slightly. "We – we were just looking at the wedding —"

"My dad should have called me out, I'm so sorry. He doesn't remember — He said you're interested in doing a wedding? Before I even put your consultation on the books, we need to discuss dates. My schedule is stretched paper-thin right now."

Her heart began to sink, already knowing where this was going. We need to just wait until next fall. It'll be fine. He's going to have to stop eating red meat and take up jogging, but it'll be fine.

"We were hoping for sometime this spring," Khash said, glancing at Lurielle, receiving her nod. "Spring or early summer. No later than June."

When the snake man pulled a face, her heart sank. They were already having a hard time finding a venue. For as much as Khash was unimpressed with the selection and quality of the businesses they had visited in Bridgeton and Greenbridge Glen, even traveling as far as Starling Heights one afternoon, the situation here at home was even more fraught.

Lurielle would have preferred doing everything right there in town. Her dress, the venue, the florist. Their wedding jewelry, the music, everything. Cambric Creek boasted businesses that could have done it all. But every shop had the same story upon learning she was hoping for a spring wedding.

You're not going to cry. You are not going to start crying in the middle of this flower shop. There will be a whole field of dandelions next to the sex toy shop come the first week of May. You can jump out of the car and pick a bunch of those and it will be fine. Everyone likes yellow.

"Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. I have the Hemming wedding. I'm just not sure if I'm going to be able to take on anything else."

Of course. Sometimes, Lurielle thought, it was a wonder how she had survived her adolescence as cleanly as she'd been able to. She clearly didn't pay attention to a single thing beyond the tip of her pushed-in nose. Otherwise, before she'd got it into her head that she and Khash desperately needed to get married that spring, she might have paid attention to the fact that one of the Cambric Creek elite was to be wed right around the general time frame that she was thinking for her own ceremony, might have considered what that meant, and may have saved herself the frustration the past month had wrought.

Grayson Hemming and his massive spectacle of a wedding had become the bane of her entire existence.

"I heard they're doing the service right before the full moon! I can't tell if that's romantic or if they're begging for a lawsuit."

She'd listened to a pair of lizard folk at the coffee shop, the women laughing over the notion of a full moon adjacent wedding ending in bloodshed, apparently.

"How many carats was the ring?"

That had been the day she'd stopped into Petite Trésor, looking with trepidation at the Orcish wrist cuffs in their case. Delicate tennis bracelets and charms, worn on nice nights out for a few hours at most — she could handle easily. Anything more than that, though . . . She'd been making a point of wearing her smartwatch every day, trying to train herself out of feeling chafed, reminding herself that she was going to be stuck with something heavier and permanent very soon.

The woman behind the counter had laughed at the troll's question, another customer like her, Lurielle assumed.

"Let's put it this way, she's gonna need to have a very strong wrist."

A life-long resident from the oldest, most powerful family in town, the werewolf's upcoming vows had flung the entire town into a frenzy, eating up every inch of time, space, and resources Cambric Creek and the business district his father had single-handedly created, could hope to provide.

Khash went a little cross-eyed every time the Hemming name was invoked.

The day they were nearly laughed out the door at the small bakery she'd been hoping to secure for custom-made cookies for all of the children in Khash's family, he'd sputtered so long, Lurielle realized they were halfway home before he finally managed to articulate a single word.

"Bluebell, why do I feel like someone is trying to lure me in the outhouse to roll me down the hill? Who are these people and why is everyone pretendin' their wedding is more important than ours?"

They were home by then, and she waited until they were in the house to answer. "I'm changing. Can you please pour me some lemonade? I need to take about ten of those headache pills." By the time she had changed into her comfortable lounge pants and a women in STEM t-shirt, Khash was already outside, flapping his gums to Rourke. Fortunately, he had poured her lemonade. Unfortunately, it was sitting outside on the table. Rourke was mid sentence as she came out the door.

"— Defense League. They actually do a lot of good cross-species work. I know he was in private practice before that, so he's probably loaded."

"That doesn't matter," she snorted, interrupting the two identical blowhards, pulling a chair out at her little table.

Khash and Rourke turned their heads to her simultaneously, practically choreographed, and she rolled her eyes. She might have laughed if she hadn't been feeling so beat down.

"He's a Hemming. He's from the oldest family in town," she began, checking off on her fingers all of the reasons why she would not be able to book a single service as long as her own nuptials fell in the shadow of the Hemming affair. "Who, by the way, is the most powerful family in town. His dad runs the whole town. His grandfather was the previous mayor. His brother is running to be the new mayor. Everyone knows him, everyone knows his family. There is not one single business who will turn away a penny from him to do anything for us, and I was dumb enough to decide I wanted to get married at the exact same time. So, yeah. I guess we're waiting until fall."

Up until a few months ago, she hadn't cared about getting married, not really. If she were able to eliminate the ever-present Memento Mori that seemed to be floating over their heads, she still wouldn't care about it. But since her revelation, since she had begun counting years, doing the math and re-figuring the balance, over and over again, now it was all that mattered. It and all the other things she needed to cram in as quickly as possible.

How long would they have together with their children if she managed to get pregnant within the next year? She'd mentally calculated and re-calculated that precise scenario the day she stared up at the ceiling with her feet in stirrups, having her birth control removed for good. What major life milestones could be reached? Would they celebrate major anniversaries? See their children win awards, go off on adventures, have marriages of their own? Would he get to know and spoil his grandchildren? Be the subject of their ‘my granddaddy didn't marry an elf and move to the suburbs for me to not have a house on the moon'-type stories?

She hadn't cared about getting married, but now it seemed like the most pressing, important thing in the world. A permanent memory for her book, something they would have done together forever. She was mortified when tears burned her eyes.

"Bluebell, I don't care if his daddy hung the moon. Sounds to me their noses are so high in the air, they might drown in a rainstorm. You want a spring wedding this year. What my darlin' wants, she's gonna get. I don't understand why they're not going to the high-end boutiques in Bridgeton for all this."

Rourke had shaken his head, horns cutting through the air. "No, that would be bad optics. That's the whole push on Jack's downtown – decreased reliance on human-run industry. Keep the business right here. The Founders' Fund gave me a nice little chunk of change when I set up shop that I didn't have to pay back, and I'm grateful. It wouldn't look good for one of his boys to take their business back to the city."

Khash had scowled and she had carried her lemonade back into the house, not bothering to say goodbye to Rourke at all. Khash had held her on his lap once he'd followed her back in the house, assuring her they'd not let some fancypants, too big for his britches, needs to be knocked down a peg or few werewolf shut them out.

And now here was this Naga, letting them know that the Hemming Wedding Extravaganza? had beaten them to the punch and that they were, once again, on their own. Beside her, Khash stiffened. Here we go.

Somewhere in the past month, she had misplaced her easy-going, sugar-voiced fiancé. He had been supplanted with someone whose competitive spirit rivaled her own, a deadly combination between the two of them. The notion that they were to be outdone on every wedding element they had attempted to plan was, as he put it, a bone in his craw he couldn't shake loose.

"You mean to tell me you can't do a simple, small affair? We're not lookin' for extravagance." That's not what you said two shops ago, she thought. That's not what you said two minutes ago! This is why I can't get anything done. "My fiancé wants a small, relaxed little ceremony. How many attendants, darlin'? Three? Four?"

"No more than that," she mumbled, thinking of the way Silva had never responded when Lurielle had invited her to come look at venues.

"A few table arrangements and her bouquet. That's it. Now, if you can't do that, how on earth are you keeping your doors open, sir?"

The Naga had closed his eyes. The son, she thought. He was handsome, with sharp features and a strong nose, a younger version of the elderly snake man who had greeted them.

"I really wish I could help you. If you want to push your date back to later in the —"

"Mhm, well, thank you for your limited time, sir. We'll let you get back to thinkin' about the single event you're able to schedule for the spring. Lurielle, I'll be outside."

It was the very first time Khash had ever been anything other than gracious and sugar-sweet to someone in the service industry, and she wondered if he had, at last, had his fill of being a groomzilla. She wasn't happy, but she couldn't say she didn't understand.

"Barely, is the answer," the Naga said unexpectedly. "Your fiancé wants to know how I'm keeping my doors open? The answer is barely. Look, I really am sorry. But you have to understand. We're a tiny, little local shop in a dying industry. I spend as much time babysitting my dad as I do making arrangements, and I work alone. The Hemming wedding is quite literally the only thing keeping us open for the rest of the year, and every time I turn around, they're adding something new to the order. I really do wish I could help you, but I only have two arms."

"I understand," Lurielle murmured. "I apologize for my fiancé. I hope you understand that you're not the first shop to tell us the same thing. He's just feeling a little frustrated that he can't snap his fingers and keep me from being disappointed."

The Naga sighed again, probably seeing the glossy sheen of the tears she refused to let fall. "Where's your venue?"

Lurielle smiled grimly, letting her silence answer his question. The Naga closed his eyes and groaned.

"Okay, I'm going to give you a name. Call her, but like, call her today. This is the event planner over at Saddlethorne. They didn't get the wedding and I know it's killing her. So she will have room on the schedule, unless Grayson decides to rent the farm to add, I don't know, a puppet show. At this point, there's not much more they can squeeze in. She knows flowers. She can help you pick something super simple. If you can get things worked out with her and paid upfront, I can figure something out. But Miss, I cannot stress this enough, super simple. As it is, I'm probably going to have to have her help put stuff together, and I'm going to need you to be okay with that."

Her eyes filled with tears. Okay, so you are going to cry in this flower shop. But these are acceptable tears. "Thank you," Lurielle choked out. "Thank you so much. You have no idea . . . You are literally saving my life. Saddlethorne? We're going there right now, I'm going to see if she's working."

The Naga dropped his head, supporting his upper body on his palms, nodding. His tail, Lurielle took note, was glorious.

"Her name is Grace. She's been in the industry forever. Just trust whatever she says and tell her Ranar sent you. I'll be expecting her call."