La Fleur de Blanc Read online

  Table of Contents

  La Fleur de Blanc

  Copyright

  Dedication

  La Fleur de Blanc

  Chapter One - The White Flower

  Chapter Two - Sure As Sugar

  Chapter Three - Free Flowers

  Chapter Four - Kerry Barrett Kirby

  Chapter Five - Slipping Under

  Chapter Six - Because You're Worth It

  Chapter Seven - Marcello And Matthew Vitale

  Chapter Eight - Antonia Peck

  Chapter Nine - Allison Deak

  Chapter Ten - An Anonymous Complaint

  Chapter Eleven - Len Farrell

  Chapter Twelve - The Palms Puppeteer

  Chapter Thirteen - Fair Game

  Chapter Fourteen - A Moment Alone

  Chapter Fifteen - Repeated Violations

  Chapter Sixteen - Fighting Back

  Chapter Seventeen - The Palms Couture Environmental Impact Committee

  Chapter Eighteen - Chin Up, Sweetie

  Chapter Nineteen - Tell Me I'm Strong

  Chapter Twenty - The Soothing Beat of a Mother's Heart

  Chapter Twenty-One - Bon Appétit

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Fists At Her Sides

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Making A Scene

  Chapter Twenty-Four - The Courtesy Of A Lie

  Chapter Twenty-Five - Bella By The Sea

  Chapter Twenty-Six - The Bright Side

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - Cameron Deak

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - Raw Materials

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - The Things Kerry Told Him

  Chapter Thirty - SIGN HERE

  Chapter Thirty-One - The Ethical Side Of The Middle

  Author's Note

  Learn the Story Behind La Fleur

  About the Authors

  La Fleur de Blanc

  Sean Platt & Johnny B. Truant

  Copyright © 2015 by Sterling & Stone. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  We greatly appreciate you taking the time to read our work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or telling your friends about it, to help us spread the word.

  Thank you for supporting our work.

  To every girl or boy who has ever had a beautiful dream.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE WHITE FLOWER

  Lily liked the leasing agent. She was trim, professional, and more or less shapeless, her dark-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail so tight and perfect that the top looked aerodynamic. Her suit was similarly dark, her blue shirt stark and crisp by comparison. She moved as if her skirt were too tight. Her movements were brisk, but she didn’t convey impatience so much as an adorable sort of fumbling. Perhaps that, in the end, was why Lily liked her despite not knowing Evelyn Pierce at all: she seemed as much a fish out of water in Cielo del Mar, among the beautiful people and opulence, as Lily felt herself.

  “Spanish tile.” Evelyn nodded downward. “The Palms put it in a few years ago, at a prior tenant’s request. It’s imported, not some sort of knock-off designed to look pretty. And these sconces?” She looked at one to her left, but it took her several seconds to find and train her eyes on one. “They’re … Italian? I’m not sure.” She looked down at one of the papers clasped to her chest as if seeking an answer, then raised her brown eyes again somewhat embarrassed, having apparently come up empty.

  “Not sure?” Lily repeated.

  “They were quite expensive. I could look it up later if you’d like.”

  “I don’t really care about the sconces,” Lily replied, trying on the smile that had always worked so well back home. She’d flashed it widely upon arrival in Las Orillas up the coast and found its power greatly diminished. Here, in Cielo del Mar where beaches were slightly finer and the rents significantly higher, it sometimes seemed to Lily that nobody really smiled. What had once been a charming farm girl’s expression now felt foreign, like something a naive yokel would wear because she didn’t know any better. But for some reason, it felt safe to smile at Evelyn. She wouldn’t return the gesture, of course, but it might feel like a pat on the back, telling the agent that it was okay, and that she was doing just fine.

  “Well. No. Of course not,” Evelyn bustled. “You’ll care more about the shelf space. And the refrigerator.” She moved away from the wall, tall heels clacking as she made her way across the authentic Spanish tile and to the center of the small space, stopping beside a wall unit with a clear front and interior shelves. She had a thin leather binder clasped to her chest, a few loose papers sitting on the top that apparently did not detail the sconces’ pedigree. Evelyn held the binder and papers as if she feared Lily might try to grab them and run.

  “The cooler,” Lily said.

  “What cooler?”

  “The refrigerator in a flower shop is called a cooler.” Again, Lily flashed her Kansas smile, as she had to those she’d passed on the boardwalk outside her rented apartment and around the Palms the prior night to no response. Apparently being rich and fancy left little room for friendliness. Perhaps decency was for the weak … same as hard work and dirty hands.

  Evelyn blushed. “Oh. Of course. I’m sorry. I misspoke. The prior occupant replaced it. I was thinking of our foodservice tenants and their refrigerators. I did know that.”

  “Sure.”

  “It varies by lease, but for our foodservice tenants the center usually maintains the coolers.” She rushed on, correcting herself. “The refrigerators. Because they’re large walk-in units and are hence dedicated foodservice spaces. Same for ovens, stoves, ventilation, and so on.”

  Lily refrained from telling Evelyn that the cooler beside them was technically a walk-in. Customers would choose their arrangements by opening the glass doors, but the shop’s owner could stock it from the back. She mentally corrected herself: Lily would stock it from the back, starting tomorrow if she was lucky, and bold, and brave.

  “They’re built right into the units like rooms,” Evelyn continued. “And the power needs are huge, requiring—”

  “But you don’t provide a flower shop’s cooler?” Lily interrupted to save Evelyn from herself. If no one stopped her, she’d call for blueprints and detail the entire Palms Couture wiring diagram.

  “Oh. No. Because they’re stand-alone units. This space could house any business.”

  Again, Lily refrained from contradicting her. Her aunt’s flower shop in Glen, where Lily had fond memories of working summers, had a huge, steel-doored walk-in storage cooler in the back, much like a restaurant’s. But rents were much cheaper in Glen, and if Lily signed a lease today (when she signed a lease, she told herself), she’d be able to keep much less live product on hand than Aunt Bev always had. That could be a good thing. It would shorten her flowers’ vase life, forcing her to scrap and rotate through the product faster. She’d make up for her lack of storage with turnover, and would have to market more often. And if the smaller stock couldn’t keep pace with demand? Well, that would be a quality problem.

  Lily pulled open one of the cooler doors, surprised to feel a waft of cold air disturb the otherwise warm California breeze following them through the propped-open shop door. Either the cooler wasn’t actually off or its insulation was spectacular, having kept the inside in and the outside out for as long as the five days since she’d first stepped foot in the Palms shopping center.

  “This is still cool!” Lily spoke with too much enthusiasm, but it felt safe, showing her glee to Evelyn. She’d be more reserved around the fancy shoppers, at least h
alf of whom looked like past or present runway models, but Evelyn was strapped into her professional suit like armor. She might not appreciate a Midwesterner’s passion, but at least she wouldn’t look down on Lily for it.

  “Did they leave the electricity on?” Evelyn sounded shocked. “Well, I guess it’s only been two days. It might be in the works. And of course, if you’d like to sign, you’ll just want it transferred rather than shut off and then turned on again, because—”

  “I just can’t believe it works.” Lily turned her hand side to side in the cooler’s chill air, watching her long fingers spread like petals of the blooms that would soon call the space home. She’d painted her moderate-length fingernails white, as inspiration. She tried to see them as flowers. Five tiny white flowers, soon to be joined by a French market full of bouquets, all the same hue. Or lack of hue, as it were. “When I peeked through the window yesterday, I saw it in here, but assumed it was broken. Because why else would anyone leave it?”

  Evelyn’s eyes flicked toward the small shop’s front window, past the marble counter and into the courtyard. Lily followed her gaze. At first she assumed Evelyn was looking at the enormous fountain with the slate paving stones set through it like tiny islands, but then she got the distinct impression that the leasing agent was looking at the high-end furniture store beyond it instead.

  Evelyn’s eyes returned to the cooler.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Lily was trying to keep her face composed. This was an incredible break, and truth be told it had just tipped her all the way over from “it’d be fun to dream about signing a lease” to a definite, almost defensible yes. Her heart had been hammering since she’d first returned to the plaza two days earlier and found the shop so recently deserted (she’d bought a blue hydrangea from this very store three nights before that, though she hadn’t noticed the cooler’s state), and it had ratcheted up yesterday morning when she’d hiked up her panties and decided, after a night’s deliberation, to visit the leasing office. But right now, Lily was sure Evelyn could see her light-white blouse bouncing off her chest with the force of its rhythm.

  The Palms lease was probably standard, and Lily’s nerves were unlikely to lose her any negotiating power, but it might persuade Evelyn to run back to the office and put a question mark on the application for Lily Whistler’s little flower shop.

  The girl’s a rube, Evelyn would tell her bosses. She had Midwestern blonde hair, sandals without any jewels, and calluses on her hands! And get this: the fact that her space included a five-thousand-dollar cooler actually made a financial difference to her. We don’t need her kind around the Palms. No sir, not at all.

  But despite the fear of betrayal by emotions, Lily couldn’t help but feel thrilled. Her $50,000 share of the family farm (after the bank and her four siblings had taken theirs following the sale) had felt like a lot of money when she’d packed up the U-Haul and driven toward her Somewhere Over The Rainbow, but so much of it had already been whittled away. She had plenty to keep her apartment above Dusty’s garage (not that he’d ever kick her out; her rent was already so much less than it would have been for a male or unattractive occupant) and provide the Palms the collateral it required, but her sensible side probably would have won out if the cooler had been as broken as she’d assumed. Now her sensible side could hunker down while Adventurous Lily — the Lily who hadn’t had her day since she’d taken over managing the farm and paying the help after Mom and Dad died — had a bit of foolhardy fun.

  Evelyn tilted the binder away from her chest like a vent opening, looking down at Lily’s rental application.

  “You’re welcome to keep the refrigerator, seeing as you want to open a flower shop as well.”

  For some reason, the simple sentence made Lily want to cry. She’d turned plenty of heads since arriving in Cielo del Mar, but only Dusty had been genuinely nice, and he had his other, rather obvious reasons. Evelyn’s offer probably wasn’t coming from kindness (nor, for that matter, from Evelyn; surely she was passing down management’s decision), but the moment’s emotion was fussing with Lily’s equilibrium. If she ignored the open door and the palm trees beyond, she could almost believe she was back in one of those high school summers, working Aunt Bev’s flower shop as an alternative to milking cows. There was even a floral ghost still in the air, and Lily imagined it wafting from airborne pollen caught in the vents. It made her recall her mother and the old story she used to tell. Mom never had many flowers around the house, possibly because Dad had found them so foolish and impractical. But the Parisian floral shop story led to one of Lily’s most vibrant memories of her mother, representing the Virginia Whistler who lived beneath the farm wife’s skin. A woman who’d appreciated beauty but had always seen it as an out of reach luxury.

  “Thank you,” said Lily, sniffing.

  Evelyn produced something white and flourished it like a magician’s trick. It was a tissue. Looking at Evelyn’s buttoned-up wardrobe, Lily had no idea where the agent had pulled it from.

  “Allergies?”

  Lily blew her nose. “Just not used to the California air,” she lied.

  “Because allergies would be strange for someone who works with plants.” For some reason, coming from Evelyn, the statement sounded like a concern about a tenant’s viability.

  “Not if you’re allergic to bees!” The statement was idiotic. Lily was losing her cool, threatening her I-know-what-I’m-doing facade.

  Get it together, girl.

  “Bees?”

  “Never mind,” Lily said.

  “I’ve never noticed many bees. You don’t have to worry. Only around the food cart in the courtyard, and we’re working with the tenant to contain even that.”

  “No worries.”

  “You seemed rattled.”

  “No.” Lily pocketed the spent tissue. “I’m right as rain.”

  Evelyn’s head tilted slightly, like a curious dog’s. Great. Now her Midwestern accent wasn’t the only thing screaming Yokel! to the natives.

  Evelyn’s head straightened, and she returned her attention to the binder.

  “Well then, your application appears more or less to be in order … ”

  “More or less?”

  “Preliminary approval.” Blessedly, with this, Evelyn’s facade finally broke, and Lily saw what she suspected was the genuine woman below the suit. Her glint of expression said, Don’t worry about it, girlfriend; this is in the bag. Only she probably wouldn’t say “girlfriend,” or describe the approval process as “slow as molasses in January.”

  “The rest is just details,” she went on, her demeanor sliding back into professional after the slip. “Financial believes you can fulfill the lease, technically speaking. But even if the Palms Couture won’t take a loss if your shop goes under, we still don’t want you to go under.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  “We have some shops that have been here for thirty years, like nouveau house over there.” Evelyn gestured toward the furniture store. “But even past those … outliers, I guess? … we have an average tenancy of nine years across the roster. Not to sound elitist, but failing businesses and vacancies don’t reflect well on the center as a whole, or on our other tenants. It looks bad. So before we take you on, we want to feel that you’ll be here for a long time. It’s not just about getting your money.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s nice.”

  “We’ve had six applications for this spot already. A few would probably be a bad fit, just because they’re sort of … ” She sighed, her voice adopting apology. “Well, sort of too lowbrow for us.”

  “Sure,” said Lily, mystified.

  “For instance. Do you know Bella by the Sea?”

  Lily nodded. She knew it as well as someone who didn’t belong here could know anything. She’d come to the famous Palms Couture shopping center to treat herself before finally succumbing to the retail positions that seemed to be the only jobs willing to accept her. The plan was to buy herself
a solo dinner at a price that deeply offended her Kansas sensibilities, pacify her soon-to-be-shattered dignity, then flit from shop to shop, filling out applications for any shopgirl job that would have her. She hadn’t made it far, though, because when Lily stepped inside Bella by the Sea, the woman at the desk had seemed deeply offended that she expected to simply enter and dine. The woman told Lily that the place was booked several months in advance, then added an unnecessary tidbit surely intended to twist the knife: that dinner at Bella cost a flat fee ranging from $1,000-$1,500 per couple … with no discounts given to pathetic hick girls looking to dine alone.

  “I dropped in the other day.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” she said, reading Lily’s face and looking sympathetic. “It happens all the time. People come here expecting to eat somewhere nice, and only area regulars know you can’t just stop in, or what it costs. The girl who works the front — Connie Petunia, she says her name is, if you can believe that — seems to live to tell people they’re not good enough. But don’t let it sour you. The owners, a father and son, are actually fantastic people. Some of our best tenants, but also very sweet.”

  Again, Evelyn seemed to scramble for recovery as she’d finished, having said entirely too much and having been entirely too unprofessional. But she’d merely confirmed all that Lily had thought upon visiting. She’d been drawn to the restaurant by the two dark and elegant men conversing near the entrance, and when she’d left they’d both given her tiny smiles. The older man had a salt-and-pepper beard and a soft Italian accent. The younger man had black hair, a square jaw strewn with stubble, and eyes like the Pacific. She’d felt herself blush at his nod — with shame or interest, Lily still wasn’t sure.

  “Frankly,” Evelyn said, “the thing management likes about your shop is what bothers us most. The idea is daring and high concept, like Bella’s. If it works, you’re a perfect fit for the Palms. But because it’s so niche, it could fail horribly. A store that only sells white flowers? We’ve never heard of anything like it. That could be fantastic. But it could also be terrible. I guess it comes down to you.”