Elly in Love (The Elly Series) (34 page)

Lola’s car pulled away from the curb, leaving Elly walking back toward the Posies storefront, her eyes lingering on Keith’s Deli.
Honest, huh?
thought Elly, with a painful twinge in her heart. She remembered Keith’s eyes as she asked him point blank why she had never been to his house. He had looked away.
Truth was apparently not an option for him. It was amazing how much she missed him
. On mornings like this, on evenings like last night, every waking moment, she missed him. Weary with want and blurry from lack of sleep, she walked back into the apartment to find Dennis standing in the living room, two coffees in hand.

“Where did she go?”

“Lola? She left.”

“Seriously?” He slammed the coffee down on the kitchen table, spilling it all over Elly’s wedding trends books.

“Hey! Watch it! Those are expensive. Jeez, Dennis, calm down!”

“No! You calm down! I didn’t even get to take my picture with her to show my friends!”

“Real friends or online friends?” Elly muttered, grabbing a cloth to clean up the spilled coffee. “What was that?”

“I said, real friends or online friends? I feel like there is an actual difference.”

Dennis looked at the ground. “They’re the same.”

“No, they aren’t, actually. See, your online friends never do anything for you. They don’t visit you or call you or have coffee with you. They don’t feed you or let you stay with them, or do your laundry or take you out occasionally so that you see the sun. I do those things, and I’m happy to do it, but the one time that I needed you, you picked your online friends over me. Your sister.”

“It’s not like you didn’t get home. Stop being so dramatic.”

That was it.
All the frustration that Elly felt over the past few months boiled up to the surface. Like a backdraft, she’d been sucking in the flames, night after night, and now, she was keen to explode. “
Dramatic?
You think I’m dramatic? Let me tell you what is dramatic. Showing up here, at my store, and assuming that I will take care of you. I’ve never met you, we’ve never even talked, and you just showed up and laid yourself at my feet. You became my responsibility, without ever considering how I might feel! Did you think that I had a life? Did you wonder if your sudden plea to care for the needs of a stranger might cause some undue stress in my life? Before you came, things were peaceful and easy, and now I’m up half the night listening to your troll raiding parties.”

“Those aren’t even a thing. You have no idea what you are talking about,” growled Dennis, his eyes widening.

“I don’t care. I don’t care about your games and your invisible friends! You don’t do anything around here! Would it kill you to wash a dish? Could you maybe do your own laundry? Could you leave the house once a week, maybe just so I can have a minute of quiet and space? Shower on a regular basis? Or maybe, I don’t know, I know this is a crazy idea, but could you maybe
think
about getting a job?”

“But, I don’t know anyone….”

“And you won’t, not until you try. You cannot sit in my guest room and waste your life while I try and hold everything together. And, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not.” Elly’s voice quivered. “I don’t have my dog. I don’t have my boyfriend.”

“It’s not my fault that Keith won’t let you visit his house. It’s not my fault that you guys are broken up because you won’t just talk to each other like normal people. I think you’re being totally stupid. Just because Aaron cheated on you forever ago doesn’t mean that Keith is cheating on you now. Also, Aaron seemed like a pretty cool guy.”

“Then why don’t you go live with him?” snapped Elly, instantly regretting her words.

Dennis whirled on her. “You don’t understand, do you? You’ve never understood.”

Elly put her hand on her hip, trying to calm her temper. “Then explain it to me, Dennis. Explain how I’ve done something wrong here, by opening my house to you. By providing for you. For trying to help you. Explain it to me.”

Then Dennis looked her dead in the eyes. “I hate you. You’re just like everyone else I’ve ever known. A shitty letdown.” Elly was shocked. The words had felt like a physical blow.

“
Dennis!
Do not talk to me like that in my home! What is wrong with you?” Her head was spinning with the implications of the word.

Dennis’s bright-blue eyes went red with tears and he began knocking things over on the table. “You don’t understand because you had a perfect life, with your perfect mother. You got the good parent, for no other reason than your mom chose to
sleep
with my dad, and because of that, you had a perfect upbringing. Tell me again how your mother sang you to sleep. Tell me how she had an amazing garden, and how you went to good schools and you never, ever knew what it was like to go to bed hungry or afraid. Would you like to know what my life was like with our other parent?”

Elly looked at the ceiling, willing herself to bite her tongue and listen. How was it possible for your heart to ache for someone while at the same time wanting to literally strangle them?

“Every morning, I would have to wake myself up for school, for high school. My mom was depressed, and there was no one to take care of her but me. So I got her to eat a tiny bit of breakfast, and then left her on the couch, always wondering if I would come home to find her hanging in her closet. If I made too much noise, my dad would come out and scream at me for waking him up, and if I was lucky, it was just screaming. We always had just enough cans of soup to survive. I stole snacks from kids’ backpacks at lunch. The bullies at school knew what my home life was like, they always know who is poor, and sad, and whose dad doesn’t give a crap about them because they can see it on your pathetic face. The only time that I was happy, the only time, was when I logged into the computer, because in
that
world, I have everything. People look up to me, people need me. They were my family before you ever were! And they never made me feel bad about it, like you do. What was I supposed to do, just crawl into a hole in Sewell and die? So, I’m sorry that I came to you, when I didn’t have anyone. I’m sorry that I’m such a fat loser that you can’t even look at me, and you hate me because I’ve ruined your ideal little life, with your perfect friends and your perfect store. I think the real reason that you’re pissed at me is because I’ve ruined the image of your saintly mother by reminding you that she must have been pretty slutty to sleep with a
stranger.
Also, she couldn’t have been that good because she never even
tried
to find out what happened to your dad. She didn’t care enough! If she did, maybe my life would have been totally different! No one in this family cared about anyone else, especially your dead mother.” Dennis took a step backwards and stumbled over Elly’s rug.

Her hands quivered, and images of slapping him bombarded her brain. But she didn’t. She stood her ground, one hand clenching the chair. “Get out,” she whispered. “Get out, Dennis. Take a walk.” She turned away from him and began walking down the hallway, walking quickly so that he wouldn’t see the hot, angry tears dripping down her face. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Keith might have well been a million miles away, and as Dennis had kindly reminded her, Sarah Jordan was dead in the ground. Simmering with anger, Elly walked into Dennis’s putrid room and stared at his hairbrush for what seemed like hours before making her way to the computer.

It seemed to arrive out of nowhere, even though their lives had been revolving around it for the past few months. The
BlissBride
wedding had arrived. Tomorrow night, Lola would—hopefully, fingers crossed—walk down the aisle, and
BlissBride
history would be made as the cameras captured every step. It would be wondrous, it would be beautiful. But until then, it looked like this: behind Posies a delivery truck backed up slowly in the pouring rain, its shrill beeping making Elly’s nerves tighten, its blinking lights blinding in the darkness. For a moment, Elly wondered if the truck driver would consider backing up over her as well.
Don’t be so morbid
. It was hard not to be morbid at four in the morning. Elly knew that instead of being so blah about it all, she should be excited. The
BlissBride
wedding was on, and her career was on the verge of expanding. On the contrary, Elly found that her stomach was clenching, and was thinking that the fetal position would be a good option for the rest of her life. Still, she kept her face emotionless as the bright-red truck lights grew closer and closer to her because as always, the cameras were watching.

“Elly, how are you feeling about the delivery? Are you nervous?”

Elly turned to give a fake smile to Greg, the kind cameraman who had been filming her and her staff for the last week. “I’m feeling confident, and also nervous, I guess.” She gave a false, trilling laugh. “It’s such a big day! The flowers we’ve ordered for Lola’s wedding are absolutely gorgeous.”

“And what would those be?” Elly rubbed her tired eyes with her work gloves. “Uh, well. Do viewers really care about that? They aren’t probably going to know what any of the names are.”

“They can Google them.”

“Um, okay. We have a ton of peonies coming, rare hybrid garden roses, ranunculus, anemones, floret asters, dutch hydrangea in pink and antique, a ton of nerine lilies, pink ginger, cymbidium orchids from Thailand, lilies of the valley from Holland….”

“Yeah, okay, that’s enough.” Greg turned his camera to focus on the truck backing up in what could be a monsoon. Rain splashed around Elly’s ankles, and the hem of her worn overalls was soaking wet. He momentarily switched the camera off. “This kinda sucks,” he muttered.

Elly clapped her gloved hands together, sending a shower of dust into the air. “Yup.”

It had been three days since the camera crew had descended on Posies like a bunch of hawks. They were everywhere now, circling around the store, getting the best shots of the store, the flowers, and any drama.
They loved drama
. Even if it was a silly disagreement between Elly and Snarky Teenager regarding the type of vase that they would use for an arrangement, the crew wanted to film it. Not only that, but they wanted to film it again and again, like earlier this week. “Could you have that conversation again?” the cameraman had asked.

“What?” Elly had scowled at him. “Are you serious?”

He raised the camera and lifted his fingers. “In three, two, one.” The all-knowing eye of the camera seemed to know that Elly was a hot mess right now. Home wasn’t a safe place anymore, with Dennis sulking about like a pissed-off ghost after he returned from being gone all day, and Elly tiptoeing on eggshells, not wanting a repeat of their earlier argument. She wasn’t sleeping very well. Every morning when she looked in the mirror at her bouncy golden curls and bloodshot blue eyes, she saw a face without hope.
What she had with Keith was gone, really gone
. Each line on her face radiated disappointment. And then there were the cameras.
The
freaking
cameras
. They were always there. Even when she worked on her computer, she would look up to see a camera in her face and smile uneasily, thinking that this was probably the worst idea ever. The cameras had captured a dozen embarrassing events so far: Elly slipping in front of her desk, Elly slipping in front of the cooler, spilling hot chocolate on her laptop, a multitude of regrettable curses, dropped buckets, broken vases, a candle burning the corner of some burlap ribbon, and Elly walking into a screen door. After each incident, she had turned kindly to the cameraman and said, “You will cut that, right?”

Greg always shook his head. “This is great TV. You can’t create this kind of … stuff.”

“Awesome.” The chaotic state of the store reflected the state of Elly’s life at the moment. She gave a sad smile as the rain began coming down in torrential buckets around her.
Let’s be honest
, she thought
, the whole world looks as messy as my life right now.

Anthony walked up beside her and began rocking back and forth on his feet in the rain, knocking his gloves together. “It’s been awhile since I was up at four a.m. I am pumped for this!”

Elly looked over at him and rolled her eyes. She wished his enthusiasm was contagious. Anthony looked down at her. “Are you wearing actual overalls this morning? Did you drink before you came here?”

Elly brushed a wet strand of hair out of her eyes as the camera zoomed in on her. “Oh, how I wish that was true.” Elly heard the front door of the store slam shut and suddenly, Snarky Teenager burst through the backdoor, looking ridiculously amazing for their early delivery. Tight black yoga pants sat firmly on her slim hips, and an off-the-shoulder T-shirt rested easily on her slim shoulders. She had huge sunglasses pushed up on her perfectly layered hair and was wearing—Elly peered at her through the torrential rain—false eyelashes.

“Oh my gosh!” Snarky Teenager squealed as the cameras turned toward her. “I keep forgetting there are cameras here! I didn’t even get ready! I’m not wearing any makeup!”

“Mind if we test that with a towel?” muttered Elly, utterly drenched and utterly miserable. The truck landed in a puddle, sending a splash of dirty water up on Elly’s legs. She walked out into the rain, gesturing wildly. “Okay, pull in here! That’s good!”

The truck driver walked out and slammed his door hard, shoving papers in Elly’s direction. “This is the largest shipment to a single shop that we’ve ever had.” His words were a bit slurred. “Sorry I’m late. I got stuck in the traffic in Nevada, and then again in Denver. Kansas was a nightmare.”

Elly was barely listening to him as her eyes scanned the shipping list. “Well, it looks like it’s all there. I see that Mary threw in fifteen extra bunches of the bleeding hearts, that’s nice. Tell her I appreciate it.”

The driver squinted.

Elly peered up at him. “Mary? Your boss?”

“Oh, right.” He shrugged and then swiftly walked over to the back of the truck. Elly was hit with a potent blast of icy air as the truck gate flew open. Towering piles of boxes stared back at her, each meticulously stacked and coded for unloading. She felt the cameras recording her every move and so she hiked up her wet overalls and reached for the first box with feigned enthusiasm. “Okay, people, let’s do this!”