Love Letters From Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [73]
“What in the world?” Cici wondered.
“Wow,” said Lori, impressed. “It looks like the shipping room of a party store.”
“Oh, I meant to close the doors,” Bridget apologized, as she hurried to do so. “It’s the only room in the house big enough to set up for the gift baskets.”
“Why are they so small?” Lori asked. “How are you going to get the herbal bath salts and the jams and the recipe cards and the scones in there?”
Bridget looked confused for a moment, and then explained, “Oh, these are just the favors for the wedding guests. The components have been arriving all week, and we’re trying to get them stuffed as soon as things come in, which is why the room is such a mess. We’re just waiting for the monogrammed chocolates, now.”
Lindsay said, “Come on, Lori, let’s get you settled in your room. Sorry there’s no other place to sit down here.”
Cici was still staring at the doors Bridget had just closed. “How many of those things do we have to make, anyway?”
And Lori asked, “What about the big gift baskets? The ones you’re selling?”
“Oh, honey, I haven’t had time to worry about those this week! When this wedding is over, I’ll get back to business as usual, and believe me it will be a pleasure. I’ll never complain about having to put together five gift baskets in a week again, I can promise you that.”
Lori had started to follow Lindsay to the sunroom, carefully balancing herself on the unfamiliar crutches, but now she stopped and looked at Bridget. “Five?”
Bridget smiled and nodded. “Business really picked up after that magazine article. But right now the first priority is the wedding.” She looked at Cici a little uncomfortably. “We really need to talk to you about that.”
Cici eyed her suspiciously. “You mentioned on the phone that things had gotten complicated.”
“Just a tiny bit,” Lindsay admitted. “A few more guests than we’d counted on, and we’re also hosting the rehearsal and catering the rehearsal dinner, and there’s the tent ...”
“Tent?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Lori held up a hand for attention, almost lost a crutch and her balance, and the three women rushed to support her. She quickly regained her composure and spoke directly to Bridget. “How long since you looked at the website?” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” Bridget admitted. “A week or so, I guess. I’m just not used to that stuff, honey, and hardly anyone ever visits the site anyway ...”
Lori looked disbelieving. “Do you mean you haven’t checked orders in over a week?”
“Well, I suppose I could do that as soon as we get you settled, if it would make you feel better.”
“Maybe you’d better,” Lori said in an odd, constrained tone. “Because the last time I looked, you had a few orders for gift baskets.”
Bridget looked concerned. “Oh, dear. Well, I hope they don’t mind waiting. How many?”
“As of yesterday afternoon,” Lori said, “two hundred fifty-six.”
All three women stared at her. For a long moment no one spoke. Then Lindsay smiled weakly and touched Lori’s shoulder to help her to her room. “Welcome home,” she said.
They gathered in the sunroom-turned-temporary-bedroom because Lori refused to be excluded from the conversation and would have hobbled to the kitchen or the living room or the porch or the garden to give her opinion if they had tried to meet without her. The trip had already left her looking pale and tired, so they brought more peanut butter cookies from the kitchen, along with a pot of tea, and sat down to strategize.
“You have to fulfill the orders,” Lori explained from her position on the bed, her leg elevated on two pillows, her laptop open on her lap. “You’ve already taken the money. Otherwise that’s fraud.”
“I hate automatic banking,” Bridget said miserably, and picked up another cookie. “Why couldn’t they just send checks? That way, if I didn’t want their money, I could send it back.”
“No one uses checks anymore,” Lindsay said. “Even I know that.”
The sunroom was a long, narrow space that had