Fed up

white tent was fully set up now, too, and looked incredibly elegant. Things were coming together! Even the weather was cooperating. Today was quite hot, but the forecast for tomorrow promised temperatures in the mid to low seventies and, thank heaven, clear skies.
    “Mom?” I called as I entered the living room and dropped my bags on the couch.
    “Chloe? Is that you?” Mom poked her head out of the kitchen. “We have an emergency.”
    Oh, no! By foolishly telling myself that everything was coming together, I’d jinxed the wedding. Grimly, I asked, “What’s going on?”
    “Come look at this.” My mother’s voice was shaking.
    I followed Mom as she led the way through the house to the front door and across the lawn to the tent. At the entrance, she came to a dramatic halt. “This,” she said with disgust, “is where Adrianna will appear! This is where the bride will enter! Can you believe it?”
    “What the heck are you talking about?”
    “Chloe! It’s dismal! And barren! We need plants. More plants. Lots of greenery! I need you to run down to the nursery and get... plants! Lots of them!” With the frantic air of someone boldly averting disaster, she gave me directions to the nursery, which emerged as the one owned by Emilio’s family. “Take the van. It’s here, fortunately, so that will save you some time. Charge whatever you get to our account there. And splurge! Go nuts! I want tons of plants.”
    “Mom, the flowers are arriving tomorrow—”
    “I know that! But this tent is mammoth, and we’re not going to have it look empty. Get plants with height! And lots of blooms! Hanging plants, too! Run!”
    My mother was having a floral breakdown.
    I was in no mood for an argument. Consequently, I refrained from challenging her insistence that the tent looked desolate and was thus in dire need of the help that plants would provide. Fortunately, the van parked at the end of the driveway was one of the new ones rather than the old gray rattletrap that had unhappy associations. Unfortunately, however, the nursery was only a few miles from the house; I’d have preferred a long respite from my mother’s frenzy.
    Nursery turned out to be a misleading term for Emilio’s family’s sprawling, impressive garden center, which had eight large greenhouses and a main building with a garden-supply store, as well as two or three big outdoor areas devoted to trees, shrubs, and small plants of all kinds. I found a wagon and began strolling the aisles of the first greenhouse in search of plants that would appease my mother—in other words, horticultural tranquilizers. Knowing my mother as I did, I avoided anything that would have to be planted in the ground. It would have been just like Mom to decide that the whole family had to spend the rest of the day and night digging holes and planting shrubs.
    “Chloe?”
    I whipped around to see Emilio before me. “Hi,” I gasped. “I’m looking for plants,” I added stupidly, as if there were thousands of other reasons for pushing a wagon through a greenhouse.
    “Do you need any help?” Oh, those darn dimples.
    I explained my mother’s instructions, and Emilio nodded. “Sure. Why don’t you come with me. I can help you.”
    Can you ever, Emilio.
    He added, somewhat disappointingly, “We’ve got a bunch of new fall plants in terra-cotta containers.”
    Within minutes, we’d made so many selections that we needed a second cart. “I can’t believe I’ve never been in here before,” I said as I admired the many healthy plants. “This is a wonderful nursery.”
    “Thanks. Let’s check over here, too. We’ve got tons of perennials and biennials that are seriously discounted because it’s the end of the season. They’re in pots. You won’t have to sink them in the ground. Some of them are in bloom. Not all, but some.”
    Let s take a look,” I said. “My mother will have a fit if I show up with yellow mums like the ones in the supermarkets.”
    I followed Emilio into another greenhouse where, just as he’d said, there were bargain-priced perennials and biennials, some flourishing, some rather battered. I browsed the aisles and stopped in front of a group of low, green plants with some tired-looking old leaves mixed with bright new growth. I didn’t have to read the labels to recognize foxglove. Foxglove! Digitalis! Lots of it, all cheap, all readily available to absolutely anyone. Oh, and all deadly, of course. Well, so much for finding out who