Huh. ‘The Prince has an attitude problem’ is familiar tabloid gossip. About a year ago, I remember Rachel being excited to meet him over dinner, but that night, she texted me, ‘This prince of ours is a royal stick in the mud’. In the few interviews I’ve seen, he seems professional at best and at least, well, boring. Now, I understand where everyone is coming from.
He’s right, though. I don’t know what I’m doing. Recently, my mom’s been saying that I tend to overthink, and if I don’t do something spontaneous every once in a while, I’ll never find a husband. Don’t ask me how those two things are related. I swear that woman is obsessed with me finding a man. My job is mostly, control C and control V and doesn’t allow for much spontaneity. She might be right in that the fastidiousness has bled into my personal life. However bizarre her reasoning is, I don’t want to be subjugated to relentless spinsterhood, so here I am getting flowers.
“Why would you want me tagging along?” I ask him.
He pulls out his phone and types something into it. “You probably know more about Rachel’s flowers than I do.”
I blink. “So we both don’t know what we’re doing?”
He doesn’t answer me. I’ll take the silence as a yes.
Faster than you can say uppercrust, a black Benz pulls up in front of us. He steps forward to hold the door open for me like a gentleman, and I slide onto the black leather seats. The car smells clean and expensive, unlike my whip, which still smells of cigarettes from its last owners. When the middle-aged driver asks where we’re going, I read him the address, and we’re off.
It’s my understanding that for his wedding gift, the Prince is lending the couple Clément Manor. Maybe rich people can’t give each other air fryers like the rest of us. The only other thing Rachel knows about him is that he and Julien have been best buds since childhood. It was one of those my-mom-is-friends-with-your-mom deals. Julien is the son of a Baroness, but I have no idea what a Baroness does in the twenty-first century. One time I asked him, and he said, ‘It just kind of means we have a lot of money’. The boys are starting a charity together, and Julien asked me to make a website for them. I’m very excited to put ‘has worked for royalty’ on my resume.
I can’t help but peek at the royal in question. His gray suit-with-no-tie look makes him appear just like how he does in the news. It’s spooky to see he’s a real person and not just a guy who lives in my TV making speeches and opening hospitals. The younger Prince Thomas is known to be the more boyish one of the two brothers, but this guy isn’t that bad either. He’s got that Henry Cavill jawline and body of an Olympic figure skater that could make any girl swoon, not that I’m swooning, of course.
“So, do you have a plan yet?” I hedge.
“I’m figuring it out on the way there,” he says while scrolling through Twitter. I think the Prince is mocking me. Childish, but I’ll ignore it.
“You must really like Julien then,” I say as we head through the gates. “To go to all this trouble.”
His noncommittal hum and my awkward teeth-kissing noise are the last sounds we make to each other. I guess he isn’t one for small talk. You’d think he’d be good at it, being a prince and all.
To keep me occupied, I browse Rachel’s wedding bible. I’ve been clutching onto it this whole day because she is very adamant about me not losing it. I’ve always thought weddings are a little superficial, but Rachel is a photographer who goes to a lot of events like these. She’s always been obsessed with weddings. I’ve seen this sticker-adorned binder since we were kids. The beginning pages are filled with kid drawings and magazine cutouts of luxurious ceremonies. Back then, Pinterest didn’t exist, so she planned her wedding by way of our ancestors, with Mod Podge and glitter glue.
Eventually, we pull up to the cute little mom-and-pop shop with a brick façade. Rachel has always been about buying locally. Julien can afford the best people from around the world to have the wedding of her dreams, but Rach said she didn’t want that.
An adorable bell rings when we walk into the shop, and an even more adorable young woman greets us with a smile. The ceiling is decorated with hanging vines and Edison bulbs, which Taylor has to dodge like a jungle explorer. All the shelves are very much full of living plant life: flowers, ferns, cacti. What could have happened to Rachel’s?
When the florist’s gaze jerks to the man behind me, I lean to the side to get her attention again. “Hi, I think you just called my friend about her flowers,” I say. “It’s for the Thibeaux wedding. I was wondering if I could see the bouquets if you haven’t thrown them out yet.”
“Uh, yes. I’m so sorry about that. Our refrigerators cut out last night. I haven’t tossed them, but don’t get your hopes up. They’re not savable.” She gawks at Prince Taylor as she speaks. He’s too busy staring into a display case to notice.
The girl leaves and returns to lay a floppy bouquet of wilted flowers on the counter. Some of them are turning brown. My face scrunches. These can’t be seen at a wedding. Definitely bad luck.
“Gardenias are very delicate,” she says. “We always recommended against them. They’ll yellow before the couple says ‘I do’.”
“So these ones are all fine?”
I turn around to Prince Taylor, pointing at the display cases full of bright, non-shriveled flowers.
“Yeah,” she says. “The only fridges that broke were the industrial ones in the back room. Sorry, I can’t believe that you’re standing in my shop right n—”
“How much for all of them?”
She rears back. “All of them? I–I don’t know. I’m not sure if you can do that. I mean, we don’t get another shipment for almost a week. I’d have to close the shop. I’m not the owner, I would call her, but she’s on vacation right now. I’m really sorry.”
A phone rings, and she excuses herself to go take it in the back room.
I hold up the sad excuse for a bouquet of flowers. “So what now?”
He twirls his finger in the air. “Do you think all these should be enough?”
“I mean, yeah, but didn’t you hear her? I think she was just trying to be polite in saying you can’t buy out her whole inventory.”
“Maybe,” he mumbles.
