If We Lived Here by Lindsey Palmer Page B

reassured Emma that she was crazy to think anyone cared about what she’d done or whom she’d done it with the previous night. Emma demanded the number and memorized it on the spot. The next day she and Nick were strolling through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, seeking inspiration for a unit on The Secret Garden for his class. It was in the bonsai enclave where Emma had first felt she was falling in love.
    “Em? We’re here, come on. You keep falling asleep on me today.”
    “Huh?” Nick was tugging at her arm, urging her out of the cab. The next thing Emma remembered, she was dreaming of bonsais, those miniature trees so delicate in their pots, their wire-thin branches splaying out into bright bursts of bloom.

Chapter 7
    “W here is that fucking florist?” Annie snapped. She was perched upon what looked to be a throne, being attended to by a team of helpers—the hair guy was manipulating her straight strands into tight curls, the makeup girl was arming her lashes with turbo tear-resistant mascara, the wedding planner was attacking her slip with a lint roller, and Annie’s mother was flitting about, fanning the flames of her daughter’s panic.
    “She was supposed to arrive one full hour ago,” Mrs. Blum fumed, stabbing Re-dial on her phone with long lacquered nails. “This is very unprofessional.”
    Emma was also part of the team of helpers, though with a less clearly defined role; she thought of herself as moral support. Knowing Mrs. Blum was most comfortable in crisis mode, Emma didn’t offer the obvious comment that the wedding was still three hours away, meaning the lack of flowers did not yet qualify as a crisis. But Emma was concerned about Annie’s freak-out, mostly since there was a steaming-hot iron an inch from her friend’s skull and a razor-sharp implement even closer to her eyeball. “If I were you,” she whispered in Annie’s ear, “I’d be more concerned with the state of your hair. Did you ask to look like a cross between Shirley Temple and the Bride of Frankenstein?”
    Annie whipped her head around, and Emma let out an involuntary yelp: The bride looked like a horror movie villain, half of her hair teased perpendicular and the other half kinked into coils, one eye without makeup and the other bulging out of spidery lashes. Annie seemed to understand her effect, and erupted into the wheezing laughter Emma had loved for nearly three decades. “Emma the Bitch,” Annie said, delighted.
    “You also have food in your teeth. You’re a total mess.” Emma knew full well that Annie hadn’t eaten anything all day, and that her friend’s curls would eventually be pinned up and dotted with diamonds to create a masterful updo—Emma had attended both practice runs and rhapsodized on cue. “I think a month without carbs has gone to your head. Your body’s in ketosis, literally eating itself for fuel, so naturally you’re flipping out about a little hiccup with the flowers. Listen, if the florist doesn’t show, I will personally haul ass over to the National Mall and pick a bunch of bouquets from the presidential gardens, even if Michelle Obama herself comes running after me and punches me out with her powerhouse arms. Deal?”
    Annie erupted into more giggles. “Okay, deal.”
    “Also, I got you a bagel. Please don’t fight me on this.” Emma fed the bread to her friend, whose moans of pleasure at the food embarrassed everyone present. She was spitting crumbs, causing the makeup girl to tighten her smile.
    “Attention, everyone!” A beaming Mrs. Blum bounded into the room. “The flowers are here!” She shoved into Emma’s hand a bouquet nearly two feet in diameter and so heavy Emma felt like she should perform bicep curls. The blooms looked almost obscene in their ripeness, orchids gaping and hydrangeas fecund; Emma had to look away. Her gaze settled on Annie, whose eyes were both now heavily painted. Over the top, Emma thought. Everywhere she looked—at the sumptuous spread of