judging.
“My gardener was here yesterday,” she said. “He seems to think some of your pieces might suit one of our gardens.” How many did she have?
“They’re not mine,” I said. “They’re the work of a friend.” I launched into my spiel and fidgeted with the flash drive, plugging it into the laptop and continuing my pitch—but I’d never located the power source and my battery was at 20 percent, so nothing much was happening on the screen.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m a little electrically challenged right now.” I dropped down again to check for the outlet and was at eye level with the woman.
“That’s all right, dear. We’ll stop by during the reception.” I saw my sale rolling away and was pressing for a firmer commitment and a specific time to meet when Lauryn Peete and two young girls walked by, balancing three vintage streetlights on a too-small dolly whose casters were being uncooperative. The dolly snagged on a cable, and one of the streetlights teetered dangerously close to Lauryn’s head. Rick sprang into action and averted disaster, although the light did guillotine an amaryllis. The kids cheered, “Hey, the marines are here.”
Mrs. Moffitt and I watched as her companion picked up the fixtures at the middle and carried them like lightweight barbells to the school’s display garden.
“Rick won’t like that at all. He was at the Air Force Academy,” Mrs. Moffitt said, keeping an eye on him.
I didn’t know much about the various branches of the armed forces, but I knew you had to be recommended for the Air Force Academy by a congressman. That bit of information came to me courtesy of a snowboarder in Colorado who thought it would help him get to first base. It did. After a short while, Rick jogged back to us, full of unnecessary apologies to me and Mrs. Moffitt.
“Nonsense. You did what any red-blooded American boy would do—you helped a pretty woman in distress.”
His ears flushed bright red, and I took the brief silence as an opportunity to get back to the business at hand. “Was there any one piece that particularly struck your fancy?” I asked her, while looking at him.
“Don’t ask him,” she laughed, patting his hand. “This child wouldn’t know a weed from an orchid. Rick is my physical therapist, my chauffeur, and frequent dining companion. Mr. Jensen is my gardener. He’s not here now; he’s arranging for our last few accoutrements to be delivered.” I wondered if he was interviewing headless horsemen.
She was describing the pieces Jensen had mentioned seeing, when Jamal Harrington, he of the rubber rat, shuffled by swinging the empty dolly in a manner that could have been considered aggressive. He glared at Rick as if he were trying to burn a hole in him. Rick didn’t flinch.
“We will come back,” Mrs. Moffitt said. “I promise. But now I must go and check out my competition. Jensen says there are one or two quite original gardens that may give me a run for my money this year. He’s always looking after me. Come along, Rick.”
As he wheeled her away I overheard her say, “There certainly is an odd crop of entrants this year.”
Sixteen
I breathed easier when the last of Primo’s pieces arrived. With Nikki’s help they were test-driven in every possible location until the arrangement met with her approval. Her own booth looked ready for a glossy magazine shoot with dried flowers and decorative throws artfully dropped around the vintage tools and furniture. I’d seen at least one photographer strolling the halls, taking pictures during setup, and there were sure to be others on opening night.
The central element of Nikki’s booth was a sarcophagus topped with a decorative iron grate to be used—if you owned a property big enough—as an outdoor dining table. There was no rearranging that baby, so Nikki contented herself with tweaking everything else she’d brought: a wrought iron bistro set, antique plant stands, Japanese lanterns, carved stone pots, and a hundred smaller items—busts, birdbaths, and vintage tools—for those of us who didn’t live on huge properties but still wanted to feel like the chatelaines of great estates. Then she moved on to Primo’s pieces.
“If Mrs. Moffitt comes back to see you and happens to also buy my sarcophagus, I will give you anything in my booth as a commission. You’re going to bring me luck, I can feel it. Last year I was next to a couple selling Alaskan fish fertilizer. It was awful,” she said. “Stray cats followed me home.”
After staging his light fixtures, David had a minor crisis when the power in our aisle died. It was as if the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center had failed to light. It was impossible to appreciate the detail and intricacy of his work without a warm light glowing behind the shades and sconces. Forty minutes and a fifty-dollar tip later, all was well, and we wondered if it was the Javits Curse again or one last attempt by Wagner employees to squeeze additional baksheesh out of frantic exhibitors.
When the public address announcer made his first feeble attempt to eject us, all the kinks had been ironed out. The heavy machinery was gone, the carpets were in place, and the industrial-looking building had been transformed into the series of New York gardens the organizers had hoped to inspire.
And while we’d been tinkering with our displays, Cinderella’s mice had been hard at work. Temporary bars and buffet tables had materialized, and in twenty-four hours they’d be filled with finger foods and beverages of every stripe. If Connie Anzalone was correct, some attendees were already laying out their clothing. I hadn’t seen her all day and secretly hoped she’d forgotten my promise to have a drink with her.
“Leave business cards out,” David said, as he packed up. “Business-to-business sales are key. Other exhibitors walk around at off-hours, and they can be some of your best customers.” It was a good tip, and I spent the last fifteen minutes before lights-out doing as David had advised.
I wandered haphazardly and found myself in an aisle dedicated to single plant specimens—the Gloxinia Society, the Hosta Association. The plants were impossibly perfect, like pictures in a White Flower Farm or Park Seed catalog—no brown edges, no yellowing leaves, and no telltale nibbles. Like a kid, I wanted to touch them to see if they were real.
Connie was gone, so I poked around and inspected her garden entry. Coney Island was one of the most famous beaches in the world, although it was anyone’s guess whether or not the creatures and plants Connie depicted could be found there. It didn’t matter. The display was fanciful, whimsical, and the tiniest bit tacky, like the woman herself. As I leaned in for a closer look at her botanical version of a Whack-A-Mole game, I noticed two men in the shadows checking me out. Maybe they were the mob bodyguards Nikki thought Connie’s husband would bring in to protect her plants from human pests. Both men were slim enough to be almost hidden by the trio of rosemary topiaries from a penthouse garden display. I moved on.
There was no major category without a Moffitt entry. I didn’t see how she found the time to submit all the entries I saw. I had only covered one quarter of the room before a loud slam and a dimming of lights told me it really was time to leave.
The two men had disappeared. Only one other person was in sight, a young girl in a polo shirt and khakis taking pictures of a booth designed to re-create the Feast of San Gennaro. I didn’t buy the white hydrangeas as zeppole, but gave the entry extra points for imagination.
On my way out, I swung by the horticultural information booth for handouts on deer-resistant plants and others on hostas, amaryllis, and clivia. I grabbed another called “Poisonous to Pets” as a goodwill gesture to Lucy’s downstairs neighbor. I was tucking them in the outer pocket of my laptop case when a woman I hadn’t seen approached. She shoved handfuls of assorted flyers in her canvas bag. I realized I was staring.
“Getting some for friends?” I asked.
“Stacking them at my own booth as a service to show attendees.” She sounded defensive, as if I were going to report her to the flyer police. Hell, I didn’t care.
“Good idea,” I said.
“Just doing whatever it takes.”
She handed me her card and proceeded to tell me her story.
Seventeen
