“Why’d you go and do that fool thing?”Grammy snapped.

“Because that’s what the order slip said todo.”

“No, sir, it did not. Mr. Fosternever wants his wife’s flowers left outside his house—he’s realparticular about that.”

“I don’t mean to contradict you,” Neal saidcarefully, “but I’m almost sure the delivery slip said to leavethem on the porch.”

“We’ll just see about that,” Grammy said.She began to shuffle through the mountain of delivery slips fromthe day before. “You can’t just deliver ‘em any way you please,sonny—you got to look at the slip.”

Mildred gave Neal a doubtful glance andresumed work on a bouquet.

“What’s the problem?” old man Snell said,stepping up behind Neal.

Wonderful, Neal thought, glancing over hershoulder. Not only had the screw-up come to the attention of theold man, but all the other Snells in the shop seemed to belistening.

“Arggh,” Grammy groaned, waving a wiry armat Neal as if he was a troublesome schoolboy. “Miz Foster called upin a tizzy this morning ‘cause her flowers didn’t getdelivered.”

Neal started to say something in his owndefense, but then thought the better of it. He would wait untilGrammy located the evidence. He was almost certain that the box onthe slip that said IF NOT HOME, LEAVE OUTSIDE DOOR was checked withone of Grammy’s precise little X’s, but after what had happenedearlier with his baby daughter that morning, Neal wasn’t completelysure of anything.

“The Fosters are one of our best customers,son,” the old man said.

“I know,” Neal said.

“I went to school with Dan Foster—he was oneof my fraternity brothers. He’s one of the most successful lawyersin town.”

Neal only nodded. He had heard this at leastthree times the day before. The whole family seemed to pridethemselves on how many people—important people—they knew in