Page 1 of Truck Up
Chapter 1
Flowers, frustration, and free-spirited angels.
Amelia
“Social media is a waste of time,” my mom declares, her voice sharp with the familiar German directness that still echoes through our family despite the generations of distance from our ancestors.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes, the muscles in my face twitching. Her disapproving gaze feels like a laser beam burning a hole in my head, and I don’t need to give her more reasons to be unhappy with me.
Instead, I plaster on a smile and pretend I’m not bothered by her tone. “It’s not a waste, Mom. It’s the best way to reach new customers and grow the online store.”
“Meh.” She dismisses my words with a wave of her hand. Her frown deepens. “I don’t understand why we need an online store. It’s a complete waste of time, if you ask me. Who buys flowers online?” She gestures dramatically around the shop. “People need to experience the beauty in person. Look at what you’ve done here, Lia. You can’t capture this magic in a picture.”
I glance around our small flower shop—or rathermysmall flower shop now that my parents have officially handed it over to me—and smile. There’s no arguing with her. I pour as muchenergy into the in-person experience as I do the online one. Every display is meticulously arranged and Instagram-worthy.
Before I took over, the shop was a chaotic jumble. New shipments were haphazardly placed wherever space allowed. Not ugly, just … lacking. No flow, no intention. Mom always insisted it didn’t matter. That customers care about the arrangements, not the shop itself.
I vehemently disagree.
Appearances matter.
Now that I make all the decisions, everything is perfectly arranged with purpose and aesthetics in mind. The stock flowers along the walls are organized by color—not randomly stuffed wherever there’s space—to create a vibrant rainbow replacing the previous haphazard displays. It’s a hit with both in-person customers and online followers. People love rainbows.
I ditched the old metal shelves in favor of sleek white pedestals, showcasing the arrangements without overshadowing the flowers. They look clean and fresh and don’t detract from the real reason people come into my shop. The flowers.
“Johanne, have you even looked at her Instagram page?” Darlene, my only employee besides Mom, and surrogate grandmother, chimes in from behind the counter. “She has over a hundred thousand followers.”
Darlene is one of the coolest and most flexible people I know. She embraces change like the inevitable that it is and does it happily. I wish Mom and Dad were more like her. Then maybe running this business wouldn’t be such a challenge.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my parents. They’re good people. But they can be … trying.
“I don’t see how that helps. There aren’t even a hundred thousand people living in this county, let alone this town.” Mom scoffs. “Pointless, if you ask me.”
“That’s precisely why I’m focusing on expandingouronline store,” I explain, carefully avoiding the wordmy. They may have relinquished ownership, but they still see it as their shop. “This county alone can’t sustain us. By promoting the online store via social media, it allows us to reach a wider audience.”
“Need I remind you that I ran this business for fifteen years with nothing but the support of this community? I didn’t need an online store to sustain my business. We thrived on local support.”
“Mom, you weren’t—” I pause, pinching the bridge of my nose before I say something I’ll later regret.
The truth is harsh. Mom wasn’t making a profit. At best, she broke even. Many months, she was in the red. The same was true for the logging company, which my brother, Jason, inherited.
We discovered our parents had been operating both businesses at a loss for years, relying on their personal savings to stay afloat. A few more years and our parents would’ve been bankrupt.
Now, Jason and I are scrambling to salvage the situation, to rebuild and secure our parents’ retirement while somehow making a living for ourselves.
They don’t see it that way. They fear we’re destroying what they built, not improving it. Every change is met with resistance.
We should have pursued careers outside the family businesses, like our older brothers, Linden, Aaron, and Tanner. But we clung to the dream of taking over. Now, we’re burdened with the responsibility of financially saving our parents while building our own lives.
It’s not the fairy tale we envisioned, but here we are. We won’t give up the fight. We love the work, we love our parents, and we’ll find a way to save them.
I’m not sure how Jason is handling it with Dad, but I’ve mostly learned to ignore Mom’s objections—with a smile, of course—and plow forward. As the owner, she can’t stop me.
But she sure as hell can voice her disapproval.
The online store and social media presence are just the beginning. I also rebranded the shop, changing the name from Koch’s Flowers and Gifts to Velvet & Vine.
She almost had a coronary over that one. No one wants to shop at Koch’s Flowers and Gifts. But Velvet & Vine? It has a certain allure. Especially now that we offer delivery.