I’m so sure Fitzwilliam & Associates are never going to hire me again, I’m not even going to offer to pay Cindy for her pants. I’m just going to take the money and run.
Chapter Six
Noel
“With that, I’ll turn it over to Ali Burman, one of our renowned senior architects, to provide a comprehensive look at the sustainable aspects of the design. We’re particularly proud of the double-glass facade he came up with, as well as the rainwater capture system, and the solar panels that will create enough power to substantially lower the electric bills.” I give Ali a nod and an encouraging smile.
He gets up and makes his way to the front of the room and stands at the podium next to the screen. I take the opportunity to walk over to the buffet table and pour myself a water, my hand shaking slightly. It’s okay. We’re off to a good start. You can relax now. I use my vantage point at the back of the room to observe Walter Brown Senior. Huh, he doesn’t seem all that interested. Instead of being rapt by Ali’s explanation of the unprecedented power and heating savings, Walter is sniffing a cookie and turning it over in his hand. He takes a bite, then nods and closes his eyes for a second, lost in whatever’s happening in his mouth.
I quietly slip into my spot next to him, hoping it’ll refocus his attention, but it’s no use. He takes another bite, this time making a low “mmm” sound. Turning to me, he whispers, “Have you tried one of these?”
I shake my head, then glance at Ali in an effort to redirect him, but he misses the cue and picks up a cookie with his meaty fingers. He holds it out to me. “Try it. Best cookie I’ve ever tasted.”
I smile to hide my discomfort with taking food someone else has touched. Who knows when the last time he washed his hands was? I once read that men in positions of power tend to be single-shake, no-wash guys due to the feeling of being in a perpetual hurry. I’m not one of those men, but Walter very well could be. I take a bite of the opposite side that he made contact with. Mmm, wow. I’ll be damned. He’s right. That is the best cookie I’ve ever tried. It’s a gingersnap that appears to have been rolled in sugar before it was baked giving it a crisp outside while keeping the inside soft. The combination melts on my tongue and I suddenly don’t care if Walter’s a single-shake guy. I’d punch my own brother in the face for one of these.
While I’m savoring the spices as they burst in my mouth, I can’t help but think, of course Aimée makes delectable cookies—she didn’t get those curves from eating apples. Bugger it, now I’m picturing her wearing only an apron, holding out a tray of cookies and smiling at me. The memory of her soft skin against my palms floods my mind and before I know it, I’ve wolfed down the entire cookie without realizing it (or hearing a thing Ali is saying).
Walter jabs me in the arm. “I was right, wasn’t I? Best damn thing I ever put in my mouth.”
I nod. “Very much so,” I whisper, thinking of all the other things of Aimée’s that I could put in my … Stop it Noel, focus.
“Can you give your caterer’s number to my girl?” he asks, gesturing to a woman three seats over who’s furiously taking notes. I wonder how she likes being called his “girl.”
I turn my attention back to Ali, but apparently Walter’s not done talking about the caterer. He leans in and whispers, “Nice that they hired that mentally handicapped girl, too. My wife is always hassling me to support businesses like that.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I say, narrowing my eyes.
“The one with the two aprons. She looks normal but there’s got to be something wrong up there,” he says, tapping the side of his head. “She stapled her pants, for God’s sake.”
I blink quickly, trying to determine why his words are bothering me in any way, shape, or form. Nope. No idea. There’s no logical reason it should irritate me in the least. And yet … “I’ll be sure to pass the number along. Oh, Ali is about to talk about the rain-collection system. You’re going to love it.”
He snatches a chocolate chip cookie off the tray and sniffs it, and it hits me. Walter Senior isn’t the man in charge anymore. He acts like he is, with his blustery presence, but the one making the decisions is definitely his son. I stare at Junior, who’s sitting back in his chair with his arms crossed, listening intently. Why didn’t I realize it when they came in and their staff jostled for positions next to Walter Junior? Well, bugger, I’ve completely ignored him. I’ll have to right this immediately. The woman sitting next to him leans in and whispers something in his ear. Without taking his eyes off the screen, he nods. Yup. He’s the boss.
And I’m going to have to make sure to acknowledge that fact, because if there’s anything a child taking over the family business hates, it’s having people assume they’re only inheriting it because of who they are. But this type of thing has to be very delicately done so as not to make it appear that I’m disregarding the man who still fancies himself the head honcho. My palms suddenly feel clammy as I try to figure out how to fix this. I need to have a private conversation with him, but I can’t move too fast. There are a surprising number of parallels between bidding on a job and dating. Never give off even a hint of desperation. I quickly jot a note for Walter Junior:
Text me on Tuesday so we can talk business.
212-555-4686
There. A four-day window sends the message that I’m interested but if he doesn’t want to go with us, we’ve got plenty of other real estate developers knocking on our door. Ali finishes to a round of polite applause, and I jump up, suggesting a ten-minute break. Everyone disperses to make phone calls and use the loo, while I make a beeline for Byron. Handing him the note, I lower my voice. “Get this to Walter Junior—and for God’s sake, be discreet.”
He takes it from me and starts to walk away, but I stop him. “First, go find Ms. Tompkins and have her wrap up any leftover cookies for Walter Senior. Oh, and get one of her business cards for him as well.”
The meeting resumes without Byron returning. Cindy’s presenting, and for the first time, I notice how painfully thin she is. I find myself wondering if she has an eating disorder. Seeing Aimée in her trousers was rather enlightening. Dammit, Noel, what is wrong with you today? Speaking of focus, where is Byron? He must have gotten distracted chatting with Aimée. A moment later, he sneaks in, shutting the door behind him. In one hand, he has a small brown paper bag folded neatly at the top. He gives me a thumbs up that in Byron-speak means he took care of my requests. (Which actually means he likely forgot at least one of the three things I directed him to do.)
He creeps over and kneels down next to me, whispering, “I just caught her on the way out. Her card is in the bag.”
“She’s gone?” I whisper-yell. But I told her to stay. Not that I had a good reason, mind you. In fact, even as I was asking her to wait, I didn’t have the first clue what I was going to say to her. Good job? Nice cookies? I’d like my shirt back, but can you leave it on my bedroom floor in the morning?
“Don’t worry, I gave her a nice, fat tip,” he whispers. “Although I can see by the look on your face, you wanted to be the one to do that.” His naughty wink has me rolling my eyes. I’m guessing I wasn’t too subtle in my admiration for our new caterer and now Byron is probably going to tease me mercilessly about it.
I glare at him and snatch the bag out of his hand, passing it to Walter Senior. Leaning over, I say, “For the road.”
He grins at me like a child on Christmas Eve, making me wish he were the man who was about to decide our fate because he’s pretty easy to please. But, based on the fact that he’s just opened the bag and is now filling it with more cookies from the tray, I’m relatively certain that his days of developing the Manhattan skyline are behind him.
Chapter Seven
Aimée
“Open the envelope,” Teisha orders as soon as we get onto the elevator.
“I’ll open it in the van. My hands are shaking so badly I need a moment to collect myself.”
T makes a grab for it, but
I tuck it down my shirter, Noel’s shirtbefore she can get it. “Down, girl. I want to be the one to look, but I just need a minute.”
She snags a leftover baguette from the cooler and takes a bite. Then she moans, “Oh my god, this is so good! What’s in here?”
“Grilled eggplant, peppers, mushrooms, onions, and goat cheese all marinated in an herbed olive oil, then topped off with a reduced balsamic drizzle.”
“This is delicious enough that I don’t think anyone is going to even remember the perfume incident.” She takes another bite. “Damn, that’s good!”
Her reaction makes me feel the tiniest bit better about the godawful start to this job. Who in the history of catering has ever wound up naked in their employer’s arms outside of a pornographic film? I suddenly wonder what Noel was planning to say to me had I stayed behind like he ordered me to.
I know I should be thinking of him as Mr. Fitzwilliam, but I’m afraid that ship sailed when I felt his hands grab my bare butt. God that was a great moment. Horrifying yes, but mind-blowingly delectable otherwise.
Teisha has finished her whole sandwich by the time the elevator arrives in the parking garage. Even though it stopped a dozen times to let people on and off, she should not have had time to eat the whole thing. She practically hoovered it.
I grab a sandwich for myself after we get off the elevator and take a bite while I get the van. I’m so happy in this moment that I no longer register the discomfort of Cindy’s pants of torture—C-POT for short. Once I reach my destination, I look around to make sure no one is nearby before unknotting Noel’s shirt and taking the pants off. Sweet relief is mine. I start to feel the blood circulating again and I decide in this moment I will never go on another job without taking extra clothes with me. Also, I’m going to eat yogurt every day this week to avoid getting the yeast beast T cautioned me about.
Crap! That’s when it hits me, I forgot my dress in Noel’s bathroom. Well, I obviously can’t go back for it. Can I? I pull out the envelope Byron handed me and open it up. Teisha will be mad I didn’t do it in front of her, but I suddenly have to know what’s in there before another second goes by. Byron and I contracted for thirty dollars a person for lunch plus thirty dollars a person, per hour, for service. I quickly do the mental math and realize the check should be for seven hundred and twenty dollars, as long as they didn’t dock me for the shower I took or the pants I ruined.
I close my eyes while I pull out the check before taking the slowest, deepest breath of my life. Then I look. Holy crap! It’s made out for eight hundred and seventy dollars! That’s a twenty percent tip on a job I practically blew by wearing perfume.
I hurry to pull the van around to where T is standing with our stuff. Jumping out of the driver side looking like I just performed a tawdry walk of shame—I’m wearing four-inch heels, a man’s shirt, and nothing else— I shout, “T! We got a hundred and fifty-dollar tip! WOO-HOO!!! Where should we go celebrate?”
She eyes me up and down before replying, “I think we need to get you some clothes before we go anywhere. Also, I told you we nailed that job! Show me the check.” She grabs it before I can hand it to her. Peeling a post-it note off the back, she asks, “What’s this?”
I take it out of her hands and read:
Text me on Tuesday so we can talk business.
(212) 555-4686
“It must be from Byron,” I conclude. “He probably wants his boss’s shirt back or something.”
Teisha opens the back of the van and starts to load stuff in while saying, “I bet he wants to set up the next luncheon.”
“From your mouth to God’s ear, my friend. Seriously, if they hire me again, I’ll pay Cindy for her pants.”
“No, you won’t. I’ll take them down to Kwon and he’ll fix them for you.”
I jump into the back of the van to organize the stuff as she hands it up. “Your nail guy is going to fix Cindy’s pants?”
“Nah, his cousin Don is. He’s a dry cleaner and tailor somewhere around China Town. I take my stuff to Kwon and in a few days he returns it, good as new.”
“Only in New York,” I tell her.
It takes us an hour and fifteen minutes to get back to midtown. To my right, the wide sidewalk is crowded with women dressed in the latest spring fashions and men who have removed their suit jackets and slung them over their arms. There’s also an old lady with a walker who keeps catching up to us every couple of blocks. It’s a little disheartening and I’m tempted to go on my regular rant about how Manhattan should just ban all cars and install giant conveyor belts where the streets are. We’d sure get around faster. But I’ve got bigger problems in front of me than solving the city’s traffic woes. We finally pull into the parking garage under my building, a rarity among New York City apartments, but one of the reasons I had to settle for such tiny quarters.
“I’m going to start moving over to your place tomorrow if that works,” I tell my friend. “My landlord starts knocking on doors on the third of the month so if I’m out by the second, we won’t have to have words.”
“You’ve got my key,” she tells me. Then she asks, “Why do you suppose Byron wanted you to wait until Tuesday to text him?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Maybe because he won’t have the information for the next lunch he wants us to cater until then.”
“Yeah, that’s probably it,” she agrees. “Did he remind you of someone?”
“Rupert Everett in My Best Friend’s Wedding,” I tell her without missing a beat.
“That’s it! I think we need to bring that boy into the fold, don’t you? Now that Terrance is leaving, I’m going to need a regular gay boy fix. Who else will remind us that bangs are the calling card of the devil?”
“We are not jumping into a gay best friend scenario with the man who has the power to make or break my recently resuscitated catering career. Just no. We’re going to take it slow and make sure we cement the professional portion of our relationship before I go all gay babe on him.”
After we unload the van, Teisha says, “Let’s get Chinese. I like to celebrate with a little kung pao.”
After putting on yoga pants and a hoodie, I lead the way out of my apartment. T and I walk up to Red Flower on East 54th Street, talking the whole way about what a success we are.
“That boss man was something straight out of Eye Candy Monthly, wasn’t he?” Teisha asks.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What?” she demands when I don’t speak up quick enough.
“Noel walked in on me when I was getting out of the shower.”
Teisha stops walking. She turns to me and demands, “Why didn’t you tell me that before now?”
“I just wanted to get through the afternoon without thinking about it.”
“Did he see you in your birthday suit?”
I nod my head.
“Did he say anything?” Her voice has practically climbed an octave.
“I actually slipped and fell into his arms.”
“NAKED?!”
People nearby stop to stare at us.
“Keep your voice down, T. And yes, he held me while I was naked.”
“Why oh why oh why didn’t I put on perfume today?” she moans. “That could have been me! I’m going to need details, Aimes, every single little thing you can think of.”
I fill her in on what I can remember while she makes sounds like she’s at some kind of Baptist revival and is finding Jesus for the first time.
Once we’re seated inside the restaurant, she says, “You text Byron right now. Don’t wait until Tuesday. We need some intel on that boss of his.”
“How in the world am I going to do that?”
“Just start texting him,” she orders. “We’ll see what he says, and we’ll work it out from there.”
I pull my phone out of my purse before hitting the message box by his number. Then I type in FitzAssoc to create the contact.
&
nbsp; I just wanted to thank you for giving me a chance today. I really appreciated all your help in getting me showered.
Chapter Eight
Noel
I stare at her words, trying to choose an appropriate response. Clearly it’s from Aimée who believes she’s texting my brother. She would hardly thank me for my part in her shower adventures. It appears likely that Byron gave her the memo meant for Walter Junior, which would be a total Byron thing to do. I make a mental note to contact Junior myself.
Back to Aimée. Obviously, I should tell her who I am. It’s not like I want my shirt back—I get a secret thrill thinking of her wearing it. I just don’t appreciate her running out on me before I could talk to her. Not to mention I should probably give her dress back to her. (I hung it in my closet, but not before inhaling the lovely perfume that was the cause of much distraction for me today. Whatever that scent is, it’s utterly feminine but not at all what I’d call sweet—kind of like her.)
I start to write I’m not sure how you got my number. This is Noel, then delete it. Scratching my chin, I find myself grinning. She’d remove the number in a heartbeat if she knew it was me, and I feel like having a little fun. Besides, it’s Friday night, and now that our pitch for One Rosenthal is over, I have nothing to do this weekend. After months of working seven days a week, I suddenly find myself with free time.
Muting the sports update I was watching on the telly, I walk over to my kitchen to grab a beer out of the fridge. I twist the cap off and have a long pull on the bottle before glancing down at my mobile. She’s waiting for a reply. She left me quite the opening with the whole I really appreciated all your help in getting me showered.
How could a guy pass that up? I assign her the very appropriate title of SexyCaterer before typing back.
Me: The pleasure was all mine.
SexyCaterer: Your boss scared the life out of me. Is he always so, so …
Text Me On Tuesday: All is Fair in Love and Texting ... (An Accidentally in Love Story Book 1) Page 4
