Cocktail Hour

by McTiernan, Tara

  In fact, it was Flo who had hopes for Lucie, not her father. Donald Spencer Scott had given up on his daughter years ago. When he'd asked about her career last night, it had been in the tired polite voice he spoke in whenever he asked about her life, only glancing at her briefly when he asked. He did his duty as a father: he provided. All you had to do to see his fatherly love was to look around at the grand Georgian Colonial house where they lived in New Canaan, see his name in gold on the door of his office: Scott Publications, look down at the expensive steak dinner they were sitting down to on a Wednesday night. Asking his daughter questions was extra credit work that he didn't need to earn.

  Lucie had put her hands in her lap, glanced over at Ryan, who had nodded at her with encouragement, and forced out the words. "Well, I've got exciting news actually."

  Her father continued cutting his steak, his eyes on his plate. "Really?" he said, his tone still bored.

  “Oh? What!” Flo asked, leaning forward across her plate, her short pixyish red hair glinting gold in the candlelight.

  “You know how I love to cook?”

  Her father speared a piece of steak, held his fork poised with his wrist resting on the table, and finally looked at Lucie. “Yes, of course. That’s a great hobby. Very useful if you ever have important clients to dinner. Much more impressive than having caterers bring food in.” He nodded firmly and then tore the bite of steak off his fork with his teeth. His handsome strong-featured face - superman-like with a prominent square jaw and an aquiline nose - became vicious looking as he bit at the meat, his white teeth flashing.

  “But that’s the thing. So many people have important clients or other people that they want to invite to dinner, but they can’t cook. I thought I could help them. It would be what you always call a ‘win-win’, Dad.”

  Her father grimaced and shook his head before visibly swallowing. “What? Teach them? Oh, please. There’s no money in that.”

  “No! I meant I’d be a caterer. I’d go to their houses and cook up fancy meals for their little parties and times when they need to impress someone. And I'd be low-key, so it would seem as if they made it. No van plastered with logos and 800 numbers, no huge staff. Just me.”

  “Oh!” Flo trilled. “That’s fabulous! People do need that. No one cooks anymore. You know I don’t.”

  Her father pointed at his plate with his fork. “What do you call this?”

  Flo shook her head at him. “You know that you cooked the steaks on the grill. All I did was toss the salad and bake some potatoes in the oven. That’s not cooking.”

  “What else do you need? Steak is the world’s most perfect food. Lucie’s mother never made it often enough. It was always fish or chicken or, worse, eggs for dinner.”

  Lucie felt the sting again, and it felt just as fresh as the first time she'd heard him criticize her mother when she was five. “Anyway, that’s what I’m going to do. I thought you’d be happy. I finally figured out what I want to do and I can stop being an administrative assistant.”

  Her father rolled his eyes and then put his hands up, palms out, and spoke to the high ceiling. “Praise the Lord for that,” he said and then looked at Lucie again. “I just wish it was something a little more challenging. A little more profitable. Ryan here isn’t going to be able to keep you in style, we all know that.”

  Lucie clenched her teeth and forced herself to breathe through her nose. She stared at her plate and the bloody steak leaking into the baked potato topped with sour cream and dried chopped chives.

  She knew she should stand up for Ryan. His career as a photographer hadn't taken off yet, but it would. He had an incredible eye, capturing things on film even she couldn't see when she stood beside him on their jaunts into the city or the countryside shooting photos to submit to stock photography sites. She knew that he'd make it eventually, hit the big time as a staff photographer for an important magazine, might even be the next Ansel Adams. For now, though, he was struggling along with occasional one-off work while bartending at a local restaurant a few nights a week to help make ends meet. And that was all her father could see: a thirty-two year old college dropout with unrealistic dreams who bartended to pay the bills. On the other hand, Ryan didn’t have to be so difficult, so confrontational with her father, either. Her father only wanted what was best for her.

  On cue, Ryan said, “Really? Well, I guess she’ll just have to do without the style, then.”

  Her father shook his head and looked at Ryan from under knitted eyebrows. "It's too bad you have that attitude. When I was your age-"

  "I don't need the lecture, thanks. Besides, we were talking about your daughter and her new career. She was hoping for some support, maybe a little enthusiasm."

  "I always support Lucie," her father said, raising his chin and looking over at her. "I do. I just think you could do more, and-"

  Flo interrupted, "But honey, it is more! Think about it. Food is big now. Lots of caterers go on to be huge celebrities: there's the Barefoot Contessa, or wait, Martha Stewart! Lucie could end up with an empire.”

  Her father’s eyebrows went up and he looked back at Lucie just as she started shaking her head. He said, "Wow. I didn’t think-“

  “No!” Lucie said, shaking her head harder. “I don’t want some big thing, I just-“

  “Why not?” her father said, his face crumpling in frustration. “Lucie. The world is your oyster. But you have to take the pearl. It’s not going to jump into your hand.” He started nodding, while he continued. “Yes, this may be just the thing for you. School is out, we all know that. Your GPA-“

  “Painkillers and agony make it hard to concentrate, Dad.”

  He put up a hand. “You didn’t apply yourself. Don’t make excuses. I had pneumonia and then mono in college and I was on the Dean’s List anyway. I propped my eyes open with my fingers when I studied, practically crawled to classes.”

  Lucie slumped. He was right. She should have fought harder, pushed herself.

  Ryan spoke up. “Well, it’s nice to know that you possess superpowers, Mr. Scott. Not everyone has them. You’re a very lucky man.”

  Her father glanced at him, but didn’t deign to reply. He refocused on Lucie. “The point is: you have a talent for cooking. Why not parlay it into something truly valuable to society in general? Not just a few clients here and there.” He looked off, his lips turning down in thought. “Hmm, books, maybe a television show?”

  In that moment, Lucie could see it, her future in her father’s eyes. She had to admit it glittered. She nodded and shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Flo said, “Of course you can! Start with the catering like you planned, and then take it from there. That’s how they all do it. And you couldn’t pick a better place to do it than right here in Fairfield County. Martha started in Westport. Ooo, I know you’ll do wonderfully!”

  Now, sitting in her car, Lucie realized that it wasn’t a bad idea. Maybe she would become famous. She imagined glossy full-color cookbooks displaying her recipes, a French-themed cooking show, perhaps some kind of tribute to Mere’s career as a pastry chef. That idea, involving her mother somehow, appealed most of all. Lucie knew one thing: her father expected great things and she was tired of disappointing him. She remembered how wonderful it had felt in high school when he had put his arm around her and boasted openly about her to his friends whenever he and Mere had entertained, would never forget the look of pride in his eyes when he looked at her back then. And Flo, she was always supporting Lucie – it would be nice to please her. If only Flo would give even a drop of that support to her own daughter.

  Lucie thought of Erin and felt the sinking sensation again. How would Erin possibly help her? She couldn’t cook to save her life: the microwave and the fast-food drive-thru were the only ways her stepsister got sustenance. She couldn’t help with bookkeeping: she was a mess with money, losing it and mixing up simple numbers and forgetting important things like bills. She was no good with customer service: either being too chummy and
personal or, if in one of her bad moods, rude and dismissive.

  Lucie sighed. There had to be something Erin could do, she just had to think. She turned around in her car seat and backed out of the parking space inch by inch, going so slowly that a woman sitting in her shiny new black Explorer and waiting for Lucie’s space honked at her.

  “Okay, okay,” Lucie muttered. She pulled the rest of the way out as fast she could, feeling her heart jump, and watched the woman zoom into the space. “You’re welcome. Have a nice day,” she said wryly. Then she drove slowly out of the parking lot and into the stream of traffic on the Post Road, heading toward the bar at Ibiza in Stamford and hoping that, over a few drinks with Chelsea and the other girl, some solution for what to do about Erin would occur to her.

  Strawberry Daiquiri

  Chelsea sat in one of the chairs on the periphery of the darkened conference room with a notepad in her lap, pen in hand, and eyes trained dutifully on the PowerPoint presentation on the screen at the front of the room. Around her, the rest of the employees at the Stamford office of TMB either sat, stony-faced, as they took in the presentation, or shifted restlessly. Some were brazen enough to surreptitiously check and type in their BlackBerrys or iPhones. It was another meeting called by management with the intention to rally the troops and, yet again, it was failing miserably to achieve that goal.

  Behind Chelsea's docile facade, her mind was working wildly. She was sitting next to one of the senior account executives, the company hotshot, Travis. Travis was not only hot in the sense of being one of the top sales execs in the company; he was hot in the looks department, too - tall, dark and handsome. And single. And gave her "the look" from time to time, so she knew he'd noticed her, too.

  She had secured this prime piece of real estate in the conference room by walking by his office prior to the meeting and opening a filing cabinet just outside his door, placing the notepad and pen she'd need at the meeting on top of it. Then she started looking among the files. Of course, there was nothing she needed from the file cabinet other than its handy proximity to Travis's office, but she gave a good show. While tickling the files, she listened to him finish his telephone conversation and hang up. She heard him mutter, "Shit," and then there was the sound of his chair rolling back on its plastic mat followed by the rattle of the chair as he stood. Now. She prepared to pounce.

  Just as she closed the filing cabinet drawer, pen and pad in her other hand, he appeared in his office door. She smiled brightly at him and tossed her hair back. "Going to the meeting?"

  "Yeah. You?"

  "Yeah."

  "Come on, the torture's just about to begin," he said, shrugging one shoulder at her and starting down the hall.

  She ran to catch up with him in the tiny steps her ultra-high heels confined her to until he noticed her jogging behind him and slowed down to walk with her, asking her how she could walk in "those things" and gesturing at her feet. She giggled and said she couldn't even walk in flats she was so used to heels. She saw him take in her shape appreciatively. Good, he definitely liked curvy girls.

  She followed him into the conference room and boldly sat next to him. Taking advantage of the lull after they sat, she said, "Can you believe they're calling another one of these? We just had one, like, two weeks ago."

  He groaned and rolled his eyes. "Don't remind me. That was the one where they compared us to rabbits and said we were all in the same burrow, right?"

  "More like we're all lemmings and we're supposed to jump off a cliff and die together."

  He let out a little chuckle. "Good one."

  "You know what TMB stands for, right?"

  "It's the letters of the last names of three guys who started this company. I think it's...Thomas Moore and Bailey? Or is it Thomas Morehead and Bartleby?"

  "No, TMB stands for Too Much Bullshit."

  Travis laughed outright. "Awesome! I'll have to use that." He looked her over again. "Didn't know you had a sense of humor."

  "You should see me when I really get going."

  "Really?" he said, his eyes raking over her again, his smile wolfish.

  He started to say something else and she leaned forward, waiting for it: the invitation to get together she'd been waiting for desperately. It was the invitation she prepared herself for every day by taking special care with the selection of what she wore to work, reapplying her makeup regularly to make sure she was always perfect and date-ready, checking her teeth to make sure nothing was wedged between them, and never eating garlic or onions or tuna fish at lunch.

  Just then the lights were turned down for the presentation. Travis turned away to face the front of the room. The bubble of excitement rising in Chelsea's chest deflated. Damn! She started to slump and then remembered her posture and straightened up.

  Now she sat, eyes glazed over and unseeing while trying to figure out her next gambit. Nothing was coming. Her brain was frozen over or something. Maybe she should pay attention to the presentation. Then she could comment on that, restarting their conversation as they walked out of the conference room together.

  There was an organizational chart on the screen showing the updated restructuring of the company. It was the third go-round in the last three years. It seemed that whenever members of management celebrated New Year's Eve on December thirty-first, their unanimous resolution was to rearrange the organization and throw it into the usual tumult of hirings and firings and hissy fits behind closed doors. It was as if they enjoyed the accompanying drama and loss of momentum in productivity and sales.

  No matter how they rearranged the positions on the chart, though, Chelsea remained firmly at the bottom: marketing department administrative assistant. It was one of the benefits of her job - no need to jockey for position or impress people, leaving her with plenty of time and energy to pursue her real mission in life: love and marriage. Not just love, but LOVE, all-caps blow-you-away soul-mate romance and magic and hearts and flowers and unicorns and rainbows. Everything she adored all piled in one big basket and topped with a big sparkly diamond ring. She knew she was destined for it, felt it every time the boy got the girl in a movie or a book and she burst into satisfying tears.

  That she hadn't found it yet, already thirty-three, disturbed her. But she kept her chin up, kept her eye on the prize. And currently, a potential prize - she wasn't one hundred percent sure about Travis, just had a feeling - was sitting right next to her in the shadowy room. As if answering her prayer, the presenter started to wind down with the usual final words about how TMB need their help to make the transition and that supervisors would be calling team meetings over the next few days; that it was paramount that everyone attend with a proactive team-centric mindset.

  Chelsea rolled her eyes - blah-blah-blah - and recapped her pen, the notepad in her lap note-free as usual, it being a point-grabbing prop rather than a tool. The room's lights flickered on and Chelsea stood, about to comment to Travis about the fact that he would now be heading up a completely different team, when a voice boomed behind her.

  "Chelsea! There you are," Kevin Fitch, her boss and an all-around-jerk, yelled. He was the COO, one of the top execs in the entire company, yet he screamed rather than spoke, as if he needed to continually prove that he was top dog.

  Chelsea startled and turned. "Oh! Yes?"

  Her boss's square face and close-set brown eyes reminded her of a cartoon. Except he wasn't funny, not even a little bit. Well, except when she laughed at him behind his back with the other admins. He said, "Glad I caught you. I need you to send out invites, get the meetings set up this afternoon. We're going to dive right in on this."

  Chelsea tried to keep her face very still. But cocktails with the girls. Tonight. Thursday. At Ibiza. The hottest night at the hottest bar with the hottest men…and potentially Mr. Right. "But, it's already four-thirty. I mean, don't you-"

  He waved his fat hand in her face. "These people know what their priorities are. Just get back to your desk and send them out ASAP so we can catch
everyone before they leave. Have the first one at 5:30, each a half hour."

  She nodded, a mixture of despair and aggravation filling her.

  He jerked his head. “Okay? Now?”

  “Okay,” she squeaked and turned around to see that the conference room had emptied out and Travis was long gone. She jogged away on her high heels, feeling her boss’s eyes on her, watching her go. The worst thing about working for Kevin? He had the hots for her. Married, old, and mean - and he lusted after her. Even though he was completely subtle and P.C. about it, even though she only barely caught him staring before he sheepishly looked away, it was still disgusting.

  Back in her cubicle, Chelsea hit send on the final Outlook Calendar meeting invitation that went out to each of the six teams Kevin managed. The meetings would keep employees there, depending on their team's meeting time, until eight-thirty that night. She heard Kevin approaching her cubicle, talking on his cell, and she leaned forward and stared at the computer screen, tensed for the next request, but he kept walking and went into his office and shut the door. She blew out a ragged sigh and fell back in her chair, forgetting her promise to herself to sit up straight and stop slouching. It looked terrible, being hunched over like Quasimodo. Plus, it made her look fat rather than voluptuous.

  She had to figure out if she needed to stay for the meetings, or if she could get away with slipping out and still be able to meet her friends. Lucie was lucky she didn’t work at TMB anymore and have to put up with all the crap that was dished out daily by the management of the company, lucky to be launching a new business of her very own. Chelsea was happy for her friend, but she keenly missed her at moments like this. She could talk to Lucie tonight at Ibiza, assuming she got away, but she needed advice now and there was only one other straight-shooting no-BS woman in the office she could count on: Sharon. A market analyst who’d been with TMB for over ten years, Sharon had job security courtesy of being outstanding at what she did and having a boss with clout who valued her.