Cocktail Hour

by McTiernan, Tara

  But he had told her over and over, especially in the beginning when the shock of him was daily, "What are you talking about? You're perfect. I'm crazy about you." And then, when pressed for details, he continued, "You're good. You're kind. You've got your head on straight. And, thank God, you don't play games. I swear, some of the women I've dated made my head hurt."

  Noticing Kate standing in the door, he looked up and smiled at her, a strange hopeful expression on his face. Did he know about Bianca, overhear her invitation?

  Encouraged, she burst out, "Guess what?"

  "What?"

  "Bianca? You're old friend? She invited me to drinks tonight. With the girls!"

  He blinked and then gave his head a little shake. "Ah, really? Wow. Well, Bianca isn't a friend of mine, but, I mean, I'm sure she went to school with me like she said-"

  "She's not a friend? But you were all apologetic about forgetting her?"

  "Because she clearly remembered me. It was embarrassing. But I didn't know her. I don’t think so. I'm sure she was in school with me, but...anyway. Well, that's great, honey,” he said and nodded at her with a closed-mouth smile.

  Kate felt herself deflating. “Oh? You don’t like her?”

  “No! No. I’m not saying that. I just don’t know her, that’s all. No, you should go. It would be good for you to get out.”

  Kate bit her lip. “I don’t know? I was going to make one of your favorites tonight. Meatloaf? Now what will you eat?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “That’s what I love about you. You worry about stuff like that. Most wives today would order pizza or takeout every night. Not you. Well, don’t worry. I won’t starve. Hell, maybe I’ll slum it and order a pizza! No, you should go. Bianca will probably end up being your best friend. You don’t want to let a little meatloaf get in the way of getting to know your future BFF, do you?”

  Kate grinned and laughed, too. “Best friend? Bianca? I doubt it! You’re my sweetheart, saying all that.”

  “Well, it’s true,” he said, and then glanced at the computer screen again before looking back at her, his expression the same strange one he’d had when she first stood in the doorway. “Speaking of the future, I found something here you might want to look at.” He made a come-here gesture with his index finger and ducked his head a little.

  She squinted her eyes and tilted her head at him. What was this shy bit? She walked around his desk to stand beside him. On the screen was an adorable little baby boy, red-cheeked and round-eyed, wearing a blue and white striped scarf and grinning toothlessly up at the camera.

  “Oh? How cute!” she gasped. He looked so much like-

  “Doesn’t he look just like your little brother? When he was a baby?”

  “Yes! That’s it! Just like David. Oh?” She stretched her neck out and gazed at the photo. How she wanted one of her own. Now. Right now.

  “Little Viktor here is from Russia. He’s a healthy happy baby boy, but he needs a home. Maybe we can give that to him?"

  Kate startled, feeling a quivering needle of hurt run through her. Adopt? They were going to have their own? If only Grant would… "You won't get a simple test, just to find out if your sperm are viable, but you're willing to go to the opposite end of the world to get a baby? A baby that's not ours? A baby that could be sick or abused?"

  Grant, who had still been facing his computer screen, turned his chair to face her fully and put his hands out, palms up. "No! The child would be healthy. Cute like little Viktor. And we'd be giving a home to a child that desperately needs one. Have you heard about the conditions in the orphanages there? It's horrible."

  "I don't want to hear about the conditions in the orphanages in Russia! I want to have a child of my own. I'm only thirty two? We've only been trying - without any help yet - for a couple of years? Not even really trying. Just...hoping! You can't be serious?"

  Grant slumped back in his chair. "I can't believe you won't even consider it. You're so warm-hearted usually."

  "I'm...I am! Please, honey? I just want to try to have our own? There are so many great fertility doctors around here, if we could-"

  Grant shook his head. "No. There's nothing wrong with either of us. We'll have a baby when it's meant to happen," he said, and shrugged. "I was just thinking, and then I found this site. It seemed like a solution. Sometimes, when you adopt, that's when you get pregnant. It's the pressure: it's removed, you relax. You know you worry too much. If we adopted a little boy or girl, you could focus on him or her and maybe then..." He stopped and just shook his head, looking longingly at the computer screen and the cherubic child's face displayed there.

  Kate looked at Grant. This was the one thing that bothered her about her husband. He'd always gotten exactly what he wanted in life. Never had to really struggle or suffer. And now that they were trying to get pregnant and hadn’t been successful right away, he was giving up. But she had experienced what it was like to struggle, to want things and never get them, to wish upon and star and wait, hoping. First it had been toys, later boys. Her only wish-come-true was Grant, her knight in shining armor. If it wasn't for him, she'd probably either be working the family farm back in Vermont beside her older siblings and parents or married into similar financial straits. If it wasn't for her one granted wish, she'd never be this happy, this hopeful. But she still understood, deeply, that most things that you wished for did not come true. You just had to keep on wishing, keep on trying. Grant had no such knowledge and it frustrated her.

  And for him to bring up David in this conversation, that was another thing. Poor David. Her younger brother - though still adorable, his eyes and face still round - was intellectually disabled and needed more care than her family could afford to give him. Now he lived in a group home and worked at the nearby Price-Rite grocery store, bagging groceries and corralling carts. When she visited him at his new home, the staff members were kind and the house solid though beleaguered, but the raucous noise the other residents made was jarring and the meals that were served came from cans and boxes, never freshly prepared. He'd smile so brightly at her and her family when they visited in the group home's living room or back at the farm for dinner, but when she asked about how he was doing, was everything okay, he seemed frighteningly uncertain.

  The fact that they could never afford to do more for David killed Kate inside. But it was a fact, along with the hard life they lived farming - a life that was idealized by people who didn't experience it, people like Grant who thought it was quaint and picturesque, Kate a little milkmaid. And now Grant was making light of adoption, as if it was no big deal.

  "No, Grant. I want to keep trying?" she said, fighting the tears she felt building.

  He nodded and turned to look at her at last. "Okay. It was just an idea," he said, before glancing again at the computer screen and the time displayed there. "Hey, it's getting late. Don't you have a cocktail hour to go to with your BFF?" He smiled and wiggled his eyebrows at her.

  "Oh, stop. You're being silly?" she said and laughed a little, gratefully feeling the tension leave the room.

  "We better get home so you can take the car. I guess we're going to have to buy another car at last. We can afford it now."

  Kate felt a splash of excitement zing through her and bugged her eyes out at him. "Really? I've never had my own. It's such a weird idea?" She tried to imagine it: her own car.

  "No, it's actually pretty normal. You're going to have to get citified, my little milkmaid. We're not in Kansas anymore."

  Kate laughed at his echo of her thoughts and was surprised to hear a mild bitterness in her voice when she said, "You can say that again. So, should we go?"

  He leaned over, casting one last lingering look at the little boy on the adoption website, and shut off his computer before standing up. "Let's do it."

  As they walked down the hall toward reception together, Grant put an arm around her and she leaned into him, glad that Janice had left and removed her and Grant's usual agreed-upon in-office formali
ty. He leaned over and kissed the top of her head and she turned her face so it pressed into the scratchy cotton of his long white coat. Everything was going to be okay. Wasn't it?

  They had that: a shared strong desire to have a family. There was nothing she wanted more - lots of little ones to raise and love, adding back into the circle of life. Babysitting while growing up and her time with her nieces and nephews reinforced everything she adored about those little human beings: their soft-sweetness, their inherent goodness, their innocence that needed so much guidance and care. Her heart was bursting with love for them, their to-be children. Couldn't God hear her heart?

  She would pray every day. She would wish upon every star in the sky. Someone had to be listening.

  Vodka Martini

  At quarter to seven Sharon walked through the glass doors of Ibiza, the whole wall facing the street made of glass, and into the candlelit bar that fronted the restaurant. The bar was decorated in earthy muted reds and oranges and had a sleek black shellacked-looking bar that stretched along one wall. Muted Spanish guitar music was playing, but it was early in the evening while dinner was still being served and the mellow mood music was certain to be replaced by the pounding bass of house music and hip-hop later that night.

  The bar was exactly what she expected to be: it had all the too-cool ambiance, and of course, the requisite strivers. Every bar stool was occupied by them: those youthful tri-state area residents who wanna-be just like Hollywood starlets, leaning forward in life, full of postures and airs, their oversize expectations matching the oversize salaries and extravagances of the area’s many movers and shakers. They couldn't afford their designer-label lifestyles, instead gambling on overnight success or a fat sugar daddy.

  They represented everything that Sharon was not. If Sharon didn't deeply believe in her own way of life, she'd be embarrassed about the worn-down loafers, discount jeans, and simple pale-blue button-down shirt she was wearing. Instead, she shouldered her way through a cluster of thin and beautiful women teetering on high-heels by the door and made her way to the bar, all the while swearing at herself for agreeing to meet Chelsea and her friends. Right now she could be opening her door and walking into her house, Fred running to greet her while yelling at her in his little scratchy voice before wrapping his furry body around her ankles in forgiveness.

  At the bar there was one small opening between shoulders where she could wedge herself in and order her drink. Leaning in, she craned her neck, looking for service. The auburn-haired female bartender was wearing the usual employee uniform of bars in the area: black skirt, very low-cut top, fishnet stockings, and stood at the other end of the bar clearly reveling in the attention she was receiving from three male strivers sitting there, her eyelashes at full-flutter. Sharon rested her elbow on her little slice of painted wood to wait, wondering if she really wanted the drink after all. Maybe she should just wait until Chelsea showed up, claim a stomachache, and run into the welcoming arms of home.

  Or she could claim a headache. She did have the beginnings of one, so it wouldn’t be a lie, just an exaggeration. Or not. Just thinking about what started it - the thought of Bob Crandall as her boss, Alan gone - was enough to make the sharp pinching feeling just above her eyebrows grow. Ow. Now she really needed a drink, or a handful of Advil. The drink was handier and probably less damaging to her liver.

  Just then the man on her right, who was sitting with his back to her, turned around. She glanced at him and then did a double-take.

  Oh, no. God, why? Here? Tonight? It was Mr. Party-Man himself. Probably trolling for babes so they could spend the night making a racket on that damned trampoline. She wanted to shred that thing. She quickly turned back toward the end of the bar where the bartender was now leaning her elbows on the bar and wiggling her rear, and hoped her neighbor didn’t recognize her.

  “Hey,” he said.

  She clenched her teeth together and closed her eyes. Please God, let him be talking to someone else.

  “Hey, aren’t you…hey, you’re my neighbor! Sharon, right?”

  Damn. It. All. She opened her eyes, plastered on a polite smile, and turned to face him. “Oh? Hi.”

  “You are my neighbor! Hello, neighbor! How ya doin’?” he said, smiling at her cheerfully as if they were good buddies.

  “Ah, I’m fine. Just meeting some friends for a drink.”

  He nodded knowingly. “This is the place, man… I mean, woman. Lady. Man, am I stuttering or what?” He laughed at himself in a buck-toothed horsy way.

  Sharon looked at him. This was Mr. Suave Party-Man bringing home a different crowd of women every night? Unbelievable.

  Maybe it was all the nights she’d cringed at the sounds coming from his back yard next door, but she’d started to imagine him as someone wildly seductive, someone who could easily make your knees weak. Instead, apparently he was a tall, dark, and mildly attractive goof. At least he was acting like a goofy loser, nothing like the shaken-not-stirred man of her imagination that Sharon had only met once while he was moving in, his muscles bulging as he carried furniture out of the truck with a male friend, sweat making his short dark hair cling to his forehead in little chunks. He’d stopped and put down the couch they were carrying to shake her hand, saying he was glad to meet her and thanking her for the welcome. Then he’d introduced his burly blond friend as Moose. That should have been her warning.

  She raised her eyebrows and said, “Uh, huh. I guess. I haven’t been here before.”

  “Oh, this place rocks. Especially late night. You should see all the stuff that goes down. It’s a blast. What am I doing. I should be getting you a drink. In the neighborly spirit. Can I get you a drink? Let me get you a drink.” His last words came so fast, they almost overlapped.

  She resisted the urge to laugh at him. This was crazy. And she really wanted to buy her own drink, but he was practically begging her. “Um. Okay? Sure.”

  His smile widened. “What’ll it be, my fair lady?”

  She cringed inwardly. “Vodka martini, preferably Grey Goose. Very dry. Though I doubt you’ll be able to get the bartender’s attention. She seems pretty busy.”

  “Dry Grey Goose martini, straight up. Ooo, you’re smooth. I wouldn’t have pegged ya as a hard liquor type,” he said and then leaned out over the bar, stretched out his arm, and waved it. “Samantha! Sam, baby!”

  “You know her name? And wait, what do you mean 'hard liquor type'?” she said, feeling vaguely insulted and strangely stimulated at the same time. Was it… was she actually having…fun? No, it was aggravation she was feeling. The man was like scraping fingernails on a blackboard.

  Samantha the bartender looked over and smiled, her moderately pretty face becoming almost beautiful with delight. If Sharon didn’t know who Samantha was talking to, she’d think the girl was in love. “What, you silly fool? Can’t you see I’m talking to these gentlemen?”

  “Please, Sam. Desperate times. We need supplies. My drink is broken – see?” he said and held up his empty beer glass. “And my lovely neighbor here is in dire need as well. Please help us?” He put his palms together in front of his face in prayer and looked appropriately mournful.

  Samantha turned back to the men she'd been talking to. "All right, guys, duty calls."

  The three men started making moaning poor-me noises, one of them shouting out nonsensically, "Bullshit!"

  The bartender didn't seem to hear them, her eyes focused on Sharon's neighbor as she approached. "Dean," she admonished, wagging her finger at him dramatically. "I can’t believe you broke your drink again. How many times do I have to tell you not to play with the dirty money?"

  Dean answered in a weird yodeling voice, "Oh, three or four!"

  Sharon looked at him and then at the bartender. Were they flirting? And what was this routine of theirs? Oh, who cared what these two were doing? She was just glad Samantha had said his name. Sharon, for some reason, thought it was Dan. As in, Dan-Dan-the-Party-Man. Dean, huh? Dean-Dean-the-Party….Machi
ne? Yeah, it worked. She was glad she hadn’t called him Dan. She didn’t like making mistakes like that. Not only for his sake and for the sake of being polite, but for her own sense of self: a woman who had it all together, and then filed it alphabetically in the tidy drawer of her mind.

  Samantha poured his beer and set it on a fresh promotional cardboard coaster in front of him before leaning on the bar with her elbows to face him. "So now you want to talk to me. Before you were too busy. I don't know, you can't just snap your fingers like that. I don't always jump," she said, smiling and shaking her head at him, a little dimple appearing on her right cheek.

  “Oh, come on, Sam? For me?” Dean said, leaning in and tilting his head toward hers conspiratorially. “Anyways, my good neighbor here was parched and I thought I could help her out. Or that is, you could. By the way…, Sharon? This is the lovely and talented Samantha, bar-maiden extraordinaire.” He straightened and swept his arm out with a flourish toward the bartender.

  Samantha looked over, her smile hardening and her eyes sweeping quickly over Sharon before looking back at Dean. "Hello," she murmured.

  “Hi,” Sharon said, deadpan.

  Samantha's eyes were fixed on Dean. Sharon knew the look: definitely infatuated. And more than a little proprietary. Sharon wanted to tell her not to worry - she wasn't even slightly interested.

  Dean said, “And this, Sam baby, is my next-door neighbor, Sharon, from up in Farmland, also known as Monroe. It really is a co-ink-e-dink. What’s the likelihood that we would end up in the same bar?”

  Samantha chuckled and said, “As if you go anywhere else. All she had to do was come here once, and there you’d be.”