Last Call

by Alice Clayton

  “Everything okay back there?” Simon called, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Totally, how’s it going up there?” I asked, singsongy.

  “Awesome, Simon’s letting me drive the radio!” Neil cried out, turning up Def Leppard to an obscene level.

  Which thankfully was loud enough to drown out what Sophia was saying, but was even too loud to continue the conversation. So we did what all adult women do . . . we moved it to the text box.

  Way too loud with that train shit, preggo . . .

  Oh please, like this isn’t obvious.

  Less obvious than you yelling about him proposing.

  You’re the one who said marriage train. I was just pointing out the obvious fact that your mister will eventually be making you his missus. DUH.

  Yes, we talked about it. In a more concrete way last night than we have before. Last night was the first time we didn’t dance around it—we kind of danced right through it.

  That’s so exciting!

  Yes, it is. But no one has a ring yet, so settle the fuck down.

  Oh don’t make such a big deal out of this, of course he’s going to ask you. He loves you.

  I love him.

  Okay, this is getting trite.

  Totally. We should probably start talking again; they’re going to wonder what we’re up to back here.

  Are you kidding? Listen to them singing. They love this ’80s rocker bullshit. They’re happy as clams.

  We still have to start talking again.

  What should we talk about?

  Doesn’t matter, something random.

  Okay.

  “Did you know they’re talking about expanding the Vera Wang boutique on Geary?”

  I hate you . . .

  chapter three

  Monday morning found me arranging flowers in my office as usual. Cream roses with the very tips tinged peach and raspberry. Gathered in a spiral in a clear glass vase, surrounded by hydrangea leaves for the green around the stems. Set on the far left of my ebony desk, covered with neat stacks of color-coded manila folders. Each folder represented a different private home, office, or public space, and held cost estimates, value projections, palettes, swatches, clippings, and samples. Each one told a story of a new design, a new life being breathed into a space, either existing or brand new. And today was the day that I’d debrief Jillian, just back from Amsterdam.

  She’d begun a small consulting business in Amsterdam, taking on a project here and there for new friends in her and Benjamin’s new city, and she seemed to be adapting well to a multinational life.

  But she was back in the home office now, and expected to be brought up to speed as soon as she was back. Though she was always in touch through email and conference calls, when she came back home she wanted to sink her teeth into every project she could. We were still finding our way with this new setup, but it was working out really well for us.

  It was always great having her back in the office; it never seemed quite the same without her click-clacking around on her high heels. Which I could hear now coming up the stairs, along with a chorus of welcome backs and how are you’s from the rest of the staff.

  I stepped out of my office just as she rounded the last bend. Black sleeveless dress, knee-high camel leather boots with an impossibly tall heel, hair tied back in her signature chignon; she was pulled together, gorgeous, and looked well rested. And excited to be back.

  “Girl! Get over here!” she squealed, setting down her Chanel bag and sweeping me into a perfumed hug.

  “I’m so glad to see you!” I replied, letting myself fall into her embrace.

  “I’ve got presents,” she said, ushering me down the hall into her own office, which was cleaned weekly during her absences so it never smelled musty or unused. We couldn’t have that.

  “You don’t have to bring me presents every time you come home, you know,” I said as she pulled a few boxes out of her satchel.

  “Shut it, but open this,” she instructed, setting a pink box down in front of me, then spun toward her tea set in the corner. “Do we have—”

  “Hot water is already in there; I just filled it myself a few minutes ago.” I knew that the first thing upon her arrival she’d want to have a cup of tea.

  “You’re the best.”

  “I’ve heard that said. And holy shit, where’d you get these?” I exclaimed, holding up a pair of drop earrings. Set into brushed nickel, there were beads in shades of pink, peach, salmon, coral, fuchsia; all the go-to colors in my favorite palette.

  “Saw them in a tiny store in Rome and couldn’t resist. I said to Benjamin, ‘those are Caroline’s colors,’ and he insisted we buy them.”

  “Benjamin has always been a little sweet on me,” I teased, referring to the constant state of blush I was always in whenever he was around. It wasn’t just me either; Sophia and Mimi shared my not-so-secret-crush on Jillian’s husband.

  “Just put them on and stop imagining all the different ways you can thank him.” She laughed, her eyes sparkling. “I saw all the folders on your desk. Want to bring me up to speed over lunch?”

  And just like that, Jillian was back in town. All was right with the world.

  We spent most of the afternoon working in a corner booth at our favorite restaurant in Chinatown, getting caught up over our sizzling rice and office gossip. Not much escaped Jillian’s eye, even across an ocean. But there was still some scuttlebutt to fill her in on, and as we chitted and chatted, I relaxed more and more.

  “So tell me all about the wedding?” she asked, after we’d covered everything office related.

  I paused, chopsticks halfway into my mouth. “Thah wady?”

  “The wedding! Mimi and Ryan!”

  I chopsticked, chewed, and nodded. “Oh sure, sure, that wedding.”

  “I was sick to miss it, but we had so much going on at that point with the house in Amsterdam it just wasn’t possible for us to get back,” she said, stirring her mustard sauce. “But I bet it was perfect, wasn’t it? Timed down to the millisecond?”

  “What’s smaller than a millisecond?” I snorted, digging back into my pot stickers. My pulse was racing. What the hell was up with that?

  “Oh, I bet. Did she manage everything the entire day, or did she let go and enjoy?”

  “She totally enjoyed. She actually had a great day, even though she had a huge dress snafu at the last minute.”

  “Oh no, what happened?” Jillian slurped her noodles.

  “Sophia’s had terrible morning sickness—actually, morning, afternoon, evening, and middle-of-the-night sickness. It hit all of a sudden, and blammo—right onto Mimi’s wedding dress.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I wish that I was! But you know Mimi—she had a second dress ready to go for her reception, so she just wore that for both.”

  “I would have died,” Jillian moaned.

  “Anyone else would have! But she assumes if celebrities get to have more than one wedding dress, then so should she.” I laughed, remembering. “Actually, she was more upset about the shoes—she hadn’t planned on a backup pair for those.”

  “Ah jeez, Sophia didn’t—”

  “Sophia did! A little flyaway yak landed on Mimi’s Choos. She flipped her lid over that one. Until Ryan came to see her; then it all melted away.”

  Jillian shot me a surprised look. “Wait, Ryan came to see her? Before the wedding? I figured Mimi’d be too superstitious for that.”

  “Oh, she was. She hid behind the door so he didn’t see her. But then, oh my goodness, Jillian, it was the sweetest thing. Ryan said something about how much he couldn’t wait to marry her, and how he couldn’t wait to call her his wife—and then it was like . . . what are shoes?”

  “Aww.” Jillian sighed.

  “Yeah, thank goodness she was okay going barefoot. Or you know my ass would have been running all over town trying to find her some new shoes.” I chuckled.

  “She got it,” Jillian said, her e
yes growing soft.

  “She got what?” I asked.

  “She realized it wasn’t about the wedding; it was about the marriage. Her. Him. Together. She got married barefoot because all she cared about was him. That guy. And throw-up shoes weren’t going to stop that from happening.”

  “Yeah, she did seem a little Zen after that,” I said, thinking back to the look on her face. “Also a little horny.”

  “I remember that,” she replied with a dreamy look on her face.

  “Officially, I should be saying eww. But it’s about Benjamin, so please be free with the details.”

  “Shush. How are things with you and Simon?”

  “Hello, segue,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Hi, deflection, how are things?” she asked again, chasing a carrot around her plate.

  “I’m not deflecting; things are good. Things are very good.” I smiled, thinking about balcony sex. And when we got back to our home last night, the hallway sex. And this morning in the shower sex. And—

  “I can tell by the look on your face, and the way you’re sucking that egg roll, that things are very good,” she said, pursing her lips.

  “Hey, you asked.”

  “I did, I really did. So, friends getting married, friends having babies—is that making any bells go off for you?” she asked.

  I pointed my pot sticker at her. “Do I have a sign on my back that says Will Work for Wedding? Why is everyone asking me that all the time now?”

  “Really? Everyone is asking you that?” she repeated, pointing her own pot sticker.

  “Okay, not everyone. But it feels like that’s all anybody is talking about lately. Seriously, it’s in the air. It’s in the water. It may very well be in this pot sticker.”

  “It’s that time—your friends are all moving into a different phase of their lives. When my friends were all getting married and starting their families, I was too busy to date anyone. My entire life was Jillian Designs. Every wedding I went to for one of my girlfriends, everyone asked me who was I dating, and when was I going to think about getting married. It’s like, if one goes over the cliff, we all have to.” She sipped her tea, then shrugged. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to nudge you toward that cliff.”

  “You didn’t. I guess I’m just realizing lately things are changing. I mean, we’re all still ridiculous and childish in our own rights sometimes—so it’s hard to imagine now that Sophia and Neil are going to be, like, in charge of a person. A tiny person, but still a person.” I leaned my head in my hands, having a hard time narrowing down on what I wanted to say. “It’s just weird, I guess, everyone growing up.”

  “Hey. Growing up and being a grown-up are two very different things. I can’t see Neil ever being an actual grown-up. And he’s on the news, for pity’s sake,” Jillian said, laughing.

  “Are you glad you put in all the time that you did?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Back then, building your business. If you could go back and do it the same way, would you have wanted to get married sooner?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether I’d met Benjamin sooner. I never wanted to get married until I met him. And we didn’t get married for a long time. But I knew it’d happen. Because he was my guy. And luckily, I’d been smart enough to wait for my guy.” She smiled at me with a knowing look. “Don’t you think Simon’s your guy?”

  The smile that spread over my face was instant, and broad. “Oh. Simon is most certainly my guy.”

  “So relax. Enjoy it. Worry about you two, and let your friends do their own thing. Marriage is different things to different people, and not everyone needs it. Some people want the piece of paper, some don’t need it. Who’s to say which is the right choice? Not me, that’s for damn sure.”

  She finished her tea and signaled for the waiter. “Now, if you want to ask me which choice is correct for Peggy Wimple’s sectional in her new theater room, I’d be happy to tell you. Because you got it wrong, little miss protégée.” She laughed, slapping down a tear sheet from a project I’d in fact just ordered the sectional for. “Let me show you why I’m the Jillian in Jillian Designs.”

  And she proceeded to do just that. And when she was finished, I had no choice but to agree with her.

  Back home, a few nights later.

  “Babe, where’d all the little golf pencils go?”

  “No one has ever said that sentence before, Simon.”

  “You know, the little pencils that came with Scattergories? Where are they?”

  “Oh. Right, I think Mimi broke them all at the last game night. You know what a sore loser she is.”

  We were having everyone over to the house tonight for game night, since Jillian and Benjamin were home from Amsterdam. We knew it would be harder to plan these once the baby came, so we wanted to all get together while we still could.

  “Why do we always get stuck hosting this night?” Simon asked, poking his head around the door to the bathroom, where I was trying to get ready.

  “Because we have the biggest house now, the best entertaining space. That’s why,” I said, applying my mascara.

  “You look like a fish.”

  “Huh?”

  “When you put mascara on. Your mouth hangs open and you look like a fish waiting for bait, every time I’ve ever seen you put that stuff on. Why is that?”

  “It’s the only way to put it on.”

  “But why?”

  “No one knows, Simon; it’s just what you do when you put mascara on.”

  “Like as a rule?”

  “Stop talking to me while I look like a fish and let me get pretty, for goodness’ sake,” I squawked, and he disappeared around the corner. I finished putting on my face, and I did actually try to finish my mascara with my mouth closed, but it just wasn’t possible. I was reaching for my lip gloss when his head popped back around the doorframe.

  “By the way, we’ve been invited to Philadelphia.”

  “Where the cheesesteaks live? Whatever it’s for, we say yes!”

  “Yes to cheesesteaks, or yes to the invite?’

  “Wasn’t kidding at all when I said whatever it’s for, we say yes. But now that you mentioned it, what exactly are we invited to?” I hoped he didn’t notice that the drooling had officially begun.

  “Trevor, my old friend from high school? You remember his wife, Megan, right?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Okay?” he said, squinting at me in a curious way.

  “Megan was able to get me the single most important item in this entire house.”

  “She got you that new vibrator?”

  “Jesus . . .”

  “Oh, the cookbook, right,” he said, remembering.

  Megan used to work for the Food Network, and was able to secure me a signed copy of the original Barefoot Contessa cookbook. By Ina Garten. Signed to me by the way; one of those “Best wishes, Ina” deals. It honest-to-God said:

  To Caroline—

  Best Wishes,

  Ina

  Go ahead and be jealous. I’ll wait.

  Simon, on the other hand, would not.

  “Okay, so you remember Megan.”

  “Remember her? Did you not hear me say single most important—”

  “I got it, babe. Are you at all curious about hearing what they’re up to, or are you just going to spend some head-space time dreaming of Ina and her kitchen?”

  “And me in her kitchen. If you’re going to get into my daydream, you have to set the scene correctly. I’m there with Ina, in her kitchen in the Hamptons, and we’re cooking up something wonderful for you and her husband, Jeffrey. Something with roasted chicken, which she’ll teach me how to carve perfectly. And roasted carrots, which she’ll pronounce with that subtle New York accent of hers, where it sounds like she’s saying kerrits.”

  “I worry about you sometimes,” Simon said, reaching over to feel my forehead.

  “I’m perf
ectly fine. Don’t worry about me, I’ll continue my fantasy later. So what’s up in Philly?”

  “Oh, we’re back to my story now?” he asked, and I leaned in and kissed him in apology.

  “Sorry, babe, tell me all about Trevor and that wonderful wife of his,” I said. I was playing with him, but I actually liked both of them. We’d gone back to Simon’s hometown for his tenth high school reunion last year, and he was welcomed back like a conquering hero. He hadn’t been back since he graduated high school, not long after both of his parents were killed in a car accident. No one had seen him since, and while he was initially nervous about how he’d be received, he was very quickly convinced that everyone was just thrilled he was back. In high school he’d been the homecoming king and everything that you’d assume comes with it. High school Simon was big man on campus. He’d had his own posse of what I called the apostles (his old pals Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), headed by his old bestie, Trevor. We’d spent a lot of the reunion evening with him and his new wife, Megan, who was then pregnant with their first.

  “How are they enjoying their new life with baby?”

  “Enough that she’s pregnant again,” Simon said, and I dropped my lip gloss.

  “What the hell is in the water these days? I’m switching to vodka. Always.”

  “I’ll vote yes to that—vodka makes you crazy, and horny. And adventurous. You go on an all-vodka diet, and I’m pretty sure I can convince you to try that thing that you never let me do.”

  “All the vodka in the world isn’t getting you in there, so forget it Simon,” I said, poking him with my lip gloss as he pouted. “So, Megan’s pregnant again—wow. Tell them congratulations from me.”

  “That’s what started this whole thing. They’ve invited us out for the christening of baby number one, and to help celebrate baby number two. It’s next month; think you can get some time off?”

  “For cheesesteaks? I mean for christening? Yes, yes, we should definitely do that.” I tried once more for the lip gloss when the doorbell rang. “Great, someone’s early. Go ahead and grab some colored pencils out of my bag.”