Package Deal

by Jess Bentley

  It’s 9:35. Still no sign of Jake. Chester keeps asking me if I need anything to drink, and I keep telling him “not yet” as though I’ll eventually want one. Once I make the announcement it won’t matter, I suppose.

  Lacey emerges from the kitchen at last, and I take that opportunity to direct all the attention her way.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” I call out, approaching her. “Please put your hands together for the real hero behind tonight’s extravagant spread — my partner in crime and my guardian angel, Chef Lacey Ming!”

  Cheers sound from every corner of the lounge, and cameras flash, and I make sure to stand just a little bit behind Lacey so that I don’t look too pregnant at that very moment. Can’t jump the gun on this.

  Lacey is utterly embarrassed, but she endures. We talked about this well before the event. Lacey prefers the kitchen; it’s part of the reason she didn’t open her own restaurant. Being in front of cameras makes her nervous, and she’s already sweating and blushing, but she’s a trouper.

  Gloria, of course, manages to swoop in like a vulture and perch to Lacey’s other side, smiling for the cameras and playing the part of “one of the girls.”

  Once the pictures are taken, the bloggers all start filing in to talk with Lacey about how she came up with the dishes, and what it’s like working in a female-run establishment as a female executive chef, questions both of us abhor but which we’ve already talked about because it’s inevitable.

  Luckily Gloria is there to give her two cents.

  “These days it just, like, so important for women to take charge of their own lives, you know? And I think what we’ve accomplished here is so important for women everywhere, right? I tell all my girlfriends that you just have to, like, surround yourself with powerful women because we all have to stick together. And when we do, look what happens.”

  The look on Lacey’s face is almost certainly going to make it onto someone’s blog as Gloria heaps praise upon herself as part of the “we” in that statement — as if she had anything to do with making Red Hall successful.

  Unfortunately, she’s the pretty one between the three of us, and the one with the most cleavage, and we’re being interviewed almost exclusively by men. Guess who steals the attention?

  Lacey and I do manage to get a few questions answered the way we’ve discussed, much to Gloria’s chagrin, and of course, she makes sure to drop her opinion in the bucket afterward whether the questioner is still taking notes or not.

  Eventually, it’s over. And it’s 9:58.

  Gloria touches my arm. “Almost time. Better make your way up to the limelight. Big news, am I right? We’re going to be on every blog and paper in the city tomorrow morning! There are even some people live tweeting right now.”

  It doesn’t surprise me. Everyone here has a phone out. There are probably more pictures of Lacey’s dishes in existence right now than there are dishes prepared.

  At one end of the lounge, a stage has been set up displaying all the different hot sauces and the peppers they’re made from. There are also dishes sprayed with resin and meant to simply look gorgeous, which they do.

  The clock is ticking, so I make my way up there before Gloria decides to follow through with her promise. Along the way a few people stop us to make conversation or ask for a picture, but Gloria is, for once, entirely focused on one task — getting me to the stage. She runs interference with remarkable alacrity and efficiency. It really is a shame.

  When we get to the edge of the stage, Gloria goes up ahead of me and, for once, she’s not a complete failure of a human being.

  “If I could have your attention, please!” she says, and she gets it. The lounge quiets down. “Thank you all so much for being here. For those of you that don’t know me, I’m Gloria Price, and I work for one of the most amazing women in this city.

  “Now, I bet a lot of you don’t know that Janie Hall came from next to nothing. She wasn’t born rich like some people on this street were,” she jerks a thumb in the direction of Ferry Lights, and that gets a rueful chuckle from a few of the more in-the-know folks in the crowd. “But she was born with grit, and determination, and a dream — and a little bit of badass bitch!” She laughs, and so do some in the crowd, but my face is simply frozen in a professional smile that might read decently in a picture.

  “And she took those things,” Gloria goes on, “and used them to hog-tie the life she wanted for herself. She graduated a semester early after paying her own way through college and taking a workload that most of you men would probably crumble under, frankly. She opened up Red Hall just a year after she graduated, and can you believe what this place has become?” More cheering. Gloria waits. “So it is my honor and privilege to ask her to come up here and stand with me now to celebrate this incredible, momentous step forward for the Red Hall Lounge! Come on up here, Janie Hall!”

  The gall of that girl. Even if I fire her after this, everyone will assume that she’s the spokesperson for the lounge, whether I renege on the deal and make my own announcement or not.

  She offers me her hand to help me up on stage, but I ignore it, and walk up and past her.

  Gloria doesn’t miss a beat, though, and follows me to the display, where she stands beside me, smiling and waving to the crowd.

  Now that all eyes are on me, I turn to her, smiling as pleasantly as I can manage. “Let’s have them get a few shots of just me for the announcement, and then I’ll call you back up. Make it look like a surprise.”

  Her smile falters just a bit, and she looks uncertain. Then she looks suspicious. “Don’t fuck me,” she mutters. “I’ve got Reginald Ferry’s people on speed dial.”

  “Didn’t I mention?” I ask. “Jake knows. Now go wait offstage until I call you back up.”

  We shake hands, and even hug, but as she leaves me there I can see murder in her eyes. Maybe she guesses what I’m planning, and maybe she doesn’t. Frankly, it won’t matter a minute from now.

  When she leaves, the photographers begin calling my name, and I have to spend a few painful minutes staring at flashes and holding up bottles until everyone’s got their shot. It leaves me light-blinded, and the track lights pointed at the stage don’t help either.

  Once they’re done, I laugh a little. “All those flashing lights!” I say to the crowd. “They don’t prepare you for that in college, that’s for sure. Thank you all so, so much for being here. I can’t even begin to say what it means to me — ”

  The lights clear a bit. Just enough. I never look directly at the crowd when I do these public-speaking things. Instead, I look a little over them, sweeping my gaze so it seems like I’m looking at everyone directly. At that moment, I’m looking out over the crowd and at the door.

  My heart skips a beat, and I suddenly forget everything I’d planned to say. I mean to pick up where I left off, riff a little, get myself back on track, but when I try to speak the only thing that comes out as I see, even from the stage, those smoldering eyes, is:

  “Jake…”

  Jake

  “Jake…”

  Janie breathes my name over the microphone, and as one every face in the Red Hall Lounge turns to me. I hear my name echoed in whispers. “Jake Ferry.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “Get this on video.”

  “Oh, shit…”

  Even as I make my way toward her, I can see how her face lights up. I wasn’t sure it would happen like this. I thought that maybe when I got here I’d find out she just wanted to discuss some kind of arrangement. And for all I know, that’s what she intended.

  But now that we’re in the same room, looking at one another, my heart swells. I can see in her face that she feels the same way I do.

  Which is a very good thing, because I came here intending to put everything on the line. There are bloggers and journalists here, and already cameras are flashing. What will Jake Ferry do? Does Reginald Ferry know about this?

  He will soon enough. It’ll be too late by then. I
wish I had time to discuss all of this with Janie, but frankly no one can possibly doubt that she made all of this — Red Hall, the launch party, this hot sauce line — happen on her own. I had nothing to do with the building, or the popularity of the place and I’m more than willing to say that here and now, on camera, for all the world to see.

  And I’m willing to say a lot more than that.

  The blonde that accosted me the first night I came here on Reginald’s orders intercepts me at the stairs up to the stage.

  “Jake Ferry, as I live and breathe,” she says, batting her fake eyelashes. “Your daddy is going to shit when he — ”

  “It’s… Glenda, or something, isn’t it?”

  “Gloria,” she says, going stiff. “Gloria Price. We met before when — ”

  “I remember,” I tell her. “You were the one trying to get into my pants. Or, my wallet. Whichever. I guess it’s probably the same for you, right?”

  “Excuse me?” She bristles, genuinely taken aback. Maybe no one’s ever spoken frankly to her before, I don’t know. I don’t really care, either, except that she’s in my way.

  “Could you move, please?” I ask, with as polite a tone as I can muster. My fingers are clenching around the small box in my hand. Janie’s right. This woman just grates your nerves by being in proximity. It is much worse when she speaks.

  “Janie’s in the middle of — ”

  “Let him come up, Gloria,” Janie says over the microphone. She sounds unsteady, but not worried, exactly. I probably sound the same.

  Gloria’s face darkens quickly, and she looks over her shoulder at Janie. Then, she steps out of the way. As I ascend the stairs, I can see her in the corner of my eye trying to get the attention of one of the bloggers, but he shoos her away like a fly, and his photographer all but pushes her out of the way to train his camera on me and Janie.

  The whole room is quiet.

  Janie doesn’t slap me, or throw me out when I get close to her. I still worry she might, any second. She doesn’t move. She just watches me, and I watch her, our eyes locked until I lean in to whisper in her ear. Cameras flash when I do.

  “Everything we experienced was real,” I tell her. “I was stupid, and I let my father push me to do things I didn’t want to do, things I feel terrible about. I want to fix it, if you’ll let me.”

  I kiss her cheek before I straighten, waiting for some signal from her about what I should do, what I should think.

  Janie clears her throat, and it echoes over the speakers from the microphone. She puts a hand over it, her face flushing. “Thank you for coming,” she says. “I didn’t think you would.”

  It comes out formally in her voice, but not in her eyes.

  “Janie,” I say, “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.”

  Finally she smiles, wide and genuine. More cameras flash, and by now the live tweets have probably gone out. Reginald probably already knows I’m here. I wonder what he’s thinking as he watches this progress?

  “Can I take the mic?” I ask. “I promise not to steal the stage.”

  “I think you’ve already done that,” she mutters, but with a hint of excitement and humor in her voice. “Don’t worry, I’ll be stealing it right back.”

  “I’m counting on it,” I tell her, and she hands me the mic.

  It’s do or die, then. Moment of truth. My heart is pounding in my ears, and I know that I’m sweating. Janie waits expectantly, her eyebrows starting a slow climb. She’s not the only one.

  One long breath in, and out. “Ladies and gentlemen,” I say into the mic, “this woman is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. You probably all know that she started Red Hall on her own, with no major investors and a whole lot of elbow grease.

  “What you probably don’t know,” I say as I turn to address them directly, “is that’s she’s done it under some of the most difficult circumstances, facing some of the worst detractors and naysayers in this town. There are people out there who have tried to tear this woman down and they have failed. Because her integrity isn’t a carefully constructed image created to further her business. It was her integrity that made this place what it is.”

  I turn back to Janie then, and see her eyes starting to water. She’s holding it together, but part of me hopes that the next part of my speech makes her crack. Not because I want her to cry on stage — but because I know that if she does, it’ll be because I’ve made her happy.

  “What you also may not know is that I am head over heels, madly in love with Janie Hall,” I say.

  For a moment, I can’t speak. The lounge erupts with cheers, and Janie’s tears start to stream. She wipes her eyes, laughing, and waving frantically at the cameras when they begin to snap pictures.

  She takes the mic from me to chide them. “You guys are the worst! Not one of those pictures gets online, you hear me?”

  “Janie,” someone shouts, “do you love Jake Ferry?”

  She bites her lip, looks at me, and then looks back at the crowd. “I haven’t decided.”

  They laugh, and she smiles at me, one eyebrow raised. I take the mic when she offers it.

  “All right,” I say, soothing the crowd, “calm down. I got this.” More chuckling, but they quiet down.

  “You drive a hard bargain, lady,” I say. “But I bet I can do just a little better.”

  The moment I bend my knee, the crowd loses it, and so does she, and I know that I’m grinning like a fool so hard it makes my face begin to ache. She laughs, and again tries to calm the crowd, but her words are drowned out.

  “All right, all right,” I say into the mic, even then only barely loud enough to be heard. “Everyone give us just a moment of quiet. I have a question and it’s really important she hears me, okay?”

  They quieten down gradually, and Janie has to turn away from me momentarily to breathe before she can face me again. She’s laughing, at least, which is a good sign.

  I clear my throat and switch the mic off. This part is just for her. Just for Janie.

  “Janie Hall,” I begin, and unfurl my fingers to reveal the box that I’m genuinely surprised isn’t crushed to bits. “I love you, and I am so, so proud of you. You are by far a better person than I am, and I don’t have any business asking you a question like this. But I don’t have a choice. For me, it’s a matter of survival. Without you, I won’t be able to eat, or drink, or sleep. Without you, I won’t be whole. I won’t even be alive.

  “I don’t deserve you, and I know that. And I’m not sure that I ever will. But…” I open the box, and there are gasps from the front of the crowd when they see the ring. Janie’s eyes light up as well, not because it’s a perfect blue diamond, but because the man I paid a hundred grand to design and produce it for me is a master of his craft and this ring is, objectively, staggeringly beautiful. “…if you’ll marry me, Janie Hall, I will spend the rest of my life trying to be good enough. Janie, will you let me try? Will you marry me, baby?”

  At first, she doesn’t answer. She isn’t even breathing, and I think no one else in the room is, either. We’re both suspended in the silence, until someone from the back of the room shouts, “Say yes!”

  Janie bursts out laughing, and the crowd takes up the chant. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  I wave them to silence, but give them all the thumbs up for the assist, and when their laughter dies down, Janie’s hands are over her mouth. She doesn’t make a sound at first when her mouth opens, and she has to suck in a breath and swallow hard, nodding her head. “Yes. Okay. Yes!”

  Everyone cheers, a roar of approval and excitement. The cameras flash, and probably all of it is on video on fifty phones and cameras throughout the room, but neither of us care. After I slip the ring on her finger, we’re together, and Janie kisses me and all the noise, the lights, the cameras... everyone in the room vanishes for me.

  It’s just me, and her, and our baby.

  “She’s pregnant!” someone screams. A high-pitched voice. Janie and I bo
th snap out of it and look for the source, and see Gloria standing on a chair. “Janie Hall is pregnant with Jake Ferry’s baby!”

  There’s a beat, and Janie calmly uses it to pick up the microphone again. “Yes,” she says, “I am.”

  She looks up at me, and I take the mic from her.

  “I really couldn’t help it,” I say, smiling.

  The guests and bloggers love it, erupting in cheers and laughter, snapping more pictures while Janie and I wave and smile for them.

  “And P.S., Gloria?” Janie says into the mic once the laughter stops, “You’re fired.”

  Shock, gasps, and also some sage nods follow as Gloria storms out of the lounge. From behind the bar, Chester throws up his arms in happiness.

  And sure, the story’s got everything a blogger could want. It’s PR gold.

  But more than that, it’s our first family photo session.

  Jake

  The fallout is swift.

  Reginald has no choice but to publicly voice his approval of the engagement as well as the pregnancy. If he doesn’t, he’ll lose face. To prove to the public that he means it, he even pays for the wedding.

  It’s the most extravagant affair I’ve seen him throw, but, thankfully, he only bothers to bankroll it. The planning is someone else’s job when I prove to be only slightly more useful than a box of bricks at wedding planning. When Janie proves to be too busy with Red Hall’s explosion of business, our saving grace turns out to be Toia.

  Helping to plan the wedding seems to bring my stepmother to life, and she and Janie become fast friends. My father wasn’t the only one that underestimated her. Janie very quickly points out to me that Toia could easily get into the event planning business and do very well. She even has all the right connections — people that don’t particularly care for Reginald Ferry but might be willing to hear Janie out if she puts in a good word.