Cocktail Hour

by McTiernan, Tara

  Dean put his hand up along side of his mouth, cupping it, and speaking in sotto voce, “Shhhh! You’re breaking up my racket!”

  At that Samantha threw back her head and laughed derisively.

  Dean said, “Okay, you can laugh, but while you’re doing it, can you pour Sharon here an extra-dry Grey Goose martini and put it on my tab?”

  Samantha gulped her laughter down and waved her hand at him. “No problem, Deany boy. You got it.” She turned away and went to grab the back-lit bottle of Grey Goose off of the top shelf behind the bar.

  Dean turned back to Sharon, smiling and then looking worried, his brow creasing. “Sorry about that. I guess I spend too much time here.”

  Sharon shrugged. “No problem.” Then she turned to glance at the door and see if Chelsea was there yet. There was no sign of her. Sharon turned back. “Excuse me. Just checking to see if my friend is here yet. So…what were you saying…yeah, why would you think I’m not the ‘hard liquor type’?”

  “Oh. I didn’t mean anything by it! Really I didn’t. Just…you seem like you’d drink wine, really nice wine, like French, you know?” he said, looking almost boyish in his earnestness.

  “Wine? And where would you get that impression?” Sharon asked, not really caring about the answer. In fact, she wished she could skip the cocktail after all. This whole thing – the striver scene, the brittle flirtation between Dean and Sam, the forced small talk - made her feel tired. And old. She glanced again at the doorway. Where was Chelsea?

  “Well, your house is so nice and neat, at least from the outside. And…oh, I don’t know…I just-I didn’t mean...,“ he said, flustered and turning slightly red.

  She looked at him, wondering what the women found appealing about this bumbling guy with his effusive please-like-me act that reminded her far too much of her ex. “Please, don’t worry about it,” she said, averting her eyes.

  Luckily, just then Samantha placed Sharon’s martini on a cocktail napkin in front of her, interrupting the awkward moment. “Here you go. Well, Dean, I’d talk to you all day, but believe it or not, I have to earn my keep. Don’t worry; I’ll keep an eye on you.”

  “Thank you, heavenly angel,” Dean said, looking at Samantha and regaining his normal coloring and composure. “And please, both eyes.”

  “If you’re lucky,” Samantha replied in a sing-song voice as she sauntered away, wiggling the fingers of one hand over her shoulder at him and walking with an exaggerated hip-sway that seemed, and probably was, deliberate.

  Sharon picked up her drink and turned to him, trying to figure out a way to thank him and get away quickly. “Thank you. You really didn’t have to buy me a drink. It was nice of you.”

  “But of course I did! You know...I know I make a lot of noise some nights, and you never complain. You’re like the world’s greatest neighbor, or something.”

  Sharon’s breath caught. He knew he was keeping her up? And he kept on doing it? She stared at him, rendered mute by shock and then flooding anger. He knew. The whole time. He probably also knew how early she had to be at work, saw her car pull out of her driveway in the pale creeping light of early morning.

  "Ooo," he said, eyes bugging out a little, both hands going up in mock surrender. "That's not a good look. Have I kept you awake?"

  Sharon put her drink back down on the bar and turned to him. Keeping her voice low and steady she said, "What do you think?"

  He opened his mouth and looked like he was thinking hard, his eyes going back and forth, searching for an answer.

  Sharon didn't wait. "If you knew you were being loud, why didn't you keep it down? Do you know how hard it is to sleep when screaming people keep waking you up all night? Two am? Three am? Sometimes I don't even bother trying to go back to sleep, especially when it's already four and I have to be up soon. I just make coffee and suffer through the day."

  Dean's mouth was opening and closing like a fish. Finally he managed, "I, I didn't-"

  "No, I really don't want to hear it. And thanks but no thanks for the drink. I can buy my own," Sharon said, spun on her heel, and stalked away, slowing and turning sideways to edge through groupings of strivers when they blocked her path. She was going home. She'd call Chelsea once she got there to explain. The company directory with her co-worker's phone number on it was in her work folder filed under 'T' in her home office's filing cabinet. She'd take some Advil after all.

  Pushing through yet another cluster of men near the door, she almost slammed right into Chelsea, who was posed by the door, hip cocked, in another one of her expensive-looking outfits.

  Chelsea's expression, a manufactured one of disdain and oh-so-coolness, brightened and became more natural seeing her co-worker. "Sharon! There you are!"

  Sharon, stumbling to a stop, raised her hands up, palms out. “I’m sorry, Chelsea, but I’m out of here.”

  Chelsea’s face crumpled, her lower lip popping out. “No! But…I was so excited to hang with you? Please? Pretty pretty please? With sugar and ice cream on top?”

  Sharon shook her head, but felt herself giving in just looking at the girl she had grown to genuinely like. Under the blond bimbo exterior was a smart girl whose whip-sharp observations regularly caught Sharon off-guard. At the same time Chelsea had a sweet and helpless side, reminding Sharon of a little wide-eyed kitten. Chelsea had "help me" written all over her, her good heart being her biggest weakness and making her target for the users in the world. She brought out Sharon's protective instincts. “Oh. I don’t know. Okay. One drink. One. Then I’m out of here.”

  “Goody-goody-goody!” Chelsea said, bopping up and down and bringing her hands together to patter them quickly against each other in a mini-clap.

  “Okay, don’t get too excited. I’m not that much fun.”

  “Oh, yes you are! You are the coolest. All right. Now we have to get a drink. I’m buying. Well, unless we can find some gentlemen here who want to buy them for us,” Chelsea said, straightening up and trying to put on the cool act again unsuccessfully, one eyebrow arched as she peered at crowd around the bar.

  “No way. I’ll buy my own drink, thank you. I just had a very unpleasant experience I’d like not to repeat.”

  “What? What happened!”

  “Please. I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just go to that end of the bar,” Sharon said, pointing at the opposite end of the bar from where Dean was sitting.

  “Really? You don’t want to talk about it?”

  “Trust me.”

  “Okay?” Chelsea said in a doubtful voice and shrugged. “I want a strawberry daiquiri. I wonder if they make those here? And you’re letting me buy you a drink. I dragged you out here. It’s the least I can do.”

  “Fine. Just no men.”

  “You’re funny,” Chelsea said, shaking her head wonderingly while starting to move ahead through the crowd, staring at particularly handsome men and turning her head quickly when they glanced her way.

  “I’m a regular laugh-riot,” Sharon said wryly, following.

  Once they had their drinks, Sharon at last holding her anticipated martini and Chelsea holding a raspberry-flavored cocktail that was the closest thing to a strawberry daiquiri that the bar offered, Chelsea raised hers in a toast. “To finally getting together for drinks! At last!”

  “Here’s mud in your eye,” Sharon said, raising her glass up and then pouring half of her drink down her throat.

  “Whoa! You can really drink that thing,” Chelsea said, her already-large blue eyes growing huge.

  “Only when a nail is being pounded right through my forehead,” Sharon said and sighed, feeling the pleasant burning sensation of the vodka hitting her stomach and then spreading like a warm fog through her body.

  Chelsea took a tiny sip of her bright-red candied-looking drink that was also in a martini glass. “Mmmm, this is good! Not a strawberry daiquiri, but close. Wait. What? You have a headache?”

  “Not anymore. Or I won’t in a few minutes. Nothing like a libation
to smooth out the wrinkles of life,” Sharon said and took another sip. She knew she should probably slow down, but it just felt so good, especially after the afternoon she’d had. She would just have this one – she still had to drive home.

  Just then it was as if a breeze had passed through the room, a whispering wave of movement. Sharon looked up from her glass to see a striver nearby curling his upper lip with lust and staring at the entrance. She turned to look. A drop-dead gorgeous woman with long flowing dark hair wearing a fire-engine-red dress that hugged enviable curves was poised with her hand on her hip just inside the door. The group of women clustered at the door had all drawn back, as if not wanting to have their attractiveness compared to the woman’s – which was understandable as they would all fall pathetically short.

  “Oh! Good!” Chelsea trilled. “It’s Bianca! Now the party’s really starting.”

  Sharon turned to look at Chelsea. Chelsea was friends with this arresting and somewhat haughty-looking woman? It seemed an unlikely pairing. “You know her?”

  “Sure! We went to Stamford High together. We’ve been friends for…ever?”

  The woman had spotted them and was crossing through the packed room toward them, her walk smooth and slinking like a cat’s. The crowd continued to peel back for her, the striver-sea parting. Sharon wanted to shake her head. She’d never seen anything like it: this universal visceral reaction to a person.

  By the time the woman reached them, the temperature of the room seemed to have risen ten degrees and with the heat came a tickling watched feeling. Sharon glanced around the bar and saw the source of second sensation: many pairs of eyes gazed sideways or openly stared in their direction. She blinked, gave her head a little shake, and turned toward the source of this phenomenon.

  "Hi Bianca! Oh, I'm so psyched you could come out tonight!" Chelsea said, bouncing again, the red liquid in her glass dangerously close to spilling. "Oh, this is Sharon? From work? She's so cool! You're going to love her!"

  In spite of this excitable reception, Bianca remained unruffled. Her large dark heavy-lidded eyes remained at half-mast. Her full lips spread into an amused smile. "Chelsea, you are a sweetheart. Hugs," Bianca said, reaching out one arm. Chelsea giggled, switched her drink to her other hand so that she could reach out her corresponding arm, and half-hugged her friend.

  Looking at them side by side, Sharon was surprised at how different Chelsea looked when juxtaposed against Bianca. Chelsea had always seemed very glamorous and model-beautiful to Sharon, but now she looked cheap, chubby, and somewhat plain-looking, the makeup she wore cartoonish war-paint designed to give the illusion of beauty.

  Released from their brief one-armed embrace, Bianca turned her gaze on Sharon. "Sharon, how wonderful to meet you at last. So glad you could join us. Though, I understand from Chelsea you're not one for the club-scene." Her lips twisted with humor at the last, a glint of merriment sparkling in her eye. Bianca's look said more than her words - it said: I understand completely. And agree.

  Sharon hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath until she burst out with a little laugh seeing that look, simpatico and warm. It was odd, but she felt almost...attracted to this woman. "You can say that again. Not my scene. Chelsea talked me into it tonight and I've already had reason to regret it."

  "What? What!" Chelsea begged. She turned to Bianca. "Something happened before I got here and she won't tell me what."

  "Maybe she'd rather forget," Bianca said and shot Sharon a wise look.

  "Yes. Let's," Sharon agreed, grateful for Bianca's backup and liking her more and more by the minute.

  "Oh!" Chelsea said, making a tsking sound.

  Just then the first pair of male strivers, of whom there were to be many that evening, made their approach. "Hello, ladies. How are you doing tonight?"

  Bianca received their attentions like a queen while Chelsea alternated between acting bubbly and nonchalant. Sharon, knowing the strivers weren't there to talk to her, rolled her eyes and looked around, taking in the scene. Her head turning toward the bar, she felt someone staring at her, and, assuming it was another gaze trained on Bianca, she looked back at the man.

  It was Dean. He shook his head and mouthed, "I'm sorry."

  Sharon quickly turned her head away and lifted her glass to her lips before realizing it was empty. She lowered it, feeling the anger bubbling up again. He was sorry, huh? She’d see about that. Tonight when the screaming started she wouldn’t roll over and cover her head with a pillow. Tonight she wouldn’t hesitate for a minute.

  He’d be sorry all right. When the police showed up. She hadn’t unleashed that battle cry; Dean had thrown down the gauntlet himself. And she wasn’t going to just let it lie there.

  Chardonnay

  Lucie’s mind was so caught up in her Erin-problem as she hobbled toward the restaurant where Chelsea and her friend were waiting, she forgot to be nervous. She’d heard that Ibiza was the hottest new bar in Stamford: the place to see and be seen. Just exactly Chelsea’s type of place - and exactly the kind of place that exhausted Lucie. But she'd agreed to meet there because of the large pile of freshly printed business cards currently residing in her wallet, just waiting for the kind of clientele that frequented hotspots like Ibiza.

  When choosing a venue for pure leisure, Lucie preferred quiet restaurants and quaint tea rooms. Savoring and lingering over a meal with friends was one of her favorite pastimes. Places like this one rushed you through your meal and the food was often subpar yet grossly overpriced. To top it off, she thought the snobbery and poor service common to fashionable local dining establishments to be pitiful and somewhat ridiculous. Americans always criticized the snobbery of the French, yet their own brand was just as abominable!

  She laughed at herself. It was strange at times, being the child of two cultures. Her mother had never shed her Frenchness, even after living in America for the entirety of her twenty-three-year marriage. Her father, though obviously once enamored with France and Claire Fournier - the pastry chef he met in Paris while traveling through Europe after college - had remained resolutely American in all ways in spite of having married and built a home with a Frenchwoman. It had been a battle between them, a battle that tore them apart in the end.

  Lucie finally reached the block of the restaurant and then Ibiza itself, having parked several streets away where she'd snagged a vacant metered spot. The front of the restaurant was one giant window and, in the fading pastel light of that early spring day, the interior was on display. The mostly black-clad crowd was posturing and lively, necks craning to look at other patrons, hands raised to lean in and whisper in ears, heads thrown back to laugh at things that were probably not that funny. Lucie felt her shoulders rising with tension and forced them back down as she reached the door and pulled it open, unleashing the roaring chatter from within. After the cool freshness of the air outside, the air within was heavy and rich with musk and spices, making Lucie breathe deeply through her nose to taste peppercorns and saffron.

  She stretched her neck to look for her friend, which only took a minute. Chelsea was easy to find in any crowd. Her long light blond hair was like a gleaming beacon in the low light of the candlelit bar. She was standing next to a dark-haired woman whose back was to the door and talking to a swarthy Italian in a jewel-blue silk shirt. Of course. Chelsea loved to socialize and was always on the prowl when it came to the opposite sex. It was too bad that nothing ever seemed to work out for her romantically, though. Chelsea had inexplicably horrible luck with men.

  Lucie made her way through crowd slowly, grateful that the press of bodies camouflaged her limp among these potential clients - she had learned that people could be judgmental about it. They might think it affected her catering abilities, which it most certainly did not. Just as she was steps away from Chelsea, a woman who Lucie faintly recognized and who looked out of place in the chichi crowd wearing jeans and a cotton work shirt walked up to Chelsea and tapped her on the shoulder. Chelsea startled and turned to t
he woman. The man, cut off mid-come-on, glanced at the woman and subtly rolled his eyes to the side.

  The woman said to Chelsea, "Hey, sorry to interrupt, but I'm going home. Thanks for inviting me. Oh, and say goodbye to Bianca for me. I don't want to bother her too."

  Chelsea slouched and dropped her arms by her sides, "No, we're just starting to have fun! Sharon! We haven't even gotten anything to eat! And you haven't met Lucie yet!"

  Sharon shrugged and shook her head. "Sorry, but this isn't my kind of thing. I've had enough. And I’m tired."

  "Oh!" Chelsea cried, shaking her arms and flapping her hands in aggravation.

  Lucie recognized the look and sound of stage one of a Chelsea poor-me fit. And she knew why. Hearing the woman's name, everything slipped into place: it was Sharon, Chelsea's newest work-friend and Lucie's replacement in her friend’s daytime socializing at TMB. Back when Chelsea and Lucie first hit it off, Chelsea immediately started insisting on dragging Lucie out to the bars after work and Lucie had gamely gone along. Lucie had never been one for the party scene, but as every day at TMB was a day-from-hell, she found herself desperate to go out, have a drink, and try to forget her woes. And in the end it had worked out for Lucie in more ways than one. Even though she never grew to appreciate the whole bar scene, she’d gotten lucky: one night four months ago Ryan was in one of those bars and a conversation had started between them. It never ended.

  Recently, Chelsea had been complaining bitterly that Sharon refused all her invitations to go out. Yet somehow, today, she had talked Sharon into it, and once Chelsea had you, she wouldn't let go without a fight. Even now that Ryan and Lucie were living together and it was obvious that Lucie was enjoying a quieter settled kind of life, Chelsea moaned over and over that Lucie didn’t come out often enough, that she missed her wing-woman, that things weren't the same without her.

  Lucie saw her opportunity to fix things before the downward spiral of Chelsea's funk took her to a bad-mood-of-no-return and stepped forward, "Hey, who's talking about me?"