by Jane Porter
She lifts a hand, a careless wave. “I’ll go there myself. Speak with the manager. See what I can do.” She winks, suddenly self-important, suddenly surprisingly pretty. Even if her dress hurts my eyes. “How many should I say, Holly?”
How many? There’s a good question for you. How about two, Mom? You and me. But I’m going for broke; I’m going to be outrageous here. “Let’s say four—”
“Just four?”
“It’s Thursday night. Lots of people work late, and they still have to get in early tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Her smile returns. She leans forward, presses a kiss to my cheek, and then a little pat with her hand. “What time shall we say?”
“Seven thirty?”
“That’s so late!”
I think about the work waiting for me, I think about Olivia’s temper, but this is also my mom’s first visit to the city in years, and I know she’s excited. “Six thirty?”
“Holly.”
“It’ll take us a half hour with traffic.”
“But Nob Hill’s not that far!”
“It’s the city, Mom.” I can’t say no to her. I hate that; I hate that I can’t say what I want, or tell her what I feel. “Fine,” I say with a small sigh. “Six o’clock.”
“Six o’clock,” Mom repeats. “For four.” Her purse changes hands. She looks invigorated, almost young. “See you then, honey.”
Chapter Nine
Mom leaves, and I go back to my desk, and immediately the office is a beehive of activity.
Tessa appears at my desk, soon followed by Josh and then delicate little Sara.
“Your mom?” Tessa asks, leaning against my cubicle wall, downing a little silver can of Red Bull, but it’s not a question; it’s a statement, and I can’t help thinking that Tessa’s the last person who should be drinking Red Bull. She’s by far the most creative director with her wardrobe. Today she’s wearing a short red vinyl skirt, red tights, a black leather vest, and black combat boots.
“Yes.”
“She wasn’t here long,” Tessa adds, taking another hit from her can. “You should have taken her on a tour around the office, introduced her to everyone.”
Mom would have loved that. She would have been thrilled by a guided tour, getting the official “Here’s my desk, here’s the break room, here’s where we make coffee, and that’s where I make my photocopies” description.
My throat suddenly feels lumpy, and I swallow hard as a big red neon sign, like those applause cues in TV studios, blinks BAD DAUGHTER over my head.
Everybody’s waiting for me to say something now. “I was worried about Olivia returning,” I say, feeling lame, and it is lame. “I’m behind on work and didn’t think she’d appreciate my mom hanging around.”
Tessa crunches her now empty can. “Olivia doesn’t own the office.”
Josh nods.
Sara just continues to monitor everything like a little whatever-she-is. I have not figured Sara out yet. She might be a lot of fun (if she ever talked), or she might be a drone (which I think everyone thinks I am), or she might be someone dangerous, which I doubt, but you never know.
“I know, I—” and I break off, feeling even more like a lame-ass because my mom never comes to the city, we never do “girl things” together, and yet I’ve been really lonely, and good company would be nice.
And maybe that’s why I’m nervous about Mom being here. She’s good, and she’s company, but I wouldn’t exactly call her good company. I just get so uptight around her, my insides knotting, and somehow I go from zero to sixty in no time flat. “I wasn’t sure about protocol.”
“If my mom were here, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck about protocol or what anyone might think,” Tessa answered, tossing the smashed Red Bull can into my trash bin. Two points.
“Is your mom in New York?” Sara asks Tessa.
Sara doesn’t usually speak directly to Tessa. It’s kind of an unwritten team rule. Each team has its own members, and members fraternize with one another, not with the enemy team. But somehow, now that Tessa and I have broken the ice, Josh seems just as comfortable talking to Tessa as he does with Olivia.
“No,” Tessa answers flatly, and Josh, in his brown cords and nondescript beige shirt, is listening intently.
“Is she in New Jersey, then?” Sara persists, and Tessa gives Sara a drop-dead look.
“No.” Tessa tugs on her red tights, pulling them higher on her skinny thighs. “My mom’s dead. She died when I was four.” And then she walks away, combat boots clomping violently as though she’s a hotheaded Irish looking for a fight.
For a moment no one speaks. Sara just looks at me and then Josh before slinking away.
Josh remains. “That explains a lot,” he says after a moment, staring after Tessa.
“Does it?” And in Josh’s face I see something new, something different, something... protective.
He doesn’t like Tessa, does he?
“She’s like a character from a Hemingway novel,” he says, and I try to follow this figurative leap, because it has to be figurative. Hemingway didn’t really write about women, did he?
I look down the corridor toward Tessa’s office. “I wonder what she’d do if I invited her to join Mom and me for dinner.”
“Where are you going to dinner?”
I’m jerked back to the stark reality of a weekend alone with my mother. “The Tonga Room.”
Josh nods. “I love that place. I’m really into the old tiki thing. I used to collect hula dancer dolls.”
Okay, he has to be gay. That’s not a heterosexual man talking right now.
“You’re welcome to come,” I say, fingers crossed that he’ll say yes, but I don’t want to come on too strong, for fear of scaring him away. I have to have at least one friend attend dinner with me tonight, or Mom will think I haven’t made any friends yet (which is true), and she’ll worry about me more (which would mean more visits and phone calls). “My mom is hoping to meet some of my...”
My voice trails away, and Josh looks at me, then deadpans. “I’ll be your token friend.”
“You will?”
“Mmmm. After hearing that pitiful story about you falling as a kid in your new high heels—-beige Naturalizers, your mom said—I think you need one.”
And I smile, a funny, crooked smile because gay or straight, Josh has been nicer to me than anyone else I’ve met since I’ve moved to the -city. “Thanks.” My smile grows. “I’ll go talk to Tessa.”
“You better do it fast. Olivia will be back soon.”
I can see Tessa through her open door. She’s sitting cross-legged in her chair, staring intently at her computer screen.
“What do you want?” Tessa asks brusquely without glancing up from the computer.
She’s uncomfortable. I realize she hadn’t meant to say anything about her mom and is angry that she did.
Asking her to join me and my mom and Josh for dinner is nothing short of stupid and insensitive. I shouldn’t do it.
“Well?” Tessa sighs with exaggerated patience, giving the edge of her desk a push, rolling her chair backward.
Don’t be stupid, don’t he stupid, don’t be stupid—
“Would you like to join my mom and me for dinner?” I ask brightly, eyebrows lifted as if to convey Fun! Excitement! Good Times for All!
“Jesus, Mary, and—” “My mom thinks I have friends,” I say fast, cutting her short, mortified that I’m giving her the true version of events, but unable to lie. “She’s going to a lot of effort to make dinner reservations for tonight, and...” I exhale, take a brittle breath. “I already feel like a schmuck for sending her away without the office tour. And now if I show up at her meet-Holly’s-friends party without any friends, she’ll think I’m mad at her, or embarrassed.”
“Which you are.”
Damn, Tessa’s tough. “Not mad.” I hesitate delicately. “Well, maybe mad. And maybe embarrassed.”
“She’s your mom.”
“It’s not that simple.
”
“What’s to be embarrassed about?”
“It’s not one thing; it’s little things, lots of little things.”
“Name one.”
I stay silent. I don’t want to do this. In high school it was cool to put your parents down, but I don’t like criticizing my mom. At least not out loud.
“Come on.” Tessa pushes for a reason.
Fine. If she wants a reason, she can have one. She can have ten. “My mom doesn’t remember anything I tell her. Like what I do. Today she said she didn’t know I was in PR, or that I’d handled events, and yet I invited her to a half-dozen different things when I worked in Fresno.”
“What else?”
“She’s always compared me to Ashlee, my younger sister, who starred on her volleyball team, never missed a prom, was crowned homecoming queen as well as Miss Congeniality in the local Miss America pageant.”
“Wow.” Tessa’s impressed. “Quite a girl.”
“Yes, she is. And that’s how my mom wants me to be, but I’m not extroverted like that. I’m not a social butterfly. I don’t even want to be a social butterfly.”
“Then don’t be. Be yourself,” Tessa answers, unfolding her legs, dropping her feet on the floor so the heels of her boots thump, boom-boom. “God, I could use a smoke.” She opens up her desk drawer, slams it shut, and then opens it again, fishes out some orange Tic Tacs, and then throws the Tic Tacs back into her drawer. “What time’s dinner?”
“Six.”
Tessa’s dark red eyebrows arch. “Early.”
“She’s eager.”
Tessa laughs, a surprisingly deep belly laugh. She may have an Irish temper, but she’s got the Irish humor as well. “So where are we going?”
I gulp air. I can’t believe she’s going to go. “The Tonga Room.”
And Tessa just laughs some more. “See you there.”
I leave Tessa’s office, and her laugh follows me down the corridor, all the way to my cubicle, where Olivia is sitting in my chair, filing her nails.
“Hey,” I say, my face twitching from happy smile to horrified, petrified smile.
“Hhhheeeeey.” Olivia mocks my greeting before blowing dust from the tip of one perfect nail. “So how are things, girl? Having a good day?”
I’m suddenly glad Mom’s gone. I would not want Mom here for this. I’m going to get my butt kicked, and I’m going to feel pretty bad pretty quick.
“Okay,” I say, trying to keep my smile. Olivia’s also smiling, but her eyes are hard and she’s pissed. I’ve seen her pissed before—not nice—but never at me until now.
Chilly smile. “How are my Oracle numbers coming along?”
“Pretty good.”
“Can I see what you’ve got so far?”
I’m panicking, scrambling, thinking I’ve done it now, backed myself into a corner with a big fat lie. “I did have until five, didn’t I?”
Her expression hardens. She studies me for an uncomfortably long time. “What were you talking to Tessa about?”
So that’s what has set Olivia off. Not the fact that I don’t have the Oracle info together. Not the media phone numbers on the inside of my file folder. Not my disappearance at eleven when I went to meet Brian Fadden. It strikes me that there’s a lot I could get in trouble for—and it all has to do with me helping out on the Leather & Lace Ball. “My mom’s in town. I invited Tessa to join us for dinner tonight.”
“Tessa.”
“I’m inviting everyone.”
“Why?”
“My mom wanted to meet my... office colleagues.”
Her eyes narrow. “I don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Why she’d want to have dinner with the people you work with. And why you’d think it was appropriate to ask City Events staff to join you for dinner.” Her hands with the long slim fingers flutter. “Holly, you’re not in college. This isn’t a sorority. This is business. Act like a professional.”
I feel my jaw harden. I’m getting angry, and I don’t want to get angry, not with Olivia, and not now, because I can’t hide my temper well and I’m not in a good position for an argument. I’m overwhelmed by my workload. I’ve made Olivia wait for information. I haven’t acted properly obeisant. “I was simply being nice.”
Olivia slowly rises from my chair. She’s the most graceful woman I’ve ever met. Everything she does is beautiful, and as she turns to look at me, I’m reminded of a big cat before it pounces. “‘Nice’ is irrelevant. Success is important. And if you’re not successful here, you won’t be at City Events long.”
She walks away, all long-legged, loose-hipped, the walk of a model on the European runway. For the first time, I think I could hate her. But I don’t want to hate her. Olivia’s brilliant. She’s definitely got “it,” and people respond. They can’t help responding. Even I do.
I turn around, reach for the chair that Olivia has just vacated, and spot Sara standing not far from my cubicle. Her eyes are wide, and I wonder how long she’s been there and how much she’s heard. Plenty, I think.
I give Sara a long, unsmiling look.
“You’re going to dinner with Tessa?” she asks, breaking the awkward silence.
Sara’s blonde, a delicate Ivy League-type blonde, who favors black, gray, and navy cashmere. Everything she wears on her top half is cashmere. It’s a nice look for her. But I’d never, ever buy two dozen of the same sweater. “It’s an open invitation,” I say. “You’re welcome to join us.”
“Josh is going?”
“Yes. We’re meeting at the Tonga Room at six.”
Sara casts a furtive glance around. “Is Olivia going?”
I let my eyebrows lift. “Did you hear our conversation?”
She colors, then mumbles something like, “I better not. I’ve got lots of work. The Schlessenger wedding and the, um, other things.”
“Right.” I pick up my pen and hit a key on my keyboard so the screen saver disappears, returning me to the Excel spreadsheet on my monitor. “Have a nice evening with the wedding and other things.”
But Sara doesn’t leave. She takes several steps toward me, leans over the edge of my desk. “You don’t want Olivia mad.”
She’s right. I don’t want Olivia mad, but I also refuse to be intimidated by Olivia’s office politics. I’ve always done my own thing, made my own decisions, even if they’re disastrous. “I’m not uninviting Tessa.” I start scrolling through the spreadsheet. “I think it’s great that Tessa wants to be supportive.”
Sara stands there another moment. I can feel her frustration, as well as her indecision. And then, heaving a sigh, she walks away. I don’t even glance up. I’m starting to realize that I can’t make everybody happy today, and I’m not even going to try.
Josh and I end up driving together. The Fairmont is on Nob Hill and probably my favorite place for catching a cable car.
On Powell, at the top of the hill, you can see in all directions, and as the cable car descends, it rolls and grinds, hums and clanks, and the street and the cable car shudder as the conductor rings the bell, ding-ding-ding, and the brakeman works the gears.
After parking—a slow, painstaking process of inching up and back until I’ve squeezed into the spot on the street—I join Josh on the curb just as a cable car climbs the hill.
When I was little, I thought it was the shape of the cable car that made it so evocative, but now I know it’s not the shape, or color, but the sound. That busy, cheerful hum-and-clank-and-ding sound is so San Francisco, at once festive and old-world, exciting and comforting, like Ghirardelli chocolates, clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls at Fisherman’s Wharf, or the glimpse of the deep-orange Golden Gate Bridge poking through the morning fog.
The doorman at the Fairmont holds the door for us as we duck into the grand gilt-and-marble hotel lobby. I ended up in San Francisco because it was north of Fresno, not south, and because my father lives in the southern half of the state, and because I went to college do
wn there and this time I wanted—needed—the unknown. The unknown was north, so that’s why I’m here, but now that I’m here, I’m grateful.
We take the elevator downstairs, and as I walk through the hotel’s hallway, I know San Francisco’s right for me. It can’t quite be classified as a fairy-tale city, because I’ve seen too many homeless people sleeping on corners and been chased once too often by deranged persons when leaving the theater in the Tenderloin district, but there is a fictional quality to it.
Maybe it’s that whole western frontier movement, with the California gold rush and its infamous forty-niners (not the football team but the men and women who swarmed San Francisco in the height of gold rush fever), the hardy American novelists like Mark Twain and Jack London immortalizing life in the glorious new state of California, or the great earthquake and fire in 1906 that razed the city, but San Francisco is and always will be larger than life.
Mythical.
It’s the mythical I relate to, and the mythical I feel as Josh and I enter the Tonga Room’s exotic world of Polynesia. Tessa is already there, sitting with my mom, and they’re both sipping enormous drinks festooned with spears of fresh fruit, garish paper umbrellas, and little plastic monkeys. Mom waves to us from across the room, and for a second all I can see is a blinding flash of turquoise and pink. Please stay seated; please wave from a sitting position, I pray silently, and miraculously, my mother does.
“We’re having a great time,” she says as we reach the table, and I look at Tessa for confirmation. Tessa smiles, shrugs, and I think that’s about as warm and fuzzy as I’ve ever seen Tessa.
Mom has stories to tell tonight. She’d tried to drive here earlier and got lost and somehow ended up on some bridge but it wasn’t the Golden Gate; it was the other one, the big gray one that was severely damaged in the last big earthquake, and the traffic was impossible, traffic like you don’t believe, but she did finally get back across the bridge after paying the toll, and now here we are.
Yes we are.
I need a drink bad.
Drinks arrive, and I’m very happy with my ultra-smooth piña colada. I know piña coladas are the wimpiest of all blender drinks (perhaps only a chi-chi is lower in terms of verve), but it’s tasty and smooth and it goes down easy, and soon I’m a little mellower.