Party of Two

by Jasmine Guillory

  Max had to stop him there.

  “That’s unfair—yes, okay, some of that is true, but I’m not usually like that with women! I haven’t dated anyone in almost three years—not since Lana and I broke up. Plus, I’m not in the habit of spilling my guts to people. I don’t know why you think I need caution here!”

  Wes held up a hand.

  “Sure, but you do jump into things quickly, and while most of the time your split-second decisions turn out well—that decision to run for Senate sure worked out—you and I both know the times when they haven’t. Remember Death Valley?”

  Max grabbed another piece of pizza.

  “I get us stranded in the desert one time twenty years ago, and I have to hear about it for the rest of my life, huh?”

  “I’m just saying—you haven’t changed that much in those twenty years,” Wes said. “Remember when you lost it on the attorney general on CNN last fall?”

  Max sighed. That moment had gained him a lot of press, and a lot of cheers from people on his side, but it hadn’t particularly helped his criminal justice reform bill.

  “Don’t remind me. But I don’t see what one thing has to do with the other. I’ve only gone on a handful of boring first dates since Lana, and the first time I meet someone I actually like, you want to throw cold water all over it?”

  Wes dropped his hand on Max’s shoulder.

  “I’m not trying to be a dick, but everything is a little more high risk for you now. And if you saw the look on your face when you talked about her . . . I just want you to be careful, that’s all. And for her sake, I’m sure you don’t want to get photographed leaving her house some morning and have her put on blast as the new girlfriend of the hottest bachelor in DC before either of you is ready for that.”

  Max sighed and leaned his head back against the couch.

  “Damn it. That’s an actual good reason. I hate it when you’re right. Okay, fine, I promise. Thanks for the buzzkill.”

  Wes grinned at him.

  “Anytime, man, anytime.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Wednesday afternoon, Olivia sat at her desk and looked from her silent computer to her silent phone and back. She hadn’t gotten an email since eleven a.m., or a text message since just after noon. She couldn’t remember the last time this had happened in her working life. Maybe in her first few months as an associate, before she’d passed the bar?

  Monday and Tuesday had been much the same. She’d had calls with one of their handful of clients, and one call with a potential client, and she had done lots of networking, but it wasn’t at all the amount of work she’d been used to. Or expected.

  Yes, yes, it was still the early days. And sure, she was still occupied doing some of the seemingly unending administrative setup for the new firm, but now that she and Ellie were mostly done with that, the silence was starting to terrify her. She was already tired of lying to people that their new firm was “soooo busy” like she’d said in an email to a former colleague today. But she knew she had to fake it till she made it, so fake it she would do.

  But . . . how long would she have to fake it? Had this all been a huge mistake? Did this silence mean their firm was going to fail? She had a lot of money saved up—she’d been thinking about getting out of the big-firm life for a while now, and she’d tried to save as much as possible—so she wasn’t worried she wouldn’t be able to pay her rent or would have to give up on the firm in the short term. She had enough to support herself for at least the next two years, if necessary . . . but if it were necessary, that would mean she had failed.

  Honestly, if she still had to rely on her savings by early next year, she’d have to give up, realize she couldn’t cut it, and go crawling back to a big law firm.

  It was different for Ellie—Ellie relished her newfound work-life balance, and she seemed to have no worries at all about how quiet everything was right now. Ellie could pick her kid up from school, go to teacher conferences without having to balance the needs of clients and demanding senior partners, and have dinner with her family every night. And Ellie had a husband to fall back on, one who made a substantial salary of his own. She didn’t have to support herself or worry that she might have to cash in her 401(k) if this venture of theirs didn’t work. Olivia didn’t resent Ellie for any of that, and she didn’t doubt her passion for their firm, but it was just fact.

  On her date with Max, she’d had to pretend she was successful, confident, and oh so busy. The whole time he’d asked about their firm, she’d held back her anxiety and fear and doubt, and put on her Proud Businesswoman/Boss Lady hat. And while she was proud of herself and her firm, she was also terrified.

  What could she do now, this afternoon, to make this firm a success? She’d networked her ass off at the bar association on Monday night. But there wasn’t anything else going on tonight that she could find, for either lawyers or small businesses.

  Hmmm. She flicked through a bunch of the tabs she had open on her computer. That wasn’t until next week, that was invitation only, that one cost too much . . . oh, wait. The food pantry! One of their volunteer times was Wednesday night at six. Perfect.

  At exactly 5:55 p.m., Olivia jumped out of the car in front of the community center and thanked the driver. She looked down at her outfit and made a face; she was in slim black pants, a silk blouse, and pointy black flats, which probably wasn’t the best outfit for volunteering. This had been her work uniform when she lived in New York—there it was perfect: almost always work appropriate, easy to dress up with a blazer and heels—but here in L.A. it seemed way too dressy for almost everything she did.

  She walked into the building and followed the signs to the food pantry.

  “Hi,” she said to the person at the door. “I’m here to volunteer. I’m Olivia Monroe.”

  The woman at the door grinned and shook her hand.

  “Hi, Olivia Monroe, I’m Jamila Carter. I’m the coordinator here. Welcome. Since this is your first time, I’ll show you around and get you ready to start.”

  Olivia liked the looks of Jamila—somewhere in her late twenties, with long braids piled up into a huge bun on top of her head and a clipboard in her hand. Olivia instinctively trusted someone holding a clipboard.

  “Is it that obvious that it’s my first time?” Olivia asked as they walked into the kitchen. “I should have worn something different, but I kind of came on the spur of the moment.”

  Jamila laughed and shook her head.

  “Your outfit is fine.” She stopped and looked Olivia over. “Well, okay, I see what you mean, but we’ll give you an apron. It wasn’t that; it’s that I’ve worked here since the beginning, so I kind of recognize everyone at this point. How did you find out about us?”

  Olivia looked around the large, busy kitchen and was suddenly very glad she’d come tonight.

  “I moved to L.A. pretty recently—I just started my own law firm here—and one of the board members brought me to the luncheon last week. I don’t live that far away, so I thought I’d help out.” She looked around. “This place is a lot bigger than I expected.”

  Jamila set her clipboard down on the counter.

  “This is the cafeteria from when this building was an elementary school. The food pantry started here on a much smaller scale when the community center first opened, just as a place for people to leave donations for community members in need, and we still have that. But after a while we all saw the need for meals for our elderly and homebound members, and I asked around to see if we could get larger-scale food donations to cook with. One thing led to another, and about a year ago we started this community kitchen and meal delivery service as a part of the food pantry.”

  Olivia looked around the room. Everything looked clean and organized, with big piles of produce in stacks. Other volunteers—mostly older Black women, but lots of other ages and ethnicities, too—came in
and put on aprons and said hi to Jamila.

  “This is great. So you’ve been here from the beginning?”

  Jamila waved at someone who’d just walked in.

  “I have, and we’ve really grown. We started off with just a volunteer event on Friday nights once a month—at first, we really didn’t know what we were doing, and just sort of made big vats of soup or whatever based around our donations that week. Now we’re here twice weekly; on our Wednesday and Friday nights, we bring in volunteers to make complete, wholesome meals for members of our community who can’t get outside or cook for themselves easily. On Thursdays and Saturdays we have other sets of volunteers who do our deliveries. We try to make enough food each night for thirty to forty people, though our goal is to increase that to a hundred by the end of this year.”

  Olivia hadn’t quite realized—despite Jamila’s mention of an apron—that she’d be cooking tonight.

  “That’s an impressive goal,” she said. “To go from making thirty to forty meals to a hundred.”

  Olivia really hoped they would give her very clear instructions with this whole cooking thing; that had never been her strong suit. She looked around at the ingredients set out at the different stations.

  “How do you figure out what to make from week to week?”

  Jamila smiled.

  “That’s where I come in—I’ve worked as a cook in restaurants for a while. I’ve figured out a lot of recipes that work with some of our most frequent food donations, and that our community members will like.”

  “Wow,” Olivia said. “That’s impressive. I bet that was a real challenge. They’re lucky to have you.”

  Jamila handed her an apron.

  “Well thank you, but I’m lucky to have this place, too. It feels good to give back, yes, but I feel like I’m getting a lot in return.” She stopped and bit her lip. “I’m sorry, I’m going on and on about this—I can talk about this place for hours.”

  Olivia shook her head.

  “No problem. Where do we start?”

  Jamila led her over to one of the counters.

  “Okay, on a scale of one to ten, how good of a cook are you? With one being, like, you can barely open a can and heat up the food inside, and ten at, say, you’re a restaurant chef. Be honest, no judgment.”

  Olivia laughed.

  “Probably somewhere around a three? Maybe a four, in a pinch? I can definitely open up cans of food and heat them up, but I don’t quite know the difference between what it means to sauté something or braise it.”

  Jamila steered her in front of a big bowl.

  “Okay, perfect—tonight we’re making turkey meatballs with mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach. I’m going to put you on meatball duty; no chopping or sautéing involved, you’re just going to mix together a bunch of ingredients and then roll it all into meatballs. How does that sound?”

  Olivia laughed to herself. This was definitely not what she thought she’d be doing tonight when she woke up this morning.

  “That sounds great,” she said.

  Two hours later, Olivia’s feet hurt from standing in the same place for hours in her far-too-pointy shoes, her hands were ice cold from rolling what felt like millions of meatballs, and her eyes stung from all of the onions that the woman next to her had chopped. But when she looked at the forty sealed containers of meatballs, potatoes, and spinach, she felt like she’d really accomplished something.

  “Great work tonight, team,” Jamila said as they moved the containers from the counters to the refrigerators.

  Olivia dropped her apron in the spot where all the other volunteers dropped theirs, took off her gloves, and washed her hands.

  “Thanks for coming tonight, Olivia,” Jamila said as Olivia dried her hands.

  “It was my pleasure,” Olivia said. And she meant it, too.

  “I hope we’ll see you again?” Jamila raised an eyebrow at her.

  Olivia nodded and pulled her phone out of her purse.

  “Absolutely. I’ll try for next Wednesday.”

  She went to order a car, but Jamila stopped her.

  “Do you need a ride home?”

  Olivia looked up at her.

  “I do, but I’m probably out of your way—are you sure?”

  Jamila shrugged.

  “I’ve gotten too many rides from other people in my life to care about going a little while out of my way. Give me a second to lock up.”

  As they drove off, Jamila asked the question she’d known was coming.

  “Is your car in the shop?”

  Olivia shook her head. Everyone in L.A. seemed to believe it was unthinkable to not have a car.

  “I haven’t bought a car yet. I know, I know, everyone gives me that look. I’ll get to it eventually, I promise.”

  Jamila laughed.

  “I would hope so. I mean, I know there are people in L.A. who don’t have cars; it just makes life a lot more difficult, that’s all.”

  Yeah, she’d realized that in this past month.

  “I know—I need to do it sooner rather than later.”

  Jamila glanced at the GPS and got on the freeway.

  “Well, if you need help, let me know—car buying is one of my best skills. I’ve helped a bunch of friends.”

  Olivia relaxed into the passenger seat.

  “I’ve never done it before, so I might take you up on that.”

  Jamila grinned at her.

  “Just let me know. How are you liking L.A.? Settling in well? I’m sorry the dating scene here is . . . what it is. I’ve heard it’s much better in New York.”

  Olivia couldn’t help but smile. She hadn’t gone on a date in her last year and a half in New York, and somehow she’d met someone almost as soon as she’d landed in L.A.

  “Wait a second. What’s that smile? Are you dating someone already?” Jamila asked in an outraged tone.

  Olivia laughed.

  “‘Dating’ is probably the wrong word, let’s put it that way,” she said.

  Jamila grinned.

  “Even better, honestly. All the good stuff, none of the drama.”

  That was an excellent way to put it.

  “Indeed,” Olivia said.

  She smiled out the car window. She was definitely looking forward to her date with Max on Friday night.

  Chapter Five

  Max pulled into Olivia’s driveway, grabbed the flowers from his front seat, and walked up to her door. More flowers were probably too much for a second date, but he’d walked by a flower shop that day and had bought them on impulse. He hoped she liked them.

  Olivia swung open the door. God, she looked incredible tonight.

  “Hi,” she said.

  He smiled at her.

  “Hi to you, too.” He held up the flowers. “You didn’t tell me what your favorites were, so I just sort of guessed.”

  She took them from him and beckoned him into the house.

  “These are beautiful, thank you. Let me put these in some water and we can go.”

  He followed her through the hallway and into the big, bright kitchen.

  “For someone who doesn’t cook, you got a house with a great kitchen.”

  She laughed and took a tall, narrow pitcher out from a cabinet.

  “I know—isn’t it a waste? It might make me want to cook more, though. Ellie looked at houses for me, and she loved this one so I grabbed it, but she cooks a lot more than I do.”

  He watched her fill the pitcher up with water and arrange the flowers in it. He might have to bring her an actual vase next time.

  “I can’t believe you haven’t gotten a car yet,” he said as they got in. “That’s very un-California of you, you know.”

  She put her seat belt on and set her bag in her lap. Whenever she didn’t smile at something he said,
he was afraid he’d made her mad. Oh God, had he gotten that used to yes-men around him who laughed at everything he said?

  “I know,” she said. “But it seems like such an ordeal. There are so many choices. Domestic or foreign? Normal or electric or hybrid? Sedan? Sports car? SUV? And that’s all before I have to do that thing where I go to the dealership and test-drive it and deal with all the sexism from a dealer and negotiate the price or whatever. It’s all exhausting.” She looked over at him, and her face relaxed into a smile. “I know, you’re rolling your eyes at me—you spent all week dealing with national security secrets and actual significant problems for humanity, and I’m sitting here whining about how hard it is to buy a car.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder for a second as he turned around to back out of her driveway. He didn’t need to do that; he had a backup camera, he could see perfectly well to get onto the street. But she didn’t seem to mind.

  “Trust me, I’m definitely not rolling my eyes at you,” he said. “It makes sense that something in your personal life would fall to the bottom of the to-do list. That’s often how it is for me, anyway.” Though the idea of taking that much time and energy to make a decision like that was foreign to him. He would have just stopped at the first dealership he saw and bought whatever looked good to him. That was exactly what he’d done the last time he’d bought a car, as a matter of fact.

  He decided to change the subject, since the car thing seemed to stress her out.

  “Speaking of work, how’s the new firm going?”

  She moved her bag to the floor, then back to her lap.

  “Well, really well. Lots of meetings with potential clients, and we’ve gotten some work from one of the clients I used to work with in my old firm, so that’s great. And Ellie and I have done a ton of networking this week, so we hope that’ll bear fruit soon.”

  He turned to smile at her as they waited for a light.