Cocktail Hour (6 page)

Chelsea was shocked and then impressed, watching Sharon nonchalantly pull the emptiest color toner cylinder, cyan, out of the Lanier and throw it out in the workroom garbage can, tuck two remaining stocked boxes of the cyan toner under her arm and walk across the office to place them in the workroom at the opposite end of the office. Then she calmly called Kevin and lied on his voicemail. She dropped the receiver in its cradle with a clatter and turned to face Chelsea, a Cheshire Cat grin making her soft friendly face look almost evil. “That was way too much fun.”

Chelsea fell into one of the visitor chairs in Sharon’s office and fanned herself, feeling hot from the combination of excitement and anxiety. “Oh, I don’t know how to thank you. Are you sure you don’t want to come tonight? There are going to be so many cute guys there, I swear.”

Sharon’s smile twisted into a grimace. “For a second there, I was considering it. I’ll pass on the hot men. I prefer a hot bath.”

“Oh, come on. You’re so pretty and smart. You should be married and going on romantic cruises and stuff.”

Sharon laughed without mirth. “I think you’re a little confused about marriage, sweetie. Trust me, I was married once upon a time. It’s no romantic-cruise-filled experience.”

“Oh,” Chelsea said, leaning forward and warming to the subject. “You just had a bad husband. If you had the right husband you’d-“

Sharon shook her head and laughed. “No thanks. Please don’t.”

“Fine. Why not just come out to have some fun with the girls? You can’t stay home every night. You’ll turn into a boring old lady.”

“Hey, who are you calling old?”

“You know what I mean. Come on. Live a little! And I’d love to hang out with you outside of work. I’ll buy you a drink?”

Sharon’s expression softened. “Ah…you’re probably right. I never go out anymore. Just me and Fred and the boob tube. No, don’t look at me like that, all peppy and hopeful. Fred’s my cat.”

“Oh, well. I’m psyched I talked you into it. Yay! All right, so I’ll meet you there? At seven? I’ve got to run home and freshen up.”

"Freshen what? You look a like a model, ready for her close-up."

"Oh, you! You're so funny."

Sharon rolled her eyes, but smiled. "I'm not kidding, but anyway. See you there."

"Awesome! Okay! Bye!" Chelsea leapt up and ran back toward her cubicle to get her purse and turn off her computer, going the long way around the office in order to avoid the glassed-in conference room where Kevin was currently torturing one of his teams.

An hour later, her makeup freshly applied, long blond hair re-curled with a curling iron, and wearing a new outfit - a black skirt and clingy silvery blouse from bebe she couldn't afford but that flattered her hourglass figure perfectly – Chelsea was climbing the steps after locking the door of her basement apartment when her phone rang. It was her default ring of a twittering bird, so it wasn't a friend or family member with a programmed ring. Taking a deep breath, she made a little wish it was Travis. That he had looked up her number in the employee directory, thinking of her after their conversation today and wanting to continue it.

"Hello?" Chelsea said in her best come-hither breathy voice.

“Hello,” a deep male voice said. “Don’t you sound delicious?”

A thrill tickled up her spine before she could push it down. “Who is this?” But she knew. She knew that voice, that husky sound. She knew the type of things he said, the things that made her hot, weak, desperate. Still, even now.

She stopped at the top of the steps. “Who is this?” she asked anyway, hoping she was wrong, another stupid part of her wishing she was right.

“Don’t you know?”

“John.”

“Good girl. I knew I could count on you,” he said and chuckled.

She felt something twist inside of her, as if he operated a giant invisible screwdriver and knew exactly how to use it on her, making her writhe with need for him. Then a flare of anger hit her. How dare he? “Aren’t you married now? To my best friend? Bianca, remember her? The mother of your son?”

“Oh, yeah. Her. Well, she's the reason I’m calling.”

“What? Is she okay?”

“Relax. She’s fine. It’s just…”

“What?” she asked, holding her breath in spite of herself.

“I need to see you.”

“No, really, what?”

“It’s too important to talk about over the phone. What are you doing right now?”

“I’m going out for drinks with your wife. And a couple of other friends. Didn’t you know?”

He laughed, but he sounded sad. “I don’t know anything these days. I’ve made a mess of my life. And it’s all my fault.”

Hearing the obvious misery in his voice, she weakened. Oh! John! How she had loved him. It had been wild, sweeping and intense. Their romance had lasted for three months - a season and it was spring. She had met parts of herself she hadn't known existed: the sensualist, the philosopher, the hungry child. She could still remember the scent of those long days in bed, the open window letting in bud-sweet air that mingled with their musk as they tumbled together again and again, his loving leaving her a mewling trembling mess.

Coming back to the pavement on the driveway of the apartment building, she made herself breathe, stay calm. She would be in control this time. “I don’t know if I should see you. If you need to work things out with Bianca, you should talk to her.”

“But that’s the thing. I can’t. I just need your advice. It’ll all be above-board, I promise. But you know her better than anyone.”

She swallowed back the rising lump in her throat. She did. She was Bianca’s only close friend. Gorgeous headstrong Bianca usually made enemies when it came to women, not friends. And a part of Chelsea knew
she
shouldn’t have stayed friends with her, not after Bianca went after John. And stole him away. And married him. And had a beautiful baby boy by him. But she knew Bianca. She didn’t mean to hurt people. She was just so full of life, so passionate. She’d simply fallen uncontrollably in love with John. She couldn’t help it any more than the sky could stop being blue. That was how true love worked: it wasn’t fair. It just was itself, undeniable.

Chelsea nodded and then said softly, “Yes. I do.”

“Please. Just a drink? Later tonight, after you meet the girls? Wherever you want.”

She looked down and nodded. Just one time. Help him. “Okay. Ten o'clock down the street at Bedford Grille. You know?”

“Yes, I know where it is. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

She shrugged, trying to fight the sudden electric excitement that was coursing through her and losing. “It’s okay. See you then.”

She ended the call and stood in the parking lot staring at her phone, the cool spring breeze tossing her curls so that they tickled her face. What had she done? Worse: what was she about to do?

Vodka Martini

"Awesome! Okay! Bye!"

Sharon watched Chelsea wiggle out of her office and shook her head. Why had she agreed? What was she thinking? Chelsea was sweet, but some hot new bar overcrowded with strivers was exactly where she didn't want to be tonight. Sharon had mentioned a bath, but really bed was where she wanted to be, asleep ASAP after a little reading and a snuggle with Fred.

She turned back to her computer screen and popped her pencil back into her mouth, her eyelids feeling as if they were made of concrete, heavy and rough with sand. Sleep was becoming practically erotic these days, ever since her new freshly-divorced neighbor moved in next door and started inviting a bevy of young women over for parties that ran past midnight, even during the week.

The guy had installed a trampoline in his backyard when he first moved in, and Sharon, seeing it, had been innocent enough to assume he had children from his marriage who would be visiting and that her worst problem would be shrieking children jumping on it all day. She hadn't counted on shrieking dimwits drunkenly bouncing on it all night. She had tried earplugs as well as a sound machine, but neither had stopped next door's piercing notes of female hysteria from puncturing her dreams.

For the first time, she wished she had other close neighbors. They could band together and go tell him what they thought of his nighttime revelries. But her house was on a country road in Monroe next to a small farm and the only house nearby was Mr. Party-Man's. She could call the police and complain, of course, but that would be the instigating battle cry for a war she didn’t want to fight alone. She wished she knew what to do. Noise had never been a problem before - her prior neighbors had been a quiet elderly couple, the kind that nodded and smiled at her in passing and that was the extent of it.

Sharon slumped in her chair just thinking of the Reynolds, their boat-like blue Lincoln, their neatly tended front garden, their hand-painted mailbox with bright red cardinals on it. Ah, the good old days. The evenings she'd sat on her back patio and just listened to the wind in the trees, the crickets and frogs and birds contributing their gentle chorus. And how she had slept.

She forced herself to sit up and stuck the graphite-end of the pencil in her mouth. She was glad it wasn't dangerous because it was like a drug that she desperately needed, giving her a little zip. Just an hour more, then she'd go and make an appearance at Ibiza, then home. She focused again on the pie-chart she was creating based on the data they'd collected about Element Hand Soap's perfume.

Just then a shadow filled her door and she looked up to see Alan, her boss. His usually florid face was pale and he was gripping the doorframe as if holding onto it in order to stay upright.

“Hey, what’s up?” Sharon asked, feeling a buzz of alarm at his appearance. “Are you okay?”

Alan gasped a little and said, “No, actually, I’m not. I think I need to sit down.” He fell into the seat by the door and then did something unprecedented: he shut the door.

He put his elbows on his knees and looked at the floor, his breathing audible and ragged. Sharon stared at her boss and mentor and – let’s face it – friend with shock. What was going on? She put her pencil down, feeling chilled. “Alan?”

He didn’t answer, just shook his head.

Sharon waited, stymied, while looking at the round bald patch in the center of his whorl of thin silver hair, and wondered if she had ever seen Alan this way at work. The friend part of their relationship was hard not because he was her boss, but because he drank too much and she generally tried to stay away from having relationships with people who had substance abuse problems. Or any significant problems. She didn’t like the mess of it, the drama and the inevitable fallout. She liked her life neat and quiet and orderly – which, basically, led her to have just a few old school friends she kept in touch with via Facebook and Alan. She was friendly with people at work, like Chelsea, but she limited those relationships to her hours at the office.

Alan was different. Much older, in his early sixties, he was both someone she looked up to and someone she looked after. The looking-up-to part was what made their friendship possible: respect. He was a great senior project director: a natural analyzer and planner, excellent at designing research initiatives, and able to motivate a team without pissing them off. It was his sense of humor that was the secret of his success: his ability to laugh at everything, including himself. Everyone loved working for him, not just Sharon.

The looking-after part of their relationship was the part that truly made them friends. It started when Alan’s wife, Margie, died of pancreatic cancer four years before. Through the treatments and her last days he’d been strong and steady, still managing to fulfill the requirements of his job from the hospital or home, working nights and weekends in order to get the job done. He’d seemed almost obtuse in his optimism during that time, his belief that she’d get through it, that the doctors didn’t know anything, that they predicted incorrect death sentences all the time.