Cocktail Hour (8 page)

“No, you should," he said, looking at her thoughtfully. "You could use a night out. You’re too young to be holed up at home all the time. And I know from all the television shows you tell me about that’s what you do, sit at home with your cat watching TV. Am I right or am I right?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but slowly got to his feet. “Speaking of home, I’m going to avoid it tonight. I think I’ll visit O’Malley’s. I haven’t been there in a while. After a day like this, it’s time to belly up to the bar and take a load off. Their greasy cheeseburger’s calling my name.”

She looked up at him and felt a pang. She didn’t want to go out with Chelsea, and now to make it worse, Alan was going to go to a bar by himself. At least if she was going with him, she could pressure him to go home after one drink, get some rest. By himself he’d probably close the place.

“Alan, please. Promise me you won’t drive if you have more than two,” Sharon said, putting her hands together as if in prayer.

He rolled his eyes at her. “Stop looking at me like that. I’m better now. Just getting some dinner.”

“Please.”

“Okay, I promise. And you. Don’t go too wild, getting up on the bar and dancing like you usually do.”

Mollified, she laughed. “No. I think not. Okay, I better get going myself. See you tomorrow? God, I can’t believe this. Tomorrow’s the last time I’ll see you at the office. We’ll still get together for dinner, though, right? Hit a diner up near your place? It’s on my way home. Or we can meet at Frannie’s?”

He pointed his finger at her with his thumb cocked like a gun, while using the other hand to open her office door. “You got it, sister. I need a regular exchange of wisecracks with you, the wisest of crackers, or I’ll lose my edge as a master raconteur. You’ve got to keep me on my toes.  Plus, what’s life without Frannie’s famous fresh-out-of-the-can gravy?”

“Mmm, good! Nothin’ like home cooking,” she said and rolled her eyes around while smiling as if delighting at the thought of something delicious.

He turned his palm outward in a brief wave. “See you tomorrow.”

Then he walked away and she was left staring at the blue fabric of the cubicles outside her office. She could hear someone typing in one of them and voices beyond in conversation. She could not hear any of the whispers and irate tones of dissention that usually accompanied a re-org, though. Perhaps they were all still digesting it. The firings would certainly set things off tomorrow. Alan’s firing alone would be enough to cause doors to slam and screeches of disbelief to pierce the air. If only she could let one out now, a shrill shriek of dismay, then maybe it would give her something to hold on to, because she really would be adrift now at work, the constant rising and falling waves of change breaking her loose from her moorings.

She turned back to her computer screen, saved her work, and then packed up to go. Maybe Ibiza and a cocktail with the girls would be just what she needed. For the first time ever she could actually say she craved a drink: a nice extra-dry vodka martini, clear and cool and straight up.

Corona

Kate smiled at Bianca even as she walked away, the pharmaceutical sales representative’s long flowing dark hair swishing back and forth as she crossed the reception room and pulled open the door to leave. She couldn't believe her luck. That beautiful and charming woman, Grant's old friend from back-when, wanted to include her, Kate, in her girl's night out. There was hope after all.

Ever since she and Grant moved to Darien she'd felt like a duck on the ocean. This was not her world, and she'd known that when they moved from Vermont to Fairfield County. At least she'd thought she understood. But then she got here and it was so...fast. And sharp, full of edges. And shiny-sparkly like a fancy Christmas ornament. It was overwhelming. She missed her family and all her friends back home every day. Maybe tonight she’d start making new friends and it wouldn’t be so hard anymore.

Every time she yearned for the mountains that shouldered every view in Vermont, the coziness of being known and knowing almost everyone, she reminded herself that Fairfield County presented opportunities for them not available back home.  In Vermont, Grant’s patients had presented flimsy paper insurance cards and they had to fight for every last dollar they had earned; here the patients proffered shiny credit cards, gladly paying for expensive beautifying procedures and prescription miracle creams. Darien was where women spent the kind of money on their skin that could make all the difference for Grant and Kate's children, money that would pay for things like summer camp and braces if they were needed and, eventually, college. 

Kate felt a faint flutter in her lower abdomen, as if a ghost-child turned over there, knowing it was being thought of. If she hadn’t seen the disappointing result from a pregnancy test that morning, she’d have taken it as a sign. Instead, she put her hand on her belly and closed her eyes to make a wish. I know you’re not there, not yet. But I’m not giving up on you.

Just as she was opening her eyes and moving her hand back to the keyboard of her computer, Grant appeared with his last patient, walking her out personally and assuring her that the sunburned look and feel of her face from the Fraxel laser treatment would disappear in a few days.

“Re:fine was the best choice for you, with your sensitive skin. I think you’ll be very happy with the results after we’ve done a few more treatments,” he said, guiding her up to the reception desk.

“Oh, thank you, Dr. Palmer. I really thought the big heavy-duty laser was my only choice. But have you seen how those people look? What a massacre!” Mrs. Klein said, bugging out her eyes and throwing her hands up, her narrow face bright red. Mrs. Klein was one of their regulars, a woman in her early fifties who was in their office practically every week for something new. Slim, tiny, and chic, she reminded Kate of a Frenchwoman. Until she opened her mouth. Then she became a Frenchwoman with a heavy vowel-stretching New York accent. Grant frequently remarked on all the New Yorkers that had swarmed into Fairfield County, but Mrs. Klein was the only New Yorker Kate had met in Connecticut.

Grant smiled and said, “More intense lasers that penetrate deeper sometimes are the solution, but not in your case. You were wise to wear sunscreen.”

“Religiously! I wouldn’t leave the house without it. Still won’t.”

He nodded again. “Good,” he said and turned to Kate. “Let’s schedule the next in a month.”

“Oh! I don’t want to wait that long!”

“Your skin is very delicate, Mrs. Klein. You want to give it time to heal.”

“Oh, please don’t call me Mrs. Klein. It makes me feel like an old woman. Sara. Please!”

“Sara, fine. Four weeks. I promise you’ll be glad you waited.”

“Oh, okay. Doctor knows best,” Sara said, fluttering her eyelashes at him before turning toward Kate. Grant rolled his eyes elaborately and smiled a little before turning to go back to his office to make notes in his files for the day.

Kate stifled the urge to laugh and helped Sara select a time and date that worked for her, knowing she’d be calling next week and begging for an appointment for yet another “emergency”.

Grant told her that he felt like a shrink whenever Sara Klein showed up, the woman telling him about her fears of aging, relating things her husband had said and wondering aloud about "what he was getting at" and pointing out various marks on her skin, convinced they were melanoma moles instead of the innocent freckles they were. 

"The only thing that dispels the illusion is Janice standing next to me, icy as they come," he said, shaking his head about his nurse's lack of affect and indifference to their patients. If Janice White, their small office's one nurse practitioner, hadn't shown herself to be talented and fearless in addition to apparently emotionless, he would have gone looking for a replacement by now.

Mrs. Klein left and then Janice followed shortly after, shrugging on a light rain jacket and giving Kate a wave as she walked out the door.

"See you tomorrow!" Kate called after her, trying to encourage some kind of friendliness between them. Janice didn't reply, the only sound that of the reception door slowly sighing as it shut. Wanting to sigh herself, Kate turned back to her computer, completed her entries in QuickBooks, and then got up to go tell Grant about Bianca and her impromptu plans for the night. Grant would probably be thrilled; he'd been encouraging her to join some local clubs or take a class - anything to alleviate the loneliness and yearning for her family and old friends she'd admitted to him.

She stopped at the door to his office which stood open and regarded her husband, who was looking at something avidly on his computer screen, the back of the monitor facing the door. Looking at him, she wondered again at his handsomeness, at what a smart successful man – a “catch” per her mother – her husband was. How did this happen? Kate wasn't pretty, she knew that. Her personality wasn't sparkling, her intellect was average, and she came from a large dairy farming family that struggled to put food on the table, so there was no lure of riches.

But he had told her over and over, especially in the beginning when the shock of him was daily, "What are you talking about? You're perfect. I'm crazy about you." And then, when pressed for details, he continued, "You're good. You're kind. You've got your head on straight. And, thank God, you don't play games. I swear, some of the women I've dated made my head hurt."

Noticing Kate standing in the door, he looked up and smiled at her, a strange hopeful expression on his face. Did he know about Bianca, overhear her invitation?

Encouraged, she burst out, "Guess what?"

"What?"

"Bianca? You're old friend? She invited me to drinks tonight. With the girls!"

He blinked and then gave his head a little shake. "Ah, really? Wow. Well, Bianca isn't a friend of mine, but, I mean, I'm sure she went to school with me like she said-"

"She's not a friend? But you were all apologetic about forgetting her?"

"Because she clearly remembered me. It was embarrassing. But I didn't know her. I don’t think so. I'm sure she was in school with me, but...anyway. Well, that's great, honey,” he said and nodded at her with a closed-mouth smile.

Kate felt herself deflating. “Oh? You don’t like her?”

“No! No. I’m not saying that. I just don’t know her, that’s all. No, you should go. It would be good for you to get out.”

Kate bit her lip. “I don’t know? I was going to make one of your favorites tonight. Meatloaf? Now what will you eat?”

He laughed and shook his head. “That’s what I love about you. You worry about stuff like that. Most wives today would order pizza or takeout every night. Not you. Well, don’t worry. I won’t starve. Hell, maybe I’ll slum it and order a pizza! No, you should go. Bianca will probably end up being your best friend. You don’t want to let a little meatloaf get in the way of getting to know your future BFF, do you?”

Kate grinned and laughed, too. “Best friend? Bianca? I doubt it! You’re my sweetheart, saying all that.”

“Well, it’s true,” he said, and then glanced at the computer screen again before looking back at her, his expression the same strange one he’d had when she first stood in the doorway. “Speaking of the future, I found something here you might want to look at.” He made a come-here gesture with his index finger and ducked his head a little.

She squinted her eyes and tilted her head at him. What was this shy bit? She walked around his desk to stand beside him. On the screen was an adorable little baby boy, red-cheeked and round-eyed, wearing a blue and white striped scarf and grinning toothlessly up at the camera.

“Oh? How cute!” she gasped. He looked so much like-

“Doesn’t he look just like your little brother? When he was a baby?”

“Yes! That’s it! Just like David. Oh?” She stretched her neck out and gazed at the photo. How she wanted one of her own. Now. Right now.

“Little Viktor here is from Russia. He’s a healthy happy baby boy, but he needs a home. Maybe we can give that to him?"