“Margo, are you there? Where the hell are you?”
I pry open one heavy, swollen eyelid. Through the blur, I see my phone lying next to me—the screen informing me that it’s past one o’clock in the afternoon. And that I have thirteen missed calls. Ian holds his own phone to the side of my head. Jordana is screaming out of it.
“Jordana? Um, hi.”
“We have been trying you all day, Margo! I was about to send someone to your apartment, but then Beth had the idea to get Ian’s number from HR. What the fuck are you doing?”
It’s a good question.
I lift my other eyelid and the entire nightmare comes hurtling back into focus. The door in my face. Pulling over to get sick on the car ride home. Making Ian sleep on the couch for ruining everything. Scrounging up three Xanax from an old prescription bottle in the back of the bathroom drawer.
So, what the fuck am I doing? I am lying on the bedroom floor for some reason, curled around a pillow, a sweaty sheet pulled down from the mattress above.
“Jordana, I’m so sorry. I think I had some bad shellfish last night.”
“Well, figure your shit out, Margo. I already heard from bothBon AppétitandGQ. Their writers arrived at Union Station a half hour ago. Neither could find the black cars you were supposed to send.”
“Oh, um…”
“That is your last fuckup today, do you hear me? I need you at The Bexley by three.”
She hangs up before I can respond.
I pass Ian’s phone back, my growing rage eclipsing my grogginess. “What the hell, Ian? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I didn’t know you were still in here,” he says, holding his hands up. “I’ve been on back-to-back conference calls in one of the coworking suites upstairs.”
I bury my face into the pillow and scream as loud as I can.
When I get to the hotel, the lobby is already a swirl of event staff. A crew is setting up the step-and-repeat. Several of the assistants from my office are carting in rented cocktail tables and boxes full of plastic champagne flutes from the loading dock. Beth is arranging dozens of black gift bags, “The Bexley” embossed on them in gold lettering, on a table by the front entrance.
I hear Jordana coming before I see her. She rounds the corner in a magenta tuxedo that’s stunning against her brown skin, and a pair of leopard-print stilettos that collide like bullets with the black marble floor. The sound echoes around the vaulted ceiling, a sculptural brass chandelier the size of a Fiat suspended from its sixty-foot peak.
I really do love a brass light fixture.
“Margo, feeling better?”
She sizes up my long-sleeved emerald sheath, my sturdiest pair of Spanx giving it their all underneath.
“Yes, much,” I say, hoping that I’ve caked on enough foundationand concealer to hide the puffiness beneath my eyes. “I am so sorry again, Jordana. I was completely out of it. But don’t worry, the bad shellfish wasn’t from a client!”
I force a laugh. Her airbrushed face doesn’t move.
“Your friends fromBon AppétitandGQare all checked in. Why don’t you see if Serina can arrange something special for them, to make up for the incident with the cars?”
“That is a fantastic idea. Thank you. I’ll check in with her now.”
“Oh, and Margo, you can take these up to their rooms.” Jordana holds out her hand like she’s proffering the key to another dimension. Two black rubber wristbands rest in her palm.
I find Serina, the hotel’s beverage director, in Rivière’s cocktail lounge, just off the lobby, organizing bottles behind the bar. Her reflection—chestnut shag, nose ring, red lipstick—bounces off the mirrored shelving. For tonight, this space will be off-limits to the guests, so it can serve as a staging area to restock the four bars set up around the lobby.
“Why don’t I put together a mini tasting for them?” Serina suggests, after I explain my earlier fuckup. “I could do some of the signature cocktails that we’ll have once we’re fully open, like a little sneak preview.”
“Oh my God, Serina, that would be a dream. Can I bring them down like forty-five minutes before the party starts?”
“Yeah, perfect.”
Okay, this is going fine now. I can do this. This party couldn’t have come at a better time. It will force me to forget about the house for a few hours and just focus on work. I head up to the ninth-floor suites and deliver the wristbands to their rightful VIP owners. They both seem genuinely excited about the private cocktail tasting. See? Like I said, everything is fine.
