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“Call me for anything,” he says, and it is a lovely gesture but one I won’t take him up on. I am a professional; I can deal with it alone. Just like everything else in my life.
“Sure, now go!” I say, giving him a brief smile of reassurance, and then he does something that startles me. He pulls me in for a hug. His large arms wrap around my shoulders and my eyes start to water.
“My mother is evil, but Harrison only has eyes for you. Please just be patient with him. He has a lot on his plate,” Tennyson says, and I nod, having lost the ability to speak at his kindness.
“Call me,” he says, stepping back slowly, and I watch him leave and wait for a few moments before I sink in the chair and hang my head, wondering how to fix the mess I have made.Stupid stupid, stupid,I berate myself. I have never messed up this badly before. The man could have died! I think about calling Kelly for advice, but knowing she is in her newborn baby phase, I decide to leave her out of it.
I sit, with my head in my hands for thirty minutes as I wait for the venue manager to come back, which she does, with her Head Chef in tow.
“Okay, I have all the paperwork here,” she says in a light tone with a small smile, which indicates to me that the restaurant didn’t make a mistake and their conscience is clear. My heart sinks.
“So I have your emails and final paperwork here all signed, both outlining the dietary requirements of the man in question,” she continues, and I am confused.
“So what happened, then?” I ask, looking between her and the chef and back to the paperwork.
“We had a late change,” she says, looking at me.
“What do you mean by a late change?”
“Well, an hour before the event began, we got a call to make changes to the dietary requirements.”
“From who?” I ask, surprised because I didn’t call, and I am pretty sure Oscar didn’t either.
“From you. You called and spoke to the Head Chef here, requesting the change.”
I look at her, bewildered for a moment at what I am hearing.
“I didn’t make any such call.”
“I spoke to you. You explained the change you needed. The specific requirement was that the man in question be served seafood sauce on his steak instead of the Red Wine Jus. I told you that such a late change would result in a fifty-dollar fee, to which you approved.”
“Do we have any proof of this phone call?” I ask, because I know I didn’t call him.
“I have been caught out before, at a restaurant I used to manage in D.C., where someone called to make these changes and left the guests with a large bill they didn’t approve, so I record all my work phone calls now,” he says as he hits play on his cell phone and I hear Mrs. Rothschild’s voice come through the speaker, requesting the meal for Doctor Warner to include seafood sauce on his steak and agreeing to the additional fee. Doctor Warner is allergic to seafood. Clearly, the sauce was what made him go into anaphylactic shock.
The caller confirms her name is Beth, but it is clearly Mrs. Rothschild’s voice. I am so shocked, I can barely breathe. This woman hates me so much that she would risk a man's life to get rid of me.
“We will be providing all the paperwork to our lawyers, so please note that if you or the doctor plan to sue, we have full documentation and the copy of the voice memo,” the venue manager says, laying out her cards. I nod in understanding. It isn’t their fault someone nearly died.
“I think the three of us here know that the person on the end of that phone is not me. It doesn’t sound anything like me. And an hour before lunch, I was in a meeting with the Chief of Police, so I have a full alibi,” I state and they both nod. They know as well as I do whose voice it is. None of us want to say the name out loud.
“We understand,” the venue manager offers with a small smile of pity. She already must know Mrs. Rothschild is a handful.
“Can you please print those out and put them with the final files, so my team is aware of the additional cost and the situation. I would also like a copy of the voice memo emailed and texted to me if possible?” I need to cover my back.
“I will have them sent over with the full incident report and final invoice now before I close for the night.” It is then I look out the window seeing it black outside. I have been here for hours, and the fight has all but left me. I was feeling fragile since Mrs. Rothschild said those poisonous words to me in Harrison's kitchen weeks ago, but now I can’t believe the extent she will go to keep Harrison and I apart.
I say my goodbyes and leave, stepping into the dark, cool night, wondering how best to get home. Tom is not around, having had to shuttle Mrs. Rothschild and the others this afternoon, and I didn’t bother calling him back. Instead, I wrap my coat around me and walk to the bus stop with my head down. I continually tell myself that I am shivering because of the cool night air, and not because of the small rumbles that are starting to break through the sky. It is only 8 p.m., but I already know with Dad away at Larry’s, that this is going to be a long night for me.
30
HARRISON
Ileft her. I know I shouldn't have, deep down I know that, but with Oscar and my mother all but pushed me out the door. I knew that I needed to escape before the media got wind of what happened today. So I left her.
“I just called the hospital again, and Doctor Warner is fine. I have told him we will visit him early in the morning,” Oscar says, coming into the living room and sitting on the sofa next to Eddie. My team is all here in my penthouse, minus one.
“God, how did it all go so wrong?” Eddie says, leaning back, saying the same words we have been saying to ourselves over and over all evening. We have been over it a dozen times. Paperwork from the restaurant has come through that his dietary requirements were changed, but I left Ben and my legal team to sort through it. My eyes can’t look at any more contracts or policies, my mind almost numb from it all.
