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That makes me laugh despite my initial bad mood. "I saw Nicole Kidman at a party once..."
The girl practically faints right there on the sidewalk. "She's so pretty. You kinda look like her. Tall, with long beautiful hair. And pretty shoes."
That elicits a laugh from me. Almost unheard of these days. "Why thank you. How long are you here for?"
"I'm just visiting for now, but I'm coming back to study at NYU in the fall. What do you do?"
The answer tickles on the end of my tongue, I'm not used to telling people yet. "I actually own a whisky and cigar club a few blocks from here. Malt."
This time she squeals so loudly I'm sure only the dogs in the neighboring houses can hear her. "A club! I am so jealous!"
"Mandy, come on!" her friends yell from the end of the street.
She jumps and runs before stopping. "I better go! We're going to go over to the Friends' house before dinner."
"Well, I hope you enjoy your time in the city, Mandy. And definitely try the charred leeks atVia Carota." I press my friend's buzzer on the panel.
"I will! Thank you! Bye!" She gives me a smile that looks like it stretches all the way around her head, and then runs to her friends, almost tripping on a raised crack in the sidewalk.
They welcome her back with open arms and then skip around the corner, out of sight.
I guess being excited isn't such a bad thing after all.
The door buzzes, I push it open and make my way up to Leanne's apartment. We'd talked the day after my club's opening night and had decided to make some fabric changes and repaint some of the light fixtures to make them better catch the light in the dark. This morning, she'd asked me to come over to have a look at some color and fabric swatches she narrowed down.
Her apartment takes up the whole third floor, but I can hear music and chatter filtering down the stairwell even as I approach the second floor.
Did I misunderstand her? Am I actually about to crash a private soiree?
I don't even have a chance to turn around and hightail it down the stairs when she appears, walking someone down to meet me on the landing.
"Clarissa! There you are! I was just coming down to make sure the door had buzzed open for you."
She lifts her hand in a wave and her friend gives me a nod as they brush past me and continue down the steps.
"Hey, Leanne. Am I interrupting? I can come back at another time! Or I can wait here if you want to grab the swatches." This is the exact reason I prefer my contractors and suppliers to meet me at the club. Home advantage is priceless. But she had sounded so busy and I had been in such a rush to finish the final work on the club that I'd offered to come pick them up.
"Absolute nonsense! Some friends just stopped by and we're just having a few drinks. Come." She links her arm in mine and leads me up the stairs. I go with her because she's one of the first people to befriend me and offer her services to the club. She's become a trusted friend in the last few months even though she's incredibly chatty. And while I'm not actively looking for any friends, I really don't think I can afford to alienate the ones I do have.
It's not the first time I've been to her apartment; in fact, the first time I saw her home, I knew that I'd picked the right person to help with my club's decor.
As we get to her floor, I see that what Leanne described as "a few friends" looks more like happy hour at a Wall Street bar on a Friday afternoon. There must be thirty or forty people crammed into her living room, each with a glass in his or her hand, and some with some sort of food stuck on a toothpick.
"Somefriends just dropped by?" I ask, teasing her. I'm not actually that surprised, I imagine she has a lot of friends.
Leanne laughs as she shrugs. "Well, just a few to start off with, then we may have called some more. Grab a drink, I've just got to say hi to someone and then I'll grab the swatch book, okay?"
I swallow the apprehension as she pats me on the shoulder, leaving me standing alone in the kitchen among the discarded lipstick-stained wine glasses and emptied crackers packets.
This is fucking stupid.
When have I ever been afraid before to walk into a room of people I don't know? This used to be my playground. I could walk into any room and have everyone's eyes on me, puppets to my pulled strings.
Well, you're not exactly the same person you used to be, are you?that little bitch snickers. I'm going to have to do something about her. I start by numbing her voice by picking up the bottle of vodka and pouring myself a glass, downing half of it. My cheeks instantly burn from the alcohol.
But it helps.
I top up the glass, take a deep breath and step into the crowd.
