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“Hello, ladies.”
“Hi, Angelica. Is Cosima here? Or maybe we can just talk to you. We wanted to book the wine bar for holiday drinks,” Roxanne said as she came over.
“Cosima’s already left for the day, but I can help with that,” Angelica said. They had a booking system they used for the wine bar but so far the uptake had been slow. She pulled it up on the computer that they also used as a register for the store.
“What date are you looking at?” Angelica asked.
“The Wednesday the week before Christmas. Would it be possible to book out the wine bar for the evening? It’s for the PTA and all the room parents. We want to do something different this year.”
“It is. We even have a holiday party menu that has hors d’oeuvres that pair with the wines. We’d have to take a deposit and then around three days before your event you’d have to confirm the number of guests. For the holiday party we’ve teamed up with the kitchen at Laissez Faire in Last Stand.”
“That’s fine. Right now we are looking at fifty to seventy-five people altogether. I like to invite the teachers and admin staff as well,” Roxanne said.
“Do you want hard copies of the menu or is email okay?” Angelica asked. She was trying not to get too excited but this was the first positive thing to happen in the shop since they’d opened here. It was funny to think one small, kind gesture had started them on this path.
“We’ll take a look at it now and get back to you. Can you accommodate food allergies and special diets like vegan and vegetarian dishes?”
“We can,” she said, knowing that Jock had tried to make the menu he’d designed for them as inclusive as possible. “Here are the menus we have. Would you like to have a drink while you talk it over?”
Roxanne glanced at the women. “That’d be great. I’ll have a cranberry and sparkling water please.”
“Same,” the other two women said. Angelica directed them to the tables in the bar area and then went to make their drinks. Since shop traffic was light in the evenings, she and Cosima took turns covering both areas.
She brought the drinks over and the women stopped talking as she set them down. “Thank you.”
“No problem. They’re on the house. I’ll be over there if you have any questions,” she said, gesturing to the shop side. She’d gotten in an order of frame ornaments from a craftsperson she had met in college and decided she’d start unboxing them while she waited for the women to finish their discussion. A part of her was excited and wanted to text Cosima, but another part…the more realistic side was afraid to get her hopes up.
The bell over the door tingled again and she glanced up as Max entered the shop. She gave him a quick smile. He wore a pair of dark jeans and a light sweater. He smiled at her and then walked over.
“Customers, that’s a good sign.”
“It’s even better than that. They might be booking a holiday party with us,” she said. “Do you mind waiting?”
“Not at all. I have a few emails to deal with. Do you have a spot I can sit?” he asked.
“You can use one of the tables at the wine bar,” she said.
“Thanks. I made a reservation at the Dragonfly for eight thirty,” he said. “Delilah mentioned that she and Jock might join us for dessert.”
Angelica nodded. That sounded like her family. “Is that okay?”
“It is. Though I would like to have a date with you all to myself. Next time we’ll figure it out,” he said.
She liked the sound of next time. He moved to go sit at a table away from the women and Angelica went back to work unboxing items while pretending not to be distracted by both Max and Roxanne and her friends. But she was. She wanted this to be a new start; she wanted the women to book a party because Roxanne had been one of the loudest in objecting to Angelica. But mostly she just wanted to start feeling like her old self. Even though she knew she couldn’t be that woman ever again. She wanted a little bit of the confidence and the power she once had.
She heard chairs scraping as the women got up and she moved back behind the counter as Roxanne’s friends left and she came over.
“Thanks for sharing these with us. We really like what we saw on the menus. I think we will go ahead and book it,” Roxanne said.
“Oh, great. Let me get the booking form and we can take a few details from you,” she said.
“I noticed on the bottom that you also had pricing for a holiday gift to be included. What does that entail?” Roxanne asked.
“Um, well you would pick a gift from the boutique. In the past we did bracelets or hand-painted coffee mugs; actually anything we stock in the store could be customized and made for your event or you could give your participants a voucher for a certain amount and they could pick their own. Are you interested in that?” she asked.
She held her breath while Roxanne looked down at her phone typing out a text message. It was one thing to come in and support the wine bar, which was clearly not associated with her, but the boutique was another. It was her baby; her art was on the products.
“That sounds great. We’ll do the voucher,” Roxanne said.
