A giant golden button on a white marble pedestal caught my eye. I looked around to see if anyone could help me. Was this some kind of IQ test formulated by Jane? What the hell was going on?
I pushed the button and waited.
A rumbling sound emanated from the inside of the building, and the slab of wall in front of me swung open at a slug’s pace, revealing the bustling restaurant hidden behind the white heavy panel.
The exquisitely dressed hostess, with a perfect bun and flawless skin, walked toward me and said hello. Her gold bangles jangled as she waved me forward.
I staggered in and cleared my throat. “Hi. I’m with Jane Townsend’s party.”
She smiled at me with her impeccably straight, white teeth. “Of course, I just seated them in the back. I’ll show you to their room.”
We walked past the dozens of clients having work gatherings and fanciful dinner dates. Colorful Chihuly glass sculptures hung from the ceiling. The lighting was dim, but not so dim that you couldn’t read the menu or tell if your wine was white, rosé, or red. Each table showcased miniature candelabras with teeny lit candles. Customers seated along our path smiled as they ate towers of oysters and mounds of shrimp cocktail. I loved seafood but I liked the kind of place where they tied a bib around your neck and handed you a giant Thor mallet to smash open whole crabs. This place was way out of my league.
I asked the hostess, “So can I ask you something about that really giant, slowly moving wall door? Isn’t that a fire hazard or something? Do you feel like you’re in the Haunted Mansion room with the hidden panel at Disneyland?”
“We have several fire exits on the premises, all have a green Exit sign overhead.” She pointed to them as we walked to the back of the restaurant, ignoring my pressing Haunted Mansion question.
Toward the back of the restaurant, there was a bar filled with elegant couples and postwork happy hour meetups. On the last stool in the row sat none other than Nolan, looking at his phone with one hand while sipping a beer with his other. He looked comfortable there, with his thick brown curly hair slightly damp from the rain falling forward into his eyes. I debated whether to say hello. It was always strange to see work people out in the real world in their natural habitat. But when Nolan laughed at something he read on his phone, something inside me urged me to walk over to him.
As I took a hesitant step toward the bar, a swish of fresh blown-out golden hair swung right past me.
Nolan looked up from his phone, offering her a warm and inviting smile that I’d never seen before. With both hands, she swooshed her golden locks back over her shoulders and went in for a hug right away. He hesitated at first, but then reciprocated. Who wouldn’t? I didn’t need to see her face to know she was smoking hot.
After the embrace, she patted his shoulders. A ripple of jealousy pulsed through me as her hands traveled down to his chest, then down, down, down . . .
“Did you want to stop for a drink?” the hostess asked, breaking my trance-stare at the bar. “I can wait here if you’d like.”
“Oh, no, thank you. I . . . I was going to say hi to someone but he’s busy.” I placed my cold hands on my cheeks to cool them down as we continued walking.
“Here you are, ma’am.” She gestured toward a tiny private dining room lined with walls of wines. I breathed in deeply, then put on a cheery smile and entered.
Sean, Jane’s fiancé, gave me a little nod to acknowledge my arrival. He gestured for me to join his conversation with a dark-haired guy with a serious look on his face.
“Hi. I’m Zachary. Sean’s friend from the hospital.” His stoic demeanor didn’t change, even though I smiled widely. We shook hands.
I took a glass of white wine from the server walking by with a tray of them. “So are you a doctor, too?”
Still, the grave face. “Yes, I’m in OB-GYN. Sean and I go blow off steam after long shifts at work at the pool hall.” It was hard to imagine anything riling this animatron up enough for him to need “blowing off steam.”
Candace flurried through the double doors, peeling off her damp coat and shaking out her umbrella on the carpet. “Sorry I’m late,” she said.
Sean brought her over. As soon as Candace saw Sean’s doctor friend, her hand flew up to cover her open mouth. She gasped instead of saying a customary hello.
“Do you two know each other?” Sean asked. I looked at Candace, then back to Animatron. Maybe he did her pap smears?
Jane stood by the doors and clinked her wineglass with a spoon before Candace could answer. “Please take a seat, everyone.”
The bride-to-be saved a spot for me by her side, a reserved seat for the maid of honor. Quite literally, I was Jane’s right-hand woman.
We all sat. I sipped water to replenish all the fluid ounces of sweat I’d lost from walking up that hill. Candace whispered to me behind her menu. “I have to tell you something.” She used the prix fixe insert to fan away the heat rushing to her ruddy face. It was impossible not to notice Dr. Zachary watching her from across the table, in tune to her every move, slightly more animated with his anxious glimpses over at her. When their eyes met, her gaze quickly shifted to her menu.
Was Candace cheating on her longtime boyfriend?
My pulse quickened at the thought as a familiar voice boomed into the room. “Sorry I’m late. Work was a fucking pain in the ass.” I briefly suspended my Zachary-Candace surveillance detail to look up.
Asher stood in the doorway.
His eyes darkened the instant he saw me.
My eyes widened as his narrowed to slits.
Oh god, no.
Sean stood up. “You made it! Everyone, this is Asher, my best man. So good to see you!” He stood up and gave his frat brother a bro hug that ended with a two-man hair tousle. Asher found his seat next to Zachary and continued to shoot over little blasts of hateful stares. I couldn’t believe that directly across the table was Satan himself.
I grimaced but tried to be friendly. “Hi, Ash-hole.”
Oops.
He chugged his glass of water and continued to glare. Did he do this at work, too, while I took calls and typed? That would be pretty fucked up.
“You guys know each other?” Sean asked. Candace cleared her throat and tried to send me nonverbal questions through weird, obvious facial expressions and hand gestures, like, Who the heck is he? and Why the hell are you acting so weird right now? Like she had any room to judge me, with her strange lookie-loo stares at Dr. Zachary.
I let Asher be the one to answer Sean’s question while I chugged my wine. “Yeah, we work together. She even sits in my office.” He added, “I was late to dinner because she assigned a production deliverable today that required lots of overtime hours for our team. But I see she made it here on time.”
Jane squealed, “Wait, is Melody your BOSS?” She clasped her hands together in delight, like I’d given her this intense awkwardness as an engagement present.
Candace, who had no context about this work relationship but could tell the Melody-Asher dynamics were off, gasped and cringed behind her napkin. Even she knew not to say something like that. Why, Jane? Why?
“He and I share an office, and we’re on the same team,” I grumbled.
Sean responded with a single laugh. “You go by ‘Ash-hole’ now? You should go by ‘Hash,’ like we called you at school, bro.” Asher’s icy glare morphed into an exasperated eye roll. So he was a pothead back in college. No surprise there.
“Hey, Melody, did you see your boy toy intern outside?” Asher shot over a sardonic smile. “I’m sad to report that he’s moved on to another girl. A really hot one, too.”
Jane asked, “You have a boy toy intern?”
Asher added, “Yep. The CEO’s nephew, too—does she know how to pick ’em or what? But he’s heading out with a hottie tonight. Lucky guy.”
I coughed out my wine. “There’s no boy toy. Everyone, please ignore him.”
“Who’s hungry?” Zachary snapped open the menu. But between Asher being here, Nolan being on a date, and this weird Candace-Zachary tension hanging in the air, my appetite was nonexistent. On top of that, my heart beat so fast it was on the verge of exploding with any more stimulation.
Candace leaned over and said to me, “Mel, I need to tell you something later. After dinner.”
“Yeah, you have some explaining to do,” I said in a clipped tone. Focusing on the menu was difficult, with Ash-hole’s critical eyes watching my every move while he chewed dinner rolls with his mouth open. This was way too much Asher for one day.
The table chattered about appetizer options and the waiter came by with champagne. He poured generously and we all held up our glasses of bubbly to toast the soon-to-be married couple.
Jane smiled at us and then at her fiancé. “To marriage!”
Ah. Short and sweet.
We all clinked glasses (even Asher and I did) and I downed it all without taking a breath. Refill, please.
Jane asked, “Candace? Don’t you like champagne?”
Candace’s eyes widened like she’d just been caught reading a nudie magazine by her grandma. Candace loved champagne. “I . . . I . . . can’t have any.” She watched Jane with the fearful eyes of hunted prey.