Goodbye To All That (42 page)

But Brooke was handling everything. Maybe Jill and Gordon wouldn’t have to cover the added expense, because Brooke would fix this crisis for them.

“The plate surcharge you sprang on Jill is unconscionable,” Brooke said, her voice as smooth and sweet as molasses. “To negotiate one price and then change it after the contract has been signed
 . . .
”

“It says in the contract—” Gloria’s voice made Jill think not of molasses but of vinegar.

“And I’m sure the Better Business Bureau and the state’s Department of Consumer Affairs would love to hear about those tiny-print clauses in your contract, which are designed for no other reason than to confuse clients and increase your profits. As a party planner, I’m in a position to send more business your way. I’m also in a position to steer all my clients to more ethical venues, and to pass along what I know about your business practices to my professional colleagues.” Brooke’s voice drifted off, but she kept smiling, her gaze locked with Gloria’s.

Despite her smile, Brooke’s expression was icy. Yet it acted on Gloria like heat, causing her to melt into a puddle of acquiescence. “Well, I suppose in this instance we can accommodate your client,” she said. “I ordinarily wouldn’t do that, given what fuel costs these days, but—”

“Great,” Brooke cut her off, refusing her the chance to retract her offer. “Now this price includes a dessert but not the cake. The Sacklers don’t need a dessert in addition to the cake. The cake
is
the dessert. We’d like to make that substitution.”

“Most people prefer to have the cake made elsewhere.”

“But you
can
make a cake, right?”

“Of course. I explained that to Mrs. Sackler.” Gloria flashed an anxious glance in Jill’s direction. She used to be just Jill, but now she was Mrs. Sackler, thanks to Brooke. “For an additional fee, our chef can prepare a customized cake.”

“We’ll skip the additional fee because we’re skipping the non-cake dessert. What was that standard dessert? Ice cream? Rice pudding?”

“Ice cream,” Gloria confirmed weakly.

“Who needs ice cream when there’s cake? And ice cream is so messy. So we’ll cut the ice cream and replace it with the cake. Abbie—the bat mitzvah girl—hasn’t decided on a theme yet, but once she does, we’ll get back to you with the cake’s specs. Was there anything else?” Brooke asked Jill.

Jill snapped out of her daze with a shake of her head. She hadn’t even thought about the cost of the cake. She was stunned that Brooke had. “The DJ?” she mumbled, wondering just how many miracles Brooke could pull off.

“Right.” Brooke steered her smile back to Gloria. “The DJ will play for the entire party. As long as there are no noise complaints—and there won’t be, we’ll do volume checks to make sure—there’s no reason for him to have to shut down before the party is scheduled to end.”

“We have guests staying in the upstairs rooms,” Gloria pointed out.

“And the DJ will respect those guests. I assume your reception room’s soundproofing is up to code?”

“Everything here is up to code,” Gloria huffed.

“Then there won’t be a problem. I think that’s it,” Brooke said, rising from her chair. Jill scrambled to her feet as well, eager to flee the office before Gloria realized how many concessions she’d made.

Brooke appeared to be in no hurry to leave, however. She shook Gloria’s hand again, the model of affability, and reminded Gloria that she’d be in touch soon with a specific cake order. “It’ll probably be chocolate,” she alerted Gloria. “Abbie loves chocolate, and it’s her bat mitzvah. But we need to confirm that with her.”

“Of course. Whatever she wants,” Gloria said. “We want her to be happy.”

“And we want Mrs. Sackler to be happy, too, since she and her husband are the ones paying the bill. So nice to meet you, Gloria.” With that, Brooke swept out of the office, the prima ballerina jeté-ing off the stage.

Jill would have liked to shout “Brava!” and toss rose petals at her, but she simply trailed her down the hall and out of the building, not daring to look back to see whether Gloria was furious or just flummoxed. Neither she nor Brooke spoke until they were in the car.

“Wow,” Jill said, jamming the key into the ignition and then twisting in her seat to face Brooke. “You’re good.”

“I am,” Brooke agreed, not a boast but a simple statement of fact.

“Doug was right. You should be a party planner. You were born to do this.”

“No.” Brooke folded her hands neatly in her lap. “I was born to be an object of worship.” She smiled, but Jill didn’t think she was joking.

“Well, I’m ready to convert to the Cult of Brooke. You’ve made a believer out of me.” Jill started the car, backed out of the spot and steered toward the street.

She owed her object of worship. She could stop at a florist and purchase a bouquet for Brooke, but with Brooke seated right beside her, that would be kind of tacky. She could bring Brooke back to her house and pop open a bottle of champagne in her honor, except she didn’t have any champagne. Diet Coke, yes, but that particular bubbly drink wasn’t festive enough.

She glanced at the dashboard clock. Eleven-thirty. “Can I take you to lunch?” she asked. Lunch at her house would be limited to peanut butter or tuna fish sandwiches and Granny Smith apples. Her refrigerator lacked the ingredients for anything classy, like Salad Niçoise or cold cucumber soup or yogurt and fresh berries. Brooke definitely deserved something classy.

“Sure,” she said. “Let’s have lunch.”

Jill so rarely went out for lunch, she had to think for a moment about what restaurants in town served the midday meal. The Old Rockford Inn did, but they couldn’t very well go there. If they did, Gloria might find them drinking a toast over having finessed her, and to avenge her wounded pride she’d sabotage Abbie’s bat mitzvah. Jill couldn’t risk it.

She drove to the small shopping center that housed the bakery where she bought her father’s rugelach. A few doors down was a gourmet café. At least Jill believed it was gourmet, since it was called “The Gourmet Café.” She’d never eaten there before, but walking past it on her way to the bakery, she’d occasionally recognized the mother of one of Abbie’s or Noah’s soccer teammates seated with friends at a round, linen-covered table inside, eating what looked like Salad Niçoise or cold cucumber soup or yogurt and fresh berries. It seemed like the sort of place women who wore two-carat diamond rings with their blue jeans and Earth Day T-shirts would eat.

Brooke would fit right in. And they’d have to serve Jill, because she was treating.

The restaurant smelled of warm bread and sage, and classical guitar music whispered from hidden speakers. Because the kind of classy women who went out for lunch at places like this usually arrived later, Jill and Brooke were seated immediately at one of the many empty tables. “This is nice,” Brooke said.

“I’ve never eaten here, so I can’t vouch for the food,” Jill warned. “But it’s probably better than what we’ll be eating at Abbie’s bat mitzvah.”

Brooke chuckled. “Affair food is what it is,” she said as she opened the menu. “Oh, good. They’ve got wine.”

Somehow, Jill ordered a bottle of Pinot Grigio to accompany their salads—Brooke wound up with a Cobb salad, Jill a Caesar with grilled chicken because the Niçoise just looked too involved. Somehow, the level of wine in the bottle kept dropping; somehow their glasses kept emptying. By the time Brooke lowered her fork and declared herself stuffed, which Jill wasn’t sure she believed given that most of the hard-boiled egg, bacon and romaine remained uneaten on her plate, while Jill had managed to leave behind only a few viscous drops of dressing on hers, an hour and a half had passed and Jill heard herself say, “I’ve been thinking about renting office space.”

“For your catalogue business?” Brooke asked.

Jill was touched that Brooke spoke about Jill’s work as if it were a real job. She nodded, took a sip of wine and felt the warm flush of its alcohol content infuse her. “I work in the kitchen and nobody takes me seriously,” she said. “The kids come and go. Gordon comes and goes. I may as well be cooking dinner for all anyone respects what I do.”

“I don’t cook dinner,” Brooke remarked.

Jill laughed. She would enjoy cooking dinner a lot more if she had a kitchen like Brooke’s, with all that space and those gorgeous high-end appliances. Brooke’s kitchen was so huge, Jill could wall off a chunk of it and turn it into an office for herself, and no one would even miss the square footage.

“I’ve thought about setting up shop in the unfinished part of the basement, but
 . . .
”

“Spiders,” Brooke guessed, wrinkling her nose.

“Exactly.”

“So rent an office,” Brooke said.

Jill sighed. “I don’t earn enough with my catalogue copy to be able to afford the rent.”

“If you had an office, you might earn more,” Brooke said. “You wouldn’t have the distractions of home. You wouldn’t have the kids and Gordon badgering you and treating you like a cook when you were trying to work.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking.”

“Your kids are old enough to come home to an empty house,” Brooke pointed out. “You could set up shop, get some business cards . . .”

“You’ve got business cards,” Jill said. “And you don’t even have a business. How did you manage that?”

“I made them.” Brooke reached into her purse and pulled out the elegant silver card holder. She handed Brooke one of her cards. It was simple:
Brooke Bendel, Party Planner
and her phone number. “You can create them on your computer and run them off on your printer, just like mailing labels. Doug picked up a box of card sheets at the local First-Rate. The sheets come in white and cream. I thought cream was more soothing and feminine.”

“They look great,” Jill agreed. She would never have thought of cream as more feminine, but she was used to thinking of colors as edible. Did the white cards look like milk?

“I can give you a couple of sheets and you can make your own cards.”

“What would I do with these cards?”

“Mail them to other catalogue companies, along with a resume. Drum up some business. I don’t know.” Brooke shrugged. “Give them out at parties.”

“You plan the parties, and I’ll give out my cards.”

“Listen to me, giving you business advice.
I
don’t have an office.”

“If you’re serious about becoming a party planner,” Jill counseled, “you ought to have an office, too.”

Brooke ruminated, running one perfectly manicured finger around the rim of her wineglass. “I’m not sure I’m serious,” she said. “But I’ll admit I had fun with your friend Gloria today.”

“She’s no friend of mine,” Jill muttered, then grinned. “But you were fantastic. You flattened her. And of course you’re serious. You printed cards.”

Brooke smiled hesitantly. “I guess.”

“We could share an office,” Jill blurted out, then reconsidered. Then reconsidered again. If she could share a bottle of Pinot Grigio with Brooke, surely they could share an office. They’d both be working flexible hours, after all. Two desks, a file cabinet, one phone line—they could take each other’s phone calls and pretend to be each other’s secretary. And the whole thing would be a lot more affordable if they split the costs.

Brooke’s smile grew wider. She no longer looked weary. Even the lines framing her eyes—so much fainter than Jill’s, despite her being a year older than Jill, but some things in life simply weren’t fair—seemed to vanish.

“We could,” she said.