Chapter 9
“Margo, are you there? Where the hell are you?”
I pry open one heavy, swollen eyelid. Through the blur, I see my phone lying next to me—the screen informing me that it’s past one o’clock in the afternoon. And that I have thirteen missed calls. Ian holds his own phone to the side of my head. Jordana is screaming out of it.
“Jordana? Um, hi.”
“We have been trying you all day, Margo! I was about to send someone to your apartment, but then Beth had the idea to get Ian’s number from HR. What the fuck are you doing?”
It’s a good question.
I lift my other eyelid and the entire nightmare comes hurtling back into focus. The door in my face. Pulling over to get sick on the car ride home. Making Ian sleep on the couch for ruining everything. Scrounging up three Xanax from an old prescription bottle in the back of the bathroom drawer.
So, what the fuck am I doing? I am lying on the bedroom floor for some reason, curled around a pillow, a sweaty sheet pulled down from the mattress above.
“Jordana, I’m so sorry. I think I had some bad shellfish last night.”
“Well, figure your shit out, Margo. I already heard from both Bon Appétit and GQ. Their writers arrived at Union Station a half hour ago. Neither could find the black cars you were supposed to send.”
“Oh, um…”
“That is your last fuckup today, do you hear me? I need you at The Bexley by three.”
She hangs up before I can respond.
I pass Ian’s phone back, my growing rage eclipsing my grogginess. “What the hell, Ian? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I didn’t know you were still in here,” he says, holding his hands up. “I’ve been on back-to-back conference calls in one of the coworking suites upstairs.”
I bury my face into the pillow and scream as loud as I can.
When I get to the hotel, the lobby is already a swirl of event staff.
A crew is setting up the step-and-repeat.
Several of the assistants from my office are carting in rented cocktail tables and boxes full of plastic champagne flutes from the loading dock.
Beth is arranging dozens of black gift bags, “The Bexley” embossed on them in gold lettering, on a table by the front entrance.
I hear Jordana coming before I see her. She rounds the corner in a magenta tuxedo that’s stunning against her brown skin, and a pair of leopard-print stilettos that collide like bullets with the black marble floor.
The sound echoes around the vaulted ceiling, a sculptural brass chandelier the size of a Fiat suspended from its sixty-foot peak.
I really do love a brass light fixture.
“Margo, feeling better?”
She sizes up my long-sleeved emerald sheath, my sturdiest pair of Spanx giving it their all underneath.
“Yes, much,” I say, hoping that I’ve caked on enough foundation and concealer to hide the puffiness beneath my eyes. “I am so sorry again, Jordana. I was completely out of it. But don’t worry, the bad shellfish wasn’t from a client!”
I force a laugh. Her airbrushed face doesn’t move.
“Your friends from Bon Appétit and GQ are all checked in. Why don’t you see if Serina can arrange something special for them, to make up for the incident with the cars?”
“That is a fantastic idea. Thank you. I’ll check in with her now.”
“Oh, and Margo, you can take these up to their rooms.” Jordana holds out her hand like she’s proffering the key to another dimension. Two black rubber wristbands rest in her palm.
I find Serina, the hotel’s beverage director, in Rivière’s cocktail lounge, just off the lobby, organizing bottles behind the bar.
Her reflection—chestnut shag, nose ring, red lipstick—bounces off the mirrored shelving.
For tonight, this space will be off-limits to the guests, so it can serve as a staging area to restock the four bars set up around the lobby.
“Why don’t I put together a mini tasting for them?” Serina suggests, after I explain my earlier fuckup. “I could do some of the signature cocktails that we’ll have once we’re fully open, like a little sneak preview.”
“Oh my God, Serina, that would be a dream. Can I bring them down like forty-five minutes before the party starts?”
“Yeah, perfect.”
Okay, this is going fine now. I can do this.
This party couldn’t have come at a better time.
It will force me to forget about the house for a few hours and just focus on work.
I head up to the ninth-floor suites and deliver the wristbands to their rightful VIP owners.
They both seem genuinely excited about the private cocktail tasting. See? Like I said, everything is fine.
By six o’clock, the team from Rivière is starting to set up food stations around the sprawling lobby.
I’ve confirmed with Chef that the kitchen is on schedule and let him know that I might bring a few VIPs back to say hello once service is winding down.
The whole place looks epic. Jordana must be thrilled.
Taylor must be, too. Her step-and-repeat is all set up—“The Bexley”–branded backdrop looking very Insta-worthy, with a strip of red carpet in front beckoning guests to strike a pose. Here she comes now, in a strapless black jumpsuit, strawberry waves grazing her freckled shoulders.
“Hey, Taylor, congrats! Everything looks awesome.” My smile does not summon one from her.
“Thanks, Margo, glad you’re feeling better. Do you have the coasters?”
The coasters.
Oh my God.
I shut my eyes, the panic closing in. Four boxes of custom coasters—emblazoned with the QR code and Instagram handles that are pretty much the linchpin of the entire social media strategy around the event—are in the back of the Prius.
I picked them up from the office yesterday, when we were all divvying up tasks for tonight, and agreed to bring them here.
But I took a Lyft.
“Margo?” Her voice is more hiss than whisper.
“Taylor, I am so sorry. I forgot they were in my car.”
Now her face does contort into something closer to a smile—but there’s violence behind it.
“Margo! What the fuck!”
“I’ll call Ian right now,” I say, fumbling around in my clutch for my phone. “I’m sure he can run them over. It won’t even take ten minutes.”
She glares at me while I dial, my skin getting hotter with every ring.
The call goes to voicemail.
“Hey, babe, it’s me. Listen, I was such an idiot and I forgot I have something really important for tonight in the back of the car. I need you to run it down here. Please call me back. Party starts at seven, so it’s an emergency!”
Taylor has stopped blinking, her false eyelashes lending a bug-like quality to her face.
“I’ll text him,” I say. “If he doesn’t respond, I can go back for them myself. It’s going to be okay.”
I tap out: EMERGENCY!! Check your voicemail. Need you to bring me the car NOW.
Relief washes over me as the three dots appear. I glance up at Taylor: “He’s typing! Just a sec.”
But then his message comes back: Just got to Pittsburgh. Told you I have depositions here for the river dumping case, starting early morning.
Taylor’s face darkens as she reads mine.
I swallow hard, my throat like sandpaper, trying to think of something—anything—to say that will cushion this news. I’m coming up empty.
“He … um … he took the car,” I whisper. “To Pittsburgh.”
For a split second, I think she might hit me. Instead, she whips around, fists clenched, and marches all the way across the lobby, straight to Jordana, who’s huddled in a corner with the hotel’s general manager. When Taylor reaches her, Jordana’s face snaps up and hunts me down like a sniper rifle.
I look toward the elevator bank to avoid her glare, and I see them there, like a mirage at the end of the world. My charges from Bon Appétit and GQ. Jordana can’t flay me while I’m entertaining VIPs. I rush over to escort them to the roped-off cocktail lounge.
By the time we reemerge, the place is packed, a steady thrum of chatter and clinking glasses barely audible over the bass from the DJ.
I circulate like everything is normal, taking care to surround myself with black wristbanders.
Human shields in case I bump into Jordana.
They all have some gushing piece of feedback to share—“My suite has such a killer view!” “The steak tartare is better than anything I’ve had in Paris!
” “Holy shit, who designed that chandelier?”—and a full cocktail in hand, per our marching orders.
Except for one.
I spy the older gentleman through an opening in the crowd, a strip of black peeking out from his cuff.
He’s holding a highball glass containing only a few melting ice cubes—but he’s standing with Jordana.
How has she possibly let that slide? Maybe it’s the multiple flutes of champagne that I’ve downed, but a jolt of confidence surges through me.
This is my chance to prove that I am not totally worthless.
I squeeze my way through to them. “Hey, Jordana, how’s your evening going?”
She looks surprised at first but plays along. “Fabulous. Let me introduce you to Marshall Chandler, editor-in-chief of Travel & Luxury. Marshall, this is one of our vice presidents, Margo Miyake.”
“Such a pleasure to meet you, Marshall.” I shake his hand. “You know, I think the director of The Bexley’s cocktail program has something special for you. Pardon me for just a moment.”
Jordana arches an expertly sculpted eyebrow. “How thoughtful, Margo. Thank you.”
I weave back through the mob to the cocktail lounge, where I find Serina and three of her staff quartering lemons and limes.
“Hey, I know you’re probably slammed, but I need another favor,” I tell her. “Could you possibly whip up one of those Tom Collins riffs from the tasting that we all loved? The one with the yuzu?”
“I could,” she says, looking up from her cutting board, “but we’re supposed to stick to the approved cocktail list for the party.”
“It’s for a mega VIP. Trust me, no one will mind.”
She shrugs. “Whatever you say.” She dumps the ingredients into a shaker.
As soon as she’s finished adding the garnishes, I whisk the drink across the party, over to Jordana and Marshall, still huddled where I left them.
I hand him the fizzing creation, topped with a paper-thin slice of pear and a spiral of lime peel.
“It’s exquisite,” Marshall says, inspecting Serina’s work. “How special to see a cocktail program take such care with a nonalcoholic offering.”
Before I fully process what he’s said, he brings the glass to his mouth and drinks. He pauses for a beat, glancing at Jordana, then spits the mouthful of clear liquid back into the glass.
“There seems to have been a misunderstanding here,” he says coolly, passing the cocktail back to me. “Excuse me, Jordana, I need to find some water.”
As soon as he turns his back, Jordana has me by the arm and we’re tearing through the room at a speed that seems inconceivable for a woman in nearly five-inch heels. She pulls me into a secluded space behind a black marble column.
“Marshall has been sober for twenty-three years, Margo!” She struggles through clenched teeth to keep her voice down. “He wrote a fucking memoir about it, for chrissake! Which you would’ve known if you’d read the notes on the fucking VIP list.”
I flash back to last night. Jordana’s same look of utter annihilation coming from Jack, and then Curt. The same all-consuming humiliation burning through my body. I can’t think of anything to say.
“Margo, you have to leave.” Jordana takes a step back. “I don’t know what’s been going on with you this week, but I think you need to take some time off.”
“Jordana, what? Are you letting me…”
She holds up a hand. “Margo, this isn’t the place for that conversation. I’ll be in touch next week to figure out what’s next.”
Every inch of me feels numb on the Lyft ride home.
The tears only come once I unlock the door to Natalie’s apartment and find Fritter lying on the sofa.
At the sight of me, he thumps his tail loudly on the cushion, then rolls over to show off his belly and ask for a rub.
I snuggle in next to him and burrow into his wiry fur, the injustices of the last twenty-four hours pouring out of my face.
“Thanks, Fritter.” I scratch behind his ears as he studies me with bottomless brown eyes. “Time for a walk. You’re sleeping at my place tonight.”
I snap on his harness and lock up Natalie’s apartment behind us.