5. Shrimp Cocktail
SHRIMP COCKTAIL
*don’t mess with a classic.
“ S top fidgeting.” Joni slapped my fingers away from my mouth.
I stared up at the entrance of Prideview, its double doors flung open. It wasn’t like I’d never been here before, but it occurred to me as I moved through the line that I had never actually entered the house this way—only through the humble back entrance with the rest of the staff.
The huge front stoop at the top of the circular driveway was bound by four Doric columns holding up a balcony from which a string quartet played Sinatra classics. It was probably one of two, maybe three bands hired for the evening. A line of guests waited to be checked in with the event planner.
I glared at Joni but obediently removed my fingers from my mouth. I didn’t actually bite my nails anymore—I’d broken that habit in childhood when I took up crochet work. Unfortunately, I couldn’t exactly carry needles and thread into this party. I wasn’t even carrying a clutch.
“It’s easy for you to say,” I said as we stepped forward. “You have Nathan to hold your hand. Otherwise, you’d be tapping everything in existence.”
“I would not. I never fidget during a performance.”
That was irritatingly apt. While my sister had always been a bit of a tornado in the way she moved about life, she had a dancer’s understanding of bodily control and a way of lighting up in front of an audience—two talents I had never possessed.
She was right about something else too. This event was one hundred percent a performance.
Right now, neither of us were scrappy daughters of an Italian-Puerto Rican family from the Bronx, but invited guests of the esteemed Lyons family.
Joni had Nathan to coach her through situations like this since he came from a similarly wealthy background.
She stood several inches taller than me in an elegant red dress, neck stretched like a swan’s as she peered around the property. Beside her and blatantly appreciating his girlfriend’s appearance, Nathan looked at home in a tuxedo.
“I just…Lord, Jo, maybe I should be more covered up. I could get a shawl or something from my room.” My dress felt translucent as we edged toward the door.
“And bring you back to the nunnery? No thanks. You have the goods, Mimi. Put them on display.”
I glanced down at said goods.. Between the wind coming off the Sound and nerves buzzing through my body, my nipples stood to attention like the soldiers guarding a palace.
“ Stop. It ,” Joni hissed again as the planner waved us in. “You’re drawing attention to yourself, and not in a good way. The nips are out, you look hot, so just own it, would you?”
The familiar reception area of Prideview wound into view, its grand staircase covered with late August hydrangeas and twinkle lights.
Guided by hired ushers, we funneled with the rest of the guests through the primary receiving room, through the great room and back exit, and out to the lawn overlooking the water, where a tent had been set up along multiple open bars, a dance floor, and a full big band playing jazz standards.
It was like countless other parties I’d seen at Prideview. Only I’d attended those as a server.
“Marie?”
I turned to find one of the maids gawking with a tray in her hand.
I smiled. This was going to happen all night. “Hi, Nora.”
“Holy crap, you look amazing ! I didn’t know you were back. That haircut is fierce, FYI.”
“Thanks.” I accepted a one-handed hug since her other was occupied with canapés. “I’m officially back tomorrow. My sister and her boyfriend”—I gestured toward Joni and Nathan—“were invited to this thing, and they asked me to come with them. It was a good time to catch up.”
I didn’t mention the other reason I was here: the invite from my obsession, whom I hadn’t spotted yet.
My God. What if Daniel wasn’t even here? Or what if he was ? What would he do when he realized I had come after all?
“Good for you,” Nora replied. “It will do Mrs. Lyons some good to mingle with the servants for once.” She winked and offered me caviar spread on crackers. “Beluga. Primo—you don’t want to even know what this cost.”
I, in fact, knew the answer very well, which was why I had no problem taking one and popping it into my mouth.
The briny delicacy exploded across my taste buds. Maybe money didn’t buy happiness, but it certainly bought the best food.
I took another before Nora zipped away.
“Nate! My God, you actually came to one of these things?”
Nathan waved at an unfamiliar face shouting his name across the party, then turned to Joni with a hilariously impassive expression. “I need to socialize with some of the Huntwell board members. Will you come with me so I can introduce you?”
“Of course.” Joni turned to me. “Do you want to come too? Mingle?”
I would have rather jumped into the Long Island Sound, but that seemed like an extreme reaction.
Instead, I shook my head. “I’ll be fine with my caviar. You two go on.”
She pressed her lips together, a small crease forming between her eyebrows. “All right. Just…don’t do what you normally do and hide in the corners. That dress was not made for a wallflower, Mimi.”
I opened my mouth to object to her assumption, but realized I couldn’t. Finding a quiet corner of the party to wait out the madness was exactly what I had planned to do.
“I’ll just find a drink or something.”
It was an actionable goal that seemed to satisfy my sister, who allowed herself to be led away.
“Shit,” I murmured once I found myself alone. Now what?
A waiter passed by with a tray of champagne flutes.
I almost grabbed one, thinking that if I took it like a shot of whiskey, it might calm my nerves.
It was probably Sainte Anne. Mrs. Lyons had a cellar full of the stuff she got straight from Chartogne-Taillet for events like this after Ondine convinced her to buy a share of the vineyard.
It was bubbly, delicate, and just a little bit sweet, with a buttery aftertaste that would complement the caviar perfectly—or so Ondine told me.
Even in France, I’d never consumed any beyond a teaspoon in the kitchen to decide if leftover bottles were flat enough for sautéing mushrooms.
And did I really want to experiment with alcohol for the first time and potentially risk any interactions I might have with Daniel?
Where was he, anyway?
“Marie?”
A deep voice jerked me out of my musings so suddenly that I almost crashed into another waiter.
I hadn’t needed to find Daniel Lyons after all.
He had found me.
He was dressed in immaculately fitted white tie. It wasn’t my favorite of his tuxedos—I preferred a more classic black jacket and bow tie—but he looked dashing either way.
And shockingly happy to see me, if his lightbulb smile was any indicator.
“Marie.” He half-jogged across the grass to me, giving ever-so-casual nods to other guests he passed. With a practiced ease, he took two glasses from a passing server and offered one to me. “You came.”
The flute felt strange in my hand as I accepted the champagne. Cold and breakable. “I—I did, yes. I hope that’s all right.”
“Are you kidding? It’s perfect.” My other hand was swept into Daniel’s grip, and he tugged on it lightly as a dimple appeared in his left cheek. “ You’re perfect.”
Oh, that dimple. I’d dreamed of that dimple. Wondered what it would feel like as I stroked his stubble. Wondered if he’d ever let me kiss it. Maybe even lick it.
Did people lick dimples?
Where was Joni when I needed her?
“I’m glad too,” I barely managed.
His grin widened, revealing the neat row of veneers the maids had gossiped about for weeks when he’d gotten them for his twenty-fifth birthday. I never minded them. They made him look like a movie star.
“My sister and her boyfriend were actually invited, and she asked me to join them,” I admitted. “But now they’re talking with, um, people, and…well, I have no idea what I’m doing here.”
He might as well know, I supposed. The dress was a stunner, but I was still awkward and out of place.
“Well, that’s easy. You’re talking to me.” Daniel nodded at the drink in my hand. “Drink that. You’ll feel better after.”
I examined the glass, wondering if he was joking. One of his blond brows arched, as if he were waiting for me to follow his instructions.
I could do this, couldn’t I? I was twenty-five years old, for Pete’s sake. I could handle one little glass of champagne.
Across the party, Joni’s eyes popped open like a cartoon character’s as I tossed the contents of the glass back.
I smirked.
And then I coughed. A lot.
“Whoa, there. All right?” Daniel’s hand landed on my shoulder with a heavy smack.
I straightened, still hacking, but managed to stifle the coughs with sheer force of will and several deep breaths. “I—yes. Sorry. Wrong pipe.”
His grin came out again. He was so free with it. It was like the sun beamed on me just for talking to him.
He procured me another glass of champagne and watched as I sipped more slowly this time. He was right. The butterflies in my stomach did subside, though my head was decidedly less clear.
“All these years,” Daniel murmured. “Why didn’t I ever notice you before?”
“I don’t know. Why didn’t you?” Apparently, the champagne made me bolder too.
Hmm.
The dimple made another heart-melting appearance. “I don’t know. I was an idiot, I guess.”
I affected my very best Parisian shrug. “Maybe you were.”
Was I crossing a line by calling my employer an idiot? Probably. But as Joni told me plenty of times when she was juggling dates, “Men are like cats. They only like you when you treat them like shit.”
I doubted that rule applied to Nathan, whom she adored openly. Nor did I think he would understand that kind of game playing either. Daniel Lyons, on the other hand, seemed to get it just fine, because he couldn’t stop grinning and licking his bottom lip in a very distracting way.