Track 39 Champagne Problems
Track 39
Champagne Problems
The Dinner Hour According to Chase Logan
Chase was nervous. Not because he was tasked with pouring a hundred glasses of champagne into tall, fragile stemware lined up like soldiers at the exact right time, since nobody likes warm champagne. And not because the caterer, with his unplaceable accent, gave a ten-minute lecture on the subject of pouring said champagne as if they were aboard a fancy yacht in the south of a fancy country Chase had never visited.
“Hold the bottle by the bottom, like a bowling ball, your thumb in the divot, your other four fingers splayed around it. Wet the glass with just a splash of champagne, allowing the bubbles to settle first.”
And Chase was not nervous because the Silver sisters would be at the wedding, though judging from the other night at the Salty Pelican, Veronica might become a frequent, and eventually sloppy, visitor to the bar.
Chase was nervous because of Maggie. He had lain awake all night thinking about their interactions before begging his buddy to get him the last-minute position. He wanted to see his daughter again and he had something for her, something that had been burning a hole in his pocket for over thirty years.
Chase could see the throngs of partygoers approaching the dock, each one greeted by the familiar deckhands from the ferry unfamiliarly cleaned up and dressed in white button-down shirts and jackets. He knew 90 percent of the people at the wedding but wouldn’t be making much small talk with them because, as the caterer specified, he was not fond of chatty help. The pay was generous, and Chase knew that the more he made in the summers, the longer he could spend surfing in Costa Rica in the winters.
He saw Maggie through the window, walking between Matt and the other guy she had been with at the bar. She was a pretty girl. She carried herself with confidence, and he wondered what her life had been like, whether she had always known she was adopted, and whether she liked her adoptive parents or felt like an alien. Hell, Chase had felt like an alien half the time in his own house while growing up, and he wasn’t adopted.
He was surprised that seeing the girl in person had elicited thoughts he had never considered before.
In any case, from the little they had spoken, she seemed very together, educated, and even poised. She was lucky to have grown up without him as a father. That thought made him feel like crap about himself and his lack of accomplishments in life. Who knows, maybe if he had been a father raising a child, he would have risen to the occasion and made something of himself. He hadn’t felt this bad since the days of running around with some of the people at this party. They had all gone to schools with fancy names like Skidmore and Swarthmore and I Know More Than You Do, while his future at the time had been predicated on whether or not his uncle could get him into the welders’ union.
“It’s showtime,” the caterer barked.
Chase pushed away his thoughts and took up his position behind the bar.