Save Me, Sinners

At the door, she turns, smug in her victory over me. “I’ll give you a week to handle the press release between your mommy appointments. I’ll email you a head shot.”

“Oh, yes,” I tell her. “I definitely need a head shot for you.”

Gloria only winks at me. She doesn’t get the joke.

The final taste-teaser manages, somehow, to go off without a hitch and gain us even more praise in the local food blogs and columns. All night, Gloria flashes me smug looks while she flounces around the lounge, laughing and getting on with guests so loudly that I can hear her constantly. I know that she knows it, and that’s why she’s doing it.

Chester raises an eyebrow at me from the bar, again and again, his usual signal that I should rein her in, and he gets more and more exasperated as the evening wears on. He’s got to be wondering what the hell is wrong with me.

Maybe if I told him everything, he could help me come up with some kind of solution that doesn’t involve handing my pride over to Gloria on a silver platter. But that would be one more person who knows my secret and even though I trust Chester… the more people that know, the closer I am to that critical mass point when this thing explodes across the town.

It gets so much worse when the guests leave, and we’re ready to close down for the night. Chester starts delegating closing duties, which is his job, and which I trust him to do well. He gets around to Gloria, though, and she just smiles at him, and then at me.

Chester looks like he might break a bottle over her head. I would claim she fell, if he did.

But since he doesn’t, I swallow my pride and step in on her behalf. “It’s okay, Chester. Gloria, if you would… just reach out to a few of the bloggers from tonight and make sure they have all the right information, I’d really appreciate it.” It’s all I can say before I literally feel the bile rise in my throat and I’m fairly certain it has nothing to do with being pregnant.

Gloria flashes us both a smile. “Sure thing, Janie. I’ll do it from home. I have all their contact information.”

She waves at both of us, and then gathers her little clutch to leave.

The moment she’s gone, Chester is on me. “What the total fuck, Janie? Did she kidnap your mother? Is she holding her ransom? Is the stress finally getting to you?” He peers at me with concern, and waves his hands. “How many fingers am I holding up? You know what year it is? You remember Gloria? The social-climbing bitch we hate but have to work with because of reasons?”

I want to spill it all so that it makes sense. More than anything in the world, because I could use a hug right now and Chester would give me that.

Instead, though, I lie. “She… handled a press release for me last week and did a good job. I don’t like her, but she has a talent and I’m going to use it. So. That’s all.”

He doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t say so. Instead he gives me a short nod and then turns away to deal with the extra work that he and the rest of the staff now have to deal with.

As if it’s bad enough keeping the secret from Jake, now I’m going to keep it from the only man in my life I actually consider a friend.

Great. Just great.

Sleep doesn’t come easy tonight. In fact, it doesn’t come at all. I call Sahara, thinking that she’ll be the ear I need, but before I can blurt out that I’m pregnant she apologizes because it’s summer finals and she is up to her tits with work and study.

“But I’ll call you after this is all done, okay?” she says, sympathetic but rushed. “I promise.”

“No problem,” I tell her, even though I want to beg her to stay up with me and listen to my bitching and moaning.

“I love you, though, okay?” she says, insistently. Something in my voice, I’m sure. Like the echo of my secret.

“Love you too. Kill those exams. I need you to come down here so we can be rich bitches together, okay?”

She laughs, and after a few more goodbyes she hangs up first.

I have a number I can call. One that I rarely use because every conversation is fraught with potential pitfalls and some of them neither of us are aware of until we stumble into them. But, then, I have it for situations exactly like this, right? A confidant who loves me and wants the best for me, but who’s as a safe distance. So I gather up my courage, and call.

It rings. I’m not sure what time it is over there. It’s too many rings to be a cell phone, so it’s probably a land line, and for all I know it’s waking up the whole house. It’s got to be at least morning over there, right?

By the eighth ring I’m about to hang up. Bad timing, and probably for the best.

But then, he answers in French, of course. “Oui, allô? Ici Michael Hall.”

“Daddy?” I ask. “It’s Janie. Um… can we talk for a bit?”

Chapter 71

Janie