Last Call (Cocktail 5)

But she was back in the home office now, and expected to be brought up to speed as soon as she was back. Though she was always in touch through email and conference calls, when she came back home she wanted to sink her teeth into every project she could. We were still finding our way with this new setup, but it was working out really well for us.

It was always great having her back in the office; it never seemed quite the same without her click-clacking around on her high heels. Which I could hear now coming up the stairs, along with a chorus of welcome backs and how are you’s from the rest of the staff.

I stepped out of my office just as she rounded the last bend. Black sleeveless dress, knee-high camel leather boots with an impossibly tall heel, hair tied back in her signature chignon; she was pulled together, gorgeous, and looked well rested. And excited to be back.

“Girl! Get over here!” she squealed, setting down her Chanel bag and sweeping me into a perfumed hug.

“I’m so glad to see you!” I replied, letting myself fall into her embrace.

“I’ve got presents,” she said, ushering me down the hall into her own office, which was cleaned weekly during her absences so it never smelled musty or unused. We couldn’t have that.

“You don’t have to bring me presents every time you come home, you know,” I said as she pulled a few boxes out of her satchel.

“Shut it, but open this,” she instructed, setting a pink box down in front of me, then spun toward her tea set in the corner. “Do we have—”

“Hot water is already in there; I just filled it myself a few minutes ago.” I knew that the first thing upon her arrival she’d want to have a cup of tea.

“You’re the best.”

“I’ve heard that said. And holy shit, where’d you get these?” I exclaimed, holding up a pair of drop earrings. Set into brushed nickel, there were beads in shades of pink, peach, salmon, coral, fuchsia; all the go-to colors in my favorite palette.

“Saw them in a tiny store in Rome and couldn’t resist. I said to Benjamin, ‘those are Caroline’s colors,’ and he insisted we buy them.”

“Benjamin has always been a little sweet on me,” I teased, referring to the constant state of blush I was always in whenever he was around. It wasn’t just me either; Sophia and Mimi shared my not-so-secret-crush on Jillian’s husband.

“Just put them on and stop imagining all the different ways you can thank him.” She laughed, her eyes sparkling. “I saw all the folders on your desk. Want to bring me up to speed over lunch?”

And just like that, Jillian was back in town. All was right with the world.

We spent most of the afternoon working in a corner booth at our favorite restaurant in Chinatown, getting caught up over our sizzling rice and office gossip. Not much escaped Jillian’s eye, even across an ocean. But there was still some scuttlebutt to fill her in on, and as we chitted and chatted, I relaxed more and more.

“So tell me all about the wedding?” she asked, after we’d covered everything office related.

I paused, chopsticks halfway into my mouth. “Thah wady?”

“The wedding! Mimi and Ryan!”

I chopsticked, chewed, and nodded. “Oh sure, sure, that wedding.”

“I was sick to miss it, but we had so much going on at that point with the house in Amsterdam it just wasn’t possible for us to get back,” she said, stirring her mustard sauce. “But I bet it was perfect, wasn’t it? Timed down to the millisecond?”

“What’s smaller than a millisecond?” I snorted, digging back into my pot stickers. My pulse was racing. What the hell was up with that?

“Oh, I bet. Did she manage everything the entire day, or did she let go and enjoy?”

“She totally enjoyed. She actually had a great day, even though she had a huge dress snafu at the last minute.”

“Oh no, what happened?” Jillian slurped her noodles.

“Sophia’s had terrible morning sickness—actually, morning, afternoon, evening, and middle-of-the-night sickness. It hit all of a sudden, and blammo—right onto Mimi’s wedding dress.”

“You’re lying.”

“I wish that I was! But you know Mimi—she had a second dress ready to go for her reception, so she just wore that for both.”

“I would have died,” Jillian moaned.

“Anyone else would have! But she assumes if celebrities get to have more than one wedding dress, then so should she.” I laughed, remembering. “Actually, she was more upset about the shoes—she hadn’t planned on a backup pair for those.”

“Ah jeez, Sophia didn’t—”

“Sophia did! A little flyaway yak landed on Mimi’s Choos. She flipped her lid over that one. Until Ryan came to see her; then it all melted away.”

Jillian shot me a surprised look. “Wait, Ryan came to see her? Before the wedding? I figured Mimi’d be too superstitious for that.”

“Oh, she was. She hid behind the door so he didn’t see her. But then, oh my goodness, Jillian, it was the sweetest thing. Ryan said something about how much he couldn’t wait to marry her, and how he couldn’t wait to call her his wife—and then it was like . . . what are shoes?”

“Aww.” Jillian sighed.

“Yeah, thank goodness she was okay going barefoot. Or you know my ass would have been running all over town trying to find her some new shoes.” I chuckled.