Page 9 of Sexy as Sin
Well, you couldn’t change the world. The Council had given its approval, and the development was going ahead. Hence today’s celebratory party/sales event, the kickoff before the earthmovers and heavy machinery came rumbling in and the peace went away.
An event that wasn’t going to fly if the tables weren’t even set up in the marquee. Bloodyhell.She’d pulled the van to a stop and was jumping out on the thought, approaching Jamie, one of the waiters, because he was closest.
“Why aren’t the tables set up?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “Dunno. The hire firm dropped everything off and scarpered.”
“Well, did you ask them?” she asked.
“Not my job, was it,” he answered sulkily. “I reckoned they were going for a smoko and they’d be back. How was I to know?”
She closed her eyes for a second, counted to three, reminded herself,You are a partner. It’s nobody’s job to fix this but yours,and opened them to find Jamie sidling away. She said, “Well, we’ll take care of it now. Grab the others, and let’s get cracking.”
Crystal, a pretty brunette who was, Willow was fairly sure, sleeping with Jamie, asked, “Are you sure we should be setting up? It's an injury risk, surely."
Willow kept her temper, if only just. “Well, we’d better do it all the same,” she said, managing a reasonably cheerful tone, “or none of us is going to get paid. Thank goodness the marquee’s up, anyway. That would’ve been a stretch.”
“What do we do about cutlery, though?” Crystal asked.
“What?” Willow asked. “Surely it’s here.” She walked over to a plastic tub beside the flat-folded tables and chairs and opened it. Wine glasses. Fine. Past that, pasteboard cartons from the wine dealer holding red wines, and sparkling and white wines in tubs of ice.
But no silverware?
No. No silverware. And noplates.Bloody, bloody, bloodyhell.
More crunching of gravel and slamming of car doors in the makeshift car park, and the rest of the wait staff, consisting of Beatriz, a Portuguese girl with liquid dark eyes and a lilting accent, and Martina, a blond German, hustled up. Martina asked, “Why aren’t we set up? We need to start, surely.”
Martina, Willow thought as usual, deserved a pay rise. She and Beatriz, unfortunately, wouldn’t be here long. Working holiday visas. “Yes,” she said, “we do. Here.” She beckoned them along with her. “We’ll do the tables in an elongated C, as usual, in the marquee. Two facing the sea, just here, and a leg on either side. The side toward the road,” she thought to specify. If she didn’t, Jamie was perfectly capable of setting them up on the seaward side, giving the guests a lovely view of the road, and then sulking when he had to move them. “Work space over to the left, behind the trees, where I’ll park the van once we unload some of this, so carry two tables over there, please. Jamie and Crystal, you take that, then start on the chairs. Conversational groups, please, off to the sides, beyond the marquee, in the shade of the trees. Or where the shade will be in an hour or two. Pretend it’s your party, and you want it to go. Martina and Beatriz, table linens, and then get started on the van.” Jamie had his mouth open, and she told him, “‘Other duties as assigned.’ They’ve just been assigned. Make a decision.”
He muttered something she could have foreseen, then headed for the stack of folding tables with zero enthusiasm.
“What are we going to do, though?” Crystal asked. “There aren’t anyforks.We can’t serve without forks. Or plates.”
How about if we stand here and moan some more?Willow thought.How do you suppose that will work?“I’ll worry about that,” she said instead, as firmly as she could manage. She made sure they were starting to move, then retreated to the van and pulled out her mobile.
Damnthe party suppliers. What had they been thinking? And why didn’t Nourish have its own basic stock of flatware and dinnerware, and another couple dishwashers in the kitchen? Why were they paying somebody else’s overhead and markup?
Before she could ring up, Coorabell Partners’ PR, Wendy Mulligan, came around the corner. Black hair pulled back into a knot, red lipstick, and severe summer-weight black trouser suit that said,I’m either your boss or a possible serial killer,her red mouth pressed into a thin line.
Oh,bugger.
“I was assured,” Wendy started out, like a woman auditioning for the role of “Bossy Headmistress” in the end-of-term play, “that your lot would have everything set up well before one. Here you are, nothing atallset up, and you have, what, four staff? How is that going to work?”
Not well at all, if you don’t bugger off and give me a chance to get it sorted,Willow thought and didn’t say. “I have it under control,” she said. “It’s not one yet.”
“How?” Wendy demanded. “Exactly how do you have it under control? Explain, please, because this is a dog’s breakfast, and it’snotwhat I paid ninety-five dollars per person to see.”
“Problem?”
The voice that came from behind Willow was calm. It was assured. And, she realized with an absolute sinking of her heart, it was familiar. She was glad to have had that brief heads-up, though, before she turned to look at him.Hejust looked gobsmacked.
Whatever his name was.
She asked, “How did you get your suit cleaned that fast? Or... how many of those do you own?”
“This one’s mid-gray,” he said. “The other was charcoal. If you explain the problem to me, maybe I can help.”
He wasn’t wearing hisChill the Fuck OutT-shirt anymore. But then, he didn’t need the shirt. He was already there.
