Champagne Life (5 page)

“How so? I've worked parties on my own before.”

“Yes, but he's always come to me first. I don't understand why Mr. Herjavec is coming to you rather than to me. We have spent much time and money on his social affairs and all of a sudden, he wants to cut me out?”

“I don't think he's cutting you out.” DeShaun hoped to minimize the situation. He didn't realize it would be this big of a deal. “Maybe he understands how busy you are and wants to save you the headache of trying to prepare a small gathering for his wife.”

The truth was, Berti had invited over 200 guests for his wife's birthday party, but now was not the appropriate time to spill that bit of information.

“Since when has Berti Herjavec thrown a small party?” Mr. Stiles asked. His boss may have been the guy to hook DeShaun up with a job, but when it came to money, that didn't matter. Business was business.

“I'm only telling you what Berti, I mean, Mr. Herjavec, told me.”

Mr. Stiles picked up the phone. “I'll give him a call. Continue service while I get this straightened out, please.”

DeShaun walked out of the office, closing the door behind him.

Dammit! He hoped he hadn't messed up a gig that could bring in plenty of cash.

T
he waitress came around with my bacon fried shrimp appetizer. When she set the hot plate down, a droplet of grease splattered on my arm.

“Sorry about that,” the waitress said. I looked at her nametag. Her name was
Shanteska
.

“That's fine,” I told her, inspecting my arm.
Was Shanteska happy with her job as a server? Was this her only goal in life or did she have other dreams that never came to fruition?
My parents wanted me to have what they called, a serious profession. To them, that meant a doctor or a lawyer. They would even accept me being something artsy like a writer if I was serious about it and made millions of dollars from publishing deals and movie rights. To my parents, money equaled success. I harbored some guilt by the fact that my parents spent tons of money for me to obtain my undergraduate marketing degree, and yet I was still looking to do something I enjoyed while making money. To date, I hadn't found either. I figured going back to school to obtain my Masters was the best option at this point. If the opportunity presented itself, I would surely take it.

I took a big, sloppy bite out of my burger. Immediately, I soared into heaven. That was one of the perks about eating alone. You could be as greedy as you wanted with no apologies.

A big splotch of ketchup dripped from the burger and onto my shirt. I grabbed the napkin on the table, dabbed the tip in water and began blotting at the stain.

“You sure look like you're enjoying that burger.” Jeremy stood there, looking down at me with a satisfied smirk on his face. “You're tearing through it like it was your job.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Stopping in to pick up lunch.” He watched me blot away. “You know, you really should use seltzer water. It'll keep the stain from setting.” He grabbed the first waiter that walked by. The kid carrying two plates full of food in his hands and one plate nestled in the crook of his arm looked irritated. “Hey, can you get us a bottle of seltzer water…quick?”

The peeved waiter nodded and headed toward a corner table to drop off the food. He then went back into the kitchen and a minute later returned with two blue bottles in his hands. “Anything else?”

I took the bottles. “No, thank you.” I opened up one of the bottles, wet another napkin and began blotting at my blouse. After a few minutes the stain faded.

“Told you.”

“Thanks.”

“You're welcome.” He hovered over my table like a vulture would a carcass. “So, where's your husband? You know, the one you're having lunch with today.”

“Couldn't make it.”

“That so?”

Shanteska, the waitress, walked up and placed a small stack of napkins onto the table. She looked at Jeremy. “Will you be joining her today?”

He looked down at me. “Do you mind?”

I wondered how rude would it have been to tell him that I was
really looking forward to having a nice, quiet lunch by myself, but he looked so pitiful, looking down at me.

I took another bite of my burger. “Sure.”

Shanteska, obviously excited to get more of a tip, bounced back toward the kitchen to get an extra set of silverware. Before she disappeared behind the swinging kitchen door, Jeremy called out, “I've already ordered. You can put my food on a plate and bring it out to me. It should be a veal parmigiana for a Jeremy Butler. Thanks.”

A few minutes later, Shanteska returned with a steaming hot plate of food and sat it in front of Jeremy. She disappeared back into the kitchen.

“Let me order you a drink.” He turned around, looking for a waitress. “What are you having, a martini?”

“A martini at lunch?” I asked. “It's only noon, plus, I'm not a big drinker.”

“Then let me get you something lighter.” He looked at Shanteska, who had come back over to our table. “Give us two wine coolers, please.” He turned back to me. “Is that light enough for you?”

“Make it one for him,” I told Shanteska.

“Oh, c'mon. Stop being such a little girl. Did you forget I am in tight with the manager?”

“Would you stop saying that?”

“Saying what?”

“How you know the manager, how tight you are with the manager,
anything
at all pertaining to the manager. We get it. Everyone gets it. She's your aunt. You don't need to remind us every single day. And I told you, I really don't feel like drinking this early.”

“Okay then, bring over two beers,” he told the waitress, ignoring me. “Beer is like drinking soda with a little extra kick.”

This guy was unbelievable. “Didn't you hear me?”

“One beer. That's it.”

I threw my hands in the air, flopped back into my seat and surrendered. “Fine. Bring the beers. Make mine light, please.” I had no intentions of drinking it. I simply wanted him off my back.

When the waitress returned, she plopped down two beers onto the table and left.

Jeremy lifted up the tip of his plate and peered under it. “No extra napkins? Who does that? The waitress sees we're eating greasy food and she doesn't leave extra napkins.”

I shrugged and took another bite. Burger crumbs fell down the front of my blouse. “It's not that serious.”

“That burger must be good,” he commented.

I nodded, taking another full bite. “Sure is.”

He took a sip from one of the bottles of water on the table and then one from the
beer bottle in front of him. “I'm not trying to be a dick here, but I can't stand incompetent people. Sometimes servers have to be the most ignorant people in this world. How hard is it to slap some extra napkins onto a table?”

“Oh, let it go, please.” I stuffed a fry into my mouth. “And most times it's not even the server's fault.” I felt the personal need to defend servers, especially since my husband was one. “The restaurant tells the servers to only give out extra napkins if the customer asks for them.”

“That's not the only issue. She's slow, she's sloppy and she has a bad attitude. “

“She's fine to me.”

“I forgot. I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

“I forget your husband does this for a living. I really should know when to shut the hell up sometimes.” He took a bite of his veal. “At least the sandwich is good.” He took another drink from the beer bottle. “Maybe your husband should get out of the lower end of the restaurant business and look into becoming a chef or some other higher-up position.”

The flush rushed up to my cheeks. At that moment, I was embarrassed for my husband. Not really for him and what he proudly did for a living, but by the fact that Jeremy, a bank teller, thought that DeShaun was on the lower end of the food chain at his job. I expected this from my parents, whom I only speak to on a monthly basis, but coming from a co-worker, it left me speechless. It was best to let that comment go, however, I made a mental note never to have lunch with this ass again.

“You really should come to the gym with me some time.”

The last time I went to the gym, I was still single. “I'm not much of a workout person.”

“Really? You're in great shape. It gets harder for women to keep that
BOOM POW!
as they get older, you know.”

“I'm not old.” I took a bite of my burger and downed it with a swig of beer. One tiny sip couldn't hurt. The ice-cold beverage felt refreshing going down.

“Go one time with me and I'll show you how to lift weights properly. If you like it, you'll continue. If not, then you can go off and be fat, old and happy. Just look at Deb over there.”

“Who?”

“Deb, over in the corner. She works at the Lower Merion branch. You've probably never seen her. She rarely comes to the office. She was there the other day for only a quick minute. She's only thirty but looks like she's over forty with that extra weight. Nice girl, but if you don't watch it and hit the gym every once in a while, you'll end up looking way older than you are.”

“Oh, gee, thanks.” I took another tiny swig from the bottle. “When you put it like that, how can I refuse?”

“So you'll go with me tonight after work?”

“Nope.”

“I thought you couldn't refuse me?” Jeremy said. “What about tomorrow night?”

“It's called sarcasm and nope.”

“You seem busy this week, so how about a week from Thursday? We can sweat a little. When we're wet, we can begin the real exercise.”

I glanced up from my burger. “I don't think so.”

“One time,” he begged. “It will be fun.”

“I said, no.” I was beginning to understand why he got on people's nerves so quickly.

“Am I getting on your nerves?”

I stuffed the last of my burger in my mouth and started in on the fries. “It's cool, but I don't think it would be right if I hung out with you, that's all.”

“It's not a big deal. It would be two co-workers getting together after hours and you know, if something happens after that, we can take it from there.”

I dropped my fry onto the plate. “Dude, really? Don't you get that you make women feel totally uncomfortable when you make comments like that?”

“I was kidding.”

“If that was your idea of a joke, your sense of humor sucks.”

“Wow. That stung.”

“I don't mean to hurt your feelings, Jeremy, but you sometimes have that reputation of being, well, creepy.”

“Seriously? I thought I was being funny.”

“Really?” I asked incredulously. “I'm not trying to be mean. I simply want to tell you the truth.”

“No, no, I get it,” he said. “I thought I was being friendly. I didn't know you thought I was some serial rapist or something.”

I looked at the hurt expression on his face. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything.”

“No, don't be. I'm glad you did.” There was an uncomfortable silence as he took a sip of his beer. “I'm uncomfortable around pretty women so I over compensate by trying to be this confident guy with all these jokes that apparently aren't funny.”

“You really didn't know that?”

“Seriously, no. I feel like an idiot. I always do this.”

Oh, God, please don't let him tell me his life story. All I wanted was a quiet lunch to myself, not some psychology session. I got enough of that from my mom, with wanting to talk about my feelings all the time.

“I've always done that,” he said. “When I was younger, I had absolutely no confidence and now I work out and take care of myself and feel good. I want to make sure everyone understands how good I finally feel inside.”

I put down my fry and set aside my plate. I was about to channel Mom, the psychologist, for a quick second. “I get that. I really do, but all you're doing is pushing people away. You can have confidence without telling the world how great you are. You feel good on the inside, people will see that by how you act, authentically.”

“I never told anyone this,” he said. “But, in college, I was seventy pounds overweight and let me tell you, college is not the place to be when you're fat. Trust me on this.” He laughed nervously, finally showing an authentic emotion. “I don't even know why I'm telling you this.”

Jeremy didn't seem that bad of a guy, but he was always so hot and cold. That time at the bank with old lady Pritcherd and her jar full of change, he wanted to genuinely help me out. Minutes
after that, the smug Jeremy resurfaced and he was back to making inappropriate comments.

“Seventy pounds isn't all that heavy.”

“It was bad,” he said. “And add that with being a virgin. The fellas were relentless.”

“You were a virgin in college?”

“See? Even you want to laugh.”

“It's not that, it's just that I never pictured…that…from you.”

“I was, and right up to my senior year.”

“Contrary to popular belief, that's a good thing,” I told him.

“I don't know why, but it feels good to finally tell somebody. You know what I mean?”

I nodded. “I do.”

“Do you have any deep secrets that you haven't told anybody?” he asked.

That I did, but unlike him, I most definitely wasn't going to divulge any here today sitting in front of a plate full of grease and a light beer. “Maybe.”

“Most people do,” he said. “I was tired of hiding my past. It wasn't like I killed somebody. I know I shouldn't be ashamed of being fat and a virgin throughout college, but I was a guy, and it was embarrassing.”

The waitress came back and asked us if we would be having dessert. Jeremy looked at me and I shook my head.