Happy Hour (28 page)

Jamie was in
trouble
. “Okay, Mom. Let’s go.”

As she entered the offices, Jamie’s assistant Adrienne came around the
corner and grabbed her by the shoulder. “Evan is here and it’s not good.” Then
she looked Dorothy up and down. “What is she doing here?”

Jamie glared at her. “Where is he?”

“In the conference room and they’re all waiting for
you
.”

“They?”

Adrienne nodded. “He has all the staff writers and the department
editors. You’re late.”

“Take her into my office. Give her some magazines and a juice or
something and keep an eye on her.
Please
.”

Adrienne mustered a smile. “Sure,” she said with a tinge of sarcasm.

“Mom, this is my assistant and she is going to take you to my office.
I’ll be there soon.”

“Hello, Jayne, it’s lovely to see you again.”

“Jayne?” Adrienne mouthed, aware of Dorothy’s mental issues.

“If I had to guess, Mansfield.”

“Who?”

“Google her.” Adrienne was not quite thirty, big busted, had long poofy
blonde hair and a thing for tight blouses and pencil skirts. No wonder, Dorothy
decided she was Jane. But for all her outlandish outfits and wild makeup,
Adrienne was good at her job.

Adrienne was right. Seated at the long glass-topped conference table were
her editors and staff writers. Evan sat in her seat at the helm. He looked up
as she hurriedly walked in, and found a seat. “Good morning, Jamie. Nice you
could make it.”

“I’m terribly sorry. I was unaware that we were having a meeting.”

No one looked at Jamie. They were all reading the papers in front of
them.

“You do know that your work day typically begins at eight in the
morning?”

“I had a family emergency.”

“Oh?”

“I did. What is this all about, Evan?”

He straightened his expensive silk tie, and his dark eyes lit up. “We at
Wine Country Corporation have decided to do some restructuring. Obviously in
light of difficult economic times, we’ve had to take a careful look at the
bottom line. Wine Country’s in-home tasting and purchases are growing at a
steady pace still, but sales are down with the magazine here.”

Jamie clenched her fists under the table. Technically sales were only
down by a small percentage, and she knew what this was all about. She’d called
Evan last month about revamping the magazine and targeting it more towards
women. Her idea was to add columns on beauty and health, include more recipes,
a book club section, and base all of it on wine-related products. Evan told her
that men were still the ones who spent more money on the types of wines the
magazine usually covered—collector’s wines, the more expensive wines. The irony
there (and she did know where he was headed) was that the in-home wine sales
his company made via a multi-level marketing program sold mediocre wines for
high prices to the average Joe who didn’t know enough about the wines to know
any better. Evan purchased the wines from sell-off lots and had them bottled by
his own label,
Wine Country Gold
. Even the name was cheesy. Jamie
watched the numbers and Evan had been putting more money into that business and
letting her and the magazine run itself. She could see the writing on the wall.

“My partners and I have decided that we are going to transition the
magazine into what will now be called
Wine Country Gold
. I hate to be
blunt, but there is no other way around it. Some of you will be losing your jobs.”
He glanced up and something caught his eye out of the conference room. The
group opposite Jamie also looked up. “Excuse me, but does anyone know who that
old woman is?” Evan asked.

Jamie spun around. She jumped up. Dorothy was outside the glass walls of
the room, peering in. Jamie got up and opened the door for her. “Mom? Mom? What
are you doing?”

“I’m looking for Jayne.”

She took Dorothy’s hand, and brought her into the conference room, pulled
up a chair next to her and sat her down. Everyone was silent and watchful. She
cleared her throat. “Um, this is my mother-in-law Dorothy and uh, part of the
family emergency I mentioned. Okay.” She turned back to Evan, mustering a
smile. She didn’t want to say more about Dorothy if she didn’t have to since
Evan’s mouth was already slightly open. “You were saying, Evan?”

He shook his head. “Yes. I was saying that some of you will lose your
jobs
here
, but I want to stress the opportunity you could have by
becoming one of
Wine Country Gold’s
consultants. You could earn more
than you have been earning at your writer jobs and would have the possibility
of receiving new cars, trips, all sorts of wonderful incentives. It’s only a
hundred and fifty dollars to join. That is the deal I’m giving you all. This is
a one-time opportunity, though. We typically bring in our first level
consultants at two hundred and twenty-five dollars. Do the math, friends. That
is a seventy-five-dollar savings.” He smiled as if he was delivering the best
news possible.

Jamie thought she might be sick.

Dorothy raised her hand and Jamie shoved it down. “I was wondering if
anyone has seen my friend Jayne around? And, you are looking a bit pale today,
Yul,” she said to Evan.

“Yul?”

“She’s confused,” Jamie said but as difficult of a situation that she was
in, she almost couldn’t help laugh. The bald Evan
could
possibly pass
for Yul Brenner.

“I have a question.” Jamie asked while everyone around her squirmed in
their seats.

“Shoot.” Evan pointed at her.

“You’re saying that some of us are losing our jobs…”

“Not you, Jamie.
Wine Country Gold
has other plans for you. You
will have a list on your desk by tomorrow and you can handle the terminations
and present the severance packages.”

“That wasn’t what I wanted to ask you. What are your plans for the people
who keep their jobs? If I’m hearing you correctly, you’re closing the
magazine.”

“Jamie, you are not hearing me. That is
not
what I said. We will
be restructuring and those writers we keep on will be writing articles strictly
about Wine Country Gold wines, where they come from, how the company was
founded. Things like that.”

“Basically you’re turning us into a marketing department for the wine
tasting business.”

“If that’s the way you want to put it. Before I made this decision we
were outsourcing the marketing, but I feel this is a perfect fit for such a
transition.”

There were grumbles from the group. These people were writers, not
marketing gurus. They researched, loved the stories they wrote, cared about the
information they revealed to others. What Evan was suggesting would never work
because this wasn’t how writers thought. What a condescending jerkoff.

“There’s Jayne now. Bye-bye.” Dorothy stood and headed to the door.

Jamie spotted Adrienne rushing down the hall.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Evan said. “Goodbye, everyone.
Jamie will be going over the details with everyone here tomorrow morning.”

Her employees, many of them friends, stayed frozen in their seats. Jamie
tried to go after Dorothy, but Evan stopped her as they reached the door
simultaneously. Adrienne approached Dorothy and began talking to her. Thank
God.

“You need to do something about your family emergency, Jamie,” Evan
snarled.

“I’m sorry.” Flustered and angry, she tried to keep her cool.

He handed her a large packet. “I’ll expect everything to be carried out
by tomorrow afternoon before the holiday weekend. All the information you need
is here, and you’re lucky I don’t fire you for this mishap.” He waved his hands
in the air. “I’ve already had my secretary schedule a meeting with you for next
week so you can apprise me of the decisions made. I would suggest that
everyone, even you, look into becoming consultants for
Wine Country Gold
.
It’s a great way to earn extra income and, regretfully, I’ve had to make pay
cuts across the board. Including you.”

Jamie stood speechless as Evan Dickhead walked out of the offices.

The conference room broke out into cries of outrage. Jamie’s head spun.
They looked to her for answers and she had none. Not a one. She finally faced
the dozen employees. She reached into her wallet, pulled out her company
American Express card, and held it up. “I have no answers. I don’t know what in
the hell just happened here. But I was thinking that we all deserve a day off.
Anyone up for lunch at Domaine Chandon?”

Alyssa unloaded her car full of desserts for tomorrow’s Fourth of July
party. She’d done her best over the past day to do anything and everything to
keep her mind off of what she had to do. But after baking three different fruit
pies, a batch of brownies, chocolate chip/macadamia nut cookies, and a
strawberry cheesecake, her mind went back to the facts she had to face.

Kat was in the kitchen making potato salad when Alyssa walked in, her
arms loaded with bags. “Jeez, girlfriend, what do you have there?”

“I know. I got carried away. There’s a couple more bags in the car.”

“Brian! Come here and help Alyssa.” He didn’t answer.

Alyssa set the bags down. “I can get them. You don’t need to call your
son.”

“I don’t think so. He can help. Bri!” Still no answer. Kat walked back
into his room where Brian laid flat on his back in bed, listening to his iPod.
Kat pulled the earphones away from his ears and his eyes shot open. “Mom! What
up? You scared me.”

“Go grab a couple of bags out of Alyssa’s car for me.” He stared at her
blankly for a few seconds. He pushed himself off the bed, shoulders slumped,
hair in his eyes, and lurked past her. He grunted what sounded like a possible
hello to Alyssa. “Say hello, please,” Kat instructed.

“I did,” Brian replied.

Kat walked around in front of him, pushed his shoulders back, and brushed
the hair out of his eyes. “Try again. This timer louder with a little
enthusiasm.” Alyssa stifled her laughter. “This is good practice for you. And
Alyssa is a friend, so she can take it. We’ll call this Etiquette 101.
How
to say hello to guests
. Something you learned at five, but due to the
undeveloped frontal lobe, this ‘Hello, how are you?’ thing, must have gotten
lost in the dark abyss between Akon and World of Warcraft.”

“I don’t listen to Akon, Mom, and WOW is lame.”

“What is this? He speaketh in full sentences! How blessed are we? Thank
God, because it was taking a lot of effort for me to decipher caveman grunts.”
Kat put an arm around him.

Brian shook his head. “Hello, Alyssa. How are you?” he said clearly and
politely.

“I’m great. Thank you for asking. The bags are in the trunk of my car.”

“I’ve got them. Stay and entertain the peanut gallery,” he said.

“He has your sarcastic wit, I see.” Alyssa walked over to the kitchen
island. “May I?” She held up a spoonful of the salad.

“Of course, and, yes, my son is a regular Adam Sandler. What do you
think?”

“About the potato salad or the kid?”

“The salad.”

“It’s excellent and the kid is pretty great too. He’s just a teenager.”

“I do know this. If Jeremy hadn’t gone through it first, I’d be pulling
my hair out. But he seems to have reached the other side. You know, it’s true
that their frontal lobe isn’t fully developed until they’re in their twenties.
It does explain a lot.”

Alyssa laughed. “Where is Jeremy?”

“With Christian. They’re in the backyard, digging the hole to bury the
pig for tomorrow.”

“That’s huge, isn’t it? That they would do something like that together?”

“Not only that. Yesterday, Christian let the sous chef take over and I
managed the restaurant, while the two of them went hunting together for the
pig.”

“That’s great, Kat. They’re bonding. That must make you happy.”

“It really does. For so long, I’ve been hoping that somehow, someway, my
sons and Christian would bond. I don’t know if it’ll happen between him and
Brian because Bri is so busy worshipping his father. I don’t want to be the one
to highlight all the shit that he’s done or hasn’t done. I can’t even ask Brian
what time his father will be picking him up without getting my head bit off!”

“I think that’s one of those situations where you have to stay totally
neutral. It’s a no-win deal. But who knows? I bet you never thought Jeremy and
Christian would develop a close relationship.”

“You’re right. Part of me believes it has to do with Amber. It might
sound strange but I think she has sort of cemented us together. Jeremy is nuts
about her, loves tossing her around and teasing her, and Christian appreciates
him playing big brother to his daughter.”

“Funny how a kid can do that. It’s kind of the same with me.”

Brian came in and set down the desserts. Kat looked at the three bags and
back at Alyssa. “How many people do you think we’re having? Looks to me like
you have enough here for a regular bake sale.”

“I needed a distraction.”

“Am I done now?” Brian asked.

“Yes. Why don’t you go outside with Grandma and Amber and help with the
decorations in the back.”

“Do I have to?” He grimaced. “Nanny V goes on and on about some of the
weirdest stuff. The other day I had to hear all about how living in
the
now
keeps us centered, and how we should enjoy
the now
because it’s all we
have. I don’t even know what she meant by
the now
.”

“She means the present, and, yes, you do have to go help.”

“Mom…”

“Five bucks. Do it for five bucks.”

“Ten,” he said.

“Seven,” she replied.

“Okay.”

Brian went out the French doors. Kat turned to Alyssa, “Chapter thirteen
in the parenting handbook states that bribery, although not always the best
parenting method, is very effective, especially in a time crunch.”