you?”
Glancing at her watch, Carlotta said, “Yes, but I really don’t feel like going home to change.”
“It’s one of those business mixers for the upper crust, so the dress is business casual. Come on, it’ll take your mind off things.”
Carlotta wavered. She’d worn a rather conservative black suit and striped button-up shirt, so she would probably blend.
“I’ll meet you at the kitchen entrance in an hour,” Hannah said.
“Okay,” Carlotta relented. “Just this once.”
She disconnected the call and hurried to wait on a customer, who took up the time remaining on her shift. Afterward, she freshened her makeup in the employee break room. Michael Lane came in and removed a brown paper bag from his locker.
“Hot date?” he asked, cracking open a can of diet soda.
She smiled. “No.”
“Hmm, I was hoping the reason you’ve been avoiding me is because you had a secret man in your life.”
A pang of remorse struck her. She’d been avoiding Michael because he’d no doubt read about Wesley’s arrest and she didn’t want to discuss it. She and the gay man were friends, but she wasn’t sure how much she could trust him where the gossip mill was concerned.
“I’ve just been busy, that’s all.”
“I understand,” he said, his expression gentle. “Is everything okay at home?”
“It’s getting better,” she said evasively, hoping it was true.
“Let me know if I can help.”
Gratitude swelled in her chest. “I will. And thanks again for the Angela Ashford commission last week.”
He shrugged. “Everyone who works here knows she’s your customer. You deserved it.” Then he frowned. “So what’s the connection between the two of you anyway?”
She married the only man I’ve ever loved. “Uh…we went to high school together.”
“Oh. Was she a bitch then, too?”
Carlotta laughed. “In training.”
“So what are you up to tonight?”
“I’m meeting Hannah at a party.”
He frowned. “The vampire?”
“She’s not a vampire. She just likes to dress…weirdly.”
“Whatever,” he said. “You’ll never land a man if you keep hanging out with the likes of her.”
She closed her locker door and swung her purse to her shoulder. “I’m not trying to land a man.”
“Uh-oh,” he said. “That’s when it happens.”
“When what happens?”
“Love. Just when you make up your mind that you have no intention of falling for someone—whammo!”
“I get hit by a truck?”
Michael stuck out his tongue. “Make fun, but mark my words—your Mr. Right is close at hand.”
The door opened and the head of security walked in, looking all of a hundred pounds in his uniform, his pants gathered around his thin frame with a wide black belt, his nonexistent chest puffed up like Barney Fife.
“I came to do a routine check of your loading dock,” Akin said, then looked at Carlotta and blushed furiously. “I want to make sure everyone here is safe on my watch.” Then he saluted and strode out the double doors leading to the loading dock.
Michael looked at her and burst out laughing.
“On that note, I’m out of here,” she said, waving goodbye.
She laughed at Michael’s nonsense on the short drive to the Four Seasons Hotel. Despite her hesitation when she had been on the phone with Hannah, her chest clicked with anticipation as she parked her car—there was no money for valet service tonight—and walked toward the hotel entrance. There was nothing quite so exciting as fudging her way into a party where she wasn’t supposed to be. The difference was tonight she wouldn’t be incognito; if she ran into somebody she knew, it would be fun to see them stutter and fumble while trying to figure out how someone like her could afford the requisite two-hundred-fifty-dollar ticket that these events usually boasted.
She checked her watch as she walked into the hotel. Right on time. She rode up the elevator and when she alighted, turned away from the velvet-roped entrance where a hostess was taking tickets and headed down a narrow hall that led to the restrooms and to a set of stainless swinging doors marked Service Personnel Only. The door opened and Hannah, dressed in standard white culinary garb, her striped hair bound in a hairnet, thrust a folded garment into Carlotta’s hands. “Put this apron on.”
She did as she was told, crossing the long ties in front before securing them in back, then frowned. “You didn’t tell me you were working the party. I thought we were going to hang out.”
“I’m only standing in until someone else gets here, then I’ll find you.”
“Okay,” Carlotta said sulkily.
“Cheer up,” Hannah said, handing her a tray of mini quiches to carry through the kitchen. “I think I saw Gladys Knight. Didn’t you say you wanted her autograph?”
Carlotta nodded, glad she’d put her new autograph book in her bag. “But why would she be here?”
“She’s a businesswoman, has investments in town—including a tasty little restaurant in Midtown.”
Considerably cheered, Carlotta followed Hannah through the kitchen maze, trying to look busy and intent as she balanced the tray on her hand. As soon as they cleared the doors into the hallway leading to the party room, she handed the tray to Hannah and removed the apron with lightning speed. “Thanks,” she said, smoothing her hand over her hair.
“Have fun,” Hannah said. “I’ll see you as soon as I can get away.”
Carlotta turned to the crowd, scanning for the singer of “Midnight Train to Georgia” among the preppily dressed, one-hand-in-their-pants-pocket crowd, and spotted her standing in a corner, sporting her signature dazzling smile and, fortuitously, signing an autograph. Carlotta made a beeline for the woman before she tired of autograph hounds. She stepped up and introduced herself, then explained that she’d once had the singer’s autograph, but that her autograph book had recently been ruined and she was hoping to get a replacement. Ms. Knight was gracious and obliged, writing her name with a flourish in the new pink leather autograph book—the first among its blank pages.
Carlotta watched, starstruck, imagining all the glamorous, wonderful things the woman had done and seen in her lifetime and visualizing all of that luck and energy pouring into the bold signature that she would take home with her. “Thank you so much,” she gushed when the singer handed the book back to her.
