“Oh my God, it burns,” she choked out a minute later. “I think my eyes are actually watering.”
“Make her something foofy, will you,” Josie said. “She’s not exactly a shot drinker on a good day.”
“One Flirtini, coming right up.”
“Are you a renegade bartender, too?” Josie demanded. “And will someone please tell us what Stuart said?”
“He said the hotel will be his.” An echo of her earlier panic vibrated in the back of her head, like a headache threatening to take hold. “Exactly like that. He sputtered and criticized, just like he always does, but this time he said—”
“The hotel will be his,” Josie repeated. Her eyes flashed fire when she glanced up from her drink to look at Olivia. “Who does he think he is, Darth Vader?”
“Oh, honey.” Roseanne bit her bottom lip and fingered the end of her long, gray braid. “I’ve been afraid of this.”
Olivia gaped at her. “What do you mean? He’s always hated this place.”
“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what it’s worth.” Roseanne’s voice was softer now, and she reached out to pat Olivia’s hand. “You’re going to have to be very careful, sweetie.”
“Careful about what?” Josie asked. She set down her glass and crunched into a pretzel with a little more violence than was strictly necessary. “The hotel is Olivia’s.”
“That may be,” Rhys said, sliding a martini glass toward Olivia, “but there are a million ways he could make that very difficult for her, yeah?”
“Driving me out, you mean?” Olivia said. There went her pulse again, fluttering like a caged bird.
“Exactly.”
“Well, he won’t.” She stood up, ignoring her drink, and paced toward the middle of the room, absently pushing chairs into place at their tables as she went. “He can’t.”
When she was a child, the bar had always been off limits. “Nothing for little misses to see in there, sweetie,” her father would say with a laugh. Her mother had agreed, but as often as not Olivia would run down the service stairs and creep through the lobby when she was supposed to be in bed. She’d find parents seated with friends or hotel guests at one of the round tables in the dark, smoky room, her mother in a cocktail dress with her good pearls on and her hair done, her father in his customary blue suit, his glasses polished but still sliding down his nose when he laughed.
And now it was hers.
She couldn’t remember the last time the bar had been as crowded as it was in her memories. Now, more nights than not, half the tables sat empty. She squinted and crossed the room to run a finger over one of the picture frames. The Chrysler Building reached for the sky from beneath a film of dust. The place wasn’t even getting cleaned regularly.
The fact that she was here, not in a cocktail dress, not in pearls, but in her old gray pants and an even older sweater, drinking vodka on a Monday afternoon, didn’t exactly lift her spirits.
She turned around and faced the others, all of whom were sipping their drinks and watching her as if she were about to break into song.
“He’s not taking this hotel away from me,” she said after a deep breath. “He can’t. There’s nothing in the world that will make me give up this place.”
“Bravo!” Roseanne said, clapping. The bourbon had already pinked her cheeks.
“It’s a landmark,” Olivia continued, confident now. “It’s history, it’s my legacy. Mine.”
Even Josie clapped this time, and Rhys whistled, long and low.
Olivia sketched a bow, pleased with herself. Stuart couldn’t scare her, the big bully. Callender House was hers, and that was the way it was going to stay.
Just then Angel pushed open the door and stuck his head inside. “Um, Olivia?”
She smiled at him. “Yes?”
“The nameplate outside just fell off completely.”
Perfect. She sighed. “Where’s my drink?”
Josie helped herself to another shot when Olivia left the room, with the yummy Brit following her. It was a workday, but around here, that didn’t mean much.
“Hit me, too,” Roseanne said, holding out her glass.
Josie poured bourbon for both of them. “It’s not usually this crazy around here, is it?”
“Not quite,” Roseanne admitted. “How long have you been here now?”
“Two months.” Josie knocked back the shot, and coughed when she’d swallowed. “And I really don’t want to look for another job. Again.”
She wasn’t even sure why she’d taken this one. Okay, well, part of the reason was being “let go” from the St. Regis, but she refused to feel ashamed of that. If the manager couldn’t stand to hear the truth about what one of the guests had been found doing with a member of the housekeeping staff, it wasn’t her fault. A little flirtation between consenting adults was one thing, but fur handcuffs? In the linen room? Please.
And Olivia had offered her a big promotion. Not a big salary, but at least a promotion. Guest Services Manager. It looked good on a business card, and it would have taken her a decade or more to get to the same position at one of the big hotels.
“How long have you been here?” she asked Roseanne idly.
“Twenty-seven years,” Roseanne answered with a placid smile. “Olivia’s grandfather hired me, and then I worked for Olivia’s dad. Who was just a little less eccentric than his father.”
“Twenty-seven years, huh?” At the idea of twenty-seven years in one job, another drink seemed tempting, but Josie stifled the urge. Drunken subway riding was never a good idea, and passing out on her keyboard probably wouldn’t win her any brownie points around here either.
“I wouldn’t change it for the world.” Roseanne set her glass down and propped her head in her hands. “I get my time off every year for the faire, I have my own office and free lunch, and I know if I ever get kicked out of my apartment, I can move in here.”
“That’s a…plus,” Josie said dubiously. “Unless the hotel closes down. I have to say, registration is not exactly at an all-time high. And the residents? Most of them are paying circa-1978 rent.” She considered that for a moment as she lined up pretzels on the bar. “Which is a good deal, actually. Maybe I should move in here.”
Roseanne snorted, but a moment later her grin faded. “I am worried, you know. Stuart’s never actually threatened to take the hotel away from Olivia before.”
“I don’t know why he is now,” Josie pointed out. “I mean, I like it here, and Olivia’s great, but this place isn’t what you’d call a cash cow.”
“Nobody knows that better than I do.”
“Reassuring to hear from the woman in charge of my paycheck,” Josie said dryly. “I hope Olivia’s thought of some ways to get more paying guests in here.”
Roseanne sighed, her faded blue eyes sorrowful. “If she hasn’t, she will now.”
“Who will what?”
Josie looked up to see Gus Fitch ambling toward the bar—and then ducking beneath it, just as Rhys had.
She threw up her hands in defeat. “Did I miss the memo about fix-your-own-drink day or something?”