The sticker price of a four-ounce jar of Caspian Sea Osetra made her gasp. Drawing in a steadying breath, she reminded herself it was Grandmama’s caviar of choice. The duchess considered Beluga too salty and Sevruga too fishy. Gina made a quick calculation and decided her credit card would cover the cost of one jar. Maybe.
“Oh, what the hell.”
To her relief, she got out of Osterman’s without having the credit card confiscated. A block and a half later she approached the Dakota with all her purchases.
“Let me help you with those!”
The doorman who’d held his post for as long as she could remember leaped forward. Although she would never say so to his face, Gina suspected Jerome assumed his present duties about the same time Osterman’s opened its doors.
“You should have called a cab, Lady Eugenia.”
Sarah and Gina had spent most of their adult years trying to get Jerome to drop their empty titles. They’d finally agreed it was a wasted effort.
“I’m okay,” Gina protested as he tried to relieve her of her burdens. “Except for this.”
She sorted through her purchases and fished out a wedge-shaped box. Jerome peeked inside and broke into a grin.
“Pineapple upside down! Trust you to remember my favorite.”
Gina’s emotions jumped on the roller coaster again as she thought about his devoted loyalty to her and Grandmama over the years.
“How could I forget?” she said with a suspicious catch to her voice. “You slipped me an extra few dollars every time I said I was going to Osterman’s.”
For a moment she thought the embarrassed doorman would pat her on the head as he’d done so many times when she was a child. He controlled the impulse and commented instead on the bottles poking out of her bag.
“Still celebrating Lady Sarah’s wedding?”
“Nope. This celebration is in my honor.”
Riding her emotional roller coaster to its gravity-defying apex, she poured out her news.
“I’m moving back to New York, Jerome.”
“Lady Eugenia! That’s wonderful news. I admit I was a bit worried about the duchess.”
“There’s more. I’ve got a job.”
“Good for you.”
“Oh,” she added over her shoulder as she made for the lobby. “I’m also pregnant.”
Gina walked into the Tremayne Group’s midtown venue at 9:30 a.m. the next morning. She didn’t drag out again until well past midnight.
Her first impression was wow! What had once been a crumbling brick warehouse overlooking the East River was now a glass-fronted, ultra-high-rent complex of offices, restaurants and entertainment venues. TTG occupied a slightly recessed four-story suite smack in the center of the complex. The primo location allowed into a private ground-floor courtyard with bubbling fountains and a top-floor terrace that had to offer magnificent views of the river.
A young woman with wings of blue in her otherwise lipstick-red hair sat at a curved glass reception desk and fielded phone calls. Gina waited until she finished with one caller and put two others on hold to introduce herself.
“I’m Gina St. Sebastian. I’m the new...”
“Assistant coordinator. Thank God you’re here! I’m Kallie. Samuel’s in the banquet hall. He said to send you right up. Third floor. The elevators are to your right.”
Gina used the ride to do a quick check in mirrored panels. She’d left her hair down today but confined the silky curls behind a wide fuchsia headband studded with crystals. A belt in the same hot pink circled the waist of her apple-green J. Crew tunic. Since this was her first day on the job she’d gone with sedate black tights instead of the colorful prints she preferred. She made a quick swipe with her lip gloss and drew in a deep, steadying breath. Then the elevator door glided open and she stepped out into a vortex of sound and fury.
What looked like a small army of workers in blue overalls was yanking folded chairs from metal-sided carrier racks, popping them open and thumping them around a room full of circluar tables. Another crew, this one in black pants and white shirts, scurried after the first. They draped each chair in shimmering green, the tables in cloth of gold. Right behind them came yet another crew rattling down place settings of china and crystal. The rat-tat-tat of staple guns fired by intent set designers erecting a fantastic Emerald City added to the barrage of noise, while the heady scent of magnolias wafted from dozens of tall topiaries stacked on carts waiting to be rolled to the tables.
Soaking up the energy like a sponge, Gina wove her way through the tables to a wild-haired broomstick with a clipboard in one hand, a walkie-talkie in the other and a Bluetooth headset hooked over one ear. “Not The Wizard of Oz,” he was shouting into the headset. “Christ, who does Judy Garland anymore? This is the new movie. Oz the... Oz the...”
Scowling, he snapped his fingers at Gina.
“Oz the Great and Powerful,” she dutifully asserted.
“Right. Oz the Great and Powerful. It’s a Disney flick starring Rachel Weisz and...”
More finger snaps.
“Mila Kunis.”
“Right. Mila Kunis. That’s the music the clients requested.” The scowl deepened. “Hell, no, I don’t! Hold on.”
He whipped his head around and barked at Gina. “You the new AC?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Samuel DeGrange.”
“Nice to...”
He brushed aside the pleasantries with an impatient hand. “Go upstairs and tell the DJ to pull his head out of his ass. The clients don’t want Dorothy and Toto, for God’s sake! Then make sure the bar supervisor knows how to mix the fizzy green juice concoction that’s supposed to make the kids think they’re dancing down a new, improved Yellow Brick Road.”
* * *
Eight and a half hours later Gina was zipped into the Glinda the Good Witch costume that had been rented for her predecessor and making frantic last-minute changes to seating charts. Kallie the receptionist—now garbed as a munchkin—wielded a calligraphy pen to scribble out place cards for the twenty additional guests the honoree’s mother had somehow forgotten she’d invited until she was in the limo and on her way from Temple with the newly bat mitzvahed Rachel.
* * *
Another six hours later, Gina collapsed into a green-draped chair and gazed at the rubble. Iridescent streamers in green and gold littered the dance floor. Scattered among them was a forgotten emerald tiara here, an empty party-favors box there. The booths where the seventy-five kids invited to celebrate Rachel’s coming of age had fired green lasers and demolished video villains were being dismantled. Only a few crumbs remained of the fourteen-layer cake with its glittering towers and turrets. The kids invited to the party had devoured it with almost as much gusto as the more than two hundred parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and family friends had drained the open bar upstairs.
Gina stretched out her feet in their glittery silver slippers and aimed a grin at the toothpick-thin Tin Man who flopped into the chair beside her.
“This party business is fun.”
“You think?” Samuel shoved back his tin hat and gave her a