I rest my case.
I’m not sure exactly which “delicacy” is on my newest tray — it looks like a slab of lukewarm tofu with some kind of shaved tartar on top. In short, it’s about as appetizing as a turd on a communion wafer.
Amuse-bouche my ass.
“Cindy!” The sharp bark assaults my ears. “Cindy, are you listening?”
My eyes swing to Miriam, the catering coordinator for the event, and I find she’s glaring at me with unveiled hostility.
“Sorry,” I mutter, belatedly remembering that I’m Cindy — for tonight anyway. Cindy Smith. That’s the name I gave when I filled out the application for this job last week. As far as Miriam knows, I’m a fresh-faced post-grad new to the city, in need of a job and in possession of several fabulous — fictional — references that easily scored me the position.
“Did you hear me?” she snaps, a tsk noise escaping her tight-pressed lips. Her severe frown lines wage war against the Botox straining to keep her face two decades younger than the rest of her body. She clutches her clipboard tighter against her prim black blazer and narrows her eyes at me. “Cindy, I know you’re new, but I expect basic competence. If you ever expect to work another event with me, get your head out of the clouds and your ass out there before the tray gets cold. I’m not paying you to stand around daydreaming. Move it!”
I, in fact, am not planning to ever work another event for The Catered Affair for the rest of eternity so long as I can help it, but Miriam doesn’t need to know that. Biting back the withering retort poised on my lips, I nod, swipe the tray off the prep table and hoist it into the air with a mocking flourish.
I’m almost to the doors that lead from the kitchen to the function room when they swing inward. Mara, one of the other girls working the event, bustles through in the same ugly uniform I was forced into — black slacks, androgynous button down and a truly terrible mini-vest that makes Hilary Clinton’s famed pantsuits look downright sexy by comparison. There’s an empty tray in her hands and a haggard look on her face.
“Vultures,” she mutters. “Picked my tray clean in under five minutes.” Her clear green eyes focus on my face as she scoots out of my path and holds the door open for me. “Word of advice?”
My eyebrows lift as I step into the hallway.
“Watch out for the guy in the gray pinstripe suit. He’s handsy if you get too close.”
“Fabulous,” I mutter as the door swings closed at my back. Steadying my shoulders, I shake the wig out of my eyes and prepare to face a room full of seventy of Boston’s most affluent businessmen and their arm-candy trophy wives. By the end of the night, one of them is going to wish he’d never crossed my path, considering what I’ve got in store for him. And I’m not just talking about the tofu tartar.
* * *
“Honey glazed edamame?” I offer bleakly, tray extended to the cluster of men by the bar. They don’t even glance at me as they grab the appetizers and pop them in their mouths.
I fight a shudder as I watch the slimy green seeds go down the hatch.
I’m on my fourth and blessedly final circulation of the 40th floor ballroom where Lancaster Consolidated is hosting their annual pre-Christmas party. Once the cocktail hour is over, we get a twenty-minute break while the attendees find their seats in the adjacent parlor, before the dinner service starts. That’s my window: twenty minutes. I hope it’s enough.
It has to be enough.
It’s the only window I’ll ever get.
My eyes slide to the corner of the room where Robert Lancaster, CEO of Lancaster Consolidated and host of this exclusive soiree, is holding court. He’s surrounded on all sides by brown-nosing associates hoping to get in good with Boston’s premiere import-export kingpin.
Middle-aged and somewhat pudgy with thinning brown hair and a truly unfortunate hodgepodge of features, he’s not exactly Johnny Depp. And yet he’s quite popular with the ladies, if his string of high profile ex-wives and ex-mistresses — many of whose “acting” and “singing” careers he’s bankrolled — are anything to go by.
I watch him laugh and snag a canapé off Mara’s tray, shoving it into his mouth with gusto. Those hovering around watch avidly as he chews open-mouthed, waiting in suspense for his next words. To the casual observer, he’s the epitome of a success: a beloved businessman basking in the glory of his financial empire.
I know better.
My eyes cut to the slim silver watch cuffing my wrist. Half past six. Dinner is scheduled to start at seven sharp, a point Miriam has belabored multiple times since I arrived. If my plan’s going to work, I need to empty this tray ASAP and get a move on.
I head for the far side of the room with a smile pasted on my lips, unloading several glazed edamame balls on unsuspecting guests as I go. I’m circling toward the kitchen doors — and freedom — when a beefy hand lands on my ass.