One More Night. Jennifer McKenzie
Or nothing that would fit the type of party Grace expected the engaged couple would appreciate. Though she’d once organized a do that took place on the side of a mountain in a snowstorm, so she suspected she could make something work.
“The location won’t be a problem. We own three wine bars and a restaurant. We’ll use one of them.” He looked at her and Grace felt another shudder. Tinier but still unexpected. “I’ll take you on a tour.”
“Great.” Grace lowered her hands to her lap and curled her fingers into her napkin until the tingle under her skin eased. It really was too bad Owen didn’t tick any of the boxes on her husband list. No office job to let him be home with the future kids when she had a demanding wedding. No long-term relationships in his past, which she took to mean he wouldn’t or couldn’t settle down. And when he wasn’t wearing flip-flops, he was wearing sneakers. She focused on the reason for their meeting. The engagement party. “An evening reception, I assume?”
Owen nodded. “And probably on a Sunday, since Fridays and Saturdays are our peak times. Not that we mind shutting down for something special, but the guests are in the same industry. It’s hard for people to get away on busy nights.”
“Of course.” Grace was impressed he’d thought to mention it. Owen might not seem to be a particularly serious person, but he wasn’t dumb. She mentally upped the percentage of people who were likely to attend from 70 to 80 percent. Although there would still be some who would decline, holding the party on a Sunday meant a prior engagement was unlikely.
“So, what had you in the office bright and early on a Sunday morning?”
“Work.” She had a lot of it and she was grateful. There were many wedding and event planners who barely managed to make enough to pay the rent on their offices, so she wasn’t going to complain about being busy. Of course, she knew it wasn’t a long-term plan. Not only was it an impossible pace to keep up, but she also did have plans for her personal life. Although the money was excellent and it provided her not just the ability to hire more staff, but also the opportunity to have her name and her work on display for other potential clients to enjoy. Grace figured that come the end of summer and her busy season, she could revisit her business plan and make adjustments to get her life in better balance.
Perhaps she could hire another assistant. She could definitely raise her prices. She was good enough at what she did to justify that.
“What else did you do this weekend?”
“Actually, I had a lot of work to catch up on from the week, which is why I was in the office.” She didn’t explain that this had been her life for the past six months. It was both boring and none of his business.
“Well, then it’s a good thing I could convince you to come out for brunch.” Owen’s expression was cheerful, no sign of the admonishment that she’d see from her mother. Her parents understood the value of hard work but not at the expense of her personal life.
Grace nodded slowly. “Yes, it is.” And she wasn’t lying. “What about you?”
“I had to work last night, but I spent yesterday morning hitting some golf balls at the range. Today I went for a run before I called you. I like running in the morning before it gets too hot. And I’ll work tonight.”
So he worked, too, but made some time for himself. Of course, he wasn’t a sole proprietor, nor was he building something from the ground up. He’d taken over a business that was already stable and successful, so really not the same at all. Still, Grace felt a niggle of envy that he seemed to manage both so fluidly. She hoped she’d be able to do the same.
“What do you do when you’re not working?”
It had been so long since she hadn’t worked that Grace wasn’t sure how to answer. She liked gardening, but living in a downtown condo, she was restricted to doing so out of a container. She kept meaning to take advantage of one of the community gardens around the city, joining one close to home where she could avail herself of a larger plot of land to grow something more than herbs and sprawling annuals, but there never seemed to be time. When she was married and had a proper house with a proper backyard, Grace planned to have a full vegetable garden, one where she and the kids could pick ingredients fresh off the vine for that night’s meal. She liked reading, though most nights she fell asleep before she got through a single chapter. She worked out six days a week. Pilates three days and an hour on the elliptical machine the other three. But that was as much for health as for fun.
When she thought about it, it was kind of sad. “I have a patio garden,” she said. “I grew up on a farm, so it’s a way to keep in touch with that.” She wondered why she’d added the last bit. She’d never really thought about it, but she realized after she said it that it was true. She hadn’t followed in the family footsteps, but many of their lessons and beliefs had stuck. Communing with nature, the feel of digging her fingers deep into the dirt below the warm topsoil and into the coolness beneath.
“My mom’s a longtime gardener. And my dad has recently taken it up, too, though I’m not sure my mom always appreciates that.” Owen leaned forward as though to share a secret or private thought. “He took over some of her space and planted vegetables. And now they regularly battle over who actually owns the spot. I think he dug up some peonies to make room for some tomato plants.”
Grace smiled. “I wish him good luck with that.”
“So you’ve met my mother?”
This time she laughed. “I’ve not yet had that pleasure, but peonies are hardy plants and they’re perennials.” When he looked at her blankly, she explained. “They bloom every year and are difficult to get rid of once they’ve rooted. I wouldn’t be surprised if they continue to spring up around the tomato plants.”
Owen laughed. “Dad will love that.”
Grace smiled again. His story reminded her of her own family. Not that her parents ever battled over gardening space, not with twenty acres of land at their disposal, but the idea of working together, of being a team. She felt a small clutch in her stomach. It was a team she didn’t really have a place on.
“I like to run,” Owen offered and Grace was grateful for the distraction. “And golf, though I don’t get out as often as I’d like these days. And I love seeing live music, preferably at one of the smaller, less well-known clubs in the city.”
“I’ve heard,” Grace said, thinking of the photos she’d found of Owen at any number of clubs both well-known and not.
“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow. “Have you been checking up on me? I’m flattered, but you could have just asked. I’ll tell you whatever you like.”
Now she felt embarrassed and a little foolish. Not that she’d done the checking up—that was just good business—but that she’d let down her guard enough to admit it. She changed the subject. “What kind of food were you thinking for the party? Will it be a cocktail reception or a full dinner?”
Again, Owen eyed her closely, seeming to understand that he’d landed on something she’d prefer not to talk about. This time, he didn’t let her off the hook. “Have you been internet-stalking me?”
“No, of course not,” Grace lied without a blink. She didn’t like to lie, but she was good at it. A skill learned when she’d still been a teenager. A thirteen-year-old who only wanted to go to her friend’s house to watch Dawson’s Creek, since there was no TV at her house, so that she could be part of the conversation about who was cuter, Pacey or Dawson, that invariably sprung up at school. She hadn’t had a computer or internet access, either, and the only way she got to listen to music that wasn’t performed by a family member was on an old Walkman one of her friends had given her when that friend had gotten a fancy new Discman for her birthday.
Grace had loved that Walkman. She didn’t care that it wasn’t the latest in technology and that the only tapes she had were those donated by the same friend and her parents, and mainly consisted of ’80s hair bands. It provided an audio oasis. A way for her to shut out