We decided to go to lunch today and afterwards, go shopping for the Heart Ball. I waited in the kitchen for her to arrive. Frederick was cooking up something delicious, as usual, and the house was spotless.
I really didn’t know how I’d lived without him for so long. Frederick had even organized my closet by color and designer. He was the perfect house husband, sans the sex.
I looked at Frederick standing at the stove doing his thing. He looked kind of cute with his apron decorated with hot peppers.
“I’m waiting on Venus to pick me up. We’re going to buy our dresses for the Heart Ball,” I said, eyeing the dish he was baking. “What is that?”
“Baked eggplant parmigiana. Will you be home for dinner or shall I put it in the fridge for you?”
“I should be home.”
“It’s okay if I leave early today?” Frederick asked me.
“Sure. Hot date?”
Frederick
smiled at me. “Something like that.”
A horn beeped outside. “That’s Venus. Have fun tonight. I’ll see you later.”
Grabbing my favorite Coach bag, I headed out the door. Venus was waiting in her limo. She was fortunate enough to have a personal driver and lived a life of luxury. The driver held the door open for me as I slid in the back next to Venus.
“You look nice.” I admired her Alice and Olivia mini dress and Ferragamo pumps.
“You, too. I don’t think I’ve seen that dress on you yet.”
I looked down at my dark blue Escada dress. “Yeah, I forgot I had it. Frederick cleaned out my closet and then organized my clothes by designer, color, and season.”
“Really? That guy is too good to be true.”
“I know. Right? I found about twelve outfits I had bought and forgotten about. It was like Christmas, all those new outfits with price tags still on them.”
“I have a special surprise for you.” Venus smiled and handed me a glass of white wine.
“What?”
“After lunch, we have a meeting with Santino Rice. He designed our dresses for the Heart Ball.” Venus clinked her glass to mine. “I gave him our measurements a couple months ago. Today’s the first fitting.”
“Really? That’s awesome.” I loved Venus. She had a big heart, and despite everything she was going through with Mr. Vanderbilt, she always found time to make other people feel special.
“So tell me, darling. Have you asked Brad to the ball?”
I must have blushed because she said, “What happened?”
“I kissed Brad. Or rather, he kissed me and I kissed him back.” I downed the rest of the wine and poured myself another glass.
“About bloody time,” Venus laughed. “How was it? Do tell.”
“It was passionate. Hot. Delicious. And it was wrong.”
“What do you mean, wrong? He’s single. You’re single. He’s gorgeous. You’re beautiful. What’s wrong about that?”
I looked at her like she was crazy. “He’s my business partner. I can’t have a personal relationship with my business partner.”
“Not only can you have a relationship with your business partner, but you can have a little something on the side, too.”
I glanced out the window at the palm trees lining the street. An older lady in bright orange sweats was walking her dogs. I counted six pooches, various sizes, all with rhinestone collars. Only in LA.
“It was just a kiss,” I said already growing tired of the conversation. “I doubt anything will come of it.”
“Why not ask Brad to the Heart Ball? You can explore the option of having a relationship other than of a professional nature.” Venus refilled her wine glass for the third time. “See what happens.”
I thought about her suggestion. What would it hurt? And the kiss…I sure would like another one of those.
Asking Brad to the Heart Ball took more courage than I’d originally thought. I hadn’t asked a man out in quite a while. Usually it was the other way around.
Brad poked his head around my office door. “Hey, you ready for lunch?”
I put down the medical file that I’d been reviewing and got up from the desk. “Sure, I’m starving.”
“Want to go back to Marcello’s? My mouth is watering for his clam linguine.” Brad stepped aside to let me through the door.
“Sounds good.”
Brad was quiet on the way to the restaurant. I wondered what was on his mind. Neither one of us had talked about the kiss and I hated the awkwardness between us.
Marcello was happy to see me, as usual. He gave me a kiss and a knowing wink as he led us to the back of the restaurant to a quiet table. “Your father? He okay now?” Marcello asked quietly as he pulled out a chair for me.
“Yes, Marcello, he’s doing very well.”
“You tell Frank next time they are in town, he can come by and have dinner on the house.”
“Sure thing, Marcello.”
Marcello was such a sweetheart. He took our drink order and left.
“I wanted to talk to you away from all the office drama,” Brad said.
I braced myself for him revisiting our passionate kiss in the doctor’s lounge.
“Since Frank’s been sick, I haven’t had the chance to talk to either of you about opening the fertility clinic,” he started the conversation.
Well, now I knew what was on his mind. And it wasn’t the kiss. Apparently he just wanted to sweep it under the rug. I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or relieved.
My dad’s plan was to have Brad eventually start a clinic where we would treat infertile couples, offering IVF treatments and other options in achieving pregnancy. While I thought it was a great idea, I wasn’t sure if we were ready to take that leap. We would need more office space – we were already splitting at the seams now – and more staff and equipment to run a successful clinic.
Brad must have sensed my tension. He reached in his coat pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper and slid it across the table.
“I ran the figures that Frank requested. Here’s what it will cost to get us started. I had Mr. Vanderbilt check on the office space next door and their lease is up in four months. We can put in an offer to the landlord now before someone else snaps it up.”
I picked up the sheet of paper and looked over the figures. I wasn’t too worried about the cost. I knew my father had enough to cover the clinic’s expenses until we were up and running. And the clinic should pay for itself quickly. More women wanted babies later in life, and older women had more difficulties conceiving. We lived in an area that was obviously very wealthy, and these women could afford specialist care. Our specialist care.
What I was worried about was stretching us too thin. And my father’s health. Even though he wasn’t physically active in the practice, I knew he still obsessed over everything, and I didn’t want to add another thing to his plate. We’d talked about this before his heart attack. Now things had changed.
“I’ll fax it to Frank and talk to him about it.” I put the paper down and sighed.
“What is it? “Brad asked, sensing my reluctance.
“I’m worried this is too much too fast. I think we just need to wait until my father is doing a little better.”
Marcello brought us our drinks and told us the lunch special of the day. Baked ziti with fire-roasted garlic marinara. Brad looked pleased. “I was hoping for clam linguine, but that sounds terrific.”
We both got the special and waited for Marcello to leave.
“I can oversee the fertility clinic operations. We can hire an additional nurse practitioner to help with patients – someone to carry the lighter load like BP checks, blood tests, glucose monitoring, that sort of thing. We can build our patient base slowly while we wait for the lease next door to be up. I can see fertility patients one or two days a week. We already have a few now that I’ll have to refer out to LA Fertility Clinic.”
“Let me talk to Frank this weekend. We’ll see what we can do.”
We talked about it for a few more minutes until Marcello brought out our lunch. This time, his lovely wife and cook, Rose, came out with him to say hi. She wanted me to tell my parents hello and that she had been praying for them. I think she also wanted the opportunity to check out Brad and see what she could report back to my mother.
Finally, they left us alone and Brad and I dug into our food.
After the last bite was consumed, I started to get my nerve up to ask him about escorting me to the Heart Ball. I felt like I was back in middle school again and nervously waiting to ask a boy to the Sadie Hawkins dance. I took a sip of my water and started my well-rehearsed speech.
“You know the Heart Ball is in a couple of weeks,” I began.
Brad pushed his plate aside. “Oh, I’m glad you brought that up.”
Great. He was going to ask me instead. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Yes?” I waited.
“I know you had already planned to go and I was covering that weekend…”
I waved him off. “It’s okay. I was planning on asking Dr. Kelso to cover for us.” This was going better than I’d thought. I couldn’t wait to see Brad’s face when I wore my beautiful Santino Rice red ball gown.
Brad smiled at me. “Oh, good. I already told Olivia that I’d take her. You know she’s getting an award from Hilary Jackson for her work with pediatric cardiology patients.”
My stomach dropped. Did I hear him right? He was going with Olivia?
“What’s wrong?”
I regained my composure. Why would I even think he’d go with me? That kiss was just a moment of weakness on both of our parts.
Brad continued to stare at me. “Oh, no.” It was like a light bulb went off in his head. “Did you want us to go together?”
Now he was being Mr. Perceptive. A little late.
“Nnn…no.” I shook my head. “I mean, I was just going to invite you to sit at our table.” God, I felt foolish right now.
“Ah, well, I think Olivia already bought a table. That was nice of you, though. Thanks.” Brad still looked uncertain. “Are you sure you’re okay with that?”
I rooted around in my purse, threw two twenties on the table to cover our lunch, and got up to leave. “Of course.” I looked at my watch. “We’d better head back to the office.”
So I guess Olivia still had her claws in Brad. I blanked out on the ride back to the office while Brad chatted about the fertility clinic some more. He was very passionate about it, and I just wasn’t in the mood to think about business. I wanted to know what I needed to do to get over my feelings for him.
Frederick seemed really distracted. He was working on his second batch of toast, having burned the first one. The bacon was smoking and the water for the eggs was boiling over.
“Ummm, Frederick, are you trying to burn down the house?” I asked as I pointed toward the smoking frying pan.
“Oh, sorry.” He dropped the orange juice container on the countertop, ran over to the stove, and removed the smoking pan. “So sorry, Ms. Hope.”
“You haven’t worked for me very long, Frederick, but I can tell something is wrong. You’ve never burnt anything and are an excellent cook. So what gives? What’s on your mind?”
Frederick
sighed as he turned off the stove and then trashed the second batch of burnt toast. “Bagels and cream cheese okay?” he asked.