HOLLY
At 4:28 P.M., we officially open the doors of All for Wine and Wine for All! and begin our new lives.
Well, okay, we don’t officially open our doors. But that’s when Karen, my agent, perpetually on the phone, begins pounding on the door incessantly, so I guess we’re opening early.
“It’s just Karen! I got it!” I yell to the girls, who are getting ready in the back.
I quickly run up to the door and unlock it to stop Karen’s banging. “You’re early,” I tell her.
Karen whisks in, looking like her usual fabulous Neiman Marcus self: Tory Burch jeans with a six-hundred-dollar “kicky” top and Louboutins so high I wonder if she had to take a class in stilt walking before she put them on. “Darling, it’s not going any farther,” she says into the phone.
It’s not going any farther is agentspeak for, You had an audition and two callbacks and they still didn’t hire you. Go get a brownie.
“I know, it sucks. Now promise me you won’t indulge in Kummerspeck. Just go for a nice run to get all of your feelings out. Call you tomorrow.” She hangs up her phone and throws it in her bag as she air-kisses me on the cheek. “I’m sorry, darling. What did you say?”
“I said you’re early,” I repeat. “And what’s Kummerspeck?”
“It means ‘grief bacon.’ And if I’m not ten minutes early, I’m late,” Karen says, walking to the center of the bar and doing a slow spin to check out the place. “Just put me to work. Do you need some candles lit?”
Before I can answer, she exclaims, “Well, isn’t this charming? I love it. Let me make some phone calls—let’s get some more people in here.”
“Okay … sounds good,” I say.
Karen pulls out her phone and looks at her screen. “Fantastic. Who do you want? Famous people or paying customers?”
“Yes. Can I get you a drink?”
“Dirty martini, two olives.”
“Pinot Gris it is,” I tell her, heading behind the bar as she texts. “So how’s work going?”
“It’s not as much fun without my favorite client,” she tells me as I pull out a bottle of Pinot Gris from the Marlborough region of New Zealand. “But of course I wouldn’t dream of pressuring you to come back.”
As I pour her a glass, I ask bluntly, “Is that your passive-aggressive way of telling me you’re firing me, or your passive-aggressive way of asking me when I’m going back to work?”
Karen is laser focused on her phone as she absentmindedly sits down on a stool across the bar from me. “It means I’m proud of you but I miss you. No hidden agenda.” She hits Send, then tosses her phone on the bar and smiles at me. “By the way, I happened to invite a few casting agents tonight. Maybe a director or two…”
I wince. “Damn it! Karen, I’m nervous enough about tonight…”
“Which is why I’m here. To soothe you yet encourage you. And if part of what I encourage you to do is cheerfully ply a few job creators with booze and then pour them into an Uber…”
“Crap. Who did you invite?”
“Fans. People who love you. Forget I said anything,” Karen says, taking a big sip of her white wine. “This is lovely, dear. Thank you.”
I take a deep, cleansing breath, then exhale my nerves out. “Excellent. Now if you’ll excuse me…”
“That’s what you’re wearing?” she asks, referring to the tasteful sleeveless black dress I bought when I thought Sven would be here.
“Yes, Karen, this is what I’m wearing,” I tell her patiently.
“Black? What do you think that says to people?”
“I don’t know. That I’m opening a bar?”
“And where’s the cleavage?”
“I’m opening a bar, not a brothel.”
“But I have people coming to see you.”
“Yes, and I’m not auditioning anymore, remember?”
She crosses her arm and pouts. “Fine.”
“Thank you,” I say, turning on the cash register to make sure everything works.
Karen waits all of ten seconds before saying, “You could at least color in your eyebrows a little more…”
“Karen!”
“And that’s all I’m going to say about anything. Forget I’m here.”
Yeah, that’ll happen.