“Arils,” Vanessa said, holding her glass up to the light and turning it back and forth.
“Arils, right. I can never remember that.”
“So what should we toast to?” She glanced over at him and felt little butterflies take wing in her stomach.
He pondered the question. “How about, ‘To new beginnings,’?”
“‘To new beginnings.’ I like the sound of that. I feel like we should add something to make it more martial, though.”
“Martial?”
“You know. More warlike,” she said.
“We could toast like Vikings,” he said. “They were very into war.”
Vanessa laughed. “Okay, to new beginnings, but like the Vikings. How do we do that?”
“Face me.”
They scooted around to face each other.
“Put your glass down for a second. Now we link arms”—he crooked his arm in front of him and she hooked her arm through it—“and you put your glass back into your hand like this.”
They both giggled as they awkwardly maneuvered their glasses into place.
“To new beginnings,” he said.
“To new beginnings.”
A toast begun in jest turned intimate as they tipped their glasses back simultaneously.
“I think I drank an aril,” he said as they untangled their arms.
“I think I did too,” she said.
They smiled at each other.
The crowd thinned as the night wound to a close. One by one—or, in some cases, two by two—the crew members departed, leaving behind only the venue staff and the two Legacy managers.
Vanessa had no idea how to get Dirk to go home.
He sat at the piano, with a score of empty wine glasses perched on its acrylic ledge, singing softly and accompanying himself with a sad melody. Despite his obvious state, he didn’t miss a note.
“Dirk … ” Vanessa patted his epauletted shoulder. “Dirk. You should go home now.”
He stopped singing, at least. The piano melody continued.
She tried again. “Dirk. Let me call you a cab.”
He mashed a discordant batch of notes all at once, then crossed his arms on the piano and dropped his head on his arms with a thud.
Vanessa pulled at his shoulders to make him sit up.
“All I ever wanted was to work here. But I’ll never be a manager.”
As he spoke, Vanessa’s eyes widened more and more. “Dirk, I’m sure you—”
“No, I won’t,” he interrupted. “I’m not stupid. I thought”—he picked up an empty wine glass and studied it—“I thought if I did everything they wanted they would finally see I could be one of them.”
“What did they want exactly?” asked Vanessa, alarmed, but Dirk didn’t pay any attention.
“They were just using me,” he said. He threw the plastic wine glass to the floor.
Vanessa slid onto the piano bench and patted his shoulder again.
Dirk reeked of alcohol.
“Mr. Destiny wants me to talk about all the crew members,” he said, wiping his reddened eyes. “I’m supposed to blab on the same people who bought me drinks and made me a tip jar—a tip jar!” He held up another wine glass, this one stuffed with moist dollar bills. “And for what? He’s not ever going to make me a manager. At least the crew thought I was fun. No one ever thinks I’m fun. I know what they think of me.”
Vanessa held her tongue. Whatever he needed to say, he needed to say it—no matter how confused it came out.
“I may be Dirk the Jerk, but I’m not his jerk. I’m my own jerk,” he concluded before slumping over the piano again.
“Dirk?”
He flopped his head up and down.
She took it as encouragement. “You can be whatever you want, starting tomorrow. You need—as someone very wise once told me—to fight the good fight.” She hauled him to his feet and steered him toward the door. “It’s time for a new beginning.”
Chapter 16
Vanessa
“Buck up, soldier,” Vanessa said as she handed Dirk a mug of strong coffee. She sat down at her desk with her own mug.
Dirk drank the scalding hot coffee and winced.
Vanessa blew on her coffee and observed him. His gelled hair sat askew over his puffy eyes. She pulled a wad of dollars out of her purse and laid it on her desk. It smelled of wine.
Dirk eyed the pile. “Is that … ?”
“Your ‘tips’ from last night, yes,” said Vanessa.
He scooped up the bills and blushed. “I remember playing the piano.”
“Anything else?”
He shook his head slowly. “Was there something else?” he asked.
She had to walk the line between magnanimous and menacing, well enough that he would believe she had something on him but chose not to use it. She let the silence play before she answered. “I don’t think it’s anything we need to address right now.”
He met her gaze with panic in his eyes.
Bingo.
“You performed beautifully, by the way,” she said, letting him off the hook just a little.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Did you know there’s an opening for a piano player at the Galaxy Lounge?” she asked.
“No kidding?” He laughed nervously.
Vanessa nodded and sipped her coffee. “You know, we still need to pick someone for the Silver Mirror award.”
He opened his mouth to speak, checked himself, and subsided.
“Did you have someone in mind?” she said.
“I was just thinking about Marco. He’s perfect. He’s so new he hasn’t done anything wrong,” Dirk said.
Coming from Dirk, it was a shockingly good choice. On paper, Marco fulfilled the union-buster’s requirement—no “troublemakers”—but in reality, it would rile the crew members to have someone so new selected for a special prize.
The Silver Mirror ploy would backfire on upper management, and they’d never see it coming.
Now Dirk was watching her with his eyebrows raised as if he were trying to communicate something without saying it.
Was he intentionally trying to tank the true purpose of the award?