Epilogue
“Valentine!”
Val leaned back in her office chair, looking out her office door at the stairs.
“What!?” she hollered back.
“Get your saintly ass down here, now!”
She rolled her eyes, but did as she was bidden. She skipped her saintly ass down the stairs.
“What's the problem?” she asked, twiddling a pen between her fingers as she walked down a hall and emerged in a large room.
“This!” Marco DelVecchio yelled, holding his arms out wide, gesturing to the scene in front of them. “This is my fucking problem!”
A veritable mountain of presents dominated the room. All different shapes and sizes, they filled every corner, and reached the ceiling. It wouldn't be too long before they reached the edges of the room. Valentine would have to find somewhere else to store them when that happened.
It had been her idea – donate a toy for a tot for Christmas, get a free “private tour” of Caché with the lady of your choice. All the female workers volunteered for the gigs, no one was forced, and the members leapt at the chance. What usually cost them a couple hundred dollars was suddenly free with the purchase of a beanie baby – the gifts poured in. The more presents a member brought, the more intimate the tour.
At the rate they were going, Caché was going to singlehandedly put gifts under the trees for all the needy kids in Chicago.
“You're like Santa, Del,” she laughed. “We should get you a red jacket and white beard.”
“Ha ha, fucking, ha. Meanwhile, I'm done two whole rooms!” he snapped.
“Meanwhile this is going to be a massive tax write off for you,” she reminded him. “Not to mention it will put you in good standing with the community.”
“Yeah, yeah, so you keep saying. How many days until Christmas?”
“Five days, Del. You can tough it out.”
“Whatever. No more of these crazy ideas. Get back to work,” he sighed, shoving her playfully out of the room.
Valentine had quit Caché on Friday. She had spent Saturday and Sunday in bed with Ari. And then on the following Monday, she'd gone back to Caché to apply for a job.
She'd barely spoken a word before Del had said “you're hired”.
Between the two of them, they'd come up with a whole new position for her – event liaison. Del always planned the big events, like for holidays, or for when celebrities showed up, but he hated dealing with members. So Val became the go-between. She gave tours of the spaces, price quotes, estimates. She became keeping a binder full of all their past events, so people could pick and choose from them.
After a couple months, her job role expanded. She realized that while Del had plenty to offer for his VIP clients, he'd never shown any interest in the smaller – but still lucrative – side business of party planning. Frat parties, bachelor/bachelorette parties, birthdays, and her person favorite, newly divorced parties. Sure, they weren't as big a spenders as the rappers and basketball players of the world, but they more than made up for it in quantity.
Instead of maybe just one large party a month, Valentine started taking on one small party a month. One small room in the house dedicated to the party's needs – raunchy games for the hen party, or beer pong for the frat bros, whatever. Included in the fee for the parties were one-night passes to the entire club, which about fifty percent of the time led to people buying full memberships. After eight months, Valentine had a team working under her, coordinating the events they were now hosting twice a weekend.
She was making more money for Del than she ever had as a hostess, and she was actually proud of what she did. She enjoyed it. She still got to dress up, still got to play the part of Saint Valentine, but it was also still her. Still Val.
She loved it, just like Ari had thought she would.
“Oh, shit!” she hissed, glancing at her watch. She'd completely forgotten she had somewhere to be that night.
She raced up to her office – actually Del's old office, he'd moved into a bigger space he'd renovated. She threw all her stuff into her bag, then quickly locked the door behind her before flying back down the stairs.
“There a fire, baby girl?” Serge asked as she almost bowled him over.
“No, I was just supposed to be somewhere ten minutes ago,” she explained, trying to catch her breath.
“Ah. Gotcha. How is fucko doing, anyway?” he asked.
“Ari is fine,” she chuckled. “You still coming over for Christmas?”
“We'll see. Charice usually likes to keep me tied up outside of work hours,” he said, winking at her. She made a gagging noise.
“There are some things that are best left to the imagination. Goodbye, Serge.”
Once outside, she quickly climbed into Ari's Audi. She drove it more often than he did anymore – she'd ridden her bike all through the summer, but when it had started snowing again, he'd insisted on her driving. The roads were icy and dangerous, he'd constantly warned her. She'd insisted she'd be fine, she'd ridden all through last winter. But then she'd taken a nasty fall one night, cutting a six inch gash into the back of her head. She'd been fine, but when Ari had shown up in the E.R., she'd almost thought he was going to hurt somebody, he'd been so angry. He'd threatened to sue the city of Chicago for not salting enough, for not plowing enough, for not making their curbs softer.
It had been very sweet.
After that, he'd bought a second car for himself, claiming he didn't like the Audi very much. She knew it was really because he wanted her to drive it, so she did.
“Love you,” she whispered, kissing her finger tips and then pressing them to the rosary hanging from the rear view mirror. It was her grandmother's. They'd spread her ashes in Lake Michigan, and then the very next day, Valentine had found the rosary mixed up with all her stuff. It was strange, considering her grandmother hadn't been to church in a long time, and she hadn't noticed it in the old house. So she'd taken it as a sign, and had kept it near her ever since.
There was no time to go home and change, so they would have to just deal with her in her club clothes. The silver sequins were a little dramatic for dinner in a nice restaurant, and she was pretty sure the cropped top was against the dress code, but when the maître d' saw the names of the people she'd be joining, they wouldn't care what she was wearing.
They never did.
She pulled to an abrupt stop in the valet line, thankful there was a small back up of cars. She crawled up onto her knees and leaned into the backseat, looking through all the shit back there. Satin and rhinestones and nylon were everywhere, but she was looking for shoes. She finally found a sparkly silver pair of heels buried under a lime green mini skirt.
“Yes!” she shouted, then she shrieked when someone knocked on the glass.
“Uh, ma'am? Valet?” a young kid asked, his eyes glued to her chest. She rolled her eyes and opened the door.
“Yes, thank you,” she grumbled, hopping into her shoes before grabbing her purse. He handed her the ticket, and then she hurried around the car.
She'd never been to this restaurant before, but it looked nice. It sat right on the water, spectacular views from all three sides. She patted her hand over her hair, hoping she looked have as good.