“Don’t stop him,” Julia warned when Susan shrieked after hearing what her father said. “You can’t buy the kind of publicity the relaunch will get now.”
And finally, it’s here: the big night. Susan has just enough time to run home and change (“You need me to do your makeup again?” Julia shouts after her as Susan throws herself back out the door and into a waiting taxi) before she’s back at the restaurant, plating up miniature desserts. In the kitchen, Gloria’s turned up the music and is cranking out amazing dishes, shouting orders, keeping things moving. Rey slides tray after tray of delectable samples from the menu into the dumbwaiter, sending them up to the waitstaff, who hover, ready for the rush.
“Susan! Come on! Doors are open!” Julia yells, tottering halfway down the staircase on impossibly high heels.
Susan pipes one last rosette on a tart, wipes her hands, whips off her apron, and clatters upstairs, giving Rab a few last-minute pointers as she goes.
Elliot’s is mobbed. So jammed full of people already that she can hardly get the kitchen door open to slip out and start mingling. Shoulders and elbows jab her as she passes, and the rising roar of conversation makes it almost impossible to make out what any one person is saying. The bartenders are whipping out drinks, making a show of rattling the cocktail shakers and pouring from a height into perfectly chilled glasses. The waitstaff somehow manages to circulate with their trays, smiling, pointing to the food, enticing everyone to try just a bite. It’s disappearing fast; empty plates and trays go into the dumbwaiter and are returned to the kitchen, and more appear.
Susan catches sight of her father in the crowd, talking to some expensively dressed people, gesturing to the restaurant and then pointing to Julia and patting her on the shoulder. Julia smiles modestly and shrugs. “Oh, this? No big deal. An easy project, really.”
Someone grabs Susan’s hand and shakes it, and she turns to smile in the face of one of the judges from the Foodies Festival. He’s saying something to her, but she can’t make it out, so she just smiles and nods and thanks him.
Have they really invited all these people? It seems like more than she approved for the guest list. She notes the journalists and critics, family and friends, but there are other faces that are familiar but she can’t quite place. And outside …
Dear God! Susan glances out the front window of the restaurant and blinks in astonishment. If it seems mobbed inside, it’s nothing to the scene outside. A massive crowd has gathered, with photographers sprinkled among them, snapping away at people coming in. There are actually police there, doing crowd control. Every now and again, someone coming in pauses at the door, smiles, poses, and the crowd cheers a little louder. One of them is an actor on a ridiculously popular fantasy TV show. Susan didn’t even know he was in Edinburgh. He definitely wasn’t on the guest list.
“Did you invite all these extra people?” she asks Julia, pulling her sister aside from a group of young banker types in the “casual” uniform of jeans and bespoke shoes.
“No,” Julia answers, jerking her arm away. “But be glad they’re here—the press is all over it. Nobody’ll bother with Dan tonight.” With a smug smile and a pat on Susan’s arm, she returns to her admirers.
Susan glances back out the window just in time to see Philip arrive. The crowd shrieks and pushes against the police holding them back. He smiles, waves, stops to sign autographs and submit to hugs from overzealous fans. He spots her through the window, grins, and gestures for her to join him. Susan shakes her head; the crowd doesn’t want her, and the thought of going out there and making herself a spectacle makes her throat go dry.
A smarmy voice beside her remarks, “My, my, quite the turnout tonight.” Rufus. Of course. He sidles up to her, arms clasped behind his back, and looks out at Philip and the crowd. “You’ve done a marvelous job, Susan, just excellent.”
“Thanks,” she says.
“Don’t you want to go out and join him?” Rufus asks, moving a little closer. Susan crosses her arms and finds herself leaning away from him.
“No, I’m fine here.”
“Don’t blame you. I wouldn’t want to be out there either. Not with him, anyway.”
The way he spits the word “him” makes Susan turn toward him, frowning. “What’d he do to you? Why do you hate him so much?”
“I told you—he’s not a nice person.”
“You’ll have to give me more than that.”
“You know he dumped his last girlfriend for getting fat?”
Susan snorts. “I find that very hard to believe.”
“Look it up, then. They were together more than a year, and then she put on weight for a role, and once the film was done, she had trouble taking it back off again. He dumped her four days before the premiere. No warning at all. By text. Some people are such cowards.”
“I’m not exactly a stick,” Susan points out. “And I happen to know there was more to it than that. You’ll have to do better.”
He shrugs. “He may have said there was more to it, but then, he would. He lost a bit of ground with fans when the story broke. So being seen about with you might be a way of rehabilitating his image.” He smirks out the window. “Seems to have worked.”
“I think you’re just trying to create drama,” Susan scoffs, trying not to think of all the times Philip’s put the pair of them on display.
“Believe what you like, my dear. But he’s a product and needs to sell himself. Angry people won’t buy.”
Susan rolls her eyes. “You just want a story. You want a big, dramatic breakup so you can blog about it.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘no’ if that’s what you’re offering.”
“I’m not.”
“I’m not surprised. You don’t seem like the dramatic type.” He sighs. “Can’t fault me for trying, right?”
As she glares at him, Philip pops up beside her and grabs her arm, saying, “Come on! They want to meet you!”
“What? No, Philip, I—”
Too late. He’s dragged her out the door to the front of the restaurant. Susan feels him shoving her toward the crowd, yelling, “Isn’t she amazing? Come to her restaurant!”
She freezes, somehow managing to smile as the crowd roars and people shout things she can’t make out. There are cameras and phones out, snapping pictures and recording. Philip wraps his arm around her shoulder and gives her a big kiss on the cheek. Girls in the crowd squeal. Susan wants nothing more than to retreat back inside, but Philip’s arm is so tight around her, she can’t move. The noise and the chaos and the crowd and the cameras are everywhere, and she thinks, Oh my God, I’m in hell.
* * *
She looks like she’s being tortured, Chris thinks, just managing to make his way through the thicket of people surrounding the entrance to the restaurant. To him, Susan looks pale and overwhelmed, her smile brittle, body tense. He sees Philip throw an arm around her, and she stiffens even more. Get off her, he thinks fiercely. Can’t you see she doesn’t like it? How can you not see it?
He steps toward her, but a policeman blocks his path.