Neck & Neck (2 page)

So far, the brightest star Natalie had been able to harness for Clementine’s party was a first-round reject of the now-defunct—for obvious reasons—reality series,
Pimp My Toddler
. And as it was, little Tiffany was going to have to be home by eight if she wanted to make her bedtime. It would all be downhill after that.

Oh, Natalie was
such
a loser.

“Then you think we should move forward as if the majority of the guest list was coming?” Clementine asked.

“Oh, you bet,” Natalie assured her. She was, after all, way better at harnessing delusions than she was celebrities. “Just you wait, Clementine. By the end of next week, those RSVPs will be pouring in with the little ‘Of course we can come’ boxes checked.” She smiled a coy smile that was even more convincing than her debutante one. “I have a little secret weapon I’m saving for the right time.”

Clementine’s overly painted eyebrows shot up at that. “What secret weapon?”

Natalie lifted her finger to her lips and mimicked a
shh
ing motion. Then she whispered conspiratorially, “It’s a secret.”

Clementine’s expression turned concerned. “Yes, dear, but don’t you think you could share it with me? The hostess?” Then, as if that weren’t enough, she elaborated, “The hostess who’s signing all those checks?”

Natalie took Clementine’s hand in hers and uttered those immortal words of self-employed people everywhere: “Trust me.” Then, before her client could object further, she added, “I’ve been planning parties like yours for eight months now, Clementine. I assure you, I know what I’m doing.”

Which was true, since Natalie knew that what she was doing was failing miserably. Although she had indeed been planning parties for eight months, Clementine’s was by far the most ambitious, way outpacing the handful of birthday parties, two bat mitzvahs, one retirement gathering, and a series of bunko nights, at least one of which was best forgotten, since Natalie had misunderstood the hostess of that one and, thinking it was a bachelorette party, had sent a male stripper dressed like a gladiator into a roomful of octogenarians. Not that the party hadn’t received rave reviews afterward, mind you, but Mrs. Parrish’s Bible study group really hadn’t come prepared for it. Beyond those events, Natalie had put together an eighth-grade graduation party, a kindergarten reunion, and one debut, which had mostly served to remind her how awkward and uncomfortable she’d been at her own debut.

Not exactly a success story, she thought. And not for the first time.

“Then the new business is faring well, dear?” Clementine asked.

“Oh, very well,” Natalie said. Figuratively speaking, at least. Provided
very well
figuratively meant
absolute, unmitigated failure
.

Under any other circumstances—like, say, if Clementine Hotchkiss had never met Natalie’s aunt Margaret—the question would have been perfectly harmless and in no way noteworthy. But there was every chance that Clementine was asking it on behalf of Natalie’s aunt, who would happily report back to Natalie’s mother, which meant she was fishing for information about the status of Party Favors. And there was no way Natalie was going to give her client information that might find its way right back to her mother. Especially since she’d been sidestepping her mother’s similar inquiries for so long that Natalie had invented a whole new dance, the subterfuge samba. If her mother inhaled even the slightest whiff of the stench that Party Favors had begun to issue, she’d be circling the steaming pile of Natalie’s latest business failure like flies on horse doody.

Because Party Favors was only one of many steaming piles Natalie had left in her wake over the past seven years—if one could pardon the extremely socially unacceptable metaphor. Ever since earning her business degree, Natalie Beckett had been trying to launch a business of some kind, always with disappointing results.

Okay, okay, always with disastrous results.

What was ironic, though, was that Natalie didn’t have to rely on a business to make her way in the world. The Beck etts were one of Louisville’s premier families—Natalie’s parents lived in Glenview, too, right up the road from Clementine, in the third mansion on the right—and she’d had access to a very generous trust fund from the time she turned eighteen. But Natalie didn’t want to rely on a trust fund. She wanted even less to rely on a wealthy husband. Natalie wanted a career. She wanted to be something more than Dody and Ernest Beckett’s daughter and Lynette and Forrest Beckett’s little sister. She wanted to do more with her life than volunteer for (choose at least one) medical research, social awareness, artistic expansion, educational development, or all of the above. And she wanted to be more than a pampered wife and pampering mother. She wanted to be . . .

Successful. On her own terms. Make her own way, her own name in the world. Unfortunately, the only path she’d been able to hew through the jungle of life so far had led to failure, with a brief stopover at disaster.

As if she’d just spoken that last thought aloud, Clementine said, “I’m so glad things are working out this time. I confess I had to wonder about the last business venture you undertook. I just couldn’t imagine there being a big demand for doggie massage.”

“Well, there was a little more to it than that,” Natalie began to object. It hadn’t been doggie massage. Good heavens. That would have been silly. What Spa le Fido had offered was Rover reflexology. Along with poochie pedicure, muttley manicure, hound hydrotherapy, and canine coiffure.

“And what was the one before the doggie massage?” Clementine asked. “Something about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.”

“Hanging Gardens of Baby Bibb,” Natalie corrected. At the time, the name had seemed so terribly clever. Now it just seemed to make no sense. “Organic hydroponics,” she clarified for her client. Not that that would probably clear anything up for Clementine, since the only hydro she probably knew anything about was the alpha hydroxy she bought at the Lancôme counter.

“That was it,” Clementine said. She cocked her head thoughtfully to one side. “You know, Mr. Hotchkiss actually considered investing in that hanging gardens venture.”

This was news to Natalie. Maybe if he had followed through, she could have done a little better with the enterprise, and it would have lasted longer than nine days. “Really?” she asked. “What made him change his mind?”

Clementine smiled, then patted her shoulder. “He sobered up, dear.”

Ah.

“It’s just as well those businesses didn’t flourish,” Clementine said now with remarkable tact. “Party Favors is something you seem much more suited to. Having been the darling of so many parties yourself over the years, it would make sense that planning them would be something you’re good at.”

Yeah, well, that had been the theory,
Natalie thought. Unfortunately, it was working about as well as the theory of Communism. Of course, now that she thought about it, that could be because, contrary to Clementine’s assertions, Natalie had never exactly been the darling of
any
one’s party. Disaster? Yes. Darling? Not so much.

“You always were the center of attention at any celebration,” Clementine recalled further.

That part was actually true, Natalie conceded. Because she’d been the center of catastrophe at every celebration. Now that she thought about it, that was probably something she should have taken into consideration before launching a party planning business.

Gee, hindsight really was twenty-twenty.

Her client sighed with much feeling. “I must confess, Natalie, that I still have a few misgivings about the party.”

Only a few? Wow, Natalie had way more than that. But she told Clementine, once again adopting her soothing voice, “That’s only natural. But don’t worry. Everything is moving along exactly as it’s supposed to.” And although that wasn’t completely true, there were a few things that
were
going right, and it wouldn’t hurt to remind Clementine of those. “The caterers
I
hired for you
eight months ago
,” she said, “are now running a restaurant that’s become one of the hottest tickets in town. Everyone wanted them for their Derby Eve parties, but you already had them, Clementine. And I just found out this week that the jazz band
I
hired
five months ago
is going to be featured in the
Scene
tomorrow as the city’s latest locally grown success who are about to sign with a national record label. Everyone will want them for their parties, Clementine, but you’ll already have them.”

And that, truly, was where Natalie’s talents lay. She could spot talent and predict trends months before anyone else caught on—well, doggie spas and organic hydroponics notwithstanding. She had been hoping that would be enough to move her event planning business ahead of all the others. She really was suited to this. She really had planned an excellent party for Clementine. They just didn’t have enough clout in the Derby Eve milieu to command big crowds, that was all.

Not yet, anyway.

But Natalie was determined that she would not fail in this venture. She
was
good at this. She
could
make a go of it. She
would
ensure that Clementine Hotchkiss’s party was a rousing success and that Party Favors, by being responsible for it, would be a rousing success, too.

Just as soon as she figured out how to bring people to Clementine Hotchkiss’s party.

“Don’t worry, Clementine,” she reassured her client again. “I
promise
your Derby Eve bash will be the social event of the season, and the one everybody is talking about come Derby Day. I
promise
.”

It
had
to be, Natalie vowed to herself. It just had to. Because if Clementine’s party failed, then the next event she would be planning would be a wedding. Her own. To a man she’d rather bury than marry.

 

 

BY THE TIME NATALIE ARRIVED BACK AT HER FRANKFORT Avenue office, she’d managed to shove thoughts of the imminently more buryable than marryable Dean Waterman back to the furthest, darkest recesses of her brain, which was where they belonged. No, actually, the furthest, darkest recesses of her brain were still too nice a place for Dean. She didn’t care how much her parents liked him or how convinced they were that he was the man she should be tied to for the rest of her life. And she didn’t care that Dean had been saying since childhood that someday he would make Natalie his Mrs., and that, to this day, he continued to make no secret of the fact that he was convinced she would be the perfect wife for him.

Dean Waterman was the very definition of smarmy. And cloying. And supercilious. And icky. And he’d been that way since she met him at the age of ten, in cotillion class. Between the sweaty palms and the prepubescent complexion and the hair goo his mother had made him use all the time, Natalie had always been on the edge of her seat, waiting to see if Dean would slide out of his.

These days, he bore no resemblance to the rat-faced little kid he’d been. Braces had fixed his overbite, LASIK had corrected his myopia, and puberty had filled him out. Natalie might have even considered him handsome if it hadn’t been for the cloying smarminess. He was still plenty oily, metaphorically speaking. And he was still definitely icky. But in a moment of weakness, on an evening when her parents had been hammering her even harder than usual about making a go of Party Favors, she’d made a bargain with them. If Clementine Hotchkiss’s Derby Eve party didn’t come off as a
huge
success, then Natalie had agreed she would close up shop and refrain from plunging into another business venture for six months. Also during that six months, she had further promised, she would . . . she would . . . she would . . . Oh, God, this part was so hard—and awful—to articulate. She would . . . gak . . . date Dean Waterman. Exclusively.

Not that the
exclusively
part was any big deal, since Natalie hadn’t dated anyone for any length of time since college. It was the
date Dean Waterman
part that made her stomach clench. God, what had she been thinking to agree to such a thing? She’d just been so tired of her parents harping on her, and so certain she would triumph professionally with Party Favors. She honestly hadn’t thought it would come down to actually having to go out with Dean. For six months. Exclusively.

Not to mention the fact that Clementine’s party, like all the big Derby Eve parties, was a fund-raiser, and her choice of recipients was a local group dedicated to making sure at-risk kids were challenged and stayed off the streets. The one hundred and fifty thousand dollar check Clementine had hoped to turn over to Kids, Inc., after charging five hundred dollars to each of her wealthy guests was looking to be more like a buck and a half. And a buck and a half wasn’t going to go far in building a facility that would teach those kids about running a business or offering scholarships to help them someday do just that.

The word
loser
began to circle through Natalie’s brain again, so she shoved it back into the shadows alongside thoughts of Dean. Yeah. They went nicely together. Then she turned to her computer and pulled up the web page for the
Courier-Journal
to read about the latest celebrities who were slated to be in town for Derby. The newspaper began their Derby celeb watch in January, and Natalie had been keeping close tabs on who was coming and when they were arriving. Scoring major players in the sports, entertainment, and business communities was a big part of ensuring the success of a Derby party, but most of the famous people coming to town had already committed to parties, even before she opened Party Favors.

Every time she saw a new celebrity listed, Natalie contacted that person’s representative to extend a personal invitation to Clementine’s party, but it was hardly ever with good results. At best, she received a polite “
Thanks, but no thanks, we’re already committed that night
.” At worst, her invitation went completely ignored. At second to worst, it was accepted by some celebreality type who was so far down the list, they actually referred to themselves as a “celebreality.” In addition to the cast-off from
Pimp My Toddler
for Clementine’s “Yes” list, Natalie had scored an auditioner from
American Idol
who hadn’t made it to Hollywood but who had risen to fame—fifteen minutes of it, anyway—because Simon had dubbed him with one of those sound bites that got airtime over and over again. This one involved a cattle prod to a part of the young man’s anatomy that one normally didn’t want a cattle prod anywhere near. She’d also added an actor who had once played a politically incorrect Native American on
F Troop
. And a college basketball player whom, it was rumored, might possibly, perhaps, maybe, if the stars were aligned, go in the fifty-sixth round of the NBA draft.