The Caterer

Chapter 6

V ALENCIA SANG A SONG from Moulin Rouge in Spanish as she prepped food for the day. Alice finished chopping the cilantro, glancing in the direction of her sister’s office. Two days. If they could all make it two more days, they could breathe easier, and Tabby would stop reading into every little thing as a sign someone planned to stab her in the back. Alice wanted to tell her about Valencia leaving and ask for advice, but Tabby wasn’t in a place to be supportive or reassuring. She would lecture Alice about how she told her to start networking and that she needed a plan. Alice didn’t need to hear, “I told you so.”

“I bought my ticket today.” Valencia pushed a tray of corn tortillas into the warmer. “July 14.”

“That’s soon.” Alice tried to keep her tone light. Five weeks. Carver kept pushing her to get out there, Tabby too, Alice running out of excuses and time.

“I spoke to my landlord, and I am going to be out at the end of the month. If you want any of my things,” Valencia offered .

“If only I had a place to put things.” She laughed. A man came to the window, Valencia starting on his order while he gave it. Alice rang up his purchase, hoping by the time he left the conversation could move on, but sensed Valencia bookmarked her last comment in her head. Alice took the to-go box and handed it to the man, glancing at the tiny park in front of their truck with its man on a horse statue, collection of benches, and a few patches of grass.

“How long are you with your sister for?” Valencia asked. Alice leaned her hip on the counter and crossed her arms loosely.

“For the summer, I think. Even only being in beta, my apartment is almost booked solid through August.”

“I can ask my landlord if you can sublease for a few months.”

“Going from no rent to paying rent defeats the purpose of living with Tabby.” She wiped the counter around her. Her cell phone rang. Alice slipped out the back, letting Valencia help the small group coming up to the truck.

“Alice? It’s Delany, how are you?”

“Oh, hey. I’m hanging in there. You?” She scrunched her nose.

“Still getting used to office life. I wanted to see if you’re available to cook for a party we’re having for our staff next week. I know this is last minute…”

“No, it’s okay. My schedule just opened.” No point in telling her only repeat customer she did not need to check her schedule, any time would work.

“Great. It’s at the Hillsburg Gardens in Rosslyn.”

Alice tried to pull it up in her head, unsure where the gardens were. “So, you’re thinking dinner?”

“Appetizers, dinner, and dessert. The event is planned for four hours. And you all can do drinks?”

“Of course.”

“Great. Listen, I wanted to call before, but things are busy this week. ”

“It’s okay. I wasn’t counting the minutes or anything.” Yes, she was.

He laughed. “When things calm down maybe we can get dinner again.”

“You have my number.” She smiled.

They talked for a bit more before Delany told her how much the budget was, asking if it was enough. Alice tried not to laugh. It was more than she would consider charging. She played it cool, not wanting to do what Carver always accused her of and lowball the deal. She just wanted to cook. Delany told her to have a good day and hung up the call. Alice did a happy dance on the sidewalk. Please let this be the start of good things.

#

TABBY OPENED THE DOOR TO TABIKAT, fresh off another interview about WlkmNt. She glanced up from her BlackBerry, almost running into her favorite coder. The girl waited in front of the cubicle area, frowning. Something happened with the website, they discovered a glitch or, heaven forbid, it crashed.

“Ms. Beaumont is here.” The girl failed to keep back her eye roll. “I’m sorry.”

Tabby presumed she meant to apologize for her eye roll and told her it was okay. She went to her office. Carrie stood at the window, her hand loose around her neck. She wore a blue pantsuit, her dirty blond hair pulled into a high ponytail. Tabby had known Carrie since college where they pledged and lived together for three years. She had been her maid-of-honor in two of three of Carrie’s weddings. Tabby didn’t realize Carrie still owned anything deemed professional. She hadn’t had to work since her second husband, a surrealist sculptor, swept her off her feet.

“Finances really so bad you have to go to work?” Tabby put her purse on the desk. Carrie looked at her and forced a smile. “Are you okay? ”

“Yeah. I fired the nanny yesterday; Pettie was extra clingy today.”

Tabby remembered life with a four-year-old. She logged into her computer.

“Why are you here?”

“Can’t a best friend just stop by?” She raised her head. Harry sauntered across the office, lifting his hand in the direction of Mo Mo’s office. “I thought maybe we could get an early lunch.”

Tabby laughed. “You both might not have anything better to do with your day, but some of us do work.”

“We need to talk, Tabatha.” Harry leaned in the doorway to her office, his hands in his pockets. Moe waited behind him, refusing to meet Tabby’s gaze. Apparently, Harry still held onto the idea of taking TabiKat public. Did this have to get settled today?

A car waited on the street. Tabby kept trying to ask where they were going, but Harry told her to be patient. Moe seemed extra quiet, but it could be the grind of the last few weeks and staying late to get things ready. Tabby pulled out her phone, a string of emails from coders with questions. There was too much going on for them to take a two-hour lunch. Harry and Carrie had nothing to do all day, but she and Mo Mo did. They were within forty-eight hours of going live. The discussion could wait.

The car pulled up to an office building in Rosslyn, a man opening the door for them. Tabby followed The Stooges into the lobby and onto the elevator. Her heart raced, and she found herself unable to take more than shallow breaths. It felt like a bad dream. Something told her to walk away, refuse to go in. Force the three people who never shut up, and yet barely said three words since they left the office, to tell her what the hell was going on. Instead, she felt out of her body. The elevator opened onto an office .

“What’s going on?” Tabby started to ask when a petite younger woman with curly red hair and striking green eyes walked toward them.

“I’m Katy O’Toole, Mr. Clare is this way.” She motioned toward a large conference room where Delany Clare stood waiting.

“You were at the party last week.” Tabby shook his hand.

“Yes, Mrs. Black, I was.” He motioned for them to sit. The redhead closed the door to the conference room and sat at Delany’s side.

“I know this is a busy time for you all. Thank you for agreeing to meet so quickly,” Delany said.

“Well, Welcome Note launches in two days. No time like the present,” Harry answered. Carrie chuckled nervously as Mo Mo looked at the table.

“I hope this can be the start of a great partnership. Not that much will change for you all day-to-day, though I guess now, Mrs. Black will have the time and money to pursue projects she loves.” Delany smiled at Tabby, who tilted her head and scowled.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Harry leaned forward into the table and looked at her. “We sold our shares of TabiKat to Macon.”

“You did what?” She looked between those she came in with, her heart racing. Surely it must be a joke; she waited for one of them to laugh.

“It’s best for the company, Tabby,” Carrie said. “We were going to tell you, but you’ve been so focused on the launch.”

“Should we give you all a minute?” Delany asked.

“You sold me out,” Tabby said. “That’s why you wouldn’t sell me your shares!” She turned her attention to Mo Mo. “I can’t believe…” She paused and pursed her lips. The bubble that kept reality from reaching her brain shattered and Tabby’s body filled with a sense of encompassing rage. But as Maryanne Gibson’s daughter, theatrics had never been her style. Maybe she should try some—stand and shriek, call her so-called friends what she’d been holding back for months. “And just how much is my company worth?” She set her jaw and met Delany’s gaze. Mo Mo was right—they were means to an end. Only not the path to everything she wanted but the end of her dreams. Two years of time, blood, sweat, hard work, nights away from the kids, straining her marriage, to be left out in the cold when it mattered most.

“The details are all laid out in the contract.” Another man in the room motioned for the contracts. Delany handed them to him, his gaze still on Tabby.

“Mrs. Black, I was assured all the partners would be aware of the sale.”

“Well, obviously not.” She snapped the contract away from the man and looked at it. “I want my husband to look at this before I’ll sign.”

“Of course.” Delany talked over a Black man lurking further down the table, who seemed to start to say that wasn’t how things worked. The man scoffed and rolled his eyes like a rebuked puppy. She had no idea who Delany or his muscle thought they were dealing with, but she knew what she built and would demand a fair assessment for their treachery.

“Tabs, we only did what we thought was best.” Carrie signed her contract and pushed it back toward the redhead. Given how fast The Stooges signed their forms, there must have been discussions about things before today.

“I’m sorry, Tabby. Carrie told me she’d…”

“Not here, Mo Mo. Okay?” Tabby clung to her last bit of restraint. Please let her wake up now.

“Can you excuse us, please?” Delany said. The others in the room cleared out before the scoundrel stood and walked around the conference table, sitting two chairs down from her. Her heart raced. Surely he knew about this when they met Friday night. How casual he had been. Why was he even at the event? He must have come to gloat! Did they all toast her ignorance after? How long had this been in the works?

“This is not how I expected things to go, Mrs. Black.” He sounded remorseful.

“How did you expect the takeover of my company to go?” She dabbed beside her eye and met his gaze. She always heard Delany Clare was a good guy who cared about others and gave back to the community he grew up in. For some reason, she associated his business with charitable deeds. He didn’t tell her who he worked for when they met, just said he ran “a holding company.” A lie. Other people might be taken by his good boy persona, but Tabby would not be duped.

“I was assured all four shareholders knew of the sale and approved.” He looked where the other man had been, the one who followed Carrie around like a puppy at the party. She said she’d met someone new. Was it possible Carrie was sleeping with someone at Macon? She’d rip into her supposed best friend later, for the moment, she needed to deal with this two-faced SOB.

She took a longer breath and channeled her mother. How would The Queen take being stabbed in the back for money? She refused to lose the last two years of her life to some good-for-nothing sports star who thought she would just lie down and let him take what she’d built.

“What you’re offering is more than generous. But I won’t sell my shares.”

“I can’t make you. But if you wait to sell later, it will be for less than I’m offering now.”

“Why is that?” She looked at him. Delany leaned back more, his arm on the table. His fingers reached for the pen at his original place, Delany starting to spin it between his thumb and first finger.

“Well, we’re changing the name and merging it with another tech firm we bought, so you’d own almost half of TabiKat, but less than a quarter of the new company.” This had been in the works for a while. Her gaze shifted to the glass walls, the area beside the elevators empty, The Stooges gone. Which one sold her out? Who led this scoundrel to her baby?

“I see,” she said flatly. “And it’s this new company you expect me to work for?”

When he didn’t answer right away, she pulled her gaze off the front windows. His dark eyes almost appeared bereft. He was a damn good actor, she’d give him that.

“Mrs. Black, I would love for you to stay on. Mr. Manuel is going to stay as CEO. If you wanted to work for him…”

“Work for Mo Mo?” A small laugh escaped. “Do you know what I did to get this company going?”

“It’s an impressive idea, ma’am. You should be proud of Mr. Manuel and his team.”

“You think…” She studied him. “Of course, you think a man coded this. You’re all the same.” She stood and shoved the contract into her purse. She refused to reason with someone so small-minded. She’d talk to Paul and come up with a plan. Tabatha Gibson Black never went down without a fight.

“I will not work for Mo Mo, and I will not work for a man so shortsighted as to presume only men warrant a place in the tech world. I have put too much into this company to be reduced to a worker bee. I hope you are proud of yourself, Mr. Clare.”

She opened the door, the redhead barely having enough time to move. Tabby held her head high as she waited for the elevator. Inside, she let her shoulders droop. What the hell just happened? On the first floor of the building she paused, disoriented. She should go back and check on the website. She should call Paul. She needed to do something, but her world felt off, something vital gone.

“Are you okay, ma’am?” An older Black gentleman in a security uniform approached her. “Can we call someone for you?”

“No. I’m okay.” Her voice shook. She sniffed back her emotion. Tears would get her nowhere. Tabby adjusted her purse, dabbed by her eye, and squared her shoulders. “Thank you for checking on me.” She forced a smile and walked onto the street. Getting around the corner she leaned on the building and found her cell phone. Her hands shook while she tried to dial the number. She cursed and pressed each button deliberately. The phone went to voicemail. No surprise, her former best friend lacked the courage to take her call. How had Tabby underestimated them.