Craving Her Curves (4 page)

“So, what’s next on your plate, Izzy?” Jacinta was asking, bringing my wandering mind back around to the task at hand.

“I’ve got to go see a new shop that’s opening up on the other end of the mall in about forty minutes. It’s supposed to be really posh and out of the price range of anyone anywhere near here,” she said as we all laughed.

“How are they going to make money if no one can afford to shop there?” I asked. Izzy grinned.

“That’s what I asked, but what do I know? It’s not like I make a living writing about this city and its people. Oh wait...” she said, a mock pensive look on her face as Jacinta and I giggled.

“Then, if it’s not going to last long, why write about it?” Jacinta asked.

“The owner is some B-list celebrity friend of Jade’s, and she wants to give her some exposure. It’s noble and I understand why she’s doing it, but that place is not going to be able to cover its overhead if the prices are what she told me they are,” Izzy said.

“She can’t talk her friend down a bit?” I asked. Izzy shook her head.

“She said she tried. So, for now, she’s just doing what she can to help,” she replied. I nodded. There wasn’t really anything else she could do if her friend wasn’t listening to anyone.

“What about you? Anything exciting this afternoon?” I said to Jacinta.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Nope. Just regular rich people clients, not anyone interesting,” she said. We all laughed.

“Hey, money is money,” I said to another round of laughter.

“True. You guys should come down and look before you leave. We got a bunch of new merchandise in: several that I could see you guys in,” she said. Izzy and I both nodded.

“I’ll come back with you after we eat,” I said.

“I’ll probably need to get to the new store, but I’ll come past before I leave,” Izzy said. It wasn’t often that we could shop in Jacinta’s store, but when we saw something that we just had to have, we made sure the sale went to her since she got paid off of commissions.

“Oh, Mia wanted me to ask you guys if you’d be willing to do a promotional photo shoot for the shop. She wants the Dallas Heartbreakers in her clothes,” Jacinta said with a laugh. Mia was the owner of the shop that she worked in. She was a sweet person that really wasn’t out to gouge everyone out of their money, but she stocked very high quality items. She wasn’t going to sell them cheap.

“I don’t mind,” I said with a grin.

“Me either,” Izzy said.

“Awesome,” Jacinta said.

“Maybe we can get one of the guys at the office to do the photos, and use them for a
Pinks
ad campaign, too,” Izzy said. Jacinta nodded.

“I’ll talk to Mia about it and let you know,” she said.

“Perfect,” Izzy said.

“What crazy person decided that we need to be famous?” I said with a sudden laugh.

“Seriously, someone made a serious error in judgment. We’re crazy.” Izzy said, the table erupting into giggles.

I
sobel, Jacinta and I always showed up about thirty minutes after an opening started. Initially, it had been due to the fact that Izzy couldn’t ever seem to be ready on time, but over the course of the years that we’d been frequenting these events and writing about them, we’d discovered that nothing happened during the first thirty minutes anyway. In fact, the few times that we’d made sure to be there on time, something unpleasant had happened. Now, it was a bit of a superstition thing for us.

By the time we arrived at the wine bar opening, there were at least 60 people already there and milling about. The owner had opted to start the night off by catering to the more dignified members of her guest list before bringing in a DJ and pulsing lights after a few hours, more specifically for the late night crowd. The music playing was from a rather engaging jazz quartet on a small stage that had been set up out of the way, but close enough to the action for the musicians to still get some attention. I grinned and jotted down the name of the group, making a mental note to listen more tonight and give them a bit of press if they were as good as they sounded like they were.

“I didn’t know you all were going to be here. It’s the Dallas Heartbreakers; I’m honored,” Lee said with an overdramatic bow. I grinned and stepped forward to hug him tightly.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as he passed the hugs around to Izzy and Jacinta.

“I planned this event for the owner. Sweet woman, really.  She has a great head for business and making money without screwing her customers or her employees, but not so much for the event planning,” he said with a grin.

“Is the owner here?” Izzy asked.

Lee nodded. “She’s in the back, having an argument with one of her suppliers for one of the wines featured tonight. She’s easy to spot, though: bright red hair, almost 6 feet tall, and built like a runway model. She’s got on some silky floral atrocity of a dress, but don’t hold that against her,” he said, rolling his eyes. I snickered.

“Got it,” I said.

“Give her about ten minutes once you find her before you introduce yourself. It doesn’t sound like it’s going well back there, so let her cool off,” he said, lowering his voice a bit so others wouldn’t hear. Izzy and I nodded.

Lee was one of the best and brightest in the Dallas event planning field. He’d swept in the year before and planned a club opening that the girls and I had gone to. Izzy and I had been so impressed with the flawless opening that we’d written a joint article on it for
Pinks
and given him a load of exposure. His business had been almost non-stop since then, and we’d become great friends. He was a bit of a fashionista, which I’d always thought was funny for a guy, but if there was ever someone who fit the definition of metro sexual, Lee was it. He was better put together than most women I’d met.

“Thanks, Lee,” I said. Lee grinned and winked.

“No problem, ladies. Try not to destroy too many men tonight, okay?” he said with a snicker as he went to check on something. The three of us exchanged looks and smiles as we moved further into the event.

Lee had done a great job of creating ambiance, as usual. And everything that he had out would transfer to the nightlife crowd easily once the time came. I slipped up to one of the waiters and snagged myself a glass of wine before I settled in at a high-top table and waited for the girls to wander over.

“I just saw the owner come out of the back,” Jacinta said, walking over with Izzy just behind her.

“She looked upset, so maybe we should give her more than Lee’s recommended ten minutes,” Izzy continued. I nodded and took a sip of the wine.

“Right, no point in flustering her more. She has a long night ahead of her,” I said.

“In the meantime, one of the bartenders looks rather tasty,” Jacinta said with a wink and a grin as she moved away from Izzy and me. She and I shared a laugh as we stood together, leaning on the table top and soaking in the room.

“You never told me how the interview went,” Izzy said. I grinned.

“What interview?” I asked, knowing full well what interview.

“The interview with Joey!” she hissed.

“What do you want to know?” I asked with a laugh.

“Is he really that good looking in person?” she asked. I thought about him posed for Neil, taking the pictures for the article, and grinned.

“He is very handsome, even fresh off the field and covered in sweat. And he’s really nice, too,” I said. Izzy got a dreamy look on her face and sighed.

“Really? Wow. You are so lucky,” she said, suddenly slapping my shoulder. I laughed again.

“Ow! I’m sorry, complain to Jade: she assigned me the interview,” I said. Izzy stuck out her bottom lip.

––––––––

“I
totally will, just watch,” she said. I rolled my eyes as she and I giggled against each other.

~~~

T
he owner of the wine bar, a stunning woman named Jill, turned out to have been a former model. She said that she hadn’t done it for too long before discovering that she had a real head for business, and enjoyed it much more than putting on painfully uncomfortable shoes and sashaying down a runway while people ogled her. She enjoyed openings and having people appreciate and purchase the goods that she chose to offer.

“This is actually my first business of my own,” she said, sitting across the table from me as we worked on the decanter of wine that we were sharing.

“Really? I thought I heard someone here say that this was your third or fourth in the area,” I said. Jill nodded.

“The others weren’t owned by me. I was just running them for a while. I thought it was a good test, to see if I really am as good at this as I think I am,” she said with a chuckle. I grinned.

“This space is spectacular,” I said.

She nodded. “It was supposed to be a haberdashery, but the owner bailed at the last minute and decided to open his business in California. The company that owns the place was counting on that money: they had another venture that they needed to move on to and this place was the only thing holding them back,” she said.

“Oh, that’s brilliant. So you got the place at a discount because they needed it off of their hands,” I said. Jill smiled and nodded.

“It was rather brilliant, wasn’t it?” she said. We laughed.

“So, what’s your vision for this place? Where do you want it to go?” I asked.

Jill sighed, “Honestly, the wine bar is just the start. I love the concept of a wine bar, of somewhere that you can go and hang out quietly after work, but come out to on weekends and still dance and have a bit of fun while being able to get a good wine in your glass. Eventually, I’d like to expand the space, wall it off down the middle and turn the other side into a cigar bar.”

I smiled: Jill was growing on me more and more. “That sounds like a wonderful idea,” I said.

She smiled, “Everyone doesn’t smoke, so the cigars would stay in that area, but you could get wine from here brought to you there. Private parties and get togethers, it’d be the perfect space for it,” she said. I nodded my agreement.

“It would, especially for those CEOs looking to impress some other company that flew in to meet them on neutral ground. It’s a good money-making venture, too. A place that’s as high-class as this one, you could rightfully charge quite a bit for the rental of the space and the use of your staff,” I said. Jill grinned.

“Maybe you should be running this place with me instead of being a journalist. You’re pretty good,” she said. I laughed.

“You’re not the first person to tell me that I’ve got a good head for business, honestly.”

“Have you ever thought about it?” she asked.  I sighed softly.

“Sometimes. I think that when I get tired of the writing racket, the fashion industry and all the celebrities and their diva moments. When the few good ones don’t make me think that this is all worth it anymore, that’s when I’ll do something like open a shop of some sort,” I said. Jill smiled and nodded.

“That sounds like a good plan. Between now and then, you can decide what you want to do without being in a rush about it,” she said. I nodded.

“Right. So, where did you find that quartet over in the corner? I’ve never seen them before, but they are phenomenal,” I said. Jill smiled.

“Believe it or not, they’re just college kids trying to make some extra money,” she said. I felt my eyes widen.

“What?” I hissed.

She laughed at my outburst. “I was walking a few blocks from here and ran into them on my way into a Starbucks. We started talking about absolutely nothing, and they happened to bring up that they were musicians on the side. I told them to come down and play for me,” she said. I glanced back over at the ones playing.

“Wow,” I said.

“Two of them are Physics majors, one is a Drama major, and the other is majoring in Japanese,” she said.

“I wonder if they’d like a write-up in
Pinks
? I bet I could get them a bit more business,” I said.

“I think they’d love that. They’ll be done in about forty minutes, so you can talk to them then. They said that they were going to stick around after they were done because they love the place,” she said. I smiled and nodded.

“I’ll do that, thank you,” I said.

“Thanks for the time out; I needed it. Tonight has not gone as smoothly as I wanted it to,” she said with a soft laugh.

“Does it ever go the way we plan?” I asked.

She smirked, “No. And that drives me insane.”

“Good luck with the rest of the evening,” I said as Jill stood and took the last sip of wine from her glass.

“Something tells me I’m going to need it,” she said with a grin.

T
he recording of the interview with Joey was playing through my stereo as a bit of a refresher, since it had been a few days. I was ready to start writing it all out, settled in my living room with my laptop, a bottle of wine, and no distractions in sight. I always preferred to do my first write-through at home. There was always something going on at the office. I could edit there, but the initial writing would take me all day there, and only an hour or two at home.

I flinched as someone knocked on the door of my apartment. It would only take a few hours if no one dropped past unannounced, I amended my inner conversation.

“Who is it?” I yelled out on my way to the door.

“It’s me,” Jacinta said. I sighed. That meant something was up. She only stopped past without calling first when something was wrong, because she knew that if she didn’t call first, she was probably interrupting something.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, opening the door with a frown on my face. Jacinta smiled and shook her head.

“Nothing is wrong, don’t worry. I just wanted to stop by and bring you something.” I stepped back so that she could come inside, noticing finally that she carried several bags with her.

“Okay...” I said, following her into the living room and turning off the recording of the interview, since I apparently wasn’t working on that right at the moment.

“I’ve got the clothes for the photo shoot. I wanted you to approve them first, though,” she said, sitting down and starting to pull things out of bags. I grinned and settled myself beside her.