Novel Palace
75
Nicole
Chicago hasn’t changed in all the years I’ve been gone. Garbage still litters the streets, and the smell of old grease mixed with gasoline still floats in the thick humid air.
It’s like I never left.
Part of me wishes I hadn’t. If I had stayed put while my father ran off to New York, things would be drastically different for me right now. I would have a degree in marketing instead of starting my shift working at a damn night club.
It’s no corner office in one of the sky-rises overlooking Lakeshore Drive, but it’s a job. And one I’m lucky to have. Paying the rent in the shoebox I call an apartment for next month was becoming worrisome.
The construction crew is already getting to work when I arrive at Katfish. Bobby, the foreman, waves to me with his toothy grin as I pass by toward the entrance.
“Morning, Nicole.”
I give a faint smile. “Hey, Bobby.”
He’s harmless, but huge. Beneath all his muscle and height, I’m sure there’s a pure heart of gold. He’s never once made a lewd comment or gesture when I’ve walked past his crew, and when a few of his men did, he popped them for being such assholes.
“It’s gonna be hot as hell today,” I say. “I’ll make sure the kitchen sends out some water later.”
“The company provides plenty, but thanks for the offer.”
I nod. “Well, see you later then.”
He drops his smile with a nod and gets back to work.
“Good, you’re here!” Nora, my boss, grabs hold of my arm the moment I step inside. I’ve worked here only a month, but we’ve become fast and furious friends.
“It’s barely noon, what catastrophe could have happened already?” I ask with a laugh as we make our way toward my small office in the back of the club.
“Nothing. Actually, it’s good news,” she assures me. Nora stands in the doorway while I dump my bag in a chair and put my coffee on my desk.
“Okay, what is it?” I ask when she keeps silent.
“You’ve been here a month now, and you’ve done a great job with scheduling all the private parties.”
I hear a very loud but coming my way.
“Thanks…”
“But.” She takes a deep breath and a step into the office. “I think you could be doing so much more for us than just working the calendar for the private rooms.”
It’s not the simple job she makes it out to be. Aside from putting the parties on the schedule and making sure none of the rooms overlap, and the VIP sections are reserved properly, I oversee the staff schedules to run with the parties. There’s the catering aspect, the extra bartenders when needed, and any other little thing the VIP people of Chicago desire for their night at Katfish.
“Okay.” I nod. “You want me to take on more responsibility? I can do that.”
“You said you went to school for marketing, right?”This material belongs to NôvelDrama.Org.
“I never finished,” I remind her before she gets her hopes up.
“I know, but you were almost done.”
I had one more year to go at NYC when everything crumbled around me. I thought I had it handled. Thought I could still navigate the mess and get through unscathed. I was wrong. In the end, I had to ditch everything and jump on a train taking me away from New York.
Grabbing my coffee, I sink into my chair.
“With the new part of the club gearing up to open by the end of the summer, we’ll need a lot of marketing done.”
“There are marketing firms for that sort of thing,” I point out. Launching an entire club expansion isn’t just putting a few flyers up. They should have an entire campaign ready. “You might want to hire a PR firm to do a full launch if that’s what you’re looking to do.”
Nora moves further in with a shake of her head. “No, the owners don’t want to do that.” She frowns. “They don’t want a huge campaign; they want the launch to be soft. Nothing too flashy.”
This sounds familiar.
“Nothing that catches too much attention from the wrong people?” I ask.
“Right.”
“Nora, just tell me what you need, what are you looking for?”
She smiles brilliantly. “Well, what I really need is to clone you, but we can’t technically do that. Sooo, I need you to train Silvia on booking the private parties. You’ll still handle the staffing and other stuff, but I need you to free up some time to work on some marketing. Nothing huge, like I said. A soft launch. And once it’s opened you can pull back.”
“Just light stuff after the opening.”
“Right,” she grins.
“Okay, yeah, I can do that.” I’m no micromanager and handing off talking to the nervous brides to be and Chicago elites who want to party without the press sounds damn good to me.
“Excellent. One of the owners will be in today, he’s been doing some traveling and other business dealings the past few weeks. He wants to meet with you to go over what he wants.” She turns on her heel to leave but I call her back.
“Wait. I’ve never met the owners, who are they? And what time am I meeting this guy?”
“Nora! I need you. The liquor distributor’s here and he’s trying to railroad me into more money.” The head bartender, Josh, pops up behind Nora and steals her attention.
“Okay. I’ll be there.”
“No, this asshole is going to leave with our shipment if you don’t come right now,” he urges her, flashing me a quick look. “Sorry, Nicole.”
I wave him off. “No problem, Josh. No liquor, no sales.”
“Okay.” Nora follows him away but first shouts, “One o’clock. His office is at the end of the hall.” She hurries away.
I sink back into my chair and take a sip of my quickly cooling over-brewed coffee. Firing up my computer, I settle in to get some work done before I head to the big boss’s office.