Cocktail Hour by Tara McTiernan Read Free Book Online

strivers was exactly where she didn't want to be tonight. Sharon had mentioned a bath, but really bed was where she wanted to be, asleep ASAP after a little reading and a snuggle with Fred.
    She turned back to her computer screen and popped her pencil back into her mouth, her eyelids feeling as if they were made of concrete, heavy and rough with sand. Sleep was becoming practically erotic these days, ever since her new freshly-divorced neighbor moved in next door and started inviting a bevy of young women over for parties that ran past midnight, even during the week.
    The guy had installed a trampoline in his backyard when he first moved in, and Sharon, seeing it, had been innocent enough to assume he had children from his marriage who would be visiting and that her worst problem would be shrieking children jumping on it all day. She hadn't counted on shrieking dimwits drunkenly bouncing on it all night. She had tried earplugs as well as a sound machine, but neither had stopped next door's piercing notes of female hysteria from puncturing her dreams.
    For the first time, she wished she had other close neighbors. They could band together and go tell him what they thought of his nighttime revelries. But her house was on a country road in Monroe next to a small farm and the only house nearby was Mr. Party-Man's. She could call the police and complain, of course, but that would be the instigating battle cry for a war she didn’t want to fight alone. She wished she knew what to do. Noise had never been a problem before - her prior neighbors had been a quiet elderly couple, the kind that nodded and smiled at her in passing and that was the extent of it.
    Sharon slumped in her chair just thinking of the Reynolds, their boat-like blue Lincoln, their neatly tended front garden, their hand-painted mailbox with bright red cardinals on it. Ah, the good old days. The evenings she'd sat on her back patio and just listened to the wind in the trees, the crickets and frogs and birds contributing their gentle chorus. And how she had slept.
    She forced herself to sit up and stuck the graphite-end of the pencil in her mouth. She was glad it wasn't dangerous because it was like a drug that she desperately needed, giving her a little zip. Just an hour more, then she'd go and make an appearance at Ibiza, then home. She focused again on the pie-chart she was creating based on the data they'd collected about Element Hand Soap's perfume.
    Just then a shadow filled her door and she looked up to see Alan, her boss. His usually florid face was pale and he was gripping the doorframe as if holding onto it in order to stay upright.
    “Hey, what’s up?” Sharon asked, feeling a buzz of alarm at his appearance. “Are you okay?”
    Alan gasped a little and said, “No, actually, I’m not. I think I need to sit down.” He fell into the seat by the door and then did something unprecedented: he shut the door.
    He put his elbows on his knees and looked at the floor, his breathing audible and ragged. Sharon stared at her boss and mentor and – let’s face it – friend with shock. What was going on? She put her pencil down, feeling chilled. “Alan?”
    He didn’t answer, just shook his head.
    Sharon waited, stymied, while looking at the round bald patch in the center of his whorl of thin silver hair, and wondered if she had ever seen Alan this way at work. The friend part of their relationship was hard not because he was her boss, but because he drank too much and she generally tried to stay away from having relationships with people who had substance abuse problems. Or any significant problems. She didn’t like the mess of it, the drama and the inevitable fallout. She liked her life neat and quiet and orderly – which, basically, led her to have just a few old school friends she kept in touch with via Facebook and Alan. She was friendly with people at work, like Chelsea, but she limited those relationships to her hours at the office.
    Alan was