The Disastrous Love Lives of the Delaney Family

2.2 Dorothy Todd

Ollie is a pain in the backside. Yesterday, I thought that putting him to sit in the corner of my shared office was a good idea; the further away he was from the actual planning, the more I could do to satisfy Lavinia. Ollie, however, thought that because the party was being thrown in honour of Mr Brockhouse, he should take the lead, and I quote, "Since I'm the one who knows him the best out of the two of us."

Mildly amused at the prospect of Ollie organising the party, I asked for his opinion, and he said, in order, "We could do a rave," followed by, "a bouncy house," and then finally, "an indoor garden theme with lawn games since we're in England, but it's February and the chances of an actual outdoor event are slim."

I immediately said not to Plan A and Plan B but had to admit that Plan C wasn't the worst idea. Plus, I know of an amazing venue where they have an indoor lawn area. A quick call to a friend, and I'd managed to convince the manager of Garten to let us hire out the venue for a week tomorrow. Ollie had looked beyond smug when he learnt of the booking, but any good idea that he'd had yesterday has been swiftly replaced with a slew of moronic ideas today. 

"Shall we do an indoor fountain but instead of water, we do champagne?" He asked. JoJo, from the other side of the office, scoffed, making Ollie turn his focus onto her. "You don't like the idea?"

"No, it's terrible," she replied. She didn't think to look up from her laptop but when silenced lingered, she lifted her gaze and said, "Champagne fountains are so the early twenty-tens. It's a cocktail party. Keep it simple."

I suppress a smile at how Ollie's face seemed to lose hope that he'd have a champagne fountain, and go back to reviewing my notebook. The venue was booked, that was task one. Task two was to design the invitations, which would be fine, however, we hadn't yet agreed on a guest list. Ollie's solution was to print the invitations without guest names and we'd worry about everything else later. "I'm sure we can find someone with amazing penmanship." Our internal graphics team had taken over the task of design late last night, which brings us to Task 3: finalise the menu, both food and drink. 

This is easier said than done. Ollie and I have wildly different ideas on what constitutes 'classy' hors d'oeuvres. He wants bite-sized hamburgers with ketchup. I want smoked salmon rillettes. He wants mac'n'cheese doughnuts. I want pancetta-wrapped peaches with basil and aged balsamic vinegar. And he wants pizza. I want caviar and crème fraîche tartlets. 

We also cannot agree on any drinks to serve. Beer is Ollie's go-to, whereas I'm trying to think up as many cocktails as possible to satisfy Lavinia's brief of not to embarrass her. I cannot in good conscious serve Budwiser at this party. I forbid it. 

"We could-"

"Oliver," I snap. "You wanted an English garden party theme with lawn activities. That's what we're doing. But if you think for a second that beer and pizza are what we drink and eat at those, then you're woefully under-equipped to be helping me, so I would thank you to sit there and be quiet."