Introduction

When you hit rock bottom... For lifelong friends Jackie, Cheryl and Doris, life hasn't turned out according to plan. After living the life of a glamorous widow in Paris, Jackie is all out of money, and the only place left to go is home. Cheryl is at the top of her game both in and out of the boardroom, until her misplaced plans for a corporate takeover earn her a set of walking papers. And while Doris has Xanax to cure her depression, no pill can take away the pain of broken dreams. the only place to go is up. But after a drunken night sampling the delights at a strip club for women, the ladies stumble upon an ingenious idea. With Jackie's connections, Cheryl's business sense, and Doris' ambition, the ladies open up The Whole Package - the world's first restaurant staffed exclusively by very attractive men. Mixing business with pleasure can be risky, but for these three best friends, getting a little bit outrageous just might be what it takes to make their mark in the world...

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Excerpt

Chapter One

French is a sexy language. Except, of course, if you are standing in line at a French café and the French you hear is a nasal, drawn-out, “Fat American.” Unnecessary, especially if you are simply trying to buy a chocolate croissant to dip into the first cappuccino of the day.

Jackie—and yes, it was Jackie and not Jacqueline, even though she was closing in on forty instead of the throat of the snickering girl behind her—whirled around.

“Did you just call me fat?”

A French girl stared back at her. The girl had the audacity to cock her head. A yes.

Jackie was stunned. Okay, fine—and a little hurt. Such a judgment was the last thing she expected in this cheerful neighborhood café with its brightly painted walls, kitschy produce art, and erratically placed wildflowers. Even the French sayings on the wall, written in such careful, scrolling script were meant to inspire good cheer, not snappy little insults.

“Well, I am not fat!” Jackie said. And this was not in French, because after two years in the country she spoke French perfectly, and proving it was no longer important. “I am sexy.”

A mustached host had been writing out specials on a blackboard with squeaking chalk. At this, he paused and took a look. Jackie ran her palms over her curvy hips and considered giving a slight shimmy. The man gave a nod in agreement and went back to the specials.

The French girl sniffed. She was dressed in all black, a total cliché. She was holding a sniveling, trendy dog. Its shaky face was framed by a bejeweled collar and its droopy eyes stared, along with everyone else in the cinnamon scented café.

“Perhaps you should order something to eat,” Jackie said, pointedly eyeing the girl’s bony frame. “You’re probably just suffering from low blood sugar.”

“Casse-toi.”

Jackie’s jaw dropped. Drawing herself up to her full height of five three (five six with her three- inch pumps), Jackie said, “If you want to live off of cigarettes and red wine and ignore the delicacies your country has to offer, you go right ahead. But I would rather get chased out of Le Bon Marché by a firing squad than strut around in a body that looks like it was stolen from an eight-year-old boy.”

The French girl gasped.

“I am going to embrace my sensuality,” Jackie said. “I am going to improve upon it. And,” she stood a bit taller, “it is gonna happen with a chocolate croissant.”

There was silence in the café for a moment. Even the hiss of the cappuccino machine stilled. Then a gray-haired lady in the corner clapped. Just like in the movies. One by one, the little tables with their fashionably angular, well-dressed guests joined in until the majority of the café cheered with a passion not unlike the drunken crowds spilling out of the Stade de France after a futbol match.

Jackie rewarded them all with a sugary smile and a toss of her blond, Goldie Hawn–inspired hair. She flipped back around to the counter to pay for her treat.

“But, madame . . .” The cashier practically whispered. “We have no chocolate croissant today.”

The skinny kid at the cash register was pale. Jackie had come to loathe pale men. France did not have enough sun. She leaned forward, showing cleavage soft as the dough of an unbaked roll. “Then how about a hot chocolate . . .”

“. . . And a tartlette?”

The kid was trying. “Are you American?” she asked.

“British.”

Jackie considered his pallor. Yes, he was. “Thanks, honey,” she said, rewarding him with a smile. “That sounds nice.”

The cashier handed over a rich cup of steaming hot chocolate. It warmed Jackie’s hands through her black leather gloves, the ones with the pink hearts in the center.

“No charge,” the pale kid assured her. His grin was thousand-watt.

Jackie hesitated, caught up.

Ever since her husband had died two years ago, there had been arm-prickling moments when she felt Robert was still present, popping up in the strangest places. Not as a phantasm or anything like that. After all, Robert had been much too vain to channel through, for example, the body of this kid. Much more his style was that Frenchman in the corner with the perfectly coordinated scarf and beret, or maybe that sultry redhead nibbling at her macaron. No, Jackie just saw his memory in other people. There was a certain sparkle Robert had that drew her in from the very start, that day at the Taste of Chicago festival, so many years ago. Granted, that sparkle might have been the diamond nestled in his Cartier watch . . . but Jackie wasn’t one to dwell on trifles.

“You are so beautiful,” the cashier said now, staring at her.

The French patrons began to stir. Characteristically abrupt in their enthusiasm, a cloud of impatience was settling over the line behind her. There was a definitive clicking of umbrella tips against the tile floor, keeping time like the second hand of a clock. Euros jangled, rubbed together in restless palms.

“I could be your mother,” Jackie told him. With a wink, she laid a few extra euros on the counter. “Go buy your girlfriend something nice.”

Smiling at the anorexic French girl on her way out, Jackie made a point of banging that door with the bells. They jingled as she left the café. The sound reminded her of the holidays more than those white lights always hanging from the trees along the block.

Jackie breathed in the crisp air and looked around in delight. The French bustled in and out of brightly colored doors, carrying paper-wrapped parcels, bottles of wine, and boulangerie-bought pastries. A small farmer’s market flourished on the corner, practically spilling its wares out into the narrow streets. The fresh fruits and vegetables were plump and plentiful for the old ladies, who, with their sensible black shoes and string bags, came every day to paw through stacks of potatoes, onions, carrots, and parsley, speaking loudly to each other in heavily accented French.

“Pédaler dans la choucroute,” Jackie liked to mutter when she walked by, as though she were in on their conversation. The French phrase made her laugh. Literally, it meant “to pedal in the sauerkraut” but pédaler dans la choucroute really meant getting nowhere fast. It was the perfect description for these old ladies on the hunt. After all, they were going to do the same thing the next day and the next day and the next. . . .

As Jackie walked by a sidewalk café, a group of women drinking garnet-colored wine lifted their glasses and cheered as a pretty French girl dashed over to them. With perfect grace, the girl kissed her friends and then placed herself in the center with a ceremonious flop. They all started speaking at once and Jackie put her hand to her chest. Scenes like these made her miss her best friends, Cheryl and Doris, so much that she almost wanted to cry.

“But you are in Par-eeh, darling,” she tried saying out loud. “Who needs Schaumburg, Illinois?”

Jackie passed by a wine bar filled with French patrons, all shouting gaily to one another. A man by the window was smoking, drawing from his cigarette as if he were kissing a lover. Noticing her, the man gave a little nod and Jackie nodded back but kept walking. Smoking was something she no longer indulged in. Of course, this rule did seem slightly perverse in a country where smoking was practically the national pastime but Jackie was not willing to risk death for something so silly.

Back in the day, Jackie had started smoking only because Cheryl had made her. Cheryl had stolen pack after pack from her older brothers but refused to gasp and choke on them alone. So, Cheryl and Jackie would sneak out behind the high school, giggling and puffing and feeling very adult. By college, Jackie was the one who had ended up as an Official Smoker.

“It’s the tortured artist in me,” she’d kid Robert, whenever he eyed her Virginia Slims with distaste.

Robert finally got her to stop with that impromptu trip to Vegas, gently pushing her toward the roulette table. “Now this time,” Robert had said at the very end of the game, when she was left holding only one chip, “pretend every spot on the board, except the number you pick, is lung cancer. Just try and win.”

Clapping and cheering, Jackie dropped her last chip on number seven, the number of years she’d been smoking. The little ball bounced around the helm, carelessly deciding her fate. When the ball landed on fifteen and the table runner swept Jackie’s last chip from the table, Robert said, “Hmm. Not great odds . . .” and Jackie had mashed out her cigarette for the last time.

“Thank you for that, my darling,” Jackie said now. Her voice echoed down the cobblestone streets and she stomped her feet a little, just to hear her shoes clickety-clack on the walk.

Turning the corner, Jackie’s building loomed into sight and she smiled. It was so very French; too bare yet too ornate. The skeleton could have been a jail, all redbrick and intimidation but it managed to find its beauty in the details. Those whimsical stained-glass windows, the way those copper pieces hung like tassels from the roof gutters and, of course, those wrought-iron balconies lined with ivy at every twist and turn . . .

Letting herself into the lobby, Jackie enjoyed the high ceilings and bright murals as she clickety-clacked her way to her mailbox. After turning the tiny gold key in the lock, she pulled out bills and another piece of airmail from the lawyer who was handling Robert’s estate. The sight of the weathered envelope made her stomach turn. Jackie had hoped that by ignoring these letters she could make them go away. Clearly, that wasn’t going to be the case.

Once upstairs, Jackie made a point of jiggling her key loudly in the lock. Hopefully, it would be enough warning for Christian. It was. By the time she had made her way into the main room, the Chinese partition had been pulled across his work area.

Christian had purchased the screen at some rummage sale, and it depended on Jackie’s mood whether the red serpent chased by golden scrolls was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen or the most disturbing. Either way, the rip in the lower corner gave her a view into his workspace but Jackie didn’t look. The rustling and soft moans told her everything she didn’t want to know. To her friends, she excused the philandering of her young boyfriend with his very own argument: “But he’s an artiste.”

An artiste with brooding Italian eyes that kept her hooked. That and cherry red lips coupled with cheekbones higher than any woman’s. And his body hair—you would think, gross, who wants to think about hair in any form, but Jackie wanted a rhinestone T-shirt to share it with the world: CHRISTIAN’S HAIR IS SPUN SILK! Not pubish, like American men’s.

Finishing the last nibble of her pastry, Jackie tossed its waxy paper bag into the trash and eyed the envelope from the lawyer. She imagined chubby little George with his chubby little fingers painstakingly sealing it. Typically, a successful lawyer would leave such tasks to his assistant but George liked to joke that licking an envelope addressed to her helped him pretend he was brave enough to send her a love letter. Jackie had thrown back her head and laughed loud and long at that one. George was such a shameless flirt.

Taking a deep breath, Jackie slid a manicured nail under the lip of the envelope and tore it open. The letter was written on George’s gold-embossed paper and read:

Dear Jacqueline,

I have left you several messages that you have not returned. And are you checking your email? Your cell? It is critical we speak. Your late husband’s estate has been used in its entirety. I will need to meet with you regarding your situation. Your monthly allowance is no longer available due to insufficient funds.

Contact me at your earliest convenience.

Regards,

George Edwards

Jackie dropped the letter. As it fluttered to the floor, her full weight fell against the kitchen counter.

When Jackie first moved to Paris, her goal was to reconnect with her art and mourn the loss of her husband. Thanks to her striking looks, the money Robert had left her, and some helpful contacts, Jackie found herself caught up in the glamour of Parisian high society instead. Practically overnight, her life had been filled with fashion events, gallery openings, charity balls . . . so many delightful distractions. One of her favorites was hosting extravagant dinner parties for her new friends.

From where she stood, Jackie could see that ridiculous cheese wheel from one of the many dinner parties. It sat in the dining room on a medieval cart where its unsanitary, gooey concoctions had horrified and entertained countless French guests. They found the cheese wheel hilarious, just like any gimmick from the “fun American.” Covering her eyes and looking out through splayed fingers, Jackie took in the confetti-colored paintings, large and small, that covered the rooms’ walls. Every piece was gifted by the friends and artists who had come in and out of her home with the freedom of hotel guests. They had filled her life with art, wine, candies . . . any trinket that might make her clap her hands with glee.

Now, Jackie’s hands simply shook. In the beginning, she had believed so much in her artistic abilities—the French would love her Americanized paintings and she’d be a celebrity overnight!—that Jackie had failed to plan ahead. In spite of George’s consistent financial warnings, she had treated the best Bordeaux like tap water. By the time she finally noticed that his predictions were coming true, it was too late to do anything about it. Although some of her early paintings had sold, it was not enough to support a career, and certainly not enough to support her extravagant lifestyle. The money had run out. And there was nothing she could do about it.

“I have nothing,” Jackie said. It was like confessing to a stranger that her husband was dead, as though hearing it out loud for the first time made it true. She said it again, louder: “I have nothing.”

“Jacqueline? Are you speaking?” Christian called her from the next room. That voice she knew so well was off-key.

Jackie pressed her fingers under her eyes and raised her head. She swept out of the kitchen into her living room—the living room she had been paying for out of her dead husband’s money, the living room where she and Christian had made love in every corner, the same corners where he felt up sculpture models while she was out—and pushed aside the partition. Christian was naked, as was the girl. They were on the sheet, entwined next to the clay. It lay wet and forgotten.

Seeing her, Christian’s mouth gaped like a dead fish at the Sunday market. Apologies began tumbling forth in French.

“Christian, I have something to tell you,” Jackie interrupted. “I am not thirty-one. I turn forty in one year and three months.”

The model, bless her, appeared more shocked at Jackie’s age than her sudden presence.

“And I have nothing.”

His surprise and protests sounded like a horn out of tune.

“Do yourself a favor, Christian.” Jackie laughed. “Learn English.”

The French model gasped; the sound of so many French girls.

“Good-bye, my darling,” Jackie said, reaching out to touch the soft hair on top of his head. No matter what Christian had done, she still appreciated him. Their casual romance had helped her to move on. “Good luck to you.”

“Where do you go?” Christian panicked, struggling to stand.

Jackie let out a breath. “Home.” view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the publisher:

The restaurant:

1. Cheryl’s boss frequently holds business lunches at Hooter’s. Rather than protest, Cheryl goes along with these meetings. Why? How does this experience play into Cheryl’s decision to open a restaurant staffed by scantily clad men?

2. When the women hold auditions to hire waiters for The Whole Package, Jackie and Doris feel guilty about judging the men by their looks. Cheryl, on the other hand, is delighted at the opportunity. Are the auditions right or wrong? Why? Why might Cheryl feel a greater tendency to take pleasure in judging the men?

3. On the opening night of The Whole Package, many of the guests are offended by what takes place in the restaurant. Why? Do you feel that the restaurant is offensive? Why or why not?

4. After opening night, The Whole Package receives a terrible write-up in the newspaper. Doris is upset at this review, as the female strip club down the road doesn’t even take as much heat as their restaurant. Why does the public react to the restaurant the way that it does? Is this fair? Why or why not?

5. When it becomes clear The Whole Package will fail, Doris decides to make some changes. What are they? In what ways do these changes reflect how Doris has grown as a character? Why do the changes work?

The Friendship:

1. Jackie has spent her life lying to her best friends. Why does Jackie feel it necessary to hide who she really is? Do you feel Cheryl had a right to confront her about the lies? Do you think it’s possible to be close with a friend who is not honest?

2. Doris gets married when she is much too young. At first, Doris makes the best of the situation but with time, resents Doug and the sacrifices she made to be with them. How does this resentment change Doris as she gets older? How does it affect her friendship with Jackie and Cheryl?

3. When Cheryl gets a divorce, it affects the couple’s circle shared with Doris and Doug. Why is this hard on Doris? Why does Doug feel threatened by Cheryl’s divorce? Why does Doris choose to stand beside Cheryl, in spite of Cheryl’s actions?


4. Cheryl comments that Doris and Jackie are her only true friends. Even though the three friends are very different, they are bound together by an event they shared at a young age. What was the event? How did it affect them? Was it history or true friendship that kept these women tied together through the years?

5. When Jackie, Doris and Cheryl get in a fight, Cheryl attempts to make some new
friends. It’s a disaster. Why is it difficult for Cheryl to relate to these friends? Does it become more of a challenge to make friends when you are older? How valuable is history to a friendship?

Life

1. Jackie is a failed artist. How does this failure affect her as a person? Do you think her lack of interest in art is genuine or fear-based? What prompts Jackie to start painting again?

2. It takes several years before the loss of Doris’ mother truly hits her. When it does, Doris experiences a severe depression. Why did it take so long for Doris to grieve this loss? In what ways did this loss change her as a person?

3. Cheryl sues her ex-employer for wrongful termination and wins. Why was this victory important for Cheryl? What did this victory represent to her?

The Men:

1. Cheryl is both infuriated by and attracted to her co-worker, Andy. Why is Cheryl attracted to Andy? In what ways does he earn her respect? In what ways does Andy change while working for Stan? Why does Andy leave the marketing firm shortly after betraying Cheryl?

2. George had been attracted to Jackie since the first time they ever met. Why did George miss out on a relationship with Jackie? In what ways were Jackie and George already having a relationship, even while she was married to Robert? Did Jackie’s hesitance to get involved with George have more to do with a respect for Robert or respect for George?

3. Doug betrays Doris for Katherine Rigney. Out of all of the women in the world, why did Doug choose to cheat on his wife with someone from his past? Did Doug leave Doris for Katherine Rigney? In what ways will the relationship between Doris and Doug have to change to work?

4. Gabe is a closeted homosexual when he first starts working for The Whole Package. Why does he flirt with women? Why does he develop a relationship with Doris? Is he deliberately leading her on or does he care for her? Why does he avoid Anthony?

5. Anthony and Jackie develop a close friendship. Why? What parts of Anthony’s character draw Jackie to him? In what ways does Jackie help Anthony? In what ways does Anthony help her?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Author Cynthia Ellingsen
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