CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
We pull up to a red carpet that rolls down the venue’s steps and Dan takes my hand to help me gracefully exit the car. I find my footing and follow him, taking in the parade of pretty dresses, natty tuxedos, and gobs and gobs of jewelry.
This charity could probably fund its entire operating budget for years with the wealth on display. But I’m not here for social commentary. I’m here to sell and I’m out of my depth.
Dan introduces me to a few people, and they’re much older than me—decades, at least. I listen to his first few pitches and admire the way he works in our business without pushing too hard.
His eyes crinkle at the corners as he charms the ladies, asking if they have a special pet and crooning over pictures they show us on their phones.
Finally, I cut the apron strings, pick up a glass of champagne and walk to a group of three people, two men and a woman, in a loose and laughter-filled conversation.
“Hi,” I start. And stop. I’m not sure where to begin.
“Hello, I’m Megan Freeman,” the older woman extends a hand bearing a grape-sized yellow stone. Its sparkle screams diamond.
“I’m Beryl Sutton,” I stammer, but my shoulders relax as each man introduces himself. I ask about their interest in the charity and they weave an enthusiastic story of who knows whom and how they got involved. Somehow, they miss the point of what the charity actually does, but it doesn’t seem to matter.
I’m easily carried through the conversation, answering their questions as Dan directed me. I drop client names—Greta Carr and Gavin Slater both carry weight and raise eyebrows. I learn that Greta is sometimes on the charity ball circuit and I wonder if I’ll ever run into her in person.
Probably not. I’m her errand-girl, not meant to be part of this social strata. From what I can tell, that’s just the way rich people want it.
After a dozen more greetings, I’ve passed out many of my cards and my face hurts from smiling. Some people are kind and act politely interested when they learn what I do, others throw out a quick excuse and hurry away to find other rich people.
I hate being so obviously at the bottom of this pecking order. It hurts a little—in Eugene, few people are wealthy and nobody is filthy rich. Even though some of my friends were at the top of the middle class while my mom and I were at the bottom, we all wore distressed jeans and vintage shirts. It was hard to tell whose duds were really secondhand.
But not in New York. People with money look rich, from exquisite fashion to huge bling on top of meticulous manicures. I am thankful for Lulu’s gorgeous beaded dress, which is understated but passable.
I train my face into a neutral smile when I get a cold shoulder and keep mingling. The thing that keeps me from being intimidated is my growing knowledge of their secrets—with each rich person’s home I visit, I find new chinks in their armor, evidence that proves the rich aren’t better than the rest of us.
Gavin is newly rich and I wonder how he’d act at this ball. I wonder if the old-money elite would accept him, or at least tolerate him because he’s famous. I wonder if Gavin would act rich and snub the help. If he’d snub me.
My nose is stuffy from someone’s heavy perfume and I retreat to the ladies’ room. I sit in a stall and relax, listening to catty gossip as women come and go through the restroom.
They’re sizing up everything—someone’s dress, someone’s jewelry, someone’s date and someone else’s brand-new boobs. Just listening to it is exhausting.
Finally, I emerge from the stall, wash my hands and powder my face. I run a comb through my perfectly straight hair and reapply the lipstick that disappeared with each glass of champagne.
I’m stalling.
But I’m here to support Dan, so I go out and we sit for the plated dinner and presentation, Dan at my left and an elderly woman on my right. She clucks over a little Pomeranian that she’s smuggled into the event and I coo with her.
The dog’s wearing a rhinestone-studded collar and a bow just above its eyes. It’s a boy. Sorry, dude. Sucks to live a life of privilege sometimes, huh? He looks grouchy and settles for a nap in a leather handbag at our feet.
The band strikes up after dinner and Dan asks me for the first dance, maneuvering us between tables to the parquet floor where he demonstrates a much stronger command of the foxtrot than I learned in my ballroom dancing class at the U of O.
We cruise around the floor and I relax, enjoying his smile and his smooth, elegant movements. He spins me and I feel beautiful, even privileged, dancing among New York’s elite. As the song ends, he pulls me into a slow, rolling dip, then brings me upright, his eyes alight.
“I don’t think I ever get enough of dancing,” Dan says and leads me off the floor. “It’s one of the best parts of these galas. So we’ve networked, we’ve had dinner, and now it’s time for fun.”
He brings me back to my chair and turns to invite the woman on my right to dance next, delighting her. Her Pom is still snoring in her fat handbag.
I sip the last of my wine from dinner, lost in thought. How will my mom react to Dan when she comes to visit me? What’s the story between them? I know they went to high school together—my mom, my dad, and Dan—but I don’t know much more than this. Since Dad died, she hasn’t spoken to him or about him. It was as if my uncle Dan died with my father.
I feel a warm, soft hand on my arm and look up into brilliantly green eyes and red, curling hair. He smiles, revealing dimples in both cheeks, and his eyes are full of mischief.
“May I have this dance?” His question is formal, but his posture is loose and ready, as if I’ve already accepted. So I do.
I take his hand and follow him to the dance floor, where Dan’s twirling the elderly woman. Her face is lit with a hundred-watt smile.
“I’m Peter,” he says, pulling me into a waltz hold. His form isn’t as sharp as Dan’s, but it’s clear this guy has practiced. I smile at him and give my name, guessing he might be thirty or thirty-five.
“What brings you here tonight?”
“Uh, the charity event?” I’m not sure what the right answer is as Peter spins me, his hand anchoring my lower back. His cologne smells fantastic and the material of his tux is so fine and soft that I know he’s rich-rich. I wonder how long it will take him to realize I’m not and move on to wealthier women.
“OK, then, who brought you here tonight?” His tone drops and there’s heat in it.
“My boss,” I answer, and nod to Dan’s silver head a few yards away from us. “He’s the co-owner of Keystone Property Management.”
“I’ve heard of them,” Peter says. “But I’ve never seen you before. I would have remembered.”
“I’ll bet that’s what you tell all the girls,” I sass, but with a smile. “I’m new to New York. This is my first time.”
“Not dancing,” he says, executing a complicated step that I don’t remember learning. But I keep up.
“My first time at a, uh, charity gala,” I explain. “I take it this is not your first rodeo?”
“Rodeo. That’s cute.” Peter chuckles, again displaying dimples that look like a sculptor poked them into clay. With the tux and his carefully styled hair, the effect is dashing. “I’ve been going for years. My mom’s on all the boards.”
I take this to mean old money. Or at least big, new money.
The song ends and Peter holds me on the dance floor for another without asking. The wine has done great things for my confidence without killing my coordination. We sweep easily across the floor in time to the music, a sultry tango that has me pressed into Peter’s hips.
I feel my hormones surge and take stock: Anthony hasn’t called me since the disaster on Tuesday. Gavin’s bubble seems perpetually stuck on gray.
But now I’m here in the arms of a charming, probably filthy rich man who’s not scandalously older than me. It’s weird and wonderful and I try to forget for a while that I don’t fit in.
“May I cut in?” The song is not quite over and Peter scowls at the man who taps me on the shoulder. The man shrugs and offers me his hand, but says to Peter, “Your mother wants you.”
Peter turns me over to the man I take for his father, though there’s little resemblance. He’s shorter than Peter, with a wide belly and a thick, gray mustache, but his eyes are kind.
“Forgive me for interrupting your dance with my stepson,” he says, turning us into the crowd of dancers. “When my wife wants something, she won’t take no for an answer.” He nods to a woman in a floor-length black gown and red hair as vibrant as Peter’s.
“Tell me about yourself,” he says as the band shifts to a silver foxtrot. I offer my practiced lines about work and he smiles.
“Surely there’s more to life than work? What else do you do?”
I balk. It’s only ever been about work. Working through school. Working my first journalism gig. Working at the coffee shop and the brewpub. There’s not much left of me, unless you count canoe trips and hanging out with friends.
“I write,” I tell him. And it’s true. Since I left journalism, I’ve filled several notebooks with short stories, poems, and essays.
I didn’t suffer through four years of J-school just to end up as a coffee shop manager or a rock star’s house sitter. I need to make something. I need to create what wasn’t there before.
But I worry that I’m not hardened enough to cut it as a journalist or skilled enough to be some other kind of writer, and I find myself explaining all of this to the man on the dance floor.
I need a shrink.
What would my mother say?
“Let me give you a word of advice,” the man says, his deep voice rumbling through his chest, “and don’t you know free advice is worth every penny? In my life, I’ve learned that you have to do what you love. Or die. I know that for sure.”
I let him twirl me again and then raise my brow in a question.
“I did what I was good at for twenty-five years,” he says, “but it ate me alive. It nearly killed me—a heart attack and a triple bypass. So I quit.”
“I can relate to that,” I say, and tell him why I left my first journalism job. The hours sucked and the pay sucked, but what really made it horrible was writing about a new dead kid every week. I had to show up on the grieving family’s doorstep and ask for an interview.
I can’t count how many nights I drove home, blinking back tears as I thought of the story I’d just filed.
“You’ve got plenty of time,” he assures me. “You’ll figure it out.”
We turn to leave the floor at the song’s end and Peter is waiting for me, watching his stepfather with a tight smile. I’m transferred from one man’s hand to the other’s and Peter leads me away from his mother and stepfather.
“You want to get out of here?”
I search the room for Dan and see him chatting with an elegant couple near the bar. “Let me just go tell my boss I’m leaving.”
“I’ll get my car. Meet you out front.”
We part and I approach Dan, waiting for my cue to politely interrupt. He introduces me and then I tell him I’m taking a friend up on his offer for a ride home.
Dan hears the lie, knowing I couldn’t possibly have a friend at this event, but goes along with it in front of the couple.
“Text me to let me know you made it home, OK?”
I promise.