I'm shaking Parker Trask's hand and looking out at them from the podium.
I know what they want to hear.
But all I can see is one woman.
The girl at the bar. She's standing up now. Her wide innocent eyes are taking me in. Her breath catches when she sees me looking at her and I look at the rise and fall of her breasts—even from all the way over here—and I start to forget who I am and what I'm fucking doing.
But just like the applause can take you by surprise, its quick death can be something that jolts you back to the present as well.
That's what happens to me and all of a sudden, I'm facing at least four hundred people dressed in their finest.
My mind completely fucking blanks as to what to say.
To be fair, when Joyce set me up with this speaking engagement, she gave me a list of things to say. I even have them here in my jacket pocket. I just have to get them out and read them.
But somehow, after seeing Penny, it doesn't seem like it's doing enough justice.
I know. I sound like an absolute fucking idiot. It doesn't matter what I say, as long as I say it and get the photo op, right?
That's what Joyce would say.
And normally, even for something like that I'd fucking begrudge her. But not today.
"Ladies and gentlemen," I say into the microphone. "Most of you won't know this, but I'm really wealthy."
There's a smattering of laughter from around the crowd. Actually a fair bit of laughter.
It's not that everyone around me at this dinner today is super fucking wealthy. Some people don't even have a net worth past 1,000,000 dollars.
But that's not what I meant before you start to roll your eyes.
"I'm not talking about money," I say to clarify. That's right. I'm clarifying for everyone. "I'm talking about opportunity."
Now there's silence. Could it be that people loved my hook?
"I was born in New York City," I state. "Actually in this hospital itself. Then I lived with my parents on the Upper East Side. My parents aren't around now, but it's not hard to imagine my father and mother coming through the doors to this great hospital to schedule my birth. Hospital stays were expensive back then, and my par
ent's were modest. They didn't have much money. But my father was friends with the doctors. My mother went shopping with the secretary pool. So when they came into this hospital, they were treated like royalty."
People are quiet. They're listening to me speak. They must think I have something prepared for them to hear.
But the truth of the matter is that my brain is too jumbled now to recite or remember any of the talking points that I had. I'm just speaking from the heart now.
"Treating people like royalty is something that at Davion Development, we strive to do day in and day out," I say to them. I notice a few raised eyebrows.
What? You don't believe me?
"We make sure that any new construction for condominiums or residential towers includes at least 20% of the units allocated for low-income subsidized housing. Then we offer this housing to the people we're displacing," I say. Silence.
They're listening.
"Do you realize how incredibly destructive a development corporation like mine is to the social fabric of a neighborhood?" I ask into the audience. Silence.
"Does anyone realize what happens when the corner butcher, or baker, or liquor store can't pay their rent when it comes time to renew?" I ask again. And again silence. "When they have to make a choice between paying rent and paying their workers?
People are listening to my words with a sense of interest now.
"New York City isn't just about the big buildings that reach toward the heavens," I say quietly. Flatly. "It's about the people. The people in the neighborhoods who make up the foundation for those buildings."