“Look at you!” Noah squealed when he saw me coming toward him. “You look like a million bucks, girl!”
I blushed. It felt good to be noticed.
Olivia was in the lobby too, standing near the door. Her dress was an A-line, pale yellow tulle dress. It was a simple dress. Nothing too extravagant. I liked that about Olivia. She didn’t care for attention. Noah had on a simple black-and-white tux.
Olivia’s phone was pressed to her ear for a moment, and then she lowered it and rushed to us. “Okay, first off you look great, Ivy! Second I think we really need to get going. Genevieve said she needs us to look over a few things before they open the doors.”
“I just texted Lola because I got the same text from Genevieve,” Noah said. She said she’d catch another black car and will meet us there. She’s okay with us handling whatever needs to be done.”
Ugh. It was just like Lola to be fashionably late. Most times she was on time, but for this? No. She’d glide in wearing her feathery gown and everyone would notice and gasp and stare, awestruck.
“Okay,” I said. “Well, let’s get this show on the road, then.”
* * *
So, Passion Gala wasn’t exactly like prom, Marriott. For starters, I didn’t think I would be needed so much. The ceiling light above one of the bars was flickering, so we had to tend to getting the bulb changed. One string of fairy lights wasn’t lighting up in the hall, so Genevieve and Noah had to quickly get a new pack from the storage room and replace it. It was too cold in the ballroom, so we had to wait for the room to heat up before letting anyone in.
It was annoying . . . well, at first. After the doors opened and guests rolled in, it got better. Drinks were passed from the bars and hors d’oeuvres began to shuffle through the crowds, and it wasn’t so bad. I’d had a drink myself to loosen up.
The gambling was first, and the laughter was boisterous, and people were jolly, which was Lola’s endgame. To her, the drunker a person was, the more they’d gamble, and the more a person gambled, the more money the charity made.
All would have been well for me if I hadn’t caught a man’s eye. His name was John Hampton. He was co-CEO of a popular yacht club and owned several golf clubs all over the States. He was also married, which I didn’t care so much about, but he constantly told me how much I reminded him of his wife, and that was not cool. What woman wanted to be hit on constantly just to be reminded that they looked like the man’s wife? Lola had arrived around twenty minutes after the doors opened and noticed him talking to me. She gave me a keep-it-up-buttercup wink. Ugh. She sucked, Marriott.
According to Olivia, John Hampton was a huge donor. He gave heftily to Lola’s cause. He also loved to refer to Lola as a sister and close friend, but he spoke of her like an old fling.
“You know Lola and I went to college together?” John said to me during dinner. Lola was on the opposite side of the table, next to Corey, flat out ignoring him. “She was the one girl every guy wanted. I remember telling her that she’d go places; now look at her.” John sipped his whiskey. “So, what about you? Where’d you come from and how long will you be in New York?” He gave me a sleazy smile.
I was repulsed. To put it simply, John wasn’t all that attractive. He was balding badly but trying to hang on to what hair he could, and his breath smelled like sardines. Not only that, but he wasn’t where my sights were. My eyes were only on one target, and that was the doctor sitting on the opposite side of the table, right next to Lola.
A woman named Samira was seated on the other side of me with her fiancé, a retired professional golfer named Roland Graham. Samira and Roland were an interesting couple. He hovered around her like a shadow. When she spoke, he was very attentive, and if any man dared look her way or tried to mingle with her, he was in that man’s face, giving him a silent threat to back off. But for the most part they seemed like a nice couple. Strange, but nice. I wished I had a guy who was possessive with me, but in a healthy way, you know?
As the night carried on, I noticed that Lola was drifting further and further away from Corey. Corey hung out in a corner with a few men, sipping his drink and pretending not to notice, but I took note of the subtle slide of his eyes as he looked for his wife.