“You’re not sure about university?” I ask to remind her of why we came in here.
She glances at Cassie with caution, which means she won’t say a lot in front of her. Probably for the better because there’s only so much that anyone should talk about in front of new people.
She shrugs and says, “Yeah. I’m not sure if I want to go away with all the changes the family’s gone through lately. Maybe it’d be better to take a gap year and then decide. I don’t know.”
“A gap year’s not a bad idea,” I tell her, to which Cassie nods in agreement. “I’ve always thought it’s rather barbaric to expect an eighteen-year-old to know exactly what they want to do with their lives.”
“But will a nineteen-year-old know any better?” she asks.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” I concede. “But you’d have had a year to think about it.”
Cassie agrees and says, “It’s not like university is going anywhere. It’ll be there in another year.”
The thing Cassie doesn’t know and possibly Delaney doesn’t know is that Delaney hasn’t necessarily had the choice. Before they didn’t have the money to send her, so there wasn’t a lot of reason to even consider going off to school.
But things have changed, and Delaney is such an intelligent girl that it would be a shame for her not to go to school.
Taking the year off doesn’t automatically assume that she won’t go next year, but there’s always a possibility that she finds a job that she loves and never goes. That also wouldn’t be the worst thing, but Delaney has so much potential she might be able to do more. If she wants to.
In the end, it’s up to her, and I won’t try to sway her one way or another. My only job is to be there and support her. It’s all I can do anyway.
“What if she works for you, maybe interns,” Cassie says suddenly, causing my eyebrows to furrow down in confusion.
“Yes!” Delaney exclaims.
“What do you mean?” I ask because we aren’t hiring anyone at the moment, but I can see where this idea has potential.
“I’m going to need help getting this venue switch done. I was going to pull one of the volunteers in, but if Delaney came aboard, she’d have something to do in her gap year, and she’d get tons of event planning experience.”
“It’d be trial by fire,” I counter. Coming into the potential nightmare of this particular fundraiser could be overwhelming. Cassie and I are already slightly overwhelmed with all of the work that needs to be done, and Delaney has no experience or pre-knowledge of what needs to be done. That could lead to more work for Cassie.
“What better way to learn?” Cassie raises an eyebrow.
“I love the idea,” Delaney says. The huge smile on her face is full of hope. When she came down the stairs, she’d been a bit gloomy, and clearly, a lot had been weighing on her. Now, it’s the complete opposite.
“Before you get too excited,” I tell her to temper her excitement just in case. “I want you to know what’s happening. What to expect. To start, you’d be Cassie’s assistant, which means whatever she tells you needs to be done, you have to do it.”
“I can do that.” She twists her fingers together, which means I’ve done nothing to calm her down. I’d bet in her mind, she’s already at the office working, but that vision is likely cooler than the reality.
I love event planning. I love the details that I see when no one else does. I love the finished product. Everyone does. But they don’t see the work, the time, the energy, or sometimes the tears of frustration that go into it.
It’s not that glamorous.
“You’d be doing a lot of grunt work, Delaney, and right now, the hours are going to be kind of long. It’s not going to be easy.”
“Delilah, I promise, I can handle it. I’ll be the best assistant’s assistant that anyone has ever had.” She wets her lips quickly. “I just need something of my own. Something where I can make a difference, ya know. I’m tired of bouncing around almost empty houses with nothing to do all day.”
I snicker. “Well, if that’s what you want, the complete opposite of hours with nothing to do, then I think we can use you. There’s so much to be done right now, and it’s all hands on deck.”
Delaney lets out a squeal that also reverberates around the room. That’s the only downside to this place. The echoing but with the amount of people we’re about to fill it with, that should go away.
“Thank you so much.” She jumps from her seated position and hits me like a brick house, only to wrap me up in a hug. “You won’t regret this, Delilah. I promise.”
“Of course I won’t.” I try to speak through the laughter that’s still coming out of me at the way she’d hit me. “I know you’ll do a great job.”
And now I have a little less to worry about.
Even with the bumps in the road, this fundraiser is set to be the best one we’ve put on yet.
