CHAPTER
One
Throwing a party really isn’t that complicated. All you need are decent food and drinks. A venue large enough to hold your guests without crowding them. Decorations to wow them—maybe some fresh seasonal flowers, a dinosaur skeleton or two, a few principals from the New York Philharmonic or the Metropolitan Opera to fiddle away in the background. Enough space on the roof for a helipad. And then, of course, the little extra touches that make a party truly special.
“Are you absolutely, positivelysurewe can’t do the themed peacocks?” I asked my former and also current best friend (my life is complicated) Vienna across the shiny chrome table covered with pans of sweet roll dough. It was warm back here in the bakery kitchen, great for rising dough and less great for my hair, which was currently sticking sweatily to the back of my neck.
“I’ve held multiple galas there,” Vienna said. She was sitting perfectly straight on a stool even though it didn’t have a back to lean against, her legs crossed elegantly at the ankle. Her signature sleek French twist kept her black hair off her elegant swan neck, upon which glistened not a single drop of sweat. “So I can tell you with confidence and for the third time that, yes, non-service animals are barred from the main building of the New York Public Library.”
Could I sneak them in? The last time I went to a gala there, my friend Millicent had smuggled in her emotional support Pekingese, and the staff hadn’t even noticed. To be fair, fluffy purses were in style that year and they might have mistaken it for one. Though peacocks were probably less likely to get kicked out for eating a chunk of a 1600s atlas on display.
“The peacocks come trained,” I said. “And they’re an essential part of my vision. Imagine the guests mingling while peacocks in my theme colors of violet and white are strutting around, introducing a bit of wild excitement into an otherwise ordinary party.”
This party wasn’t just any party—it was the first gala for my very own nonprofit focused on helping disadvantaged students with scholarships and whatever else they needed to stay in school, on which I’d spent a lot of blood and sweat and tears and money and also a lot of other people’s blood and sweat and tears and money over the course of the past year building. Over that year, I’d gotten to know these kids, learned all about the help they required, and understood that it fell to me to be the heroine they needed. In order to get that help, I had to impress a bunch of important people, which meant the gala had to be perfect, and perfect meant themed peacocks. Obviously.
Vienna raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow. “A beautiful vision. But I assume they’ve already told you no.”
I sighed. My assistant, Lina, had indeed forwarded me her emails where she’d basically begged the venue to change their policy for a night. They hadn’t budged. Then she’d forwarded me the emails she’d sent to a bunch of service dog agencies asking if it was possible to get a flock of peacocks certified as service animals, to which people had only responded to ask if this was a prank. “I suppose it would be bad form to get kicked out of the venue the night of my first gala for breaking the rules.”
“Good publicity, though,” Vienna said.
I sighed. “Only if you’re one of those people who thinks allpublicity is good publicity.” No shade to those people—I used to be one of them, after all. Before the murder of my grandmother last year, I’d been a tabloid darling, reveling in the buzz of influencers discussing whether my post-club nip slip had been deliberate or if I realized that the fast-food chain I’d been starring in commercials for was under federal investigation for heavy metals in their meat (respectively, yes and no, though I did use the opportunity of the latter to ask a reporter, in my best baby voice, if that meant people were finding gold bars in their burgers, which made me into a meme).
But now? Now that I’d not only solved the murder of my grandmother but had survived months living in an apartment without a doorman or even a chef, I was a new woman. Honestly, getting herself murdered and basically forcing me to be the one to solve it was the nicest thing my grandmother had ever done for me. Old Pom would’ve strutted at the head of her peacock parade, grinning at the flashing cameras and already salivating to see what theNew York Postwas going to say.
New Pom wanted to be taken seriously. Which, as it turned out, was kind of hard when the entire world was used to laughing at you like everything you said and did was a joke.
“You know, one of my artists went through a bird period,” Vienna said. I bit my tongue, still fighting the Old Pom urge to play stupid even after a year, and ask if it was really possible for someone to transform into a bird. “We can see if he’ll let us include some of his works at the venue instead of live peacocks? I’m sure he’d be thrilled to get so many eyes on his art, and it would capture the spirit of what you want.”
“That’s a great idea,” I mused, and not just because it helped mine come to life. It would help both me and Vienna with our missions at once: she headed a nonprofit that worked with young artists of color. “Is he already on the guest list? Text Lina his name and she’ll put him on.” I thought for another moment. “You know what else is a great idea? Peanut butter and jelly rolls.”
“I assume that’s for the bakery and not the gala.”
“Right.” I surveyed the rolls rising under cloth before me. I’d come to the bakery—mybakery, I reminded myself with a shot of pride—to test out new fillings for the bakery’s—mybakery’s; I was still getting used to achieving things—famous sweet rolls. In about a half hour we’d put them in the oven, then do a taste test. The winners would become rotating specials. (Which I’d hired people to bake, obviously. Having my trust fund back meant that I got to do the fun parts of owning a bakery, like formulating and taste-testing new flavors of sweet rolls, and leave the less-fun parts, like waking up at three o’clock every morning to bake full batches of them, to people I paid.) “Do you think your artist might be able to make a special piece for the event? One with a peacock in my colors?”
“I’ll ask him.” She pulled out her phone. I watched her type, still feeling lucky that she was here in the first place. We’d gone through a very painful and very public friend breakup a couple of years ago, when she’d grown out of the party girl phase and I hadn’t. We’d reconnected once I’d grown out of it, too, and decided I wanted to do more with my life. “I can’t imagine he wouldn’t pull an all-nighter for an opportunity like this.”
“Fantastic.”
My phone buzzed. My assistant, Lina. “Hello?”
“Hello!” she said brightly into my ear. Lina was the… step-niece of one of the board members of the family company, I think? Or something like that. She’d graduated from college recently and wanted some nonprofit experience before going on to grad school or hunting down an MBA to marry. “I have an update for you on the Chelsea project.”
“Great. Tell me everything.”
She started talking about permits and land use and blah, blah, blah. I nodded along and focused on how great it would feel when the project was done and I was smiling for the cameras on the building’s front steps as I cut the shiny pink ribbon crossing thedoorway, surrounded by the delighted faces of the kids I was helping. My nonprofit had started out focusing on giving scholarships to students at New York City colleges and universities, but I’d learned over the past year that sometimes a scholarship wasn’t enough to help many students stay in school: a number were housing or food insecure, or they didn’t have a quiet or safe place to study, or they had to work odd hours that made it difficult to go to class or get assignments done on time.
So, the project: a building that could help my students with all those things, centrally located between many of the city’s campuses. It would have a fully stocked kitchen, places to nap or sleep for a bit until they got back on their feet, a library where they could focus and study. A brilliant idea, if I could say so myself. (I could.)
“… so we’re right on track with all that,” Lina finished.
“Great,” I said, then paused. “And… everything is okay with Mr. Phlume?”
My idea may have been brilliant, but, as it turned out, even my gorgeously reestablished trust fund had limits. Renting and maintaining a big enough building in central Manhattan would’ve eaten up too much of it for my comfort. So when real estate tycoon Conrad Phlume had approached me, offering us the use of one of his currently vacant buildings at an absurdly low cost in exchange for tax write-offs and grunt work on the inside, how could I say no?
“I mean, he’s a giant asshole, but yes, everything’s okay with Mr. Phlume,” Lina said.
A few months ago, everybody who was everybody collectively decided they’d had enough of Conrad Phlume. Enough of his leers and wandering hands. Enough of his nasty jokes at other people’s expense and blustering speeches about how women didn’t belong in the boardroom. He’d been knocked off the entire city’s guest list.
