And the price of readmission? Giving me a building. Did I love the idea? No. But I’d be able to do so much good with it, andall I had to do was grit my teeth and let him stare at my ass for a night. “Great. Keep me updated.”
“Will do.”
As I hung up, my phone went off. First with my timer—I swept the cheesecloth covering all my pans of rising sweet rolls off so that I could pop them into the preheated ovens—and then with a flurry of texts. I grimaced at them while putting down my pot holders. Ugh. The first couple were from Millicent and Coriander, my old friends who’d helped me perfect the art of dancing on tables and getting in and out of cars without flashing anyone. I didn’t hate them or anything. It wasn’t like they’d killed my grandmother and then tried to kill me when I figured it out, like our other friend, Opal.
But not trying to kill you was a pretty low bar for friendship.
Hey Pom!!! I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever!!!
I know, right??? It’s like you’ve been avoiding us or something lol
The mature thing to do would probably be to talk to them like an adult and tell them kindly that I wasn’t avoiding them, I was just really busy. That was a lie, but it would mean I wouldn’t have to tell them I was actually avoiding them because they were bad for my image and also kind of annoying. It was bad enough I’d been forced to invite them to my gala, but the choice was between that or dealing with a flurry of posts and articles speculating about our friend breakup that would overshadow all the good I was trying to do.
Sigh. Ignore.
The next was from my brother, Nicholas.Hey, traitor. Can you offer to take Jessica shopping for your gala? She’s second-guessing everything in her closet and might show up naked.
I rolled my eyes.Well, since you put it so kindly.I didn’t think it was that terrible to want to distance myself from the family company, Afton Hotels, after everything that happened last year. Both the “family” part and the “company” part had proven themselves pretty toxic. But Nicholas did not quite agree, nor did he approveof my decision to host my gala somewhere other than the flagship hotel.
But I shrugged it off. He’d just have to deal with it. I still loved my brother. And I probably owed Jessica, his fiancée, more than a shopping trip, considering how I’d wrongly accused her of murder and all. I continued,I’ll see if she wants to go this weekend.
He didn’t thank me, which was to be expected from Nicholas.Okay. Also, did you realize you’re hosting your first gala while Mom and Dad are abroad? Mom is upset about it.
Aw, that’s too badI had no idea.
I did have an idea. It had been entirely my idea, actually, to have Lina sneakily check with my mom’s assistant for her schedule. My parents could enjoy their seventh honeymoon in Tuscany, and I could enjoy having a gala without them in attendance.
You should call her.
I will. I definitely would not.
Messages dealt with, I tucked my phone back into my Poquette belt bag, its bubble-gum-pink stripes matching the pot holders I’d specifically commissioned for everyone who worked at the bakery. “What do you think about my guest list?”
“Can I see it?”
I grabbed my tablet from the nearby counter, blowing a puff of flour off the screen, and handed it over to Vienna. We were already almost at capacity from RSVPs—we’d barely need to contact anyone on the backup list I’d generated to keep the place from looking embarrassingly empty in case no one wanted to come. Much of the guest list was made up of people who’d donated large amounts of money to the nonprofit; others were people I wanted to impress with my transformation and show I was ready to be taken seriously; more had been chosen by me and Vienna to keep things interesting. Nobody wanted to go to a gala if the only people there were other boring, normal rich people. “The artists from your list are all coming, and the girl from that new Broadway show too.”
Vienna scrolled, the shiny screen reflecting in her dark eyes. “Wow. I can’t believe they’re all yeses.”
I sucked in a deep breath, trying to quell the nerves that sentence had unleashed in my stomach. She didn’t have to clarify who “they all” were: they were the top tier, the upper crust, the other nonprofit owners and museum board sitters and city award winners. In short, all of the people who would have previously never been seen with Pomona Afton.
Probably they were only coming to my gala because they thought it would go down in flames and they’d get to cluck their tongues at me again. But I’d show them. They’d see. They’d have to stop looking down their noses at me once they saw how serious I was about wanting to help people. They’d have to start looking… up their noses at me? Did that make sense?
Vienna continued, “What about the journalist who wrote that viral ‘eat the rich’ piece?”
I grimaced. “You don’t think he’d start a fight?”
Vienna shrugged, cracking a smile. “The one thing I’ve learned about throwing galas is that you want them to be a little spicy, as long as you personally or your organization aren’t involved in the drama. Just a little. Otherwise they blend in with all the other galas and nobody remembers you well enough to donate.”
She was probably right. Most of the galas I’d attended blurred together, but I did still remember a gala my grandmother threw back when I was a teenager, when she invited both my mom and the ex-boyfriend my mom cheated on with my dad. I still remembered that the gala had been to benefit something about preserving ancient rock formations in parks because my mom had taken a miniature replica of one of those ancient rock formations and thrown it at my grandma’s head.
Note: make sure our centerpieces weren’t easily throwable.
“Makes sense,” I said, texting Lina to dig up his contact info.Make sure to drop how many billionaires and almost-billionaireswill be there and tipsy,I added, making a mental note to seat them apart so that the reporter could only approach the billionaires while everyone was mingling, giving the billionaires an escape hatch. Spicy was good, but not hot enough to make my donors cry. “What else should I remember?”
“Figure out who your fattest targets are,” Vienna said promptly, as if she’d been waiting for me to ask. “Not literally. You want to make sure you’re spending a lot of time chatting up and flattering a few people who both have a ton of money and might be especially inclined toward your cause for some personal reason.”
I thought for a moment, scanning the list again. “Ooh, probably Kevin Miller.”
