The gymnasium of P.S. 34 had been transformed.
Charlotte stood in the doorway and tried to reconcile the room she'd set up folding tables in with the space she was looking at now. The streamers were there — she and Kate had hung them yesterday, arguing about whether blue and gold was festive or funereal — but everything else had been elevated. Proper lighting had replaced the overhead fluorescents, casting the gym in a warm glow. The silent auction tables were draped in white cloth. The student artwork lined the walls in actual frames, gallery-quality frames with printed labels beneath each piece.
Oliver's dragons were front and center. All of them, arranged chronologically: the early ones with their wobbly lines and oversized heads, progressing through the skateboarding dragon, the sneaker dragon, the party hat dragon, and finally the masterwork, the chalk dragon from the blacktop, photographed and enlarged and mounted on canvas, every clumsy wing and Jordan-clad foot preserved.
"Did you do this?" she asked Kate, who was standing beside her in a black dress, holding a clipboard.
"I did the streamers. The rest was—" Kate gestured vaguely toward the stage. "Donor initiative."
Charlotte looked at the stage. A podium had been set up, draped in the Gallison Foundation's banner. Amrita was arranging programs on a table near the entrance. Parents were filing in, along with school board members, teachers from the other pilot schools, and a handful of people in suits who Charlotte didn't recognize.
Dominic was nowhere she could see.
"Where is Dominic?” she asked.
"Backstage, I think. He's been here since noon."
"Since noon? The gala doesn't start until seven."
Kate shrugged, but there was something in her face. A knowing, a contained excitement she was working hard to suppress. Kate was bad at suppressing things. Her eyebrows were practically vibrating.
"What do you know?" Charlotte asked.
"Nothing. I know nothing. Go mingle."
Charlotte mingled. She talked to parents, greeted her students — who were dressed in their best and vibrating with energy — and accepted a glass of punch from Eric, who was manning the refreshment table with Regina.
"Big night," Eric said, grinning. "You nervous?"
"Why would I be nervous? It's a fundraiser. I've done dozens of these."
Eric and Regina exchanged a look. The look people exchange when they know something you don't.
"What?" Charlotte said.
"Nothing," they said in unison.
She was going to lose her mind.
The program started at seven-thirty. Principal Delaney gave opening remarks. Amrita spoke about the Gallison Foundation's mission, the pilot program's outcomes, the kids whose work wason the walls. Oliver's mother — present, healthy, thinner than Charlotte remembered but standing on her own feet — said a few words about what the program had meant to her son. Charlotte cried into her punch cup and didn't care who saw.
Then Amrita returned to the podium.
"And now, I'd like to introduce the person who made this program possible. He came to us a year ago with a passion for education that surprised everyone, including himself." A ripple of gentle laughter. "He's since become one of the most dedicated, hands-on donors I've ever worked with, and I mean that literally, because I've seen the chalk stains on his dress pants. Please welcome Dominic Weston."
Applause. Charlotte's heart climbed into her throat.
He walked onto the stage. Dark suit, white shirt, no tie. His hair was pushed back, his jaw was clean, and he looked gorgeous. Her heart picked up its pace.
He adjusted the microphone and cleared his throat.
"I'm not good at speeches," he said. "I'm good at presentations. Board reports. Quarterly projections. I can stand in front of a room and talk about numbers for an hour without feeling anything, and I used to think that was a skill." A pause. "It's not a skill. It's a deficit."
The room was quiet. Charlotte set her punch cup down on the nearest table because her hands weren't cooperating.
"A year ago, I sat in this school's conference room — the one with the motivational cat poster and the table with someone's initials carved into the corner — and I met with a woman who has changed my life. She didn't know she was changing it. She thought she was reviewing a grant proposal. She asked me about funding structures, teacher compensation, and student outcomes, and she did it with a fierceness that made me want to be better at everything I'd ever done."
He didn’t mention the altar or the heartbreak, but he didn’t have to. It was all there in his eyes. The regret. The love.
