After what her father did?
No way she’ll pull this off.
Apple can’t fall that far from the tree.
When the camera pans the crowd, I fast-forward. After my speech and Terrance storming off, I found him sulking in the corner. While the camera is too far to pick up our voices, I remember.
“What happened up there?” I said nicely, even though I felt like screaming the words. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer.
“Are you nervous?” I offered, though that couldn’t have been it. It was a room of funders and schmoozers here for the drinks and their photos with the famous-for-Rhode-Island Terrance Castle. “Talk to me.”
“I am nervous, but it’s about the direction we’re going.” He stared down at his drink. “I’m not sure I’m the right person for what you want.”
“You’re the only person,” I said and touched his arm.
“I don’t like where we ended up.” He paused and searched my gaze, as if hoping I’d understand. “I can’t lead if I’m only saying what people want to hear.”
“And you don’t want the money? One million dollars to go all over the country. You’ll throw that away?”
“It was never mine,” he said. “I won’t be bought, Jules.”
This old argument. “We can talk about it later. Right now we need to get a giant bottle of champagne sabered.”
“I can’t. I will not. Are you hearing me?” He stared at me as if we were strangers and not two people who’d come up with this idea together. “This country needs to have real conversations about crime,” he said. “We are all responsible. You only want to make people feel better.”
“What about Dez?” I asked about his wife, who was usually on my side. “She can’t agree with you?”
“It’s not her decision.”
Maybe this whole idea was too fast, too soon. “Okay. Let’s talk about it later. We can meet for a drink and hash it out like we do.”
I smiled at him, and he half smiled back. “Text me after, Jules,” he said.
On the video, Terrance looks angry as he leaves the ballroom. Elle comes up to me right after, and I remember that too.
“You got a minute?” Elle asked. “Miller is not happy about tonight. He gave me an earful. He’s doing the same with other board members.”
The camera catches my eye roll. “What else?” I asked, not wanting to dwell.
“Phillip Hale called again. He is persistent about getting that interview with Dr. Castle.”
I wrinkled my nose at my ex-boyfriend’s name, even if he is a journalist now and we broke up a lifetime ago. “Next.”
“It might be nice, though, to have him interview Dr. Castle. He said Terrance was a mentor to him.”
“It’s complicated with Phillip. Listen, we’re about to go on a national tour. I want your brilliant brain focused on the big picture. We’re going to be choosing between Nina Totenberg and Savannah Guthrie.”
The camera catches Elle’s smile, but I can see she’s annoyed.
I gave her a goodbye air-kiss before I said, “I need to grab a champagne to get this toast going.”
I was nervous as I walked across the room, glass in hand and faking a calm smile. I was thinking of my father’s advice: Don’t let them see you sweat, kid. They’ll think it’s permission to pour on the gasoline.
The video comes closer to me and follows my path. I gently tap my glass with a butter knife, leading the crowd toward a large table in the center of the room. The camera pauses close to me and the 144 glasses I’d stacked perfectly with a level into a champagne tower.
The camera shows Miller Marks creep next to me with his Poe Foundation board chair attitude.
The video has more shots of the crowd, but I remember the conversation with Miller too. It likely kicked off my champagne binge.
Miller leaned his droopy face in my direction. “This is a mistake.”
I took a deep breath, thinking I wanted to be this guy in my next life. Who gets to criticize everything but doesn’t deign to suggest a damn thing that’ll keep the lights on. “It’s a million-dollar launch. You want me to invite our funders to the Haven Brothers food truck instead?”
“It looks preposterous,” he said. “We’re a donor-supported foundation, not the Newport Yacht Club.”
“Are you an optics expert now, Miller?” I took a sip of champagne. “In that suit?”
“If I was, then I’d never have let the board hire you,” he said.
I almost wish he had stood up to the board in opposition to me. Instead, he’d been complaining to anyone who’d listen that my big idea to launch a Rhode Island Genius Grant was destined to fail. The old guard does just that and guards the old ideas that kept the Poe Foundation in the same forgettable place since my father was forced to leave it thirty years ago. They took it from him. But I’ll be damned if they take it from me.
The video focuses on my motioning forward two thick-necked servers. They proceed to lift a three-foot-tall bottle of Moët champagne and stride across the shining marble floors.
As they approach, another man steps forward and raises his saber into the air. The silver crescent-shaped sword catches in the chandelier light, and the crowd softly gasps. Bob the saber bearer is the owner of a French restaurant not too far from this hotel. He waves the sword in circles like Prince Ali. This time, the camera picks up Miller’s words.
“This is a big mistake,” he says. “Those champagne flutes are going to crash and kill Dr. Castle.”
I gasp and hit pause on the video at his words. Little did we know it’d be something . . . someone who’d do that later that night. I hit play, and the next few seconds are of me drinking champagne.
“How many of those are you going to have?” Miller says. “Just like your—”
“Enough.”
I can almost see on the video the uptick of white-hot rage beginning to constrict my ribs against my dress. I watch as I inhale and take a long sip. I want to say to my past self:
Stop, Jules.
Have a glass of water.
Eat a bite or two. Don’t prove them right.
It will be the biggest mistake of your life.
The camera shifts to Bob raising his saber, and it’s ten points for pageantry. The crowd goes quiet.
“Who will hold the bottle for me?” Bob calls out. “Any volunteers?”
The Moët was too big to hold in one hand with the saber in the other.
“I told you, Jules,” Miller says. “Let the failures begin.”
I grin and step forward, as if it was all a fun mistake. “I’ll do it!” I call out with a Vanna White wave.
The crowd applauds as I head toward the tower of glasses. I remember thinking I couldn’t have planned it any better. It all worked out. But it always does.
I prop the bottle on my left hip. “Not sure getting sabered was in my job description.”
That gets a big laugh.
“You ready?” Bob calls.
“Born that way,” I say and toss the crowd another smile.
The saber goes up, and the crowd gasps.
I close my eyes. I remember thinking, “He might take my head off, but better it roll onto that tower of glass than fall at the hands of Miller. This CEO job is mine. Hell or high water or six liters of champagne.”