“What a pity,” a female voice says behind me. I turn and see an older woman, who looks exceptionally well for however old she may be. She is wearing a gorgeous white dress and matching earrings. “All these old and young men, without a trace of the women responsible for bearing them. You would think these rich men were conceived inside a bank account.” I laugh, probably a bit too hard. Some of the rich suits around me look at me as if I’m insane.
“Sorry,” I say to her. “I didn’t expect anybody here tonight to have a sense of humour.”
“Well, I’m glad we found each other,” the woman says, putting out her hand. “Elise Ferlong. Nice to meet you.”
I shake her hand. “Elle—”
“Mavin. Yes. Everybody knows who you are, young lady. I have to say, if my presence wasn’t expected of me tonight, I would have wanted to come to meet you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You said your name was Elise Ferlong?” She nods her head, and a flashback from the boring commercials during my Jerry Springer marathon come to me. “The state senator, Donna Ferlong?”
She nods her head again. “Let me guess, you saw one of my re-election commercials recently?” This time I nod my head. “They are dreadful, aren’t they?”
“Well—”
“Don’t ruin our moment with a lie, Ms. Mavin. They are boring and shameless. But that’s what my campaign manager says will get the seniors out of their nursing beds to go vote.”
A thin older man with glasses walks up to Elise, holding a glass of red wine. It takes me a moment to realize he’s my guidance counsellor, Henry Ferlong, from Ryland Academy. I look away from him shyly, thinking back to a few nights ago when Danna and I broke into his office.
Henry extends the glass to Elise, and she quickly waves his hand away. “Henry, I wanted white wine.”
“You always drink red,” Henry Ferlong says with a hint of defeat in his voice.
“Yes, but I ordered the cod as the entrée tonight. Fish and red wine? Am I a barbarian?” Henry sighs and begins to walk away. “Wait, hun. On second thought, I’ll take the red. Can you get me a glass of white though as well?”
Henry looks at her funny. “You said you were driving home tonight.”
“I still am,” Elise says with a coy smile. “By the way, have you met Elle Mavin?”
Henry Ferlong looks at me oddly. It’s as if he knows that I broke into his office at the school. I feel like he’s caught me red handed.
“No, I haven’t,” he says extending a hand. I quickly shake it. “Mr. Cain has mentioned you though. It’s your senior year, right? You should come by my office again, and we can chat about what life looks like after Ryland.”
“Maybe a campaign manager,” I say looking at Elise. She smiles warmly at me.
Elise looks at Henry coldly. “Dear husband, we did the whole introduction thing, can you get the wine now? I need it to get through this event.”
Henry smiles thinly and leaves as instructed. I look at him puzzled when I realize he said to come to his office, again. I had only been in his office one time, and he was certainly not present.
I try my best to put the thought aside. Besides, I’m more interested in talking Elise Ferlong, who has my full attention. We talk more about our lives. She seemed to already know a bit about me. She shared how she lived in neighborhood close to mine when she grew up. I didn’t want to ask which. Around the downtown core, you can go from beautiful rich neighborhoods to ghetto drug ridden ones quickly.
Elise raises an eyebrow at me. “I was raised in the Shaughnessy area.” Well, that confirmed it. She was a ghetto girl, like me.
Soon after, we sit for the charity’s dinner. Unfortunately, Elise is not at my table. I’m with a few older couples, and feel completely out of place.
I see Henry Ferlong walking past my table and almost want to raise a hand and ask for some white wine as well. Something tells me that I want to have the same power over him as his wife would though.
Elise was certainly right about one thing—you need wine to make it through events like this. A lot of it.
For a bunch of rich people, who probably live amazing lives free from the clutches of earth-shattering debt like most, I assumed the event would be more…lively.
The couple beside me is droning on about their son. How smart he is. He will likely go to Harvard for law school, they guess. He’s extremely athletic, apparently. He’s tall and handsome.
When the wife says that, it finally gets my attention. Wait, are they honestly trying to hook me up with their son?
The woman, wearing an elegant black dress made of some weird fabric I’ve never seen, raises an eyebrow when she repeats how handsome he is.
Oh, god. She is trying to make a love connection at a charity dinner.
“You would probably know him,” she says. “He’s in your grade at Ryland.”
I know this woman and her stern looking husband introduced themselves to me at some point, but I can’t for the life of me remember what their names are again.
“Sorry, what’s his name again?” I ask.
“Nathanial,” the wife says with a smile. I think about it a moment, but still don’t put it together.
The stern man takes a bite of his salmon and looks at me, covering his mouth with a napkin as
