5. The Bid
5
THE BID
Sarah
“OH MY GOOODDDD! Can you believe tonight is happening!?” Kensy hollered down the phone as I put her on speaker so I could finish my make-up while we chatted.
“I know!” I said, my stomach fluttering nervously in response to her outburst of excitement, “Oh, erm, Kensy, could you maybe pick me up? I, sort of… Well, I sold my car.”
“What, Toto? No! Not because…”
“Yeah. You don’t have to tell me. I already feel stupid and embarrassed enough about it. But, hey, I can get another car, right?”
“Er… Sure you will, unless you make babies with that barbarian,” she laughed down the line.
“Yeah, I’m not sure how much Hayden Raynor a few thousand bucks would get me. Maybe there’s a cheaper option? Perhaps that Czech one with the massive eyebrows? ”
“Voracek! You’d have to pay me to go out with him … Dan Janek isn’t so bad, though.”
“The goaltender! You serious?”
“Good with his hands,” Kensy said dreamily.
“Haha, okay. I’ll be ready in like an hour.”
“You’re crazy Sarah. I love you. See you in an hour!”
Kensy arrived wearing a flowing black dress covered in overlapping triangles in neon pink, purple, and lemon lines. We made for an odd couple with me in my simple midnight-blue cocktail dress, but I was proud of her for sticking to her style and not even trying to dress appropriately for the occasion. For me, however, I was still trying to find my way by desperately trying to look like everyone else, trying to give the impression that I fitted in and felt like a normal person inside. Not standing out seemed like all I could do to be safe.
When we arrived, there was valet parking, but we’d skipped it and instead parked Kensy’s Prius at the far end of the car park, in order not to embarrass ourselves.
It felt good as we walked up to the Glass House with the rest of the glamorous crowd. With the flashing cameras and the carpet rolled out, it was like we were really a part of that elite set, even if only for a short-lived moment.
“Oh look! That’s Randall Jackson with Georgia Moss,” Kensy said in a hushed voice, her eyes leading the way as we approached the carpet. A flash of photographer’s lights boomed around us like fireworks exploding. Kensy’s curtsy in front of the camera crowd got a less fanatical reaction with one tepid camera flash that left us laughing at each other.
Inside, we both scooped a glass of champagne from a passing tray and watched the gaggle of people in expensive clothes having loud and jovial conversations. We were like ghosts in that room. No one even looked twice at us, let alone spoke to us. I was thankful when, finally, the lights dimmed for the start of the auction, my anxiety and feeling of imposter syndrome having started to climb toward dangerous levels. I really didn’t want to stand there and be ignored all night.
We all looked toward the stage as the presenter walked out. An impossibly smooth-skinned older man, with hair that was too black to be untreated, I couldn’t help but see him as entirely gray underneath.
“Oh, I know him! He was on that show… Blue Bloods or SVU or something…” Kensy told me.
“Daniel Day-Lewis was busy tonight, so instead they got the man who taught him everything he knows…” the man began, flashing an impeccable white smile at us all, then working his way through an introduction that mostly focused on how we should all be giving away as much of our money as possible. The wives and younger men in the room seemed delighted with this, while the older crowd looked dryly and solemnly ahead, sensing their wallets were in danger.
“Onto our first auction item of the night, please raise your checkbooks for… Solly Ricek!”
Solly walked out uncomfortably to a round of applause that made my heart beat faster. A nervous expression stretched across his pale face. Looking to my right, I saw a gorgeous woman standing in an open-backed dress by the stage. Her slim tan arms were crossed, glaring directly at him. Solly tried to soften her glare with a small pleading smile, but seeing him flash his teeth at her only seemed to make her even more mad .
I nudged Kensy and nodded my head toward the woman.
“Uh-oh, Solly’s getting in trouble,” she said, her expression one of amused delight.
“So. Who’s going to start us off?” The announcer boomed from the stage.
“Two bucks!” someone yelled out to a ripple of laughter.
“Fifty!”
“Two hundred!” A plump, bespectacled older lady in a cardigan near us shouted enthusiastically.
“Five hundred.” The open-backed goddess said flatly, still staring furiously at poor Solly.
“A thousand.” The woman in the cardigan yelled. She was all riled up now, like she was watching her horse winning the Kentucky Derby. Hopping from foot to foot, all sweaty and buzzed up on the excitement.
“Two.” the scorned woman responded.
“Five!” came the immediate response from next to us. God, she was in it to win it , I thought. This was going to be interesting.
The Goddess paused, wavered a moment, then found whatever resolve she needed and plowed ahead.
“Six.”
“Seven!”
“Eight.”
“Ten! Ten thousand!” The Cardigan was jumping with excitement now, her face red and flushed with the rush. On the stage, Solly gulped nervously.
“Twelve.”
“Fifteen!”
The Goddess threw a dirty look over her shoulder at the Cardigan, but the Cardigan was only looking at Solly.
“Twenty,” she said, emotionless .
“Twenty-five!”
“Thirty.”
“Fifty!”
The Goddess balked at this. The Cardigan wasn’t going to stop. There must be a limit? Some point where the scales went over. But, looking at her, it didn’t seem that way. She was unrelenting in the pursuit of her prize.
“Fifty-one,” the Goddess said weakly. She was reaching a point that she wasn’t prepared for.
“One hundred!”
There was a gasp from the crowd and all eyes were now turned to the Cardigan, who was bouncing in glee, before they turned back to the glaring Goddess who looked stunned, and then, after swaying for a moment, she sat down.
“SOLD! For… Ladies and gentlemen… ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS! Give it up for Solly Ricek, and…” The announcer stretched his hand out toward the Cardigan.
“Beth Gibson!” She yelled back.
“Give it up for Solly Ricek and his very generous date for the evening, Beth Gibson!”
Solly was sweating profusely on the stage now, his eyes darting from the audience to the scowling terror that was sitting by the stage trying to murder him with her eyes.
“Oh, I know her!” Kensy said in my ear, nodding at the Cardigan, “She’s the one who got divorced from that tech billionaire, it was in all the gossip news, took him for everything she could get.”
“Well, now she’s got Solly Ricek too,” I said back, still shocked at what we’d just witnessed.
“Poor Solly, she’s going to eat him alive,” said Kensy, and I nodded in agreement before we both looked back over at the seething brunette. Someone came to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and she batted it away with a vicious swipe.
“Next up… Mister Safe Hands… The man you want between your pipes,” a few chuckles came from the now enraptured and engaged crowd, “give it up for Dan Janek!”
“Yes!” Kensy screeched, before yelling out, “Three hundred and twenty-seven dollars!”
The presenter looked a little annoyed that his announcement to start the bidding had been taken away from him, but he rolled past it.
“An opening bid already… Three hundred dollars!”
“And twenty-seven!” Kensy yelled back, but he ignored her as the other bids started coming in.
“Four hundred… Five… Six… One thousand…”
I looked at Kensy and she shrugged.
“I went all in, worth a shot.”
Dan Janek pulled in a decent twenty-eight thousand dollars while Kensy glowered as a cheerful middle-aged mom skipped over to the stage to claim her prize.
“Ugh, she wouldn’t know what to do with him.”
“Probably put him on babysitting duty for the night,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
But there was an anxious feeling in my stomach that I was trying to ignore, and it was growing rapidly. Then it was quickly joined by my heart thumping like thunder in my chest as I noticed a shadow looming on the side of the stage.
“Here we go! Our next item, the man with the iron fists, and ladies, it’s not just his fists that are rock hard…” the announcer winked to an equal scattering of chuckles and groans. But I didn’t laugh or groan. I couldn’t. My hands were sweaty and my mouth wouldn’t stop awkwardly twitching.
Kensy turned to me and saw my face. “You okay, Sarah? ”
“Uh-huh,” I managed to mutter back, swallowing down a gulp as the man from all of my recent fantasies stepped out in real life before me onto the stage.
“…Hayden, The Hellraiser , Raynor!”
Kensy howled along with the crowd, but I was detached from it all, my eyes feasting eagerly on his frame. His roguish brown hair and dark stubble, his huge chest underneath a stretched white t-shirt that looked like it might tear open with just a flex of one of his muscles. He looked even bigger in person than I had expected.
“So then, who wants a night with the Hellraiser ?”
There was a wild ripple of excited cheers, but I was entirely removed from it, fixated only on Hayden beaming from the stage at all the attention that was being given to him. For a second, his head passed over the clapping hands and it seemed like he was looking right at me. A tremble ran through me before I noticed Kensy tugging on my arm.
“Sarah? You ready to get your bid in?”
She was looking at me wide-eyed, all caught up in the excitement and, suddenly, I was pulled back down to earth, back to the room and the announcer’s voice booming around us.
“Two thousand! Three thousand. Four. Five…”
“Sarah! Put your hand up!”
Half-dazed, I looked to the stage. The lights seemed lurid and bright. I felt sick.
“Over here!” Kensy shouted at the stage and lifted my arm.
“Eight thousand!” the announcer bellowed our way as my arm fell back down.
“Nine! Ten!”
I snapped back into action. This was the moment I’d waited for, but I couldn’t enjoy it. I was a ball of stress. My arm went up.
“Eleven!”
“Twelve,” the announcer pointed to the other side of the room, “Thirteen… Fourteen… FIFTEEN THOUSAND… Sixteen…”
My chance had gone and everything faded. Standing in that room with all those rich and glamorous people, I suddenly just felt flat and alone. What had I expected would happen? I mean, really ?
“…Twenty-five, ladies and gentlemen! Thirty! Thirty-five!”
I could sense Kensy looking at me pitifully from my side. All I wanted to do was to leave immediately and maybe have a quiet cry alone outside. Ridiculous Sarah, this was nothing but a childish fantasy. Hayden Raynor? Who were you kidding anyway?
A rasping voice from behind us broke me out of my spell.
“Keep bidding.”
I turned to see a well-dressed man in a black tie and suit, his blue eyes fixed on me.
“Huh? I don’t… I can’t…”
“Please. I’ll comp you.”
“What? I don’t understand,” I stuttered back.
The man flashed a look across the room, toward a young blonde woman in a sequin dress that I thought made her look like a disco ball crossed with a mermaid.
“My fiance. I can’t let her win him .”
He had a pained expression, one that only someone who is truly desperate knows how to pull.
“ Please ,” he insisted again .
The disco mermaid flung her hand in the air and the girls around her squealed with delight.
“FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!”
I watched the man for a moment longer, making sure he was absolutely serious, then I turned back to the stage and flung my arm up.
“Fifty-five!”
The fiance’s hand went up again, “Sixty!”
Then the announcer’s eyes came back my way, and I did the same, “Sixty-five!”
“How much?” I whispered over my shoulder.
“What?” He replied.
“How MUCH?”
“Just keep going,” he insisted.
I flung my hand up again, the fiance immediately doing the same, “Seventy-five! Eighty!”
We were the only two playing the game now.
“Eighty-five! Ninety! Ninety-five!”
She wavered and scowled over at me, but I only looked ahead.
Then, as if in a dream, it was all over. I couldn’t understand what had happened exactly, until I heard Kensy’s voice screaming at me, “You won! You won!”
I looked down at my hands and saw they were shaking. Then I turned back to where the man had been standing. He was gone. My heart raced.
“Kensy, hold my drink!” I said frantically, and then I was running through the crowd.