17. Gemma #2
“Anywhere they’d like. We don’t have a seating chart this evening.”
“She’ll want to be right up front so she doesn’t miss anything, and Gramps will want to be closest to the food.”
“Front table on the Grove side. Food all around it and a clear line to the stage.” I waved when he left and turned to the next guests.
“Put us to work,” said Arlow.
“Bless you.” Huxley, Everest, and Brylee were right behind her. “Remember to welcome them to the Thomas Whitmore Event Center.”
Before anyone else stopped me, I went into my office and put on my headset.
Thirty minutes later, most of the guests had arrived. Bas had poured glasses of red and white for everyone who came through the door, and the tasting room staff was walking the floor, delivering them.
“Ready?” I said through the comms mic.
The Whitmores met me on stage. Huxley came last, bringing Zeke with him, and Kick followed right behind them.
Rand, who didn’t need a mic, tapped the side of his glass. “Attention, everyone.”
“Get on with it, Wolf,” a voice shouted from one of the tables in the middle.
“If you’d shut up, I would. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, kindly be more polite to the woman who organized this event than you are to me.”
I’d stood in front of rooms like this one more times than I could count, and I’d never once cared this much what the people in them thought.
“Thank you,” I mouthed to him before looking out at the crowd.
“On behalf of Sebastian, Everest, Arlow, Huxley, and Brylee Whitmore, along with Zeke Oberon, I’d like to welcome you all to the First Pour at the Thomas Whitmore Event Center.
I’m Gemma Engel. Kick Avila from Miremont and I will be your hosts this evening. ”
“On the first weekend of November, Whitmore will be hosting the first Wicked Winemakers’ Ball in the Russian River Valley.
It’s black tie, and every dollar it raises goes to the children’s hospital in Santa Rosa.
Paso Robles has held one for years. Thomas Whitmore agreed to kick this one off, and his family is keeping that promise. ”
When the applause died down, I introduced the three teams and their companies. “I’ll let them tell you what you’re looking at.”
Thalia from After Dark stepped forward first. When she named her room, heads turned toward the black dahlias, and she described the rest of it better than I could have.
Wallace told them where the stations were, that they were welcome at all of them, and that the wait staff would come to the tables as well.
Camille was last, and when she announced that menus were on their way to every table and guests could order from any station no matter where they sat, the applause was the loudest yet.
“Gem,” Bas said from behind me. “You did this.”
“The teams did this.” Edna and Clint were at the table closest to the stage, clapping with everyone else, and she was looking at me. When she winked and waved, I did the same.
“You just got the seal of approval from the most important person in the room,” Bas whispered.
“Second most.” I leaned in to kiss his cheek.
Before I realized he was gone, he disappeared behind the bar.
The Whitmore siblings moved among the tables like they hosted events every week.
Huxley and Zeke had the men I’d met at the vintners’ association dinner at the barrel room door, telling them about the years Thomas and Bas worked side by side.
Whenever a particular decision was discussed, they made sure Bas was given credit for it.
Arlow stood with a group near the stage, and Brylee went from table to table, talking with guests and filming.
Bas continued pouring until Walt Percy approached the bar, saying there were people he wanted Bas to meet.
“Look at him,” said Everest, coming up beside me.
“He reminds me so much of Dad, except our father hated every minute of standing in a room, shaking hands. He’d come home and say he was a farmer and winemaker, not a glad-hander.
None of us knew what it meant, and he had to explain it to us.
” Everest laughed, then turned serious. “Every one of those guys is waiting for him to mess up. He knows it. He hasn’t made one mistake for them to point at. ”
Bas was laughing at something Walt said. I’d never seen him do that at one of these things.
Rand and Kick visited tables together like they’d been friends for years, but according to Izzy, they hadn’t met before tonight.
I made my rounds, checked in with each of the teams, and stopped to introduce myself and thank people for coming. Nobody let me get away without asking about the ball.
Clint Whelan caught my arm on my way past where their family was seated. “Edna tells me you need items for a silent auction.”
“I do.”
“Howling Wolf has a library that goes back to the year Rand was born. I’ll pull a vertical, and you can tell me if it’s enough.”
It was more than enough, and I told him so.
Libby and Demi from Little Sparrow wanted to donate a chef’s table dinner.
After that, Owen Thackeray, who Bas had told me never came to anything, asked what the sponsorship levels were and whether I’d have time to stop by his place the following week.
Which, of course, I told him I was happy to do.
By the time I returned to the stage, the sponsorship page of my notebook had more names on it than I’d hoped for.
Once dessert and after-dinner drinks had been served, I was about to take the stage to begin the presentation when Bas came out from behind the bar and stalked toward the main entrance. Within seconds, Huxley, Everest, and Rand were on his heels.
I followed, staying near the outside edge of the hall, making my way to the front to find out what was happening.
When I saw Bas stop in front of a man who was on his way inside, I dropped my clipboard.
What in the hell was Desmond Gannon doing here?
His name hadn’t been on the list his company submitted, and everyone who was had already arrived.
When the two men came face-to-face, Bas stood with his feet planted and his hands at his sides. His brothers and Rand stood the same way behind him.
Words were exchanged, but I was too far away to hear what was said. Right before I was about to return to the stage, Gannon looked past him, and our eyes met. His gaze lingered a second longer than a stranger’s would have, then he turned toward the guys and smiled.
I’d never mentioned the man to Bas nor he to me. As far as I knew, the two of them didn’t know each other, and that meant the only reason for Gannon to be here was to cause more trouble for me.
Whatever the asshole said next made Rand grab his arm and escort him out of the building.
Huxley and Everest returned to the guests they’d left. By the time Bas reached me, the door was shut and the man was gone. I’d watched his face the whole way, looking for any sign of what Gannon had said to him. He appeared angry, but not at me.
“Everything all right?” I asked.
“Someone who wasn’t invited showed up.”
I could have asked who he was, but then I’d have had to pretend I didn’t recognize it if he told me.
“Kick’s waiting for you,” he said.
I stepped on stage, introduced Kick, then turned the program over to him before anyone could see my hands shaking.
As he began talking, photographs from years of the Paso Robles Wicked Winemakers’ Balls came up on the screen one after another. They were of men in dinner jackets who looked like they’d rather be anywhere else, women with paddles in the air, and the hospital’s name at the bottom of every image.
Ray Myers sat at the vintners’ table, with his glass untouched, and he wasn’t looking at the slides but at the name of the hospital that had saved his daughter’s life.