Chapter 21
The party was in full swing by the time I exited the restroom. I could hear the music down the hall. Having a good DJ really did make a difference! The crowd had gone full extreme.
I opened one of the doors to the gym, taking in the whole room. Like the Book prodded us to do, I paused at the door, making my body into an S. It wasn’t like I expected the music to stop and for everyone to stare as I came in like in a Cinderella movie or something, but a few people noticed me.
Several guys looked a few seconds longer than necessary and that was enough for me. It was amazing. Wearing the appropriate clothes and feeling confident in my looks really did empower me. My mouth spread in a wide smile when I saw Marie and Kat dancing with Brett and Jefferson.
Before I joined them, I wanted to see one other person’s reaction. I searched the crowd for Lincoln. But all I saw was the back of him, dancing with McKenna.
I tried not to let that diminish my light and proceeded to my roomies. I was the only person there without a date. Even Larry and Lisa seemed to be content holding each other in the corner. But I wasn’t bugged. The whole world finally came together.
Peace swept into my heart, filling me with joy like a giant pink balloon inside me. I was dancing with my friends. It was a lot harder to dance in a formal dress than street clothes, but I still managed to throw out some moves. It’s not like I could’ve danced all night anyway. I went and checked on the silent auctions. The next raffle would be after the next song.
I saw Lincoln moving toward me in the crowd, but the lights flickered.
Beau climbed on the stage. The music cut off. Wearing a tux with a microphone in hand, he looked like a real MC. As the VP, he gave a tally of the earnings so far. “So, tonight we’re going to do something a little different.”
My heart started pounding. What was he doing?
“I know this wasn’t part of the original plans, but I found out a girl came without a plus one.”
I searched the crowd, wondering who the lonely girl was.
“So for the next slow song, if you want to dance with her, you’ll have to bid for a chance.”
My head swiveled to Beau in massive shock. What was this, a meat market?
“I haven’t talked to her about this, but I know she’ll do it since the money goes to a good cause. Gabby VanGunderson, will you come up here?”
At my name, my heart lunged. My eyes were stuck in wide-eyed position. I couldn’t move, my heart throbbed in my chest. Someone behind me started pushing me toward the stage. The lights at the front of the room flipped on. I climbed the stage steps and faced the crowd, my face beet red.
How mortifying!
Not only did he just announce I was dateless, now we’d see just how little everyone thought of me. Where was that magic button where I could just disappear into the floor? I wanted to scream and run to the nearest exit. But since I read the book, I gathered courage.
Out of the fog of the room and my brain came a thought into my mind from the book. It may be that you are put in a compromising or uncomfortable situation. It is best handled with humor.
Beau turned to me. Ridicule marred his face. He was hoping the old Gabby showed up tonight and would be embarrassed and stammer and make a fool of herself. The Gabby who ran from his showroom. The Gabby who was squelched when he broke up with me.
His wide eyes and his fake smile taunted me. “What do you say, Gabby, will you let us bid for a dance with you?”
I drew a deep breath. Instead of running and hiding, I embraced it. With my long-gloved hand, I gently took the microphone. “I will consent as long as our president, Lincoln, will also consent to bid for a dance, to give the girls to have a chance at the fun.” A large uproar of ladies’ enthusiasm filled The Venue. Lincoln, down in the audience, only grinned, his face beet red matching mine.
Beau encouraged him to come up on stage with me. He leaped through the people and flew up to the stage in a single bound. The girls cheered again. McKenna crossed her arms, a frown on her face.
“Let’s start with Lincoln, shall we? Since the enthusiasm is so great for him.”
Lincoln elbowed me. “Thanks a lot,” he said so only I could hear.
“You know you enjoy it.” I surveyed the crowd, a smug smile on my lips.
Beau bellowed into the microphone like a boxing match announcer. “Let’s start the bid for tonight’s dance at one hundred dollars. Do I hear one hundred dollars for a dance with our illustrious service club president?”
A girl in a wrap dress who was bouncing near the stage earlier yelled out one hundred dollars.
“How about one ten?” Beau enjoyed the limelight.
Another girl enthusiastically committed to paying a hundred and ten dollars. The bidding increased by tens and then by fifties. Lincoln’s ego increased in similar increments. He stood on stage like a cat who swallowed a whole pet store of canaries.
The girls were loving this. Smiles on every girl radiated the pleasure of having a chance with Lincoln. I didn’t realize he was so popular, loved, and adored. It must be nice to have a whole string of admirers. I could never really like Lincoln. He was too popular. And every other girl wanted him. And he’d never like me. A frumpy, dumpy girl who had never been to a DJed party or club before, who didn’t even know who LiveR@ was.
“Eight hundred dollars!” boomed over the speakers. I realized I hadn’t been paying attention. McKenna had just bid eight hundred dollars. “I don’t know if he’s worth that, what do you think, girls?”
Cheers rose up that nearly deafened me.
“Do I hear nine hundred?” Beau yelled over the screams. From this close, I could see the sweat droplets all over his face.
The girl who first bid raised her hand, waving it all around.
“I dunno,” I whispered to Lincoln. “She looks a little toasted.”
McKenna quickly shouted, “One thousand!”
Cheering blocked out all other sounds, even Beau attempting to be surprised. When the crowd finally settled, he got back to the mic. He stretched his arm around Lincoln’s neck. He looked goofy in my opinion. “Dude, McKenna just offered to pay a thousand bucks to dance with you. She’s your date, isn’t she?”
Lincoln’s smile muscles must hurt. He just nodded.
“She just doesn’t want any other girl to have you tonight.” More screaming. I couldn’t tell if it was from pleasure or disappointment or both. “Shall we stop at one thousand clams?”
Beau yelled into the mic over the crowd. “Sold to McKenna for one thousand smackeroos!”
Lincoln hopped off the stage, and then I was there all by myself.
Beau moved the cord as he stepped away from me. “Here’s the lady who organized this fundraiser for us tonight. Let’s give her a hand.”
A huge applause clattered through the place. “Now as I said earlier, because she was so busy organizing and planning, she didn’t have time to get a date. So I thought we could ensure her at least one dance tonight. What shall we start the bidding off at?”
“Ten dollars,” said one of his friends in the back. The crowd didn’t clap.
A bizarre, stunned silence reigned in the room.
Dread grew in my stomach, feeling like I’d eaten too much of my grandmother’s borscht. And with that, a realization of what he was trying to do. He wasn’t trying to raise money; he was trying to humiliate me.
My smile slipped as the crowd barely clapped. I tried to swallow, but there was nothing there. My face burned even more. Nobody said anything. A grip of panic seized me. I searched for Marie’s help. She held open her hand in a vee with her pinkies together. What was she trying to say? A book? No, not a book, the book.
I tried to remember how to be gracious even when people are being rude. What should I do? What should I say?
The bidding was only to twenty dollars. I was tanking and I had to stop it. And not by running off stage and having a cryfest in the bathroom. I was taking charge of my destiny.
No, not stop it. Make it grow. What was it that Lincoln had said? I was able to resign from the race gracefully by making a fool of myself. Or was it having a sense of humor? I looked out at the confused crowd and tried to make the best of an awkward situation. I refused to be the victim.
Beau paced the front of the stage, mockingly asking for bids. The next pass, I grabbed Beau’s microphone from him, leaving him in shock.
“Hi! Wait before we continue the bid, you probably want to see what you’re getting. I’m an excellent dancer.” I started busting some moves—really bad ones. The crowd cheered. “That was worth at least a hundred bucks!”
“One hundred,” came a voice in the crowd. Lincoln had bid, with a grin.
But I didn’t stop, I was dancing to nothing. Suddenly a beat of music pulsed. I flashed a smiled to LiveR@ behind me. The bidding continued.
“Two hundred!”
“Three!” That was the mayor! I stopped dancing and took a bow.
“Four hundred,” was Adrian, the vacuum cleaner shop owner.
“Five,” came from the art gallery guy. I smiled, and he tipped his head to me.
I was humbled. I handed back the microphone to Beau as the bidding went on unprompted.
“Seven hundred dollars!” Larry, in the back with Lisa, called out. She elbowed him and someone moved on to eight hundred. Lisa settled with relief. The crowd was back in the game. Beau flopped open his mouth. His plan had backfired.
“Eight-fifty!”
I scanned to see who’d bid. Lincoln. McKenna seethed.
“Do I hear nine hundred?” Beau asked in the microphone.
Nobody said anything. At this point I was sad to go for less than Lincoln. But nobody moved to raise a hand, only cheers. Then people in the crowd started shouting.
Beau raised a hand to his ear, “What?”
“Behind you,” said a collective group.
Beau and I whirled at the same time to see LiveR@ bidding nine hundred with his hands, a five and a four held up. My eyes widened as I smiled. He tipped his rat mask to me. An inner glow bubbled up inside. I turned to face the crowd, a huge grin plastered on my face.
“One thousand!” Lincoln again.
“Someone better guarantee his funds,” Beau said, pointing to him.
More cheers and clapping erupted, and I looked behind me.
“Two thousand,” was printed up on the screen. LiveR@ bid twice Lincoln’s bid!
The crowd cheered and cheered! Unbelievable. I put a gloved hand over my face and blushed. I turned around and thanked him with a smile.
“Twenty-five hundred!”
I spun.
Lincoln would not stop!
“Come on, boys. There can only be one winner!” Beau looked uncomfortable.
“Three grand!” the audience shouted when $3K flashed on the screen again.
“Four thousand!” Lincoln shouted over the crowd, but it was lost. McKenna’s grumpy eyes shot poison daggers at him, but he beamed at me.
Beau was beside himself. “Are you going to take out more student loans to pay that?” he asked Lincoln. The crowd was so wild, I doubt they even heard that. He dropped his hands to his sides.
Then the cheers raised to deafening decibel. I swiveled to see what LiveR@ had printed up on the board.
Confetti and lights flickered around $5K while triumphant music played. He thumped his hand over his heart and pointed at me.
With a huge grin on my face, I went over and grabbed up the microphone. “All right! Thank you! Thank you!” The crowd was still going wild, making my ears hurt with the noise. I waited a few more seconds, totally taken aback. Cheers continued, making speaking impossible. I paused, overwhelmed. I smiled at Nathan again. A robotic, “Woweee,” sounded over the speakers and everyone laughed.
When it calmed to a dull roar, I continued, “Truly, I am humbled at five thousand dollars!” My emotion caught in my throat. “It’s all for the children!” More applause. “Thank you! I think we’d better stop now, don’t you?”
The crowd went nuts again!
I looked down at Lincoln, and he smiled and nodded consent. Then to LiveR@. He put his thumb up.
The crowd cheered again. Slow music filled the room. McKenna and Lincoln were dancing, but one of them was not very happy. I hopped down from the stage, and the multitude of people swallowed me. I couldn’t see anyone or anything but backs and sides.
“Hey, I paid out good money to dance with you. You going to dance with me?” asked a voice behind me.
I turned. There stood Nathan, unmasked and unsweatshirted, looking extremely hot, even in blue jeans and a white shirt. I just stared at him. “Yes!”
In one graceful move, he took me in his arms. He smelled heavenly, and his grip was snug and strong. “First off, thank you for coming tonight.” I trembled.
“I should thank you for taking over. It’s not an easy job. DJing takes years of practice.”
I couldn’t look away from his eyes. “I don’t think I was any good, and I might’ve ruined your reputation.”
He grinned. “Nah, you got them warmed up for me.”
“Thank you, too for, uh, this.” I squeezed his hand.
“That guy was a jerk.”
“Yeah.” I’d never thought about it before. I always thought Beau walked on water, and now the mask was peeled back. He was just a jerk.
“He shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that.” Even his nose exhalations were intoxicating. I just wanted to stand here, breathing him in. I was sure we looked odd. Him in some expensive-looking, well-made designer T-shirt and jeans and me in a formal. But I didn’t care, and I don’t think he did either. My mind was trying to find a place to go, to ask him questions so I didn’t sound like a sycophant. “So, I read your bio on Wikipedia,” sounded lame.
“What got you into DJing?” I asked.
“I love music.” Through dark fringy lashes, he glanced down at me. I tried not to think of how much money he made or the fact he’s Kat’s half-brother. I just saw him as someone I was dancing with. “When I first started out, I bought a cheap mixer and started doing my own songs and playing for parties—my friends’ parties—nothing big. Messing around. I worked my way up to clubs and scenes. I just obsessed over it. It wasn’t just a hobby, it was my life. I’d be up late at night, trying out different mixes. Probably kept me out of worse trouble.” He grinned. “I started composing my own stuff a few years back. It’s seen mild success.”
“That was the understatement of the year! Movie soundtracks is not mild success. It’s great success!”
He shrugged. “Have you heard of D9Body? Freakysquashbottoms?”
I shook my head, feeling so out of it.
He looked shocked! Then arched an eyebrow. “You have heard my stuff before, right?”
Without telling a lie, I found something to say. “Your stuff is great! I’ve never before been to a party or club or anything with a DJ.”
With a teasing glance, he kind of pushed himself back, looking at me like I was a lunatic. “Really? Never been to a party, club, bar-mitsvah or anything with a DJ?”
“Nope.”
“Then how can you say I’m good?”
“Just a lucky guess.” I was dumbfounded.
He went on to talk about some of his techniques he used to compose.
I didn’t know what to say next. So I scraped around my brain for something. “I’m sure you’ve sacrificed a lot to get to where you are.” Though it was a statement, I figured it was a thought-provoking one, and therefore good conversation.
“I have. Not many people understand success comes with a high price. But if the price to success was low, then everyone would be successful.”
“You have a great talent. I’m glad you’re sharing it with the world.”
“Thank you.” He smiled, his eyes flashing upon me, his breath tickling the fine hairs escaped from my do. “This song is winding down, but I’ll have to send you some mixes I’ve done, and then I’ll point you to where you can hear some of my friends’ stuff. I’d be interested to know your opinion.”
“Okay,” I said, smiling. And the $5,000 dance ended. He gave me a hug. And he hopped up on stage for the next song.
My head and heart reeled! The dance song next was amazing. I tried to listen for some of his techniques.
I hit the tables looking at the silent auction bids. It was impossible to count up everything and get a total in my head. I’d just have to see what they were when we tallied them all up.
Another slow song started, then Lincoln was at my side. “You are one difficult girl to get a dance from.”
“Oh, I…Yes?”
He led me out to the dance floor.
He held me close, and he smiled down on me. “I’m not talking about the auction, although even the mayor joined in. I don’t think Mrs. Mayor was too happy about it. I’m talking about how I couldn’t even talk to you before now.”
“Oh, well, I had to check on things and make sure they were going well.”
We danced in silence for a while. Not an awkward silence, just a nice Being Together silence. “Especially when you were DJing.”
“What? No I?—”
“No use denying it.”
“How did you know?”
“Um, LiveR@ is a five-nine broad-shouldered type of guy, and you are not.”
“Even with the mask and the sweatshirt, you could tell, huh?”
Lincoln nodded. “I would be able to pick you out no matter how you disguised yourself.”
My heart melted. “Do you think anyone else noticed?”
“Well, I also noticed that the one person who organized this party wasn’t here. I began to look for her.”
“Oh.”
“And I didn’t believe the monkey story for a minute, although Kat does have a crazy imagination.”
“Indeed.”
“Besides, I knew wild or tame monkeys wouldn’t keep you from this event. I recognized you up there, spinning tunes.”
“Haha! Promise not to tell?”
“Of course.” He spun me around. “So what happened?”
“Late plane. He asked me to warm up the party.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
I glanced toward the stage. “He’s pretty cool. He came for free you know.”
“And bid five grand to dance with you.” His voice turned bitter.
I blushed. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
“Nah.” He smiled. “I’m dancing with you now for free.”
I smiled. I felt emboldened. “McKenna was perhaps annoyed that you bid on me.” McKenna chatted with friends in a corner, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. Was she crying over Lincoln bidding on me?
“She’ll get over it. I was just trying to spur the bidding up higher. I knew LiveR@ was good for it.”
I threw my head back and laughed, although deep inside I was a little sad. I hoped he liked me and really wanted to pay that much to dance with me. That I was worth that much to dance with, but no he just wanted to drive the bid up for more money.
“Yeah, did you see everyone cheer for your dance and then stand stock still when my bidding came up?” I shook my head, still warming at the humiliation.
“No, they were all in shock that the bidding was so low compared to mine. Beau set you up.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. I talked to people after and thought it was horrible of him to do that to you.” Lincoln thrust up his chin. “Why is he going out of his way to be a jerk to you?”
I shrugged. “Beau is always a jerk to me.”
Lincoln leaned in closer studying my eyes. “I sense some history here.”
My eyes fluttered away. “We dated briefly in high school.”
“Ah. You broke his heart?”
I laughed at the thought of me as a heartbreaker. “More like the other way around.” It took a lot to admit this out loud. And it came out with a sigh. “Beau never thought I was good enough for him. And he wants to make sure I remember that.” I don’t know why I gave him so much power over me for so long.
The music ended. I thanked Lincoln for the dance. I didn’t expect Lincoln to say anything more, but he leaned in and whispered in my ear, “He’s wrong.”
We parted, and I floated on cloud nine.
Lincoln hopped up on stage to announce the auctions were closed. I floated back to the auctions, marking the bids and finding the winners and collecting their money.
Baskets of goodies, certificates, and other winnings—I was lost for a few moments, handing out things and chasing money down.
Finally, I had everything all wrapped up.
Lincoln was at my elbow again. “How much did you make?”
“I am just tallying it up now.” Several people waited around, listening in.
“Twenty grand just for the entrance fees,” Lincoln said, waving the figures from the person in charge of tickets.
“I don’t think Gabby should be in charge of tallying her own profits.” Beau scowled.
“Great idea!” Lincoln held up the receipts from the silent auction. “Beau, will you help me?”
I knew the charity won, no matter who won, but it was a matter of my pride to beat Beau.
Beau gave me a strange look. His crooked smile made me nervous.
I continued to put the checks, cash, and receipts in a bag to be locked up overnight then tallied everything we used from our mobile point of sale and set it on the table to give to Lincoln.