10:30; 10:31; 10:33 P.M.
10:30 P.M.
David and Angela Hannover were the true power couple at the fundraiser – he was a central player on Wall Street and using his vast fortune she operates a conglomerate of not-for-profit organisations, and together they were an impeccable image of entrepreneurial magnanimity. One picture of their presence at any political event in the city, or as far south as Washington D.C, could nearly flip the election. They were gentile, unassuming billionaires who seemed to truly intend to use their cash to make the world a better place, and yet Brigit was intimidated to no end as she approached. Brigit was rich though the jewellery and Prada dress was little more than a veil to disguise that she was a housewife, which, in modern times, was a faucet of shame. The problem was not laziness, a lack of ambition or intelligence. The problem was that she had not yet found her true calling and she was prepared to walk down every avenue until she found herself where she felt true. Maybe starting her own not-for-profit was another dead end, but even if she did not discover that completeness she sought, she may help make the world a better place. And the key to becoming more than the ring on her finger and the world becoming bigger than her home was in the pockets of David and Angela Hannover.
“Brigit!” Angela said.
“Angela!” She said with a pearly smile. She gently kissed Angela’s cheek so as to not mar her make-up. “Don’t you look positively ravishing this evening?”
“How nice of you to say, especially since I lack the energy these days to try to be ravishing.”
“And it takes me two hours to look this moderately attractive.”
“Honey?” She tapped David on the shoulder. “You remember Brigit Donaghue?”
“Oh, but of course.” He shook her hand and returned to his conversation.
“Forgive him, dear. I’m afraid he’s a little distracted, what with the rumours and all.”
“It’s quite alright.”
A rather tall servant stopped beside them with a glistening steel tray holding a dozen glass of quiescent champagne. Without a hint of flirtation he said, “For the beautiful ladies?”
“Certainly.” Angela took the champagne she was handed.
“Mademoiselle?” He said to Brigit.
“Ah, one more won’t hurt.”
“That’s the spirit,” Angela said as Brigit took her champagne.
“Thank you.”
“You are most welcome.” The servant gave a slight bow to her and went on to the next guests.
“He was a handsome one, wasn’t he?” Angela whispered out the side of her mouth.
Brigit looked again at the servant. “Honestly? I hadn’t really noticed.”
“You’re too coy.” She sipped champagne. “So, tell me darling. What is this gathering tonight about?”
“It’s just a social gathering with people like you and David whom I only seem to mingle with at an event like this.”
“What a marvellous idea. And yet, you’re not being entirely truthful, are you?”
“I’m not?”
“If you intend to start the habit of lying then I suggest you hone your skill at it. I’ve travelled the highest and innermost of circles for nearly thirty years and, let me tell you, it is impossible to survive there without recognising a lie. The thing with learned deceivers is that you cannot notice you’re being deceived until you’re already broke.”
“Please, don’t make it sound so insidious.” Brigit’s intentions were to broach the subject in the limousine where The Hannover’s could not escape her pitch, provided she found a natural context in the conversation. Now her plan was another thing doomed before it got off the ground. “Deceive is such a filthy, filthy word.”
“I’m sorry dear. I’m just not sure what else to call it.”
“I prefer to call it waiting for an opportune moment.”
“You’re right. That does sound more civil, and honest. Forgive my ill-advised candour. My guard is always up, I am afraid.” She looked around and sipped her champagne. “The only ones in this room who won’t take advantage of you, Brigit, are probably the staff, and even some of them are itching to get a hand inside your pocket. Remember that.”
“I will.” She smiled. “Thanks for the advice.”
“Any time. When do we depart?”
“About twenty minutes.”
“Thank heavens! This fundraiser has been a tremendous bore, albeit a bore for a worthy cause.”
“It is a little depressing.”
“An execution would be merrier.”
David Hannover bid adieu to Congressman Pyke and turned to them. He immediately took Brigit’s hand and she blushed as he planted a kiss on it, a gesture she had never grown accustomed to. “My apologies a moment ago, Mrs. Donaghue. I hope you do not think I was being flip.”
“It’s quite alright, David.”
“It seems everyone wants to tell me the rumour like I had not heard it at three in the morning.”
“The mayor may be across the ballroom, but everyone knows you’re the most important man in attendance.”
“You flatter me to no end, Mrs. Donaghue. Where is Philip?”
“Oh, I left him at the bar.”
“Surely you know better than that!” He guffawed. “I am being facetious, of course.”
“And very droll.”
“Did I hear that we are leaving in twenty minutes?”
“Indeed you did.”
“Splendid!” He planted his hand on Angela’s thin hip. “I am afraid then I must steal away my lovely wife and make some more face time before we depart.”
“We’ll have time to converse later.”
“We will,” Angela said.
“Come now, Angela dear. We have a despondent Mayor to reassure.”
When their backs were turned and they began to move away, Brigit calmed enough to finally sip her champagne. She watched The Hannover’s flutter from person to person, shaking hands, sharing smiles, laughing without influencing their expressions, and all en route to someone else they’d rather talk to. At that moment she doubted whether or not she had the chops to be more than an ancillary observer to this world. To exist here, one had to treat everyone, even those one vehemently dislikes, as if they were old friends, and, as Angela pointed out, she suffered a tremendous paucity when it came to insincerity. It was not until she quietly burped that she realised she drank the entire glass of champagne in one go. That same tall servant came back her way with only one glass left on his tray, and it was offered to her.
Brigit closed her eyes listened to the dozens of conversations around her. It was a certainty not every word was truthful and being unable to differentiate the lies from the truths dismayed her. The only footsteps she heard came from the servants. Each laugh was artificial, each compliment hollow. Maybe it was that last glass of champagne or how small she felt in that conversation, but she felt queasy. The terrace doors opened and a considerable gust blew past her and the dangling crystals on the grand chandelier above tinkered against each other like a despot’s wind chime. In the loftiest of societies she was out of her element yet it distressed her how badly she needed to be where she did not wish to be.
A warm hand fell on her cold, bare shoulder.
10:31 P.M.
Philip Donaghue slithered from one cluster of people to the next, engaging acquaintances with idle, perfunctory chatter, which was his cover as he stalked Tevin Greene. The same servant who just served Brigit and Angela offered him a glass of champagne, which he politely refused. He shook hands with fellow attorney Samuel Mercer without making eye contact.
Tevin Greene was circling Brigit like a vulture and, much like he had obviously done on the terrace, he was going to swoop in the moment she was alone. And Philip will not allow that to happen.
“You hear about it?” Samuel Mercer said.
“About what?”
“You know—it.”
“Oh, yes. It. I heard about it.”
Tevin was on the move.
“It could be tragic.”
“Could be. I’m sorry, Samuel, but I have to collect my wife. We’re about ready to leave.”
“I didn’t even get to have a drink with you.”
Already walking away, he said, “Next time.”
He thought he heard Samuel mutter that he was an asshole, which in any other situation might have encouraged him to turn around.
Philip halted in a cluster of people and thankfully, no one engaged him. Tevin’s unblinking eyes remained locked on Brigit. That bastard may have wormed his way into his limousine and into his home, but he refused to allow him to worm his way inside his wife. For the moment, all he could do was intercept him. Then later he’ll find a moment, as little as twenty seconds alone with Tevin Greene, and then he will make him back off.
David and Angela moved on.
Tevin made his move.
So did Philip.
10:33 P.M.
Tevin Greene was not an idiot – little passed over or under his attuned senses. And Philip Donaghue did not disguise his surveillance well. He pitied men like Philip Donaghue Junior, men who desperately clawed to hold onto what they already have and yet were fuelled by insatiable desire to attain even more to lose – he could never be certain if such irrational behaviour was a product of greed or pride, but it was a cardinal sin either way. With Philip, he surmised it was pride – he simply cannot bear the humiliation of being made a cuckold of. Tevin Greene, burgeoning real estate mogul, was not a believer in ownership.
In all his years of experience in all manners of society, he learned that attraction was the most honest of human instincts. Attraction cannot be hidden. It did not matter what the object of attraction was, but when the right eye catches sight of it, the world drastically shrinks because in that initial moment of contact, no matter how hard one tries, that attraction cannot be disguised. No force on earth matched the power of attraction. If not for the attraction one molecule held for another, the world would be shapeless, and that would be a bona fide tragedy. Brigit Donaghue was not shapeless. And he could not deny his attraction to her. There were dozens of women in the vicinity more beautiful and striking yet he only saw Brigit Donaghue. In his world there was only him, and her, and, unfortunately, Philip Donaghue, who, despite the best of his efforts, will not thwart Tevin’s Normandy invasion. And what Philip did not know was Tevin did not have to storm the beaches of Brigit. He was granted free passage out on the terrace when, only for a moment, her eyes said ‘Fuck me, Tevin’. And he would.
However, as he watched Brigit converse with The Hannover’s, he understood this was not the place to book such appointments. The first step of his plan was to get inside that limousine. The second was to be alone with her for as little as fifteen seconds and plant a furtive seed of benign innuendo that will thereafter sprout into a passionate and long overdue liaison. And once the gentile and unassuming object of his attraction is shed of her clothes, he expected to see a beast made of nothing but claws and teeth.
Brigit Donaghue was finally alone in the crowd. Even with her eyes closed he saw how forlorn they were and when they opened all he saw was attraction because they saw him approaching.
Philip swooped from behind and startled her.
It was impossible to verify, but he assumed that when she turned around and saw her husband, the attraction dissipated from her gaze.
Philip made sure to stare him down over her shoulder before he took her away.
He laughed to himself. Philip was under the assumption that he had just a won a victory. In reality, Philip Donaghue lost before he put his pants on that morning.