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“Thank you.”
He glances at the wine on the stand. "How much is all that wine worth?"
I bite the inside of my lip, rolling with the subject change. "All together, one point two million."
He lets out a whistle, and his eyes widen. "What the hell? Seriously?"
"Yes. As you know, I'm hoping to outdo last year's donations. So, this is me trying."
"Well, the people here look like they have deep pockets, so I have faith that you might achieve your goal."
"Me too."
Gwen walks onto the stage, my cue that it's time to get ready to start.
She glances my way with excitement and waves. I wave back and look at Ryan again.
"Good luck, Luna. You got this." Ryan gives me two thumbs up. "I'll see you on the stage."
"Sure."
I give him a quick hug, and I'm so grateful that we feel like we always did. He smiles warmly before he leaves to join the audience.
Gwen comes up to me to give me the last-minute prep. Minutes later, the auction begins.
She introduces me on stage, and I take over, becoming the auctioneer.
At first, I'm nervous as hell, but as soon as the first bottle of wine sells for two thousand dollars, my excitement takes over. The next bottle of wine is from an old vineyard in Italy. The starting price is two grand, so I get my hopes up when people start bidding at three thousand.
When it sells for four, my excitement goes through the roof. Forty minutes later, I've auctioned off twenty bottles of wine and made three hundred thousand dollars.
With an hour left to go, I still have my hopes up that I'll hit my target, but I take a moment to appreciate how well I've done.
I hope Mom is smiling down at me for the love I've put into this event.
I remember her saying that she wanted to do something with her life that mattered. I do, too, and this feels like my first step in doing so.
Twenty minutes later, I reach the exotic wine collection from Spain and Russia.
I pick up a duo and start the bid at three thousand. To my surprise, Ryan bids on them.
I know he hasn't got money like that to spend on wine, so I'm grateful he bid. He doesn't win them, but he helped me raise the bids to fifteen thousand dollars, and the duo is sold to a man who looks like Santa. I nod my thanks to Ryan, who smiles back at me.
The next wine in the collection is extremely valuable.
It’s a 1995 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Grand Cru worth two hundred thousand dollars. It's the one I had my fingers crossed to make the bulk of the money tonight. If it sells for a half a million—which is what we got last year for a brand like this—that will help fund the research program my mother was working on.
"Ladies and gentlemen." I infuse my voice with enthusiasm to create a buzz of excitement. "This is a 1995 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Grand Cru. It’s very valuable and guaranteed to complement any occasion your heart desires. The starting bid is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Who will take this precious acquisition home?”
The excitement in my voice is infectious, but silence fills the room, and it gets so quiet after a few seconds that I fear this might be the end of the auction.
When a few more moments pass, disappointment pulls up my insides, and all I can do is offer a nervous smile.
"Come on, guys," I say in a perky voice, "This is amazing wine. Just the sale of this priceless gem will help further the neurological research my mother was working on before she died."
The gentleman in the second row holds up his hand, “Two hundred and fifty thousand," he says, and my entire body relaxes with relief.
Thank God. It seems my little reminder did the trick, but now I’m worried about the rest of the wine in the collection.
