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I’m the go to person called upon to help come up with themes and decoration ideas for friends and neighbors when they have parties to throw. Why not charge people for my time and ideas? I have a lot of relationships with caterers, decorators, lighting, and sound professionals. So, I make calls and let them know I’m going into business for myself. I’m heartened by their encouraging responses.
* * *
When I go to pick up Anthony from school, I stop by the principal’s office. When I casually mention to her that I'm starting my own event planning business, she claps her hands in delight and says she might have a customer for me. This whole “Old Me” thing might not be so hard after all.
5
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My event planning business is a dud. Apparently, people are happy to use me to plan events as long as they don’t have to pay me. After countless meetings and following fruitless leads, I was ready to give up.
Then, last week I got a call from the Executive Assistant to the CEO of one of the largest talent agencies in the country—according to a quick Internet search. She said she had been referred by a friend of a friend and wanted to talk to me about planning their DC office grand opening event.
I panicked a little since I hadn’t planned an event of that magnitude yet.
Our initial phone call was a chance for me to figure out what they wanted. I had a week to get myself ready for our face-to-face. Ms. Haynes told me that their new CEO was opening the branch in May of this year to accommodate the growing film and television industry in the Washington metro area. He wanted this party to be one that would show his clients they didn’t need to fly to New York City or Los Angeles to find a great agent and that he was here to stay. It would be a sizable, but exclusive event and he was a stickler for budgets.
I’ve spent the week scouting venues, talking to vendors about food, linens, decorations, lighting and sound, and creating a vision I would pitch to her during our meeting.
If I could land this client, I’d be well on my way.
I went shopping for the meeting and bought myself a new suit. A killer, black power suit, that made me look the part of an experienced event planner.
Their office sits in DC’s Golden Triangle; it is the heart of the District’s business community and stretches from Dupont Circle to the White House’s front lawn. It’s a location that boasts power, access and money. I was twenty minutes early, so I sat in a coffee shop next door to settle my nerves and to go over my presentation.
All morning I’d been feeling like I was on the cusp of something big, not just a job, but a second chance.
Now, I'm sitting in the elegantly appointed reception area of The Definitive Artists Agency, staring at a wall covered in a mosaic made up of hundreds of famous faces.
On the sleek coffee table in front of me is a pile of this month’s Esquire magazine, arranged in a circle so that no matter where you are sitting one is facing you. On the cover is a man who I can only describe as a blond Adonis.
His unsmiling face is stunning. His eyes a green so startling, most people would think they are enhanced. Only I know they are not. They are wide set, heavy lidded, and lushly lashed. His skin is tan and rugged and his blond hair is swept completely off his forehead, revealing a broad, heavy brow that is perfectly proportioned to his high cheek bones and full mouth.
The caption right below his chin—his perfect with the dimple in the middle chin—reads “Winning. How Dean Orleans does it Without Breaking a Sweat.”
All at once, I feel dizzy, despondent, thrilled, hyper-aware, terrified. Dean. Is he a client of theirs?
He's even more beautiful than he was as a boy standing on the edge of manhood, and all of my old feelings come rushing back and completely consume me. I’d put Dean into a place in my heart that I never ventured to. His picture sits untouched in the bottom of the drawer by my bed. I had told myself that the love I had for him was gone because I knew nothing would ever come of it. Now I know that I was lying to myself. My feelings are exactly as they were. I want to shout in frustration. I don’t need this today.
I look down at myself to make sure the necklace, the one with the ring he gave me hanging on it, is tucked into my jacket. Even though no one who sees me would know what it means, I feel a tremendous sense of relief it’s not showing.
“Ms. Dennis, Ms. Haynes will see you now.” The young man who had greeted me when I walked into the office building calls from behind the reception desk. It breaks the spell that seeing Dean has cast.
I force myself to look away from the magazines and smile at him.
He walks toward me. “Please, come this way,” he says with a polite, but slightly stiff smile.
I follow him down a hallway of glass walled offices. The entire office is decorated in white leather and stainless steel. The only color in the entire space comes from the bold, abstract paintings on the walls. I barely notice them as I try to collect myself. Seeing Dean’s picture, having all of my old feelings come rushing back to me have disturbed my equilibrium.
He stops at the open door of an office which gives me the view of a woman who, judging by the gray threading her dark hair, appears to be middle-aged. She's sitting behind a large computer screen that obscures her face.
When he opens the door, her face peeks around the computer screen, and I’m greeted by a pair of warm brown eyes and a wide smile, set in a face so striking, I think she must have been a model when she was younger.
“Ms. Dennis,” she exclaims as she stands up and rounds the desk. She's even taller than I am, and willowy.
Dressed in all black, she looks like what you would expect someone to look like who works in a talent agency. I give myself a mental high five for purchasing this suit.
Her smile is all warmth and grace as she ushers me into the chair on the other side of her desk.
