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I settle back down in my seat and sigh. Even if I get the invites tomorrow and send them out by the day after, it is going to be a very tight window. I can’t just hope that everyone will be able to RSVP in time. The people I’m dealing with are celebrities and multi-millionaires, who tend to have very tight schedules.
I know what I have to do.
I open up my computer folder with the contact information of every single person on my list and call them all. I tell them about the event, explain that there was a terrible mixup with the invites, and their invites are coming soon but I wanted to give them as much of a heads-up as possible. I wheedle. I charm. I flatter. I grovel.
Within a couple of hours, I have twenty-five RSVPs and $1.5 million in pledges. Thank ... the ... Lord.
It feels really good to be doing this. This is the kind of thing that makes my job entirely worthwhile—the ability to ease the pain and stress of these kids and their families, to make them smile. Doesn’t everyone say laughter is the best medicine?
The phone rings with an unknown number. I consider letting it go to voicemail, but I’m still waiting for several important callbacks connected to the event, so I pick up the phone and pray it’s not someone who wants to talk to me about my car’s extended warranty.
“Rowan James, Queensby Publicity,” I answer brightly.
“Ms. James, hello. You don’t know me, but my name is Traci Stout-Raker. I’m Mason Raker’s mom.”
19
ROWAN
My eyes widen in surprise.
Mason’s mom. She’s the last person I would have expected to be on the other end of the line.
I’ve never seen anything about her in the news. Now, his dad is in the news all the time, being the real estate big man on campus that he is, but Traci is an enigma ... assuming this is even her and not a member of the paparazzi trying some new angle to get through to me.
“Hello,” I say cautiously.
“Rowan, I’m so glad I got ahold of you.” she gushes. “I have been trying to get ahold of Mason—it’s really important—and his phone number has changed. He does that all the time.” She lets out a girlish giggle. “And sometimes he forgets to update me, he’s just so busy all the time. Can you just give me his new one? I’ve got a pen and paper right here.”
There’s an expectant pause, and she clears her throat loudly to let me know she’s waiting.
Riiight.
Because I was born yesterday, and scammers never scam, and those Nigerian princes really do have fifty million dollars they want to gift little old me, a perfect stranger.
I frown skeptically at the phone. “First of all, why are you calling me in particular? Why not call the Rovers office?”
“Well, Mason’s coach told me how much time you guys have been spending together on his new campaign, and how you two are really close.”
Interesting thing for him to tell her. Did Mason tell his coach that? I honestly have a hard time picturing him saying the words ‘Rowan and I are really close.’ “So why didn’t you just get the number from Mason’s coach?”
She makes an impatient noise. “He doesn’t seem to have Mason’s new number. I told you, Mason changes it all the time.”
Well, there’s a reason for that, I think. And the reason is that everybody wants a piece of him, and crazy people like the blonde at the hockey game make up stuff about him and maybe he just wants some privacy.
“I don’t just give out my clients’ phone numbers to anonymous people who call me out of the blue.” I lean back in my seat and grab a Rovers chocolate from the ever-present box on my desk. I bite Dylan’s legs off, wishing Mason were here to see that. That would make him smile.
I’ve refrained from eating the Mason chocolate because, these days, doing that sends my mind to inappropriate places and I’m trying to be better.
“I’m not anonymous,” the woman on the other end of the line says, with an edge of impatience. “I am his mother. Traci Stout-Roker. I just told you that. He wants me to have his number.”
Well, that’s not so obvious to me. If he wanted her to have his number, wouldn’t she have it? He’s a big boy; he knows who he wants to talk to.
“Anyone could call and ask for his personal number, trying to get through to him,” I point out. “And it wouldn’t be hard at all for someone to find out the name of his mother.”
“Who would even want to do such a thing?”
Oh, please. “The paparazzi. Crazy stalker fans. An ex-lover.”
