Page 51

Unfastening his suit jacket, Law draped it over the back of my chair and took his place beside me. “Something tells me you’re not quite ready for their line of questioning.”
“I am most definitely not. I don’t like intrusiveness and their job is to be intrusive.”
“You would want to get used to it.”
“Why is that?”
“When we open up the school, it’ll be your face plastered across the media. I’m letting you deal with all of that. I’m simply…”
“The name on the building,” I finished his statement for him. “Yeah, I know. That doesn’t mean I have to be in the forefront. It’s your school.”
“And your love child. You gotta explain to the people how all of this came about.”
“How about we table it and agree to disagree?”
“We can table it at your command,” he quipped.
Looking around the dimly lit room, I spotted a few familiar faces. Not anyone that I knew personally but I’ve seen them a time or two in the blogs. Rich, successful people to be exact. To be in the room with those same people had me feeling a tad bit out of place. This wasn’t my type of environment.
I was nothing more than a small-town girl with big hopes and dreams. I was definitely planning on playing the background while Law handled his business. Outside of those faces, whoever was responsible for the set-up did an immaculate job. The décor was black with the autismpuzzle pieces splayed across the room. Behind the podium sat a white floor to ceiling banner with the autism logo and various company names on it. In bold black letters was “Joseph and Ava Pellayo Foundation for Autism”.
The tables had black running tablecloths with those same puzzle pieces. In fact, our place cards were of the same pattern. A live jazz band was on the side of the stage providing entertainment. A few people were standing around the room chatting but for the most part everyone was in their seats. They really went all out for this event and I loved that.
I was still looking around the room when I noticed Poppa trotting in our direction.
“You didn’t tell me Poppa would be here.”
“Of course, I’m here,” Poppa called out. “I’m pleasantly surprised to see you though,” he said to me, but his eyes were on Law.
Standing from the chair, I hugged Poppa’s neck. “Ya’ boy didn’t tell you?” I asked.
“Tell me what?”
“He brought me here to pimp me out.” I smirked and nudged Law in the side with my elbow.
“She been dragging that shit through the mud since I told her I was bringing her to get some investors for the tech school.”
“In that case, let me put my bid in right now!” Poppa joked.
Standing to shake hands with him, Law bleated, “Don’t get fucked up man.”
Poppa tossed his hands up in surrender. “I’on want no problems with the big guy,” he tittered.
Adding fuel to the fire, I tossed my arm around Poppa’s waist and laid my head on his shoulder. “Law likes to think he runs me, and he doesn’t. I’m yours for the night if you want.”
“Talitha,” Law gritted. “Cut it out.”
“Fine,” I drawled and rolled my eyes.
Removing my arm, I sat back down and sipped from the glass of water while Poppa pulled Law off to the side to talk. Whatever he said to him had Law laughing. Briefly, he glanced over at me and winked before turning back to Poppa.
The mistress of the ceremony eventually took the stage and introduced herself as she instructed everyone toward the program that sat in front of us. Law and Poppa made their way back to the table and took their seats before a projector was lowered and the lights turned off. From there, the night was underway.
____
In the middle of the ceremony, we paused so dinner could be served. It was during that time that everyone donated whatever money they were planning to give toward the foundation. Law wanted me at his side when he wrote his check and, in the beginning, I put up the biggest fuss but relented after Poppa told me it would help our cause.
Standing beside him at the donation table, Law wrote out a check for two hundred-fifty thousand dollars and after signing his name, he handed it to me and instructed me to drop it into the locked donation box.