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The party guest list includes a wide range of interestingnesses of rich people. There's a fellow who sits on various boards of various faceless corporations; there's two who started startups and swept up a few million dollars that way; there's a small handful of professional philanthropists, who have oodles of money from various sources and make a hobby of distributing the interest to worthy pet causes; there is a congresswoman, and a state senator, both from New York but apparently willing to travel to the West Coast on occasion. There's also a lot of dull old money who do this sort of thing and nothing but all the time, but they still concentrate a lot of financial leverage, and Bella would rather have ins with them than not, as long as she can.
She bikes up - speeding shamefully, hexing herself radar detection, and cutting the trip in half from its estimated time to just eight hours on the road. Tegu can go very very fast.
Alice made her a new dress for the occasion - this one's autumny, mostly a dark red-brown, with leaf patterns in deep gold and burnt orange swirling up around and soft ruffles in the same colors around her knees and puffing out over one shoulder. It stands out more than the little black dress - which is fine. She would like attention, and just being the hostess's son's girlfriend will not quite get her there at a rich people party, she thinks.
self_composed
edgeofyourseat
It's approximately ten minutes before someone—not someone interesting, or at least not Googlably so—asks her just who made her dress. The lady in question is dressed very nicely herself, in something sleek and elegant and muted pink-red that complements her curling steel-grey hair.
self_composed
"Laney did, actually," Bella says with a smile. She has no way to know if this woman is asking her because she likes the dress or because she doesn't, but this answer will cut off most overt sniping. "Yours is lovely!"
edgeofyourseat
"Thank you, dear," she flutters. "Judith's son? Why, I had no idea he was so talented!"
She likes it, apparently.
She likes it, apparently.
self_composed
"Very much so," Bella enthuses merrily. "I'm Bella. What's your name?"
edgeofyourseat
"Sophie," says, apparently, Sophie. "It's just lovely to meet you. Are you one of Laney's friends?"
self_composed
"He's my boyfriend, as of recently," Bella says. "How do you know the family?"
edgeofyourseat
"Judith and I go way back," she says airily. "I haven't seen much of her since she started seeing that man, but I think that'll change now, don't you?"
self_composed
"Seems likely, especially since you're here," Bella says.
self_composed
"Ooh," says Bella, affecting sudden distraction by hors d'oeuvres. "I think those might be jalapeno poppers. It was nice to meet you!"
And off she goes towards the poppers and other variously interesting rich people. [Where are you at?] Bella asks Alice. [A lady called Sophie just complimented my dress and said you were talented when I told her you made it.]
And off she goes towards the poppers and other variously interesting rich people. [Where are you at?] Bella asks Alice. [A lady called Sophie just complimented my dress and said you were talented when I told her you made it.]
self_composed
[Random person, unGoogleable, gray hair, pinkish dress, old friend of your mom's who stopped hanging around when your mom started seeing "that man".]
self_composed
[Quite possibly.]
Bella finishes her jalapeno popper and turns to the nearest interesting rich person, one of the startup folks. "Hi!" she says. "My name is Bella."
Bella finishes her jalapeno popper and turns to the nearest interesting rich person, one of the startup folks. "Hi!" she says. "My name is Bella."
edgeofyourseat
"Hi, Bella!" says the interesting rich person. "I'm Nathan." Referring to her recently consumed jalapeno popper, "Are those things any good?"
self_composed
"Everything Hilary makes is good," Bella says. "This thing in particular is not only good, but also spicy and cheesy. Nathan... wait, Nathan Hall?" She's pretending she doesn't have all publicly available information about him memorized, aww. "Didn't you found Postnet?"
edgeofyourseat
"Spicy and cheesy! It's like they were made for me," he says, and grabs one.
"Yes I did. What's it to you?"
"Yes I did. What's it to you?"
self_composed
"I've heard of it, that's all. I don't have massive hard drives that need to go anywhere so I haven't used it, but I read an article about it somewhere," she says vaguely.
edgeofyourseat
"Well, if you do need to send a massive hard drive somewhere, I know just the people," says Nathan with a wink.
self_composed
Bella laughs. "Good to know. Anything else in the works? I bet you don't personally courier drives, so now that it's up and running they probably don't call you much."
edgeofyourseat
"Actually, funny story," he says, gesturing with his still-untouched popper, "I did do a run once. It just so happened that we were short a truck, and it just so happened that I was going in the right direction. I dropped off the goods along the way. It was all very exciting."
self_composed
"Not so exciting that you did it twice, it sounds like," Bella points out archly.
edgeofyourseat
"Well, we have people for that." He winks again. "And technically, I'm not qualified."
self_composed
Bella chuckles. He doesn't seem to want to talk about whatever else he's doing. That's okay. There are more people around. Bella averts her gaze and drifts away after a few seconds have passed in silence and she can do it without being rude.
edgeofyourseat
Across the room, Alice has found Sophie and they are getting along, or at least, she's laughing at his jokes.