Page 68 of Love Scenes

We really, really are.

After much pre-eventmingling, the gala kicks off with video packages from the various schools we’ve helped. Teachers we’ve worked with and the kids who’ve been given access to the worldof performing arts. Last year was our best yet. We were able to renovate two music rooms, give funding to start a theater program at a middle school, save another program from folding, and provide camera equipment to four different high schools.

I watch the whole video from the shadows, waiting along the side of the stage to walk up and give my opening speech. This is the first relief I’ve felt in hours, standing here alone while our highlight reel plays. The work we do with this foundation really makes me proud. When I’d started it, I wanted it to be an extension of me, a kid who got to grow up immersed in a world of performing arts. There’s no telling how much that shaped me, because there isn’t a single corner of my life that hasn’t been affected by the fact that I have always been in this position. Always had privilege and wealth and access. If I spent my whole life never trying to share that, to redistribute some of what’s been stacked in my favor since my first wailing breath, then I’d be truly selfish.

It’s not enough. Nothing ever could be. And I really shouldn’t have named the foundation after myself, I know now. We’re rebranding after this year. It’s too me-centric for something that’s really about other people. That’s the price that comes with learning in public. You wear your mistakes like forehead tattoos, and even if you find a way to get them removed, everyone still remembers what used to be there.

The video ends and I walk out to speak, for the moment embracing the fact that I am Sloane Ford at the Sloane Ford Foundation Gala. I crack well-written jokes crafted by an expert team, even throwing in a few of my own improvisations. Mostly about my family. It’s an easy and effective route. I make eye contact with people I don’t know, people who’ve known me since I was a cantaloupe-size bump in my mother’s belly, and every type of person in between. They’ve all come here for me. For this. Andit’s my job to encourage them to keep coming back. To write us those checks and spread around their excessive wealth too.

After my opening speech, which Guy calls “rousing and inspired,” and Dad says “was a little hard to hear at first, but they got the sound worked out by the middle,” I take my seat at our table.

We’re seated at a circular twelve top right in front of the stage. Counterclockwise it’s me, Tyler, her girlfriend Mara, Powell, Mom, Guy, Melanie’s husband Terrence, Melanie herself, Sarai, Dad, Daya, and the twelfth seat. Right beside me. At the last minute, Powell decided not to bring a plus-one. That’s how Joe ended up here, rounding out the last spot on the clock, his elbow pressing into my side.

He leans in. “Did I tell you already that you’re unbelievable?”

I bite back a blushing smile. “I believe you did.” I don’t turn my mouth toward him. My family can read my lips if they want. We’re not saying anything worth hiding.

Then his hand slyly reaches for me under the table, landing on my inner thigh. He gives one squeeze, and there’s a sudden pulsing between my legs.

“Making sure.” He pulls back, and it leaves me desperate with want, which is the number one worst feeling to have while at a table with every single member of my immediate family.

Glori begins her effortless work as the event emcee, offering a welcome distraction. Her aggressive brand of hustling people and casual ribbing is tailor made for this setting. She leans against the podium and does her first of many bits of the night, pretending to auction off the most famous people in the audience, ranking them by their IMDb STARmeter. I wasn’t sure about this gag. I asked her to come up with something a little less controversial. She sells me on it in the moment, somehow putting the audienceat ease while shining a spotlight on the most elite among us, making sure they’re ready to open their wallets and contribute.

This is why she’s one of the best in her business. She can nudge you toward working on a romantic war drama with your entire family, and less than a week from wrapping the production you realize it’s the best decision you’ve ever made in your entire career, and you can hardly put your finger on all the reasons why, because there are so many.

After Glori finishes her opening remarks, we break for dinner and chatting. Sound doesn’t carry well in a space like this. Joe, Daya, and I end up in our own conversational subgroup while we eat our meals. Powell has already left to prepare for his drag act. I should have followed him and changed my dress before dinner, because now I have to curate my every bite until it is so small there’s no way I can drop a single morsel. At the very least, the gaping V running down the center of this halter gown means that one of my boobs has a higher chance of catching a stray roasted potato than the dress itself.

Normally I’d wash everything down with a healthy swig of champagne. Watching Joe nurse his club soda and lime has me reaching for my water instead.

Daya carries the weight of my secret with such ease I’d all but forgotten the day Joe and I first kissed. That’s how well she holds herself back, giving nothing away. I really do want to know her better after this movie wraps. She may be the only person in my life who has ever made me feel as though my every word will not be broadcast to the family at large, be it accidentally or intentionally. In fact I can’t remember a time in years that I’ve wanted so badly to be someone’s friend.

She’s asking Joe about doing her movie again. “What are youso worried about? I’m telling you right now. You’re the only person I want for this.”

“I dunno. Falling flat on my ass,” Joe says.

“Hey now. We all saw that new trailer forSwiped. It doesn’t get worse than that.”

If the joke is punching down, she’s landed it in a place that doesn’t cause harm, because both Joe and I crack up. I reach up for his head and grab a fistful of his hair, remembering that ridiculous lace front he wears in the trailer. “If you do it, put in your contract that you refuse to be wigged.”

“No. We’d have to do a wig,” Daya adds on. “My movie is set in 1994. It would be a crime to turn our backs on the option to give Joseph Donovan a floppy bowl cut.”

I move my hand from Joe’s hair to his jaw. “He’s got the bone structure for it.”

It’s only when I pull back that I catch the twinkle in his eye. My hands had reached for him so instinctively.

Casual touch, I assure myself. The result of two people who’ve spent the last five weeks of their lives together for nearly every waking moment. It happens with every project. Some nights on the set ofThe Seeker, Daniel Traverson would all but breathe the same air as me and know that I needed another coffee. Context is different. The idea is the same.

Isn’t it?

“Do you play the drums?” I ask Daya, seemingly out of nowhere. Thinking of Daniel led me to the jam band, which led me to thinking of the top layer of my suppressed panic, the one I am not dulling with copious amounts of champagne like I normally would.

“When I tried to play Sarai’s tambourine, I sounded like I was cannonballing into a pool full of glass. Alex was in the other room.He ran in to see what happened. He said,Sweet shit! I thought you broke my awards display!” Daya does a pitch-perfect impression of my dad, down to the goofy swearing and completely selfish concern that the glass case around his two Oscars may have been compromised. “Why do you ask? Do you need a drummer?”

Joe and I both go so still she immediately switches from playful questioning to full concern.

“Wait. Is your dad not coming?”

Joseph shakes his head.