Rory
Somebody handed me a glass of champagne I definitely wasn't old enough to drink, and I spent the first ten minutes of the Sterling Enterprises charity gala holding it like a prop instead of a beverage, mostly because setting it down felt like it would draw more attention than carrying it around untouched.
The ballroom was the kind of room that made you lower your voice on instinct — floor-to-ceiling windows, a string quartet that had clearly been paid enough to make eye contact with absolutely no one, a red carpet stretched across the entrance for photographers who treated every arriving guest like a minor celebrity. The team had been dressed and herded in as a unit, all of us stiff in borrowed formalwear, standing around like a very expensive, very confused school field trip.
"You
