Marisol looked around the room and spotted a chair that she could carry over to the couch for Dr. Egbe to sit on so she wouldn’t have to crouch in front of Halston Hollis. Dr. Egbe was tall, and she was wearing an enviably fitted red suit that looked like it had grown on her, and on her feet were sexy black patent leather stilettos with wonderfully, viciously sharp toes. None of it was designed for crouching. Dr. Egbe herself was not designed for crouching, as she had demonstrated by taking the cantankerous star-ling firmly in hand from their very first interaction. Marisol did not want to care about being talked down to by famous people. She knew perfectly well that when people behaved in a superior manner, it was because they felt inferior in some way, and that it had nothing to do with her worth. Still, having Dr. Egbe rise to her defense had been very, very flattering. It had been downright satisfying watching Halston Hollis back down in response. 

Wanting to do some small kindness in return, Marisol brought the chair over. Instead of letting Mari set it down, however, Dr. Egbe turned away from Halston Hollis, gave Mari a reproving look instead of a thank you, and confiscated the chair from her swiftly, as if Mari was going to injure herself carrying it. She placed it adjacent to the actor, but with space between them, and sat in it. Mari stepped back a few paces to give them both some privacy, and so she could stare at Bisi Egbe as much as she wanted without getting caught. She didn't want to earn any more reproving looks, becasue that last one had just made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside, with, you know, consternation over being seen as too delicate to carry a chair. I'm an event coordinator. Do you have any idea how many chairs I move around in any given week?? Consternation wasn't interfering with Mari's desire to watch Dr. Egbe work, however. Consternation and curiosity went hand in hand, as everyone knew. It was natural for Mari to be curious about her, because she was just very…compelling. She was cool and she was nice and she was smart and Marisol was very grateful for her assistance. Was she perhaps also grateful for the opportunity to look at Bisi Egbe? Yes, she was. There was that. Dr. Egbe was a work of art, and this was a museum, after all. 

As Marisol filled her eyes, she relished the lack of chatter over the com in her ear. That meant that other than the Hollis problem, things was going smoothly. Mari’s staff were well-trained, the event was well-planned, the venue was perfect for the occasion and number of guests, and the vendors had been carefully chosen with an eye to zero dramas or disappointments. Mari was well-known for her skill in ironing out wrinkles before they had a chance to form. The foreseeable things were all under control, just as they should be, just as Mari had arranged, and the unforeseeable things had not been allowed to interrupt the evening for the other guests. That was pretty much the job. That was why she was already a lead event coordinator after only four years with the large firm she worked for—Marisol was good at her job. 

Still, an A-list celebrity collapsing at your event was enough to test the anti-perspirant of even the most seasoned professional, and Mari had not had a chance to take a breath or gather herself since the crisis had begun to unfold. She checked her watch, and was amazed to discover that it had been less than fifteen minutes since she had been informed that Halston Hollis was having trouble breathing and needed a room. It felt like a lifetime ago. This was not the celebrity encounter she had envisioned. She had known he was on the guest list, and, honestly, she had been hoping to catch a few glimpses of him at the event. She had even told her mom about it. She would never have bothered a guest or client for an autograph, she had just wanted a peek. As an Omega and a member of the BIPOC community, Marisol had appreciated that Hollis was lending his star power to a benefit for BIPOCO people. He was an Omega, but he certainly was not a person of color, so good for him for making an intersectional effort, she’d thought. Marisol had remained impressed by Hollis right up until she had met him. If he had such an interest in the welfare of BIPOCOs, perhaps he could have refrained from being rude and dismissive with one who was only trying to help him. Never meet your heroes, or even just the celebrities who seem cool to you. 

To be fair, there were plenty of other big names at the gala who had been perfectly pleasant to deal with. Halston Hollis had the most star power of any of the guests, by far, but several of the other guests had actual power. Security, therefore, had been creating headaches for Marisol for weeks. A security firm had been hired to audit the guest list, and they had handled the business of screening guests at the door. Currently, they were discreetly monitoring the guests using the museum cameras for the protection of both the guests and the art collection and there were a number of well-dressed agents placed throughout the facility as well. 

As a result of the tight security, when Halston Hollis had begun to feel ill, Marisol had found out about it almost instantly. Within seconds of hearing the news, she’d simultaneously sent staff members to escort him to a private room and had the security firm pull up the names of all medical personnel in attendance. There hadn’t been many to choose from—the guests were mainly creatives and the creative-adjacents (managers, patrons, etc) and political people—but finding a Johns Hopkins heart doctor on the guest list had been a godsend. Marisol had asked the security team to match the time recorded for Bisi Egbe’s arrival with the time stamp on the camera footage from the front door. They’d pulled up the footage of the doctor’s arrival, and she’d quickly been able to put a face to the name. Then it had been just a matter of scanning the rooms until Dr. Egbe was located. Mercifully, she was still at the event. Once she knew which gallery to hunt for her in, Marisol had set off on foot to find a savior.

Grainy security camera footage did not do anyone justice, and, to be honest, Marisol had looked at the images very briefly. She had mentally recorded only, “tall, red suit, shaved-down hair” before she had hustled away to find her quarry. It hadn’t taken long to find Dr. Egbe, but once Mari was standing in front of her, she’d gotten an eye-opening lesson on the difference between representation and reality. In the flesh, Bisi Egbe was not just a tall woman with short hair in a red suit who might be able to avert a medical emergency. She was something other. Marisol had a tendency to mentally divide the world into the categories of “clients” and “real people.” Clients she treated politely and professionally and kept at arm’s length. Real people, she chatted with and relaxed around and enjoyed. When she’d seen Bisi Egbe up close, she’d certainly had every characteristic of a fairly intimidating Client rather than a real person, and yet… well… and yet. 

In person, Dr. Egbe was tall, probably close to six feet without the heels, and in the heels? Marisol had looked straight up at her. Her skin was a gorgeous, glowing deep brown, and every feature of her face— jaw, chin, and cheekbones, had been rendered in lines that were strong and firm, but softened with curves. Her lips were full and glossy, her eyes large and deep-set, black-brown, rimmed with liner and a shimmering gunmetal shadow and fringed with curling lashes. In her ears, two black diamond studs glittered, providing a finishing touch of glamour. In short, she looked more like a movie star than Halston Hollis did, in Marisol’s opinion. This overgenerous blessing in terms of looks seemed very unfair given that Dr. Egbe already had a very fancy and intimidating career going for her. She held people’s hearts in her hand and fixed them--nothing like that to make you feel both klutzy and plebian. Plus, according to her security file, Dr. Egbe was international—born and raised in Lagos. She probably spoke a few languages and collected art and “summered” somewhere glamorous every year, and… in short, she was an Alexander McQueen Bee. She was the Client to end all Clients, or she should have been. She should have felt that way. Interrupting her had probably meant forever derailing a thought process that would have led to a cure for heart disease or something, but Marisol hadn’t had much choice. She had interrupted her anyway, and, once she’d done it, she hadn’t even really felt sorry about it. 

To Marisol’s surprise, which might have been intensified by the unpleasant things her staff was reporting regarding Halston Hollis’s behavior, Dr. Egbe had been disarmingly friendly and cheerful about being importuned for assistance by a member of the staff. She had looked at Marisol, really looked at her as she spoke, which was somewhat rare when Mari was wearing the dark ‘don’t look at me!’ suit and the badge that advertised her role as Staff. It did not matter that Marisol was at the top of her professional game, that she was doing very well for herself in a job that she’d gone to college to prepare for just like all the other people in the room, that she managed a sizable staff… Once she put on the suit and the badge, she became largely invisible, and she was supposed to. It was just part of working in hospitality and events. But Bisi Egbe had really looked at her and heard her despite that. And as long as Dr. Egbe’s back was turned? Marisol was looking back.