Chapter 38

Marc couldn’t help but smile, glancing over at Sinead as she socialised with a gaggle of men and women as they looked over several of the exhibits at the end of the hall. Even though the fundraiser wasn’t a dinner, it was still full of food and drink and Marc popped another bacon-wrapped something with a something-something sauce into his mouth. He had no clue what was inside that little bacon tube, but it burst with flavours and he had to admit it was good.

Sinead had, once she got out of her own head a bit, adapted quickly to the social strata Marc had pulled her into. He’d known she would - she contained multitudes, as they said, and after the way she had adapted in the bar and faked her way through their first conversation with Barisha he knew she would be fine here. Dressing her was always a pleasure, too. Felicity, with her curves, was no less fun to buy for but her figure simply couldn’t handle certain kinds of clothes, just as Sinead’s couldn’t handle some of the things that looked most ravishing on the escort.

Something had changed, however, at some point in the evening. She hadn’t changed, really. She was still acting the same way with everyone else at the fundraiser, and when he approached to join her she was welcoming and held his arm politely to signify that they were companions for the evening. He’d seen more than a couple of the younger men approach her and flirt when Marc wasn’t with her, but she’d turned them all down. And that said nothing of the stares of the older generation.

But he’d caught Sinead glancing at him a couple of times, and the look in her eye was different.

As the night wore on, Marc made an effort to circle back into her sphere more just as he’d started the night as she got comfortable. The food trays being carried around slowed, and speeches began in the main ‘ballroom’ for the evening. Most people filtered in that direction as that was the polite thing to do, but Marc made no move to join them and ended up standing with Sinead just inside the entrance to the First Nations art exhibit.

“Shouldn’t we go?” Sinead asked him.

“They won’t announce anything meaningful,” Marc said with a little smile and a shake of his head. “They will thank the museum staff, and applaud the directors and themselves. And then they will remind everyone how important the museum is, and give statistics like how many children come through every year and so on. They hold this fundraiser twice a year.”

“If you don’t care, why do you come?” Sinead asked. “Or is it all about business contacts for you?”

“I do care, ma petite rebelle, “ Marc said. “And I buy the overpriced tickets to do my part, even if it is not my culture they are preserving. But speeches are like leftovers - the more of them you have, the more unmanageable your refrigerator becomes. Best to only have one or two, not a dozen, and this is the sort of event that aggrandizes people who feel overlooked much of the time, so there will be many speeches.”

“Sounds like any other award show,” Sinead sighed. “I worked Paid Duty for the TIFF a couple of times. The egos there were out of control.”

Marc chuckled. “Creatives are almost as bad as curators and critics,” he said. Then he took her hand. “Come.”

She hesitated just a moment before following. Marc led her deeper into the First Nations exhibit, and then down a side corridor that looped around the entire exhibit and back towards the main entrance.

“Where are we going?” Sinead asked.

“Shhh,” Marc said with a little smile. He stopped at a heavy wooden door that was unlabeled and, after glancing up and down the corridor to make sure they weren’t being watched, he opened the door and gestured for her to enter. It was immediately obvious that they had entered one of the coat rooms where the winter jackets of the guests were being stored. Each one was hung with a plastic numbered tag on the hanger, ready to be retrieved at the end of the function by the staff.