Business With Pleasure | 2gether AU

03 - Is there A-dopter in the House?

It was ten-thirty a.m., the morning of the fund-raiser.

Guests would start coming in at eleven. I hoped they wouldn't be 'fashionably late'.  We didn't have the budget for paying overstay fees to the hotel.

We had been up all night getting the place ready. The week leading up to it had been crazy.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd slept for more than ten minutes. I was all dressed up for the event, and surveyed the hall one last time.

We were calling the event "Adopt a Crib".

In addition to raising enough to build the new babies' wing and a fully stocked sick-room, the idea was to get guests to buy and subscribe to maintaining fifty cribs, including toys and supplies. It was Mrs Sheena's brainchild.

Sarawat and I had met her a week ago. She was a vivacious sixty-five year old lady who hadn't let age or her husband stop her from doing exactly what she wanted.

She was surprisingly down to earth and heart-warmingly honest in her efforts to give these kids a better life.

She was determined to get her friends to chip in for the other wings' upkeep as well. So the menu included wine. Lots of it.

The theory was that it might help if the guests were too schozzled to notice if their cheques had an extra zero or two.

Ren had come through spectacularly with the decorations. The wooden stage at one end of the hall had a beautiful backdrop of a pair of hands holding a baby.

Light, translucent fabrics were draped strategically around the hall to create a soothing ambience of soft sunshine, cool breeze and understated élan.

There was a melodic fusion of harp and percussion playing in the background that added to the overall atmosphere of tranquility.

It was a subtle, very polished look.

Invitations had been sent to more than two hundred guests.

There were ten guests per table. I checked the place cards and gave the tables some final touches.

Seating had been planned most carefully, based on Mrs Sheena's helpful notes and comments about who was currently friends with whom and which two people should never be at the same table. Any slip-ups here could cost us the event.

The tables were evenly spaced and no table seemed more prominent than the others.

They all looked beautifully elegant, with cream satin tablecloths, pastel accents with folded napkins, champagne flutes, water goblets and bowls of assorted flowers.

The tables and accessories belonged to a newly-opened restaurant nearby. We'd struck a good deal - We would hire and train their waiters for the event, and the tables and accompaniments came free.

We had also promised to consider them as caterers for our upcoming events, if we succeeded in getting any.

Sarawat had got the flowers. He said he had contacts at the hospital where an actress had delivered her first baby a couple of days ago. I only hoped none of our guests had sent her any recognizable bouquets that they could spot among ours.

There was a standing poster on one side of the entrance with a photo of our babies, all dolled up and cute as anything, with "Adopt a Crib" printed on it.

There was another standing poster on the other side, with a baby girl pointing to a baby boy saying "I need a place to sleep. This guy snores!"

The graphics designer/printer had come through for us, although I think it had less to do with Sarawat and more to do with Pear. At last count, she'd already been on three dates with that guy.