The Good Life

Chapter 1

Marla put her bobbed dark brown hair in a messy pony tail, threw on a cotton skirt and a sleeveless USC t-shirt with black flip flops as she ran out the door with her arms full of donated items for the Mama Earth event later that evening. Those items still needed labels, numbers and so much more.

“Damn it. Where the hell is my purse?” She was incredibly stressed out. She dumped out her large brown Juicy Couture purse to find her white Jetta keys, started the engine and headed towards her office.

Marla, a Community Organizing and Policy Analysis graduate student was frazzled. She was halfway through her two year program and was interning full time at an internationally known non-profit. The non-profit partnered with various smaller non-profits to raise funds for its cause – international disaster relief. That evening, as the Development (fundraising) associate intern she and the Senior Development Associate would be setting up, attending, and most likely smoozing all those in attendance at a small fundraiser attended by several celebrities- including some up and coming musicians. This wasn’t the first time Marla had come into contact with musicians and celebrities. Los Angles was all about philanthropy. It was kind of there thing. Some were kind while others just threw their money at the cause and ran.

The event was Marla’s final paper, project and exam all rolled into one. She had three weeks to write the paper on how the fundraiser was executed and how much money was raised and the global impact of the money raised. She could care less about the star power – as long as they handed her a million dollars. As Marla began planning the event early in the semester she began to realize that the event was not going to be the same type of event as she had envisioned. While planning with her field placement advisors they discussed all the details and Marla became very nervous – which would explain the running out the door. She had no idea what was coming.

This was at 8am. After spending 3 hours at the office getting even more together she changed into her outfit for the event set-up – a cotton color blocked dress and 4 inch Betsey Johnson heels. She was ready. Even if she said she didn’t care if celebrities were there- Angie told her that she always needed to be prepared to meet Mr. Perfect. Angie said she would give her an A in her class if she did. She needed an A in that class.