Page 6 of Forget Me

“I thought you accounting types always dotted the Is and crossed the Ts. And it was just creative types like me who fucked up.” Jackson chuckled.

The cold lump in my stomach prevented me from seeing the humor in the situation. “I’m sorry.”

“What’s wrong with your laptop?” he asked.

“Coffee?” I winced.

“Hand it over.” He cracked his knuckles. “I’ll work some magic on it.”

“No, I’ll just…” But I couldn’t refuse his beckoning fingers. I slipped the laptop out of my satchel and handed it to him. He tsked as he pulled the device from its soggy case and patted it dry with the hem of his T-shirt.

Larissa cleared her throat. “Can you at least summarize the financial projections for us?”

“Sure.” I pulled out the fourth chair and sat down. Jackson already had my laptop’s battery out and was drying it with a paper napkin, but he looked up when I began to speak.

I tried to paint word pictures of the beautiful charts and graphs I’d worked so hard to create. But after a few minutes, I caught Jackson yawning behind my laptop, which he’d tented upside down on the table. Larissa’s gaze was on her phone. Only Natalie smiled at me encouragingly.

Finally, I wrapped up weakly, “I’ll send you the presentation tomorrow. There’s an older copy on the server, and when I get back to the office, I’ll be able to recreate the final projections.”

Larissa looked up from her phone. “We need those numbers asap.”

“Of course. Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Now”—Jackson rubbed his hands together—“we get to the fun stuff. I brought Nat here so she can rescue the party.”

The foundation’s gala was hardly a party like Ben’s backyard engagement celebration yesterday. In my ruined projections, we’d planned for it to bring in half the foundation’s revenue for the year. The stakes were high.

“Rescue?” I repeated.

“A minor hiccup,” Larissa said, waving her hand. “The venue canceled on us. But I’ve got a backup.”

“Canceled? We’re getting the deposit back, right?” I asked. Larissa had asked for it in cash although I’d advised against it.

“Deposit? I don’t think we paid a deposit.” She lifted her nose.

“I—of course we did. Didn’t we?” Maybe I’d approved a cash withdrawal for something else.

“I think I’d remember,” she said.

“I’ll check the accounts again.” I glanced wistfully at my dead laptop and the spreadsheets it held hostage.

Jackson said, “Regardless, since the gala’s two months away, it’s all hands on deck. That’s why I brought in Nat.”

“I’ve helped my mother with dozens of these things,” Natalie said. “We’ll pull it together.”

“But my gala’s going to be special, right?” Jackson asked. “Not one of her cookie-cutter black-tie galas.”

“Sure.” She laid a hand on her brother’s arm. “We’ll make it something you can be proud of.”

“I’ll help, too,” I said, scrambling for anything that would make up for my mistakes. “I was my school’s prom committee chair.”

Larissa snorted. “A high-school prom is hardly a million-dollar fundraising event.”

I winced. She was right. Our budget had been a hundredth of a percent of that.

“Still, we can use you. Thanks, Mimi,” Jackson said.

“We need all the help we can get,” Natalie said. “With a brand-new venue and no food, we don’t have much time to pivot.”

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