Lucina studied his forward-leaning posture and was quickly put off by him. He seemed untrustworthy and plotting.

“Why?” she asked him.

“Are they, ah, for hire?”

She didn’t like the man’s line of questions, either.

She answered tartly, “No, they only work for me.”

“Well, how do I hire you?” he asked.

Lucina promptly looked around the room to escape from him by greeting someone else who gained her attention.

“Hi, how are you?” she asked, with her hand extended to a more jovial and tactful businessman.

“Hi, Lucina. My name is Seth Gardner and I represent a marine brokerage group that specializes in the sales of large yachts and ocean cruise liners.”

“And we can throw parties for the right kinds of clients on all of them,” Lucina responded to him.

Seth laughed. He said, “You must have read my mind.”

“Yes, I have to use all of my skills,” she told him. “So, what are your ideas?”

As she spoke to him, she watched the other gentleman walk away in the background.

Good riddance! she told herself while Seth continued to speak.

He said, “My idea is to build a more knowledgeable client base by having events, like you say, that would introduce much larger groups to the excitement of not only being out on the ocean, but owning the vehicle that takes you there.” He said, “And even if some of them may not be able to afford to buy a boat tomorrow or next year, they may remember us and want to buy a boat in the next two to five years, including you or Ivan,” he added.

Lucina nodded and told him, “Good idea.”

All around the room, Ivan’s staff and business associates engaged in business conversations. Eddie K. talked with newspaper professionals about the experience of internet advertisement. Jeff and Paul spoke with other computer company reps and website developers about new intellectual media. Lucina’s girls spoke with everyone about everything. And Thomas Jones, Henry Morgan, and Ava Tate spoke to several members of the African-American press.

“So, what’s Ivan’s whole program here? Is he trying to do a full crossover thing or what?” asked a representative from the Voice & Viewpoint, one of the leading African-American publications in San Diego. “He didn’t even contact us for an article.”

“Well, you can do one now,” Ava told him. “I could write it up for you myself. And we’re gonna have plenty of photos to choose from tonight.” She had freelanced for the newspaper several times before.

“Yeah, but how come we didn’t have a story before this event?” the representative argued.

Thomas didn’t want to get into a war of words with him, but he didn’t see where their paper not having an article had hurt Ivan any. The place was packed.