“Carter, do you have an Ambien or an Adderall or any sort of pill I can swallow, only please don’t hand me a peanut M&M like yesterday, because then I’ll only want more, and the entire point of antidepressants is that they’re fat free. Carter, I don’t know if I can say this, I don’t know if my lips are capable of forming the words, but you’re the only person on the planet who can possibly understand what I’m going through. My ordeal. Dwayne left me.”

All five feet eleven inches plus suede platform boots of Cassandra had now flung itself onto me. I’ve learned to brace myself for these moments, and I turned my head to avoid getting slashed by the arc of Cassandra’s necklace, which was several yards of huge amber beads and spiked brass discs. Cassandra’s private life is always public, and often fictional or at least exaggerated. Dwayne is her doorman.

“Dwayne is on vacation with his family in Pennsylvania for two weeks,” I soothed, “and I’m sure his substitute is doing just fine.” I patted Cassandra on the back, or really on her cascade of multicolored hair extensions, which resembled a street fair wall hanging.

“Do you really think so?” Cassandra asked plaintively, and then, as always, her mood shifted violently, to haughty disdain: “Carter, I have to get to the Javits Center to oversee the presentation of Jasmine Tremble, that new calming shampoo, which I may drink. So I need you to finish up here and make sure everything is polished and locked down, can I trust you to manage that?”

“Of course,” I assured her, trying not to remind her that after three years and countless projects, I did most of her job for her; Cassandra had trained me, which I appreciated, but she still second-guessed my decisions and took credit for my ideas, claiming the business was “a family, and families share. Well, not my family, because I don’t speak to my mother, not after she slept with two of my husbands, although I suppose in a way we were sharing.”

“Cassandra, I’ve got this, and I’m begging you, please don’t steal a crate of that shampoo and use it as Christmas gifts for our staff, like last year with those dryer sheets.”

But Cassandra was already on her way out, pausing at the top of the amphitheater steps and crying out, “Farewell, my children! Give me beauty and madness!” These favorite words had been tattooed on either side of her neck and were also the names of her shih tzus.

“Okay, everybody,” I told the eight members of our extremely hardworking team, “You’re doing great, and Mikaela, let’s get the urns filled with the forsythia branches, Sean, please center the programs on each chair, and Ryan, I’ll need the cherry picker for the acrylic panels.”