Feather After // Chapter 45 // Flowers And Ugly Potato

Aria's POV 

"May I, steal my fiancée away now?" I hear Zachariah mummer from behind me.

Ignatius's eyes hardened and I smirked.

"It was a pleasure meeting you," I pulled my hand away from his.

"The pleasure was all mine, ma'am," he said and kissed the back of my hand. I quickly pulled my hand away and took a deep breath, damn you!

"Our moms want to talk to us, they said it's very important," he told me and pulled me towards one corner of the room. What the hell could be the matter now? As we stood at one corner of the room my eyes feel automatically landed on Ignatius, he stood there, with his hands shoved in his pocket. If someone took a protractor to measure his jawline, I was pretty sure it would come out to be exactly 120 degrees.

He was looking at something but soon his eye met mine. He looked at me and raised his eyebrow. He smirked at me and I turned to look the other way. I shook my head while Zachariah went to fetch our mothers. God knows what he was up to this time.

"We have to be seated," Zachariah said and pulled me by my hand to a new hall. There were tables and chairs which were arranged very beautifully all around the place. The room was light pink in color. Red roses adorn the center wall. The whole god damn wall was covered in roses. If some honeybee would have seen that, I bet it would have started doing Harlem Shake. It was beautiful. There was a stage in front of it. It was more of a pedestal, it was beautiful as well. The tables were covered in white cloth and there was golden table cloth on it. The plates were white in color and there was a red handkerchief with white borders. The Royal Society was written on it.

We sat on one of the tables and my mom and Zachariah's mom sat with us. Soon the tables all around us started getting filled with people. Some walked in the room with the hem of their cocktail dresses in one hand while trying to balance the champagne glass in the other one. Some lady carried almost dragged her drunk husband around the place, the seats were assigned to people beforehand I guess.

It was pretty comical, people were dressed not for themselves but for people around them. Nanna used to say, people either pretend to be more than they are or less than they are, but one thing is common in both the people, they hide something so powerful within themselves that they are capable of destroying themselves.

I didn't quite understand the meaning of that until today. People could hide what they were and what they have gone through by the clothing, jewelry and smiles but their eyes always gave it away. It revealed things enough to make one suspicious of the other.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I want to congratulate everyone sitting here. We're all here, we may be very different from one another but there is one thing that unites us. We all share a passion of making the society a better place for everyone irrespective of the caste, creed, color and religion of the person," a man in his mid-sixties looked at us and waited, for the applauding to end. Once the clapping died, he continued while he shoved his one hand in his pocket, "Let the meet gala began, as you see the theme is 'the flowers'. We have some beautiful flowers from all around the world. These are very exotic and rarely found. We'll announce the name of the flower and the picture of the flower will be shown on the projector. You'll be walked through the rules of the auction by my gorgeous lady, Sandra."

"Good evening, all the ladies and gentlemen, let me take a moment, and marvel the beauty of each one of you, you all look amazing," she moved her head to the side and smiled, she fanned her hand on her face and made an 'o' face, "without, any further delay these are the rules I want you to know, a man will walk on the stage with the bouquet of flowers. As announced before, the men will walk with the flower and the highest bidder will get the flower carried by that man, you can auction for only one flower. To make everything easier, we'll have the picture of the flower on the projector right in front of you. All the money collected will be given to a charity. Every table has three to four auction cards right on the table. If you need any Assistance we have our men and women dressed in black and red standing right on the left and right. Let the auction began!"

Wow, now I was sitting in a room full of rich bratty people, for a flower Auction? That's what made rich people, rich. They bought the same thing for millions of dollars.

The fries from McDonald's would be described as, the rich potato from the land of Sweden, delicately chopped with a knife made of exclusive platinum in South Africa and then soaked in the oil of the previously grown and manufactured date palms over the fine petroleum gas of Saudi Arabia.

Now people were going to walk down the hall with flowers. What the hell? It was very funny. Gosh, these rich people and their rich plans. Everyone in the room applauded and soon their claps died down.

"First we have a The Lisianthus which blooms annually. It has delicate, ruffled, wide petals just like the surface of the moon; it survives only for a couple of weeks after it is cut from the stem. The shipped flowers are delicate and white in color; hence they are called "paper flowers"!" She announced that with so much enthusiasm as if she was almost announcing the brand new season of Gossip Girl.

A man walked with a bunch of white flowers in this hand and people started raising their auction cards over their heads. What the hell? I really wanted to bang everyone's head there, they were flowers.

"The bidding starts with one hundred dollars!" She announced on the microphone.

Zachariah held the card above his head and shouted, "Twenty-five dollars," I looked at him in amusement. The bidding started for a hundred dollars and he bid for twenty-five. The lady looked at him spectrally and then he eyes widened, "one hundred and twenty-five dollars," he announced again.

The flowers were finally sold for five hundred dollars.

"Next we have 'The Gloriosa' which is native to Asia and South Africa. The Gloriosas has showy petals with changing colors from center to tip. These flowers are in deep red colors!"

The bidding started again. It didn't take time for the rate of the flower to reach two thousand dollars. The flowers were in a bunch, who knew these flowers were such a big deal to the rich people?

"Three-thousand dollars!" Zachariah said while he raised the card over his head. I looked at my mom and she looked very pleased. Zachariah had done it right. People turned their head to look at him. I looked at him too.

"Give me thirty dollars, I'll buy a McDonald's burger combo meal with a toy," I tapped on his shoulder and looked at him.

"What you don't realize is that they are not auctioning burgers and fires here because they knew hungry Aria was attending the gala. I won't have been surprised if you would have bought all the burgers and then ate them yourself."

He said while he pulled out his credit card from this back pocket. His bouquet of the flower was delivered to him. The lady Sandra offered a very big smile to Zachariah this time. As soon as she got to realize that he had money, she flipped.

He took the flower bouquet and there were two strands of flowers in it. From far away it looked like it was a bouquet but it wasn't. He opened the white ribbon which was wrapped around a red paper encircling the flowers. He gave one stick to his mother and the other to my mom. "These gorgeous flowers are for my two gorgeous ladies, the mother of a handsome son and the mother of an ugly potato." He then winked at me.

My mother smiled at him and took the flower from him. I looked at him, "I'll handle you later on," I told him.

"For the next twenty minutes, I saw the various names of the flowers being announced. And then I zoned out. I started thinking about everyone who bought these flowers.

"The Hydrangea is white in color, and wilt easily, just like the first of people. You need to treat it very carefully. It takes plenty of hard work to cultivate and harvest these beautiful flowers. Let the auction began!"

That bunch of blue-white flower was auctioned for seven thousand and three hundred dollars. The man who bought it went down on his knee and gave it to his girlfriend. What a great boyfriend, he was. And here was my fiancée who had the audacity to call me an ugly potato in-front of my mother.

"The next flower is the Saffron and it is a popular spice that is used for coloring and high seasoning in many cuisines. The flower has a purple color with a yellow stamen. 80,000 flowers are used to extract just 500 grams of spice. These flowers Are so beautiful and gorgeous! Let's see who takes this bunch of flowers home!"

Those flowers were sold for ten thousand dollars. This time, the buyer was an old man. He had a pot tummy and chubby face. A young girl sat next to him, and when the flowers were delivered to him, she squealed!

"Can we have the second last flower of the night? The simple and common tulip enjoyed a bubble in 17th century Holland when it was sold for astronomical prices. The Dutch loved its shape and deep lush colors which were stronger than other flowers. Let see who takes these beautiful bouquets for flower home!"

With the ending of the day, people present in the room had started to become more and more enthusiastic about the flowers. They were even buying very simple flowers for a very large amount of money. I looked at my mother suddenly. She was fiddling with her hands. Was something wrong? I turned to look at the announcer and she declared that the flowers were sold for twelve thousand dollars.

"And finally the moment we all have been waiting for, the last flower of the auction. Before I announce and ask the man to bring the last bouquet of flower, I would like to thank each one of you present in the room on behalf of the society of the helpers. The auction wouldn't have been the same without your enthusiastic response? Without any further delay, can we have the last bouquet of flowers, these flowers are extremely expensive because of its beauty and rarity? It has lovely green petals embellished with red dots and is grown only in Malaysia's Kinabalu National Park. It is difficult to cultivate these flowers as it takes many years to appear. Its rarity and high price have earned this orchid the moniker "Gold of Kinabalu". Let the Austin of the last flower being!"

"Fifteen thousand dollars," I heard Ignatius voice behind me. Where the hell did he get fifteen thousand dollars from? I turned to look at him.

He was crazy. There was a fight for the flowers. They were finally sold for twenty-two thousand dollars and obviously, Ignatius bought them. What he wanted, he got it. He smiled at everyone as he took the flowers. What a cocky guy? Now how the hell did he get twenty-two grand? Maybe he fought. You get a good some of the money if you win right?

"So what is the great announcement?" I asked and looked at my mother. I desperately wanted to forget him. She looked at me, and her smile weakened. Zachariah's mom looked pleased and then I felt Zachariah tense. What could be so worse that my mom looked so uncomfortable?

"Well, Zachariah's mom and I were talking about it, and suddenly the idea doesn't feel so bad," my mother said.

"What idea?" Suddenly, I wanted to run off in the direction opposite to her direction, I somewhere in my heart knew that I was not ready for it. Not ready for the whole announcement.

"You and Zachariah will be married in two weeks."

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