THE FICTIONAL VELVET ROPE GALA — Celeste arrived at the Velvet Rope Gala with a modest ambition: to sit beside someone whose assistant had an assistant. Her assigned table contained a retired treasurer and a man who wanted to explain the parking validation. Clearly, an administrative error.

During cocktails, she slipped her placecard from Table 19 to the chair beside the evening's biggest donor. She moved the displaced card behind a floral arrangement, then announced that she and the donor had been 'trying to connect for ages.' This was true. He had never replied.

Unfortunately for Celeste, the planner had photographed every table before doors opened. Forty-two revisions had not been completed so a guest with a metallic clutch could perform an unauthorized merger. The planner approached with a captain and the calm expression of someone who had already won. 'Celeste, your card appears to have traveled without clearance.'

Her correction was announced just loudly enough for the donor to hear. A captain escorted her to Table 47, between the service door and a speaker playing the bass line directly into her soup. The only important person nearby was the banquet manager, who was too important to talk to her.

Celeste called the move punitive. The planner called it a seating-chart update. By dessert, a new instruction had reached every headset: placecard tampering will be prosecuted. Not by a court. By proximity to the dish return.