Chapter 11: The Seating Chart

Gillian's POV

Sylvia Lowry's charity luncheon had been on my calendar for eleven months.

Last spring the Lakeshore Club's committee hired my company to run it, and the contract was in my name.

Sylvia had forgotten.

I had not.

"Two hundred and ten seats," I told the club's manager on Saturday morning. "I'm doing the seating chart myself."

"The committee chair usually approves it."

"The committee chair signed off in March. Here's her initials."

He looked at the paper, then at my face, then very slowly at the chart on the wall.

"Of course, Mrs. Stroud," he said.

I did not correct the name this time either.

I moved four cards.

Sylvia Lowry was supposed to sit at the head table, under the window, facing the lake.

I put her at table four.

Table four stood next to the swinging kitchen door.

Vaughn came in at noon in a charcoal suit.

He looked at the chart, then at me, then at table four.

"You've had a lot of fun with this," he said.

"I've had a few minutes of fun with this."

"I want to be at that table."

"It's a table for relatives of the bride."

"I'm a relative now."

"Table seven," I said. "Next to my mother."

"Miriam is coming?"

"She wouldn't miss it."

By one o'clock two hundred women in good jackets filled the room.

Sylvia arrived last, in cream silk, with her husband and her pearls.

She stopped at the front, scanned the room for her place card, and went still.

"There must be a mistake," she said to the manager.

"Mrs. Stroud rearranged the seating," he said, very politely.

"Mrs. who?"

"The event director."

Sylvia's head came around.

I raised a hand from the back and gave her a small, friendly wave.

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