Chapter 19: The Founders Dinner

The Founders Dinner at the Lakeshore Club is two hundred people in black tie.

They pretend not to count each other's cars.

On Saturday night they counted me.

I came in on Winslow's arm in a long black dress with sleeves, wearing my mother's ruby on my right hand beside her band.

Conversation dropped at every table I passed and came back a half-note lower.

The woman in lavender caught my eye from table four and lifted her glass an inch.

Darrell was already seated.

He had a place at the back, beside a very old member who had known his father.

His hair was gelled and his tie was straight.

A leather folder lay on the cloth in front of him.

He did not look at me when I sat.

He looked at the folder.

The club president tapped a spoon against a glass after the fish.

He was eighty-one and stout and he liked ceremony.

"Before the toasts," he said, "the bylaws allow any member in good standing five minutes from the floor."

He looked down the room, plainly hoping no one would take it.

"Mr. Gaines has asked for them."

Darrell rose.

He walked to the podium with the folder against his chest.

He did what he did best, which was to wait until the room was quiet.

"Friends," he said. "I'm not here to ask for pity."

A murmur, kind and skeptical.

"My marriage is over. I accept that."

He let his voice shake a little.

"But things have been said about me this month, in front of cameras. This room should hear the other half."

He opened the folder.

"My former wife says she is Larkspur Partners. She says the money is hers."

He looked up, grave and sorrowful.

"Is it?"

Winslow's hand tightened on his napkin.

I laid my fingers over his wrist and shook my head a quarter inch.

"The Sorrell Foundation built the wing at the children's hospital," Darrell said.

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