Chapter 23: Designed by Cora Arrington

On the night the lakefront hotel opened, I stood in its lobby with a black marker in my hand.

The brass plate by the front doors was still blank.

Four hundred guests filled the room under the long glass ceiling.

Beyond the windows the lake lay dark and still.

My studio stood in a cluster by the staircase, twelve people in their best clothes.

The woman from the plotter had cried twice already and said it was the champagne.

"Go on," said the young drafter. "Everybody's waiting."

I looked at the plate.

My father had told me not to wait for anyone to hand me the marker.

I uncapped it myself and wrote it on the brass in my own hand, just beneath the hotel's name.

The room applauded, and my staff whooped.

Tobias stood beside me in black tie.

He did not clap. He only watched me with his hands in his pockets and his face wide open.

"You did that," he said quietly, under the noise.

"I know."

"Say it again."

"I did that."

"Louder."

"Tobias."

He laughed, and it was warm and rough, and I felt it down to my knees.

Kelsey had sent flowers, with a card that said only: Thank you.

Rodrick had not sent anything.

A cousin had told me he was drafting for a small firm in Evanston and living with his sister.

I felt nothing about that, and it surprised me how little.

At eleven the last guest left, and the staff drifted off to bars and homes.

Tobias took my hand in the empty lobby.

"Come upstairs," he said. "I want to show you the top floor, and I don't want to talk about it."

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