Chapter 11: The Award

Cora's POV

The note on my pillow had said four lines.

Eat something. The car is downstairs. Saturday, black tie, sit where you can see the stage. I'll explain nothing and you'll understand everything.

I wore the green dress I had saved for Santorini.

The ballroom was gold and white, with four hundred people at round tables.

At the far end was a stage with a lit podium.

Everyone in Chicago architecture was in the room.

There were the men with the firms, and the women who ran them in all but name.

The staff of Lowell Design had a table near the back.

When I came in, the woman from the plotter stood up and waved both arms over her head.

The whole group from the office pushed their chairs together to make room for me.

"We came on our own money," the young drafter whispered. "Mr. Lowell didn't invite us."

"Then why come?"

"Because Tobias Radcliff's assistant called us on Thursday," he said, and grinned.

I looked toward the front.

Tobias sat at the sponsor's table in black tie with an empty chair beside him, and he was looking straight at me.

He did not smile.

He lifted one finger from the cloth in greeting, and I felt it low in my stomach.

At eight o'clock the lights dropped.

The magazine's editor took the stage and talked about craft and legacy, and then she opened a gold envelope.

"The Hospitality Design Prize goes to the Pembroke Hotel, Chicago. Accepting for Lowell Design, Rodrick Lowell."

The applause was loud.

Rodrick climbed the steps in a tuxedo with his chin lifted.

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