CHAPTER 2: Champagne at the Wrong End of the Room

A waiter offered Eleanor champagne with an apology hidden in his eyes.
She accepted water instead.
At seventy-two, Eleanor had learned that humiliation worked best when the victim tried too hard to refuse it. So she did not gasp. She did not demand another place. She did not ask whether a mistake had been made, because the room already knew it had not.
Adrian, her only son, stood beside the main table in a charcoal suit, laughing with the bank chairman as if he had not seen his mother standing under the doorway light.
Vanessa glided toward Eleanor with the seating chart folded against her jeweled clutch.
'I hope this is comfortable,' she said. 'The kitchen gets busy, but at least you will not feel overwhelmed by all the foundation talk.'
Eleanor looked at the chair, then at Vanessa.
'How thoughtful,' she said.