Chapter 4: The Arrival of the Board
The distance between Table 12 and Table 14 was approximately twenty-four feet, but Victoria Greer-Vance walked it as if she were conquering a small principality. Her diamond tennis bracelet made a sharp, rhythmic tink-tink against her side with each step, her eyes fixed on Emma with a look of pure, administrative disgust.
"Arthur," Victoria said, not looking at the manager who was sweating into his collar behind her. "This is no longer a matter of policy. This is an open insurrection. You have an employee sitting at a guest table with a... a vagrant, while my husband and I are waiting for our appetizers. If this floor isn't cleared of both of them in ten seconds, my father will dissolve your management contract before the banks open tomorrow."
Arthur stepped forward, his voice shaking so badly he had to swallow twice before he could speak. "Emma... please. Get up. You're finished here. The security guards are right behind me. Don't make this ugly."
The thirty other guests in the eastern wing had stopped eating entirely. Two men at the center table had stood up to get a better view, their white shirts gleaming under the chandeliers like markers on a battlefield. The room had become so quiet that the only sound was the low, wet thrum of the snow hitting the thick glass windows from the outside.
Emma didn't get up. She didn't let go of Rose’s hand. She looked up at Victoria, her eyes wide and dark and completely empty of fear. "Her name is Rose, Mrs. Greer-Vance," Emma said, her voice dropping into the cold, level rhythm that had taken six years to forge. "She worked fifty-two years for the telephone company in this city. She paid her taxes. She buried her husband at Fort Sheridan. She has more right to this light than you do."
"I don't care if she built the city with her bare fingers," Victoria sneered, leaning down until her face was inches from Emma’s. The smell of her jasmine perfume was thick enough to cause nausea. "My father owns the ground beneath this chair. He owns the linen. He owns you. Now get out before I have the police remove you for criminal trespass."
Before Arthur could signal the two security guards who were hovering by the server station, the heavy brass double doors at the front of the restaurant swung open.
A gust of frozen Chicago air cut through the dining room, carrying with it a swirl of white snow that melted instantly on the polished floorboards. The host, Julian, didn't check the reservation book. He didn't ask for a name. He simply stood perfectly still, his mouth opening slightly as three men walked into the foyer.
The man in the center was tall, thirty-eight or forty, wearing a dark navy overcoat of brushed cashmere that was so black it seemed to absorb the light from the chandeliers. He hadn't bothered to brush the snow from his shoulders; it sat there like small silver stars against the dark fabric. His face was sharp, his jawline looking as though it had been carved from a block of northern gray granite, and his eyes were the color of the lake before a storm—a hard, flat green that looked at everything and saw through most of it.
To his left was Thomas Greer.
Thomas was sixty-five, his hair a thick mane of silver, his face usually red from prime rib and scotch. But tonight, his face was the color of skim milk. He was walking half a step behind the younger man, his heavy hand holding his leather briefcase with a tight, white-knuckled grip that made his gold watch strain against his cuff. To the younger man’s right was the regional director of the hospitality group, a man who usually spent his evenings in a high-rise office on Wacker Drive, but who was currently carrying the younger man’s wet umbrella with the careful, frightened deference of an altar boy.
Victoria turned her head at the sound of the door. Her face instantly changed, the sharp, mean line of her mouth softening into a bright, theatrical smile.
"Daddy!" she called out, her voice rising into that high, decorative pitch she used for cocktail parties. "You're early! I thought your meeting with the venture group wasn't over until nine. You came just in time. This... this absurd girl you hired has completely ruined our table, and there’s an old woman here who—"
Thomas Greer didn't look at his daughter. He didn't even look at her husband, Richard, who had finally stood up from Table 12, his phone disappearing into his pocket as he straightened his tie.
Thomas Greer looked at the man in the navy overcoat.
May you like
The younger man didn't look at Victoria either. His eyes scanned the room, moving past the chandeliers, past the white linen tables, past the security guards, until they stopped on the eastern bay window.
When he saw Emma sitting at Table 14, her hand wrapped around Rose’s small, liver-spotted fingers, his face didn't change expression. But his stride lengthened. He walked across the herringbone floor with a heavy, rhythmic click of his leather soles that seemed to echo in the dead silence of the room.
