48. Lance
Lance
“What do you mean you can’t make it?”
I’m trapped in the valet line, engine purring, phone welded to my ear while Marcus drops the kind of bomb that makes me want to reverse over the velvet ropes.
“Douglas Jefferson filed an emergency injunction at four,” he says, calm as a fucking monk. “Mercer Biotech’s in the middle of a federal review. If I don’t get a response brief filed by tomorrow morning, we lose the window.”
“Marcus, don’t do this to me.”
“I’ve had three associates on back-to-back calls. The client is losing his mind, which, honestly, is fair considering—”
“You RSVP’d, Marcus. You wrote the fucking speech. You’ve attended every fancy cocktail gala for fucking rich people for the last ten years while I was rotting away in San Diego. Tonight’s the one night I show up and ironed a shirt—”
Somewhere behind me, a horn gives an impatient beep. I drive forward.
“You ironed a shirt?” he asks, like that’s the most important bit.
“Yes, with an actual fucking iron. Dug it out of a closet, burned my hand twice, and now I smell like scorched fabric. The least you can do is show up—”
“The speech is coming through now.”
My phone buzzes hard against my jaw once.
“You’ll be fine,” he says.
“I will absolutely not—”
“Lance.” Marcus’s voice drops into that big-brother register he uses when he’s already decided how something is going to go. “You’re the best person I know. You can do anything. You’ll be fine.”
He hangs up.
I let out a groan that fogs the windshield for half a second. The line creeps forward. Night air slips through the cracked window, thick with perfume, cigar smoke, and the low chatter of people who actually want to be here. My thumb is still throbbing from the iron.
“God fucking damn it.”
By the time the valet kid in the ridiculous red jacket reaches my door, I slap the keys into his hand without looking.
I read Marcus’s texts for the speech. I’ve already half-memorized the damn things out of pure dread.
Now I just have to pray I can stand up there and deliver them without sounding like a sweaty con artist who’s about to get booed off the stage.
The Beaumont Theatre, six-story brick and limestone landmark, has loomed over this stretch of downtown Seattle like old money since 1923.
It spent eleven years as a very expensive eyesore before some heiress with forty million dollars and a ferocious passion for architectural preservation decided to make it her legacy project.
Four years of meticulous restoration later, the building looks exactly as it did a century ago.
The difference is that the plumbing works, the roof no longer leaks, and nobody has to worry about violating modern fire codes.
Tonight, the Pacific Crest Foundation has decked the grand entrance in their signature deep green.
Two towering banners ripple in the evening breeze, a photographer clicks away at the bottom of the wide marble steps, and guests move through the arrival ritual with practiced boredom.
Out of the town car, up the steps, name murmured at the door, heavy program slipped into hand, then inside.
They’ve done this so many times the ceremony of it has gone invisible.
I do it all anyway, straightening my cuffs, and heading for the entrance before I can change my mind.
The black wool suit feels slightly too sharp on my shoulders.
My tie is a deep charcoal, knotted tighter than I’d like, and my shoes are polished enough to reflect the outdoor lights.
The evening air is cool against the back of my neck. The doors open before I reach them.
I walk in.
The ceiling is the first thing that hits me.
It’s gilded as fuck and original. Thirty feet up and shining like it’s never seen a single day of neglect.
A row of massive chandeliers runs the full length, dimmed just enough to make every face in the room look expensive and well-rested.
The old orchestra seats have been cleared out for the night, swapped for cocktail-reception mode with clusters of high-top tables draped in crisp white linen, over-the-top floral centerpieces.
Waiters gliding through like ghosts with silver trays.
A string quartet saws away softly in the left corner of the stage.
Center stage sits a sleek podium with the Pacific Crest Foundation seal gleaming under the lights. Two rows of chairs wait stage right—one of them apparently mine.
I snag a glass of champagne from a passing tray before I’ve even fully stepped inside. The flute is freezing against my fingers.
I don’t just look at the room. I read it like a handover document.
Who’s clustered with whom and what deal they’re probably cutting.
Who’s pretending to laugh while scanning the door for bigger prey.
Who’s already locked in with their people for the night, and who’s still working the floor like it’s overtime.
Justice Janice Gregory holds court near the bar.
I recognize her from that brutal campaign dinner a few years back.
Foundation board members hover at the base of the stage stairs like sentries.
Three state legislators. A congressman’s chief of staff.
Two university presidents. Every conversation in here is doing at least two jobs at once.
I haven’t been in a room like this in ten years. I was barely more than a kid last time.
My body doesn’t seem to care. Left hand holds the glass. Right hand stays free and dry. Shoulders roll back on muscle memory. That polished I’m delighted to be here smile settles onto my face before I even decide to put it on.
I hate how fast it all comes rushing back.
Gertrude Ashworth finds me in exactly four minutes.
She’s known me since I was nine, been my mother’s ride-or-die through campaigns and twenty years of foundation trench warfare.
Has never once in my life called me anything but Lawrence.
At seventy-one, she’s wearing dark blue like armor, spine straight as a blade.
This woman never learned how to slouch and views poor posture as a moral defect in lesser humans.
She takes both my hands in hers, dry and surprisingly strong.
“Your mother,” she begins, “watched the last gala on her laptop from the treatment center and cried through the entire closing remarks.”
“That sounds right. She’d love to be here tonight,” I say.
“This room is full of people who built things with her. Remember that when you’re up there.” She gives my hands one firm squeeze. “And she would say something sharp and funny right about now. So try, Lawrence.”
“That’s the bar she set,” I reply. “Sharp and funny.”
Gertrude’s mouth moves. “She would say the bar is the floor, Lawrence. She would say aim higher.”
I stay with her group for twenty minutes.
They’re warm in that specific way people get when they knew your mother at thirty—back when she was still a force of nature instead of a memory.
I listen more than I talk, which isn’t my natural setting but is the correct one here.
I run the speech in the back of my head while maintaining eye contact and laughing where the laughter belongs.
I was taught from childhood that a room full of powerful people isn’t a party—it’s a resource. And you don’t waste resources.
Dr. Anneliese Wren calls the room to order at eight-thirty.
Silver-haired. Former state attorney general.
Voice strong enough to skip the mic, too professional to actually do it.
She welcomes everyone, thanks the sponsors, and runs through the four Meridian Awards like a woman who’s never met a wasted syllable.
By then I’m parked in the honorees’ row, second chair from the end, stage right. Program on my lap. Marcus’s speech is looping on repeat somewhere behind my eyes like a malfunctioning robot stuck on the most emotionally devastating track.
Justice Janice Gregory goes first. Thirty-one years on the bench, landmark education rulings, clean three-minute remarks. Polite, impressed applause.
Rosa Medina-Garza goes second. Built a network of women’s shelters from basically nothing. She gets to the podium, starts crying, laughs at herself for crying, and suddenly half the room is misty-eyed and sniffling right along with her. A goddamn masterclass in emotional warfare.
And I’m up next. Fantastic. Nothing like following a standing ovation for a woman who just made hardened donors weep into their seven-hundred-dollar cocktails. I can already feel the room bracing for the guy who’s about to ruin the vibe with a speech he didn’t even write.
Fuck you, Marcus.
Dr. Wren returns to the podium.
“Our third Meridian Award this evening is presented to a woman who has spent thirty years making other people’s victories possible.
Eleanor Bradford has served as senior advisor to three successful gubernatorial campaigns in Washington state.
She has chaired the Washington Civic Education Initiative for fifteen years, expanding it from a two-county pilot to a statewide program now operating in all thirty-nine counties. ”
She looks up from her notes.
“Through the Bradford Foundation, which she established in early 2000s, she has funded civic literacy and political participation programs serving over forty thousand students across Washington and California. She has been an architect of progressive policy in this region for three decades. Her name is rarely in the headline because she preferred the outcome to the credit.”
She does another pause.
“She cannot be with us tonight. Her son, Lance, is here to accept on her behalf.”
Twelve steps from my chair to the podium. I counted them when I came in.
Dr. Wren hands me the heavy sculpted glass award. The foundation seal catches the light. I shake her hand, turn to face two hundred people, and feel the room settle into that expectant hush.
“My mother,” I start, the microphone carrying my voice loudly through the hall, “would want me to tell you a few things.”
The room leans in.