And that was the moment the CEO of Meridian’s biggest client — a sharp woman named Margaret, who I’d never met — walked up to me, extended her hand, and said, loudly, delighted:
“You’re Eleanor Vance? THE Eleanor Vance? My whole logistics department runs on your engine.
I’ve been asking for years who actually wrote the Lakeside core. Nobody could ever tell me.
My God, it’s an honor.”
The ballroom, which had that gala hum of three hundred conversations, dropped by half.
People turned.
“I wrote it at my kitchen table,” I said. “A long time ago.”
“Well, it’s the best architecture in the industry, and it hasn’t been matched in twenty years,” Margaret said. “You should be very proud.”
And then — and I promise I did not plan this — Margaret looked over at Gerald and Chelsea, standing frozen a few feet away, and said, pleasantly:
“Gerald! You never told me your co-founder was your wife.
