“Krumas for Illinois” had taken over the pier, with the small donors partying at the west end under the Ferris wheel, and the VIPs a quarter mile east. In a signal of Krumas’s star power, the state’s celebrities were moving around us: the Illinois house speaker, the attorney general, county officials, corporate chiefs, big lawyers, local media luminaries.

You can’t be a player in Chicago without crossing paths with many of the usual suspects. It pleased Mr. Contreras no end to have a number of people come out of the crowd to greet me by name. I saw Murray Ryerson from the Herald-Star, with a carefully fit young woman, and Beth Blacksin, who anchors Global Entertainment’s evening news.

“See, doll? I said you needed to be dressed up. And, look at you, best-looking gal in the place, and everyone knows it.”

I’d worn my mother’s diamond drop earrings and an ankle-length scarlet sundress I’d bought for a wedding last summer. I did it partly to please Mr. Contreras and partly, I confess, to flaunt myself. I wanted my young cousin to see that you could be circling my age and still be sexy. Dominatingly sexy. At that thought I gave an involuntary grimace. I hoped my time with Johnny wasn’t rubbing off on me. How depressing for a feminist to feel the need to dominate anyone, let alone do it with a red dress.

Still, I enjoyed it when my once-upon-a-time husband, a player himself, partner at one of Chicago’s international law firms, gave me a silent whistle in greeting and kept an arm around my bare shoulder a moment too long for his current wife’s peace of mind. When I introduced him and Terry to Mr. Contreras, the old man recognized their names and laughed with pleasure.

“He’s thinking maybe he made a mistake letting you go, cookie,” he whispered audibly as we moved on.

“Not when he remembers how I’ve treated some of his important clients.” I laughed, too, though, happy at the attention.

Mr. Contreras was jaunty in his one good suit. His battle medals and ribbons attracted their own attention from men like my brief husband, who had carefully constructed their lives to avoid any public service, especially the kind where other people shot at you. Now too old to serve, they had a wistful longing that they, too, could brag of their military heroics.