Scout sits at her office window overlooking Grant Park and Chicago’s Lakefront Marina, looking out over the sprawling Art Institute and the large city park with the vast underground parking garage and submerged South Shore Train tracks. The stunning skyline rises above overflowing planters and perennial gardens as Michigan Avenue spans the river and extends past the Drake Hotel to the beaches along Lake Shore Drive.  Scout has lived in this city for five years now, and it is so beautiful in the summer that it still takes her breath away.  
 
But the winters — talk about taking your breath away — people have actually frozen to death as they pull themselves along the ropes stretched between buildings.  The wind off of the lake and the minus 20-degree temperatures turns the city into a frozen nightmare where faces are frozen into frowns and the pain of thawing fingers and toes is agonizing. How can one city be so wonderful and so terrible? Maybe it’s just like everything else — a dichotomy of contrasts and contradictions. It does keep life interesting, she thinks, as she turns away from the window to check the wine list. 
 
Tonight she is meeting a friend for Happy Hour at her favorite French restaurant on the Near North Side. She's wearing her short cropped kimono jacket over a white tank top and long, wide black pants. Her bold earrings and shade of lipstick bring out the colors in her jacket's contemporary Japanese print. So chic, so unique. So her.
 
The front of the restaurant will be open to the street and people will be walking by, on their way to their own evening plans. She’ll sip on a tumbler of Pouilly-Fuisse’ as the soft breeze envelopes her, brushing away any thoughts of harsh winters. This is a magical night, and she's going to savor everything about it.