Chương 3
Emily stepped out alone.
Her phone was pressed against her ear.
Her face had gone pale again, but this time it had nothing to do with me.
She walked past us without speaking and headed toward the service corridor.
Diane emerged behind her.
“Robert.”
Something in her voice made him put down both drinks.
“What?”
She looked at me first, which told me I was somehow already involved.
Then she looked at her husband.
“Did you know Emily lost her job three months ago?”
Robert did not answer immediately.
His face settled into the careful blankness of a man who had just been handed information too large to react to in public.
“What do you mean, lost her job?”
Diane lowered her voice, though there was nobody close enough to hear except me.
“She was laid off in May.”
Robert stared toward the service corridor where Emily had disappeared.
“She told us she got promoted.”
“I know.”
“She said Chicago was because of the new regional position.”
“I know what she said.”
His eyes moved to me.
That part irritated me instantly.
Not because he blamed me, exactly, but because people in my family had always looked at the nearest available person when reality became uncomfortable.
I held up both hands.
“I found out three seconds before you did.”
Robert set his glass on a side table hard enough to spill a thin line of bourbon over the rim.
“Where is she?”
Diane pointed toward the corridor.
He started after her.
I caught his arm.
“Not through there.”
He pulled free.
“That’s my daughter.”
“And that’s a staff-only area.”
He looked ready to argue.
Then Priya appeared at the far end of the hallway carrying two place cards and saved me the trouble.
“Jake?”
She glanced at Robert.
“Everything okay?”
“No.”
Robert said it before I could.
Priya looked at me.
I nodded toward the ballroom.
“Can you cover the floor for ten minutes?”
“Of course.”
“And find Emily.”
“She went toward the loading entrance.”
That was worse.
The loading entrance opened onto the service drive behind the hotel, where delivery trucks came in and employees took cigarette breaks beside the recycling enclosure.
Guests almost never went there unless they were lost or trying not to be seen.
Robert moved again.
This time I let him.
Diane followed.
I went with them because, despite everything, I did not want Emily cornered by both parents behind a commercial kitchen while one hundred people waited to sing happy birthday.
We found her outside beneath the yellow security light.
She was standing beside a stack of folded banquet tables, one arm wrapped around herself, phone pressed to her ear.
“No, I understand,” she was saying.
She saw us and turned away.
“No, Tuesday is fine.”
Robert stopped.
Emily closed her eyes.
“Okay.”
She listened.
“Thank you.”
Then she hung up.
For a few seconds, nobody spoke.
A delivery van passed at the far end of the alley, tires hissing over damp pavement left from an earlier cleaning.
Emily slipped her phone into her clutch.
“Can everyone please go back inside?”
Robert laughed once.
It was not a happy sound.
“You lost your job?”
She looked at Diane.
“Seriously?”
“Don’t do that,” Diane said.
“I told your mother because your card declined at a ten-thousand-dollar party.”
“It didn’t decline for ten thousand.”
“That is not the point.”
Emily looked at me.
“You said thirty minutes.”
“I’m not timing you with a stopwatch.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
That was the Emily I recognized.
Cornered, she came out swinging.
Robert stepped between us.
“Leave Jake out of this.”
She stared at him.
“You’re joking.”
“No.”
“Ten years of you talking about him like he threw his life away, and now suddenly he’s Saint Jake because he owns a hotel?”
Robert’s face hardened.
“I did not say that.”
“You absolutely did.”
Diane crossed her arms.
“Emily, this is about you lying to us.”
“It’s always about me when something goes wrong.”
“Because you lied.”
“I lost my job.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t commit fraud.”
“You told us you were promoted.”
Emily looked away.
A kitchen employee pushed open the service door carrying a bag of trash, saw us, and immediately retreated inside.
Even in the middle of a family crisis, I nearly laughed.
Robert did not notice.
“What happened to your job?” he asked.
Emily rubbed at a spot on her wrist where a bracelet had left a red mark.
“My division got restructured.”
“In May?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve been pretending to go to work for three months?”
“I freelance.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I have clients.”
“How many?”
Emily said nothing.
Diane’s expression changed.
Not softer.
More frightened.
“Emily.”
“One.”
Robert stared at her.
“One client?”
“One current client.”
“How much are they paying you?”
“I’m not discussing my income in an alley behind a hotel.”
“You’re discussing it now.”
Her chin lifted.
“You don’t get to order me around because you’re embarrassed.”
“I’m embarrassed because my daughter has been lying to my face.”
“No.”
Emily pointed at him.
“You’re embarrassed because you told everybody I was doing great.”
Robert went quiet.
The accusation landed.
Diane looked at him, then at Emily.
I suddenly felt like I had wandered into a room where an argument had been waiting for years.
Emily laughed under her breath.
“There it is.”
Robert’s voice lowered.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you don’t care that I’m scared.”
His face shifted.
“You think I don’t care?”
“You care about the version of me that makes you look good.”
Diane stepped closer.
“That is cruel.”
“So is asking me at every family dinner whether I’ve made director yet.”
“We were proud of you.”
“No, you were invested.”
The service door opened again.
This time Luis stuck his head out.
“Jake.”
I turned.
“What?”
“Ten minutes to entrees.”
He looked at the four of us.
“Should I come back?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
May you like
The door shut.
Emily let out a short laugh that surprised all of us.
