Chương 3
Lucy pressed her face into Daniel’s shoulder.
He felt people glance at them.
A man in a tuxedo gave Daniel a small wave before noticing Lucy’s bare foot and thinking better of it.
Daniel kept walking.
Marisol had apparently called ahead despite Lucy’s refusal, because a young host met them outside the lounge.
“Mr. Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“We have a quiet table available.”
Daniel almost said room service.
Then he pictured another silver cart.
“Table’s fine.”
The host led them to a booth near an unlit side fireplace, away from the bar. Daniel put Lucy down carefully. She still wore his coat around her shoulders.
The host handed her a children’s menu.
Lucy stared at it.
“Do you want noodles?” Daniel asked.
She nodded.
“With butter and Parmesan?”
Another nod.
“Anything else?”
She looked at the menu.
“Carrots?”
Daniel sat across from her.
“You want carrots?”
“They’re healthy.”
The answer was automatic.
He felt something cold settle behind his ribs.
“You don’t have to earn the noodles.”
Lucy’s eyes lifted.
“What?”
“You can have noodles because you’re hungry.”
She kept looking at him.
“The carrots too, if you want them.”
“I like carrots.”
“Then carrots.”
A server arrived.
Daniel ordered for both of them, then added hot chocolate because it was Lucy’s birthday and because he could not think of a single other thing to do that felt like being her father.
When the server left, Lucy began folding the corner of the paper menu back and forth.
Daniel let her.
He took out his phone.
Eleven missed notifications.
Three from his mother.
Two from board members attending the ballroom event.
One from a donor named Stuart Hale, who had written: Everything okay?
One from his office.
Four messages in the family group chat, including his sister Rachel asking whether he had arrived.
Daniel turned the phone face down.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you mad?”
He looked at her.
“Yes.”
Lucy stopped folding the menu.
“Not at you.”
She resumed.
He watched her fingers.
“Lucy.”
“What?”
“What happened with the juice?”
She shrugged.
“Can you tell me?”
“I bumped it.”
“What did it spill on?”
“Mr. Trent.”
Daniel knew the name. Walter Trent had donated several million dollars to the foundation over fifteen years and liked reminding people of it in indirect ways.
“His clothes?”
“His pants.”
“Okay.”
“They were gray.”
Daniel nodded as if that mattered.
Maybe to Lucy it did.
“What happened next?”
“Grandma made the face.”
“What face?”
Lucy tried to imitate it.
Her six-year-old attempt at Evelyn’s disapproval would ordinarily have made him laugh.
He could not.
“She took my arm and brought me out.”
“Did she hurt your arm?”
Lucy considered.
“No.”
That answer relieved him for about half a second.
“She squeezed it, but not hurting-hurting.”
Daniel’s fingernails pressed into his palm under the table.
“What did she say?”
Lucy looked toward the lounge entrance.
He lowered his voice.
“She’s not here.”
“She said I made the family look cheap.”
Daniel waited.
Lucy frowned at the menu.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It doesn’t mean anything you need to worry about.”
“Is cheap bad?”
“Not the way she meant it.”
“What way did she mean it?”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
He had negotiated hospital contracts, donor disputes, employee terminations, and a three-year fight over foundation grant requirements without ever feeling as unqualified as he did answering his daughter’s questions.
“She meant she was embarrassed.”
“Because of juice?”
“Yeah.”
Lucy thought about that.
“That’s stupid.”
A laugh escaped him.
It came out broken.
Lucy smiled a little.
“Sorry.”
“No. You’re right.”
The noodles arrived first.
Lucy waited.
Daniel looked at her. “What?”
“Aren’t you eating?”
“My food’s coming.”
She did not touch hers.
He understood.
“I’m going to eat.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She picked up her fork.
The first bite went into her mouth too quickly.
Daniel looked away.
He watched a couple at the bar argue quietly about whether they had booked a ski lesson for nine or nine thirty the next morning. The bartender polished a glass. Someone near the fireplace complained about rental boots.
Normal life went on around him with insulting ease.
Lucy ate.
Not delicately.
Not like the careful child he had seen at his mother’s dinners.
She bent over the bowl, shoveled in noodles, drank water, ate three carrot sticks, then returned to the noodles as if afraid the plate might disappear.
Daniel waited until she slowed.
“Did Grandma tell you I knew you were out there?”
Lucy nodded.
His stomach dropped.
“What exactly did she say?”
“That you were busy.”
He leaned back.
“She said you said I needed to think about what I did.”
Daniel could not speak immediately.
Lucy watched him.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Oh.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Oh.”
The second “oh” was different.
Smaller.
Daniel looked at the table.
“I should have been here sooner.”
“You were working.”
He stared at her.
“That’s what Grandma said.”
His food arrived.
He had no appetite.
He picked up his fork anyway.
Lucy watched until he took a bite.
Only then did she go back to eating.
Daniel’s phone vibrated.
He ignored it.
It vibrated again.
Then again.
Lucy said, “You can get it.”
“I’m good.”
“It might be work.”
“It can wait.”
She seemed uncertain about that too.
The phone stopped.
A minute later, the lounge host approached.
“Mr. Mercer?”
Daniel looked up.
The host’s expression had changed since seating them.
Professional concern had replaced hospitality.
“There’s a Ms. Alvarez asking to speak with you.”
Marisol stood near the entrance holding a folded sheet of paper.
Daniel glanced at Lucy.
“Do you mind if she comes over?”
Lucy shook her head.
Marisol approached the booth.
She had removed her name tag.
That detail bothered him.
“Sit,” Daniel said.
“I’m working.”
“Then stand.”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
“I wanted to give you this.”
She handed him the folded paper.
It was resort stationery.
May you like
At the top she had written her full name: Marisol Alvarez.
Beneath it was a time.
