Chương 5
The thought made her angry.
“Your mother got insulted, so you shut off the money?”
“No.”
“Because that’s what everybody thinks.”
“The money was being shut off before Victoria raised her hand.”
Clara went still.
Lucas continued.
“We received evidence yesterday afternoon that the Halcyon entities had breached the forbearance agreement. Counsel prepared notices before the gala.”
“Then why were you there?”
“My mother wanted to come.”
Margaret’s old family photograph flashed in Clara’s mind.
“You knew this hotel might fail while you were drinking champagne upstairs?”
Lucas’s mouth tightened.
“I wasn’t drinking.”
“That’s not the point.”
“No.”
He walked to the table.
“The gala was for the Halcyon Foundation. My mother had donated to one of its scholarship programs years ago. She received an invitation before Moretti acquired the debt last winter.”
“Why did you let her come?”
His eyes changed.
Clara regretted the question before he answered.
“Because she asked me not to rearrange her life around my work.”
That sounded like Margaret.
Denise tapped the binder.
“We need an answer by noon.”
Clara looked at her.
“About the liaison job.”
“Temporary assignment. You keep your employment. You report to me for transition matters. You don’t touch finances, guest data, hiring, firing, or contracts. You receive concerns from staff and bring them to us. You can sit in operational meetings. You can request a security escort if anyone retaliates.”
“What do I get?”
“Three days of acting-supervisor pay.”
Clara almost laughed.
Denise looked at her over the binder.
“I told them not to make it theatrical.”
“How much?”
Denise told her.
It was not life-changing.
That helped.
Clara said, “I need an hour.”
She spent forty minutes walking the hotel.
Not because she was weighing strategy.
She was avoiding everybody.
On the ninth floor, a housekeeper named Ana saw her and pressed both hands to her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
“Please don’t.”
Ana hugged her anyway.
Clara endured it.
Then Ana whispered, “Are we losing our jobs?”
There it was.
Not heroism.
Not billionaires.
Not debt facilities.
Jobs.
“I don’t know.”
Ana stepped back.
“My husband says the video means the bank took the hotel.”
“It didn’t.”
“But they can?”
“Maybe.”
Ana’s face tightened.
“Then why everybody saying you’re in charge?”
“Because a rich man was angry and said something stupid.”
Ana stared.
Then laughed.
It was the first normal laugh Clara had heard all day.
By noon, Clara accepted the temporary assignment.
She gave Denise three conditions.
“I don’t speak for Lucas.”
“Fine.”
“I don’t defend the lender.”
“Fine.”
“And if staff tell me something in confidence, I need to know exactly when I’m required to share it.”
Rebecca answered that one.
They spent twenty minutes on the distinction between privacy, confidentiality, safety reporting, document preservation, and information that could not ethically be promised secrecy.
Clara understood about half of it.
She asked them to write it down.
They did.
At 12:47, she returned to housekeeping.
Patrice stared at the temporary badge clipped above Clara’s name tag.
EMPLOYEE TRANSITION LIAISON.
“You took it.”
“For three days.”
“That’s how bad marriages start.”
Clara smiled despite herself.
Patrice did not.
“People are going to talk.”
“They already are.”
“Different talking.”
Patrice turned toward the carts.
“You report to the money people now.”
“I still report to you for housekeeping.”
“On paper.”
Clara felt the first shift between them.
Small.
Ugly.
Real.
“Patrice.”
“I have rooms.”
She pushed a cart into the service elevator.
The doors closed between them.
By the end of the first day, twelve employees asked Clara whether payroll would clear.
Four reported managers telling staff not to discuss the gala.
Two complained about unpaid overtime.
One accused another employee of stealing coffee pods.
Someone from banquets wanted to know whether the new lender would change the employee meal.
A front-desk agent cried in a stairwell because a reporter had called her mother.
A dishwasher asked Clara for Lucas Moretti’s personal email address so he could pitch an app.
Real life refused to organize itself around the central conflict.
Clara wrote everything down.
At 6:20 p.m., she found Margaret sitting alone in the lobby.
Clara stopped.
Margaret was wearing the same dark dress, though her white hair had been repinned.
The embroidered purse rested in her lap.
“You came back.”
Margaret lifted it.
“I found the photograph.”
Clara sat beside her.
The photo had a cracked corner now.
It showed a younger Margaret, a dark-haired man, and a boy of perhaps nine in front of a grocery store.
“Lucas?”
“He hated that sweater.”
Clara looked closer.
The boy was scowling.
“He still makes that face.”
“Yes.”
Margaret smiled.
“My husband owned that grocery. Moretti Market. Singular. Very grand.”
“What happened to it?”
“We sold it.”
“Why?”
“My husband got sick. Lucas was in college. We needed money.”
Margaret said it without sentiment.
She turned the photograph over.
There was handwriting on the back.
1989. FIRST CHRISTMAS AFTER THE FREEZER BROKE.
Clara laughed.
Margaret nodded.
“We lost everything in that freezer. Turkeys. Ice cream. My husband nearly cried over the shrimp.”
“Why keep this picture?”
“I look good.”
Clara laughed again.
Margaret tucked it into the purse.
After a moment, she said, “I’m sorry my son did that to you.”
“Which part?”
“The dramatic part.”
“The folder?”
“The sentence.”
Clara leaned back.
“He was trying to help.”
“He was angry.”
“That too.”
Margaret looked toward the lobby doors.
“Lucas believes if he can control enough variables, nobody gets hurt.”
“That sounds useful in finance.”
“It’s unbearable at Thanksgiving.”
They sat quietly.
A little girl dragged a pink suitcase across the marble. Her father followed, carrying three stuffed animals under one arm.
Margaret watched them.
“I embarrassed him last night.”
Clara turned.
“How?”
“I got overwhelmed.”
“You didn’t embarrass him.”
Margaret smoothed the purse.
“Those rooms. The noise. Sometimes I get turned around. It passes.”
She opened the pill case and checked it, then closed it without taking anything.
May you like
“Lucas hates when he can’t fix something.”
Clara thought of his voice in the ballroom.
