Chương 2
Then he saw the cane beneath the chair.
His jaw moved once.
Eleanor looked at him and tried to smile.
It was such a small, apologetic expression that something inside Maya twisted.
Richard crouched as far as his stiff knees allowed and touched Eleanor’s fingers.
“Ellie.”
“I’m all right.”
“No.”
She lowered her eyes.
Richard remained there for a moment, breathing through his nose. When he stood, a tear had escaped and was moving slowly down his left cheek.
He turned to Vanessa.
“Vanessa.”
She glanced around at the watching guests before looking back at him.
“Dad, she was refusing to—”
Richard lifted one hand.
Not sharply.
Vanessa stopped anyway.
“You just kicked your own mother’s cane away.”
The silence that followed felt physical.
A woman near the dance floor covered her mouth.
Someone farther back whispered, “Her mother?”
Vanessa’s face changed as the room understood what the people nearest the confrontation already knew.
Richard looked at Maya.
The young server’s hands were shaking now that there was nothing for them to do.
Then he looked back at his daughter.
“And you fired the only person who protected her.”
Vanessa did not answer.
For several seconds no one did.
Scott finally moved.
He crossed the floor, retrieved the cane, and brought it to Eleanor. When he offered it, Eleanor’s hand hesitated before closing around the polished silver handle.
“Thank you,” she said.
Scott’s face reddened.
“You’re welcome, Mrs. Pierce.”
Maya noticed he called her Mrs. Pierce.
Not Eleanor.
Not Ellie.
Something respectful and safe.
Vanessa noticed too.
“This is ridiculous,” she said.
The words broke the spell.
Richard turned toward her.
“You need to leave.”
Vanessa laughed once. It had no humor in it.
“My name is on this event.”
“So is mine.”
“I organized the entire gala.”
“And you’re leaving it.”
“Dad, you don’t even know what happened.”
“I watched enough.”
“No, you watched the last thirty seconds.”
Eleanor shifted in her chair.
“Richard.”
He looked at her immediately.
Vanessa did not miss that.
Her mouth tightened.
“She has been doing this all week,” Vanessa said. “Refusing to listen, refusing to use the wheelchair when she needs it, disappearing from her room, changing her mind about everything. You get to walk in at nine-thirty and play the husband. I’ve been dealing with it.”
Eleanor’s fingers tightened around the cane.
Maya took one step backward.
The confrontation had moved into territory where she did not belong, yet there was nowhere to go without passing Vanessa.
Richard’s voice stayed low.
“Dealing with what?”
“With her.”
Eleanor flinched harder at that than she had when the cane hit the marble.
Vanessa seemed to hear herself after the words were out.
For a moment something like shame moved across her face.
Then she protected herself from it.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do.”
“She’s impossible.”
Richard stared at his daughter.
Vanessa looked toward Scott.
“Why is she still here?”
Scott glanced at Maya.
He was forty-six, balding, divorced, and paying tuition for a daughter at Northwestern. Maya knew these things because they had spent three years working twelve-hour banquets together. She had watched him eat cold chicken over trash cans and polish wine stains off the ballroom carpet on his knees. He was not a cruel man.
He was, however, frightened.
“Maya,” he said quietly, “go to the service hall.”
Vanessa gave a short nod, as though order had finally returned.
Maya felt heat climb her neck.
Scott would not meet her eyes.
She looked once at Eleanor.
Eleanor looked back.
“Thank you,” she said.
Maya nodded and walked away.
The crowd parted for her too, but differently than it had for Richard.
No one made eye contact.
Near the ballroom doors, one of the violinists held her bow against her skirt. A middle-aged man in a tuxedo touched Maya’s elbow as she passed.
“You did the right thing,” he murmured.
She wanted to ask whether he planned to say that out loud.
She kept walking.
The service hallway smelled like coffee, bleach, and roasted beef.
The ballroom doors closed behind her, muting the renewed murmur of the crowd.
Only then did Maya discover she was crying.
Not much.
Two tears, maybe three.
She wiped them away with the heel of her palm and became angry at herself for it.
Luis, a busser who had been stacking bread plates near the freight elevator, stared.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“You look like somebody died.”
“No one died.”
“Okay.”
He waited.
Maya leaned against a stainless-steel prep table.
Her knees had begun to shake.
Luis lowered the stack of plates.
“What happened?”
“I stopped a woman from pulling an old lady out of a chair.”
He frowned.
“That sounds good.”
“The woman runs the gala.”
His eyebrows rose.
“That sounds less good.”
“She said I’m fired.”
“Can she fire you?”
“I don’t know.”
Luis considered this.
“You work for the hotel.”
“I know that.”
“So probably not.”
“She gives the hotel a million dollars in business.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Luis rubbed his thumb against a chip in one of the plates.
Then he said, “Still sounds like you did the right thing.”
Maya closed her eyes.
“Everybody keeps saying that like it pays rent.”
Luis had no answer.
Neither did she.
Scott appeared five minutes later.
He pushed through the swinging door and stopped when he saw Luis.
“Can you give us a minute?”
Luis picked up the plates.
“Sure.”
On his way out he looked at Maya and gave her a small shrug that somehow managed to mean good luck, don’t panic, and this place is insane.
Scott waited until the door closed.
“You touched a guest.”
Maya stared at him.
“That’s where we’re starting?”
“I’m telling you what I have to document.”
“She was hurting Eleanor.”
“I saw.”
“Then document that.”
“I will.”
“Did you see her kick the cane?”
“No.”
“You saw the wrist.”
“I saw part of it.”
Maya laughed under her breath.
Scott’s expression hardened.
May you like
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
