Chương 2
“You don’t have to be composed for me.”
“I’m not composed.”
“You are standing upright.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
The elevator opened. An elderly couple inside saw Maya’s face, saw Mark’s posture, and stepped back without speaking. Maya could not bear the thought of riding down with strangers who might ask whether she was all right.
She shook her head.
The doors closed again.
Mark glanced toward the ballroom. “We can take the stairs.”
“I need a bathroom.”
He walked with her, keeping half a step behind as though afraid she might break if he came too close. In the women’s restroom, Maya locked herself inside a stall and sat on the closed toilet lid without lifting her dress. Warm chandelier light had followed her even there, reflected by cream tile and a gold-framed mirror.
She waited for tears.
None came.
Her body trembled instead, small vibrations beginning in her shoulders and moving down her arms. She pressed the clutch between her palms. Her mother’s voice returned with perfect clarity, not loud now but intimate.
Even Maya’s birth ruined my life.
It was not the first time Helen had said something like it. It was merely the first time she had said it to two hundred people.
There had been smaller versions. The sigh whenever Maya’s birthday approached. The story about thirty-one hours of labor, told as if Maya had designed the pain herself. The scholarship Helen claimed she had lost because she was pregnant, though dates never quite matched when Maya tried to count them. The way George called her expensive whenever a school fee arrived, then bought Clara a horse three months later because Clara had been going through a difficult phase.
Maya had spent years translating those facts into a language she could survive.
Her parents were stressed. Her mother was unhappy. Her father was old-fashioned. Clara needed more attention. Maya was stronger. Maya understood money. Maya did not require praise.
Behind the stall door, two women entered.
“Was that her?” one whispered.
“I think so.”
“Oh my God.”
“Don’t. She might still be in here.”
Water ran. A soap dispenser clicked.
Maya stared at the black patent toe of her shoe and wondered whether they meant Helen or her.
When the women left, she waited another minute, then stepped out. Her eyes were red but dry. She ran cold water over her wrists and held them beneath the stream until her trembling eased.
Her phone vibrated inside the clutch.
There were already twelve messages.
Two were from cousins asking where she had gone. One was from a number she did not recognize: I’m so sorry. Another came from the hotel’s event coordinator, who had apparently mistaken Maya for someone responsible for the final payment.
The newest message was from George.
Don’t make a scene. Come back in.
Maya read it twice.
Then another message appeared.
We need to discuss the transfer before Monday.
The restroom door opened. Mark looked in, eyes fixed on the floor.
“There’s no one else in here,” Maya said.
“I asked a woman coming out.”
“She tell you I was crying?”
“She said you looked like you needed somebody.”
He entered and let the door close behind him. Maya handed him the phone.
He read George’s messages. The muscles along his jaw hardened again.
“What transfer?”
Maya took the phone back. “I don’t know.”
“You do that thing when you lie.”
“What thing?”
“You get very precise.”
“I’m not lying. I don’t know which transfer.”
“That is not better.”
She put the phone into her clutch.
Mark stared at her. “How many transfers are there?”
“Not here.”
“Your father just humiliated you in front of two hundred people and then reminded you to move money for him.”
“I said not here.”
He turned away, palms on his hips. A loose strand of dark hair had fallen across his forehead. “Fine. We leave. We go home. Then you tell me everything.”
Maya looked toward the mirror. Her navy-blue dress remained smooth. Her softly curled hair had held. From a distance, she could have looked untouched.
“I can’t go home yet.”
“Why?”
“Because my car is at my parents’ house. We came in the shuttle.”
“We’ll get it tomorrow.”
“My laptop is in the trunk.”
Mark closed his eyes. “Of course it is.”
“I was reviewing the vendor schedule before the ceremony.”
“At your sister’s wedding.”
“George asked me to.”
“Of course he did.”
She flinched.
Mark saw it. His shoulders dropped.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That wasn’t at you.”
“It was near enough.”
They took the service stairs to the lobby because Maya could not face the main elevator. A young hotel employee carrying folded linens flattened himself against the wall to let them pass. On the third landing, Maya removed her heels and carried them by the straps.
The hotel lobby was crowded with Friday-night guests who knew nothing about her. A child lay on the carpet arranging toy cars in a row while his father checked in. At the bar, a woman in a red jacket laughed so loudly that Maya’s body tightened before she could stop it.
Mark ordered a car.
While they waited beneath the portico, cool spring air touched Maya’s bare arms. She watched a moth circle a recessed light. It struck the glass again and again, unable to understand why brightness had become a barrier.
Mark took off his jacket and placed it around her shoulders.
“I’m not cold,” she said.
“I am.”
She almost laughed. The sound never arrived, but something in her chest shifted enough for a full breath.
May you like
The car took them to Mark’s apartment in Arlington. They rode in silence. Maya watched Washington’s lights slide across the window and tried not to see her own reflection layered over them.
Mark lived in a narrow brick building above a bakery that began work before dawn. His apartment smelled faintly of yeast even at midnight. Maya had a drawer in the bedroom and three coffee mugs in the kitchen, though one had a cracked handle he refused to throw away.
