Chương 6
“To ask permission.”
“And you?”
“To leave rooms early.”
He said it without drama. That made it feel less like a story offered for sympathy and more like a fact he had misplaced.
Before I could ask anything else, Lois struck a spoon against a glass.
The first clear chime carried across the terrace.
“Four o’clock,” she called.
It was three fifty-two.
Guests began turning toward her. My mother moved to stand beside my father. A photographer hired for the afternoon stepped closer with his camera raised.
Miles untied the towel from his waist.
“You planned this,” I said.
“Your sister planned this.”
“I meant the time.”
“She looks like she’s been waiting since breakfast.”
Lois stood beneath the largest umbrella. Sunlight caught the gold at her throat. She held her phone in one hand and my father’s arm with the other.
“As most of you know,” she began, “I’ve had an incredible year professionally.”
People nodded. Some had no idea what she did.
“When I joined Sterling Corporation, I told myself I would never be satisfied simply doing the job in front of me. I wanted to lead. I wanted to build. I wanted to prove that hard work still matters.”
Miles stopped beside me.
It was the first time I had seen him become entirely still.
Lois continued. “Last week, I was appointed Director of Regional Operations for the Northeast.”
Applause rose around us.
My mother covered her mouth with both hands. My father kissed Lois’s temple. Someone whistled.
Lois turned her phone outward. On the screen was a photograph of a cream business card embossed with the Sterling Corporation logo.
LOIS HART
DIRECTOR, REGIONAL OPERATIONS — NORTHEAST
Miles looked at the phone, then at Lois.
“What?” I whispered.
He did not answer.
My mother found me through the crowd.
“Come here,” she said.
“I’m fine here.”
“This is a family moment.”
“So is Dad’s birthday.”
“Serena.”
The warning remained polished, but it was a warning.
I walked with Miles toward the umbrella.
Lois hugged me. Her perfume filled my throat.
“Say something,” she whispered.
“Congratulations.”
“Not to me. To everyone.”
She pressed a champagne glass into my hand.
I stared at it.
My father raised his own glass. “A toast from the sister.”
People smiled, expectant. The photographer shifted position.
“Dad, I don’t—”
“Come on,” Lois said. “You work in art. Use words.”
A ripple of laughter moved through the guests.
My mother’s fingers closed around my elbow.
“Don’t make this difficult.”
The champagne trembled in my hand. Tiny bubbles climbed the glass in perfectly straight lines.
Lois lifted her chin.
“You can say you’re proud,” she prompted. “You can say at least one Ellison daughter figured out how to make something of herself.”
The laughter was louder this time.
My father joined it.
I looked at him.
His smile faded half a second too late.
Somebody behind me said, “Oh, Lois,” in the delighted tone people used when cruelty was entertaining enough to excuse.
My mother squeezed my arm.
“Smile,” she murmured.
I tried.
The glass disappeared from my hand.
Miles took it, placed it on the table, and set his own water beside it. The base struck the wood with a clean, hard sound.
The laughter stopped unevenly.
Miles looked at Lois.
“Congratulations,” he said.
She smiled. “Thank you.”
“What variance threshold are you using for regional inventory reconciliation?”
Her smile remained, but nothing behind it did.
“I’m sorry?”
“For Northeast operations. What threshold triggers manual reconciliation under the centralized forecast model?”
A few people looked at one another.
Lois gave a short laugh. “That’s very technical.”
“It’s your department.”
“Well, we don’t handle that directly.”
“Who does?”
“Marketing.”
Miles waited.
Lois’s smile twitched.
“Marketing handles inventory reconciliation?” he asked.
“They coordinate the numbers.”
“With whom?”
“You wouldn’t understand the structure.”
“Probably not.”
He took his phone from his pocket.
My mother stepped forward. “This is a celebration.”
“Yes,” Miles said. “It should be.”
He tapped a name and raised the phone to his ear.
Lois stared at him. “Who are you calling?”
“Someone who understands the structure.”
The guests began to murmur. Uncle Gary had already taken out his own phone.
Miles turned slightly away from the group.
“Catherine,” he said when the call connected. “Sorry to interrupt your Saturday.”
His tone changed—not warmer, exactly, but more direct.
“I need a simple organizational check. Do we have a Director of Regional Operations for the Northeast?”
He listened.
“No. I didn’t think so.”
Lois’s face lost color.
Miles looked at the business card still displayed on her phone.
“Has a new appointment been approved under the name Lois Hart?”
The answer came quickly enough that I could hear the shape of it but not the words.
“All right,” he said. “Don’t access anything else today. I’ll send you context. We’ll follow normal process Monday.”
He ended the call.
Nobody moved.
A balloon tied to the bar came loose and bumped against the underside of the umbrella.
Lois laughed.
It sounded wrong.
“This is ridiculous,” she said. “You called a friend.”
Miles put his phone away. “I called the chief people officer.”
“Of what?”
“Sterling Corporation.”
Gary made a noise from behind us.
Everyone turned.
He held his phone near his face, glasses low on his nose.
“Lois,” he said, “your LinkedIn says Data Records Specialist.”
My mother snapped, “Gary, put that away.”
He lowered the phone slightly. “It’s public.”
“It’s old,” Lois said.
“It says updated three weeks ago.”
“I forgot.”
“You forgot you were promoted?”
“Shut up, Gary.”
My father looked at Lois’s phone. “The business card?”
“It’s a draft.”
“A draft of what?”
“My title.”
“You just said you were appointed.”
“I was told it was happening.”
“By whom?” Miles asked.
Lois turned on him.
The fear in her face sharpened into something uglier.
“You,” she said to me.
I had not spoken.
She pointed. “You did this.”
“What?”
“You brought him here to humiliate me.”
May you like
“I didn’t know—”
“She hired him,” Lois said to the crowd. “She hired a stranger to pretend to be her boyfriend because she couldn’t stand arriving alone.”
