Chương 4
“Sorry.”
“You’re fine,” Maya said.
He glanced at Richard.
Richard said, “You’re fine.”
The auditor continued toward the back office.
The smell of fried corn and onions lingered for a moment.
Maya realized she had not eaten since noon.
Richard noticed.
“Do you want food?”
“I want an answer.”
He folded his hands.
“When my wife died, Victoria was twenty-three.”
Maya waited.
Richard looked annoyed at himself.
“I’m not telling you this as an excuse.”
“Good.”
“She had already spent her entire life in hotels. Her mother treated the Halcyon like a family home. Staff came to birthdays. Executives came to Thanksgiving. It blurred things.”
“Blurred firing authority?”
“No.”
He looked at the bar.
“Blurred boundaries.”
Maya picked at the edge of the butterfly closure on her lip until it hurt and made herself stop.
“How many complaints did you know about?”
Richard was quiet too long.
“Three.”
“Formal?”
“One.”
“What happened?”
“I spoke to her.”
Maya stared at him.
“You spoke to her.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to the employee?”
“He transferred.”
“By choice?”
Richard did not answer.
Maya stood.
Her head throbbed harder.
“I’m going home.”
“Maya.”
She picked up the certificate folder.
“I start officially Monday.”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow morning I want every complaint involving Victoria for five years.”
Richard’s face closed.
“That creates privacy issues.”
“Then have counsel redact what I’m not entitled to see.”
“You’re assuming there are more.”
“I’m assuming there’s a reason Dean answered me like a hostage negotiator.”
Richard looked away.
Maya slid the folder into her bag.
“And I want a list of every employee who left within ninety days of an incident involving a member of the Hale family.”
His eyes returned to her.
“That’s excessive.”
“It’s my first management decision.”
“You haven’t technically started.”
She looked at him.
Richard breathed out through his nose.
“Fine.”
Maya walked toward the revolving doors.
“Maya.”
She stopped.
“I’m sorry.”
She turned.
Richard stood behind the bar beneath shelves of expensive bottles and mirrored glass, looking less like a chairman than he had all evening.
Maya believed he meant it.
That did not make it useful.
“I know,” she said.
Outside, she ordered a rideshare and sat on the low stone planter beneath the hotel awning while she waited.
A breeze lifted loose strands from her ponytail.
Her phone had thirty-seven notifications.
Three were from people at the gala whose numbers she did not know.
Seven were from Richard’s assistant.
Eleven were from her younger brother, Luis.
The rest were social media alerts.
Maya opened none of them.
A black sedan arrived.
The driver looked at the cut on her face in the rearview mirror, then looked away.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded.
After a minute he said, “Air-conditioning too cold?”
“No.”
“Mine always freezes people back there.”
“It’s fine.”
They drove through downtown in silence.
Maya watched traffic lights change for mostly empty streets.
At a red light, a man in a delivery uniform sat on the curb eating noodles from a plastic container.
Nothing about his night had changed because Victoria Hale kicked a handbag across a hotel foyer.
Maya found that useful to remember.
Her apartment was small, clean, and overheated.
Luis was asleep on her couch.
She stopped inside the door.
He had one shoe on and one shoe off, a laptop open on his stomach, and a half-empty glass of water balanced dangerously on the floor beside him.
Maya put her bag down.
The movement woke him.
He blinked.
“Holy—”
“Don’t.”
He sat up.
“What happened to your face?”
“Long story.”
“You look like you fought a raccoon.”
Maya went to the kitchen.
“A very rich raccoon.”
Luis followed.
He was twenty-four and had inherited none of Maya’s ability to hide emotion.
“Who hit you?”
She opened the refrigerator.
There was yogurt, mustard, half a lime, and a container of rice.
“Apparently I need groceries.”
“Maya.”
She took out the rice.
“Victoria Hale.”
Luis stared.
“The billionaire hotel daughter?”
“They’re not billionaires.”
“That is your correction?”
Maya put the rice in the microwave.
Luis pulled out his phone.
“No.”
“What?”
“Don’t search it.”
His thumb stopped.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to know.”
He looked at her face.
“Maya.”
“Please.”
He put the phone down.
The microwave hummed.
Luis sat at the small table.
“You still have the job?”
She leaned against the counter.
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“Her father confirmed it in front of eighty people.”
“That sounds pretty confirmed.”
The microwave beeped.
Maya took out the rice, found soy sauce in a cabinet, and ate standing up.
Luis watched her.
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m hungry.”
“No.”
Maya looked at the spoon.
Her hand was shaking.
She put it down.
Luis did not say anything kind.
He knew better.
He took the chair opposite her and started peeling the label off his water bottle.
After a while, Maya said, “I almost hit her back.”
Luis kept peeling.
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“You want a medal?”
Maya laughed.
Her lip hurt immediately.
“Ow.”
“That’s what you get.”
She touched the cut.
Luis looked at her.
“Are you going to press charges?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know yet.”
“She hit you.”
“I’m aware.”
“So there’s the whole analysis.”
Maya looked at him.
“You dropped out of accounting.”
“Because accounting was boring, not because I can’t count assaults.”
Maya ate another bite of rice.
Luis leaned back.
“You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Turn being hurt into a management problem.”
She stopped chewing.
He regretted it immediately.
Maya could tell because he looked at the ceiling.
“Forget it.”
“No.”
He rubbed the bottle label between his fingers.
“When Mom got sick, you made spreadsheets.”
“That was useful.”
“You made a spreadsheet for who brought casseroles.”
“People kept bringing lasagna.”
“That is not the point.”
“We had nine.”
“Maya.”
She put the spoon down.
The refrigerator clicked off.
The apartment became very quiet.
May you like
Luis said, “You don’t have to understand everything before you decide whether something hurt.”
Maya looked at the rice.
