Chapter 10 - Where It Hit the Floor
The second insert sat on the edge of the sink where Marcello had set it down, and nobody wanted to look away from it first.
The dressing suite felt smaller with all four of us inside it. The warm air from the vent rattled the cream curtain. Lily still held my hand, her other thumb pressed hard against her palm. The blonde woman had both arms low now, cradling what was left of that round shape in her magenta satin gown.
Marcello stared at the foam piece, then at Lily. His voice came out low and careful.
"Show us what?" he said. "Where'd she hit it?"
I felt Lily tense beside me. For a second I thought he meant the woman had fallen and hurt herself. Lily must have heard it that way too, because she shook her head fast, her curls and blue bows bouncing.
"No. She didn't —" Lily started, then stopped and looked up at me.
That was the confusion. I could see it land on Marcello's face too. He was thinking injury. A bruise. A person hitting the floor upstairs. He glanced toward the blonde woman's knees like he expected her to limp.
I knelt down so I was level with Lily, my tray long abandoned on the dresser. "Say it again, baby," I said quietly. "Slow."
Lily pointed past the sink to the baseboard under the mirror. There was a pale scuff there, fresh, where white paint had been rubbed gray. A small dent in the wood.
"There," she said. "Where it hit it."
My chest loosened a fraction. Not where she hit it. Where it hit it.
I looked up at Marcello. "She doesn't mean her," I said. "She means it. The — thing. Where it hit the floor. Not where she got hurt."
Marcello followed Lily's finger to that scuff. He stepped over and crouched, his tuxedo jacket pulling tight across his shoulders. He ran one finger along the mark. The paint was scuffed outward, like something soft but heavy had bounced and slid.
"It bounced here?" he asked Lily.
Lily nodded, serious. She walked over, pulling free from me, and placed her small shoe right next to the mark without touching it. "It went bonk," she said. "Then rolled."
The blonde woman let out a short laugh that didn't sound right in that small room. Her hand stayed on her belly, smoothing the satin.
"Oh, come on," she said. "You hear yourself? You're building a case off a scuff on a baseboard. This is an old hotel. That mark could be from a vacuum."
Marcello didn't stand up yet. "Then explain the inserts."
"I already did. They're mine. For support," she said quickly. "Lily must have dragged one of them in here herself. She's three. She wanders. She finds things."
The words hit harder than she knew. I stood up, my knees aching from the tile.
"Don't," I said.
She turned on me. "You leave your daughter alone upstairs during a gala? With a tray in your hand? She could have picked that up anywhere — the costume closet, the donation bin — and hidden it to play mommy."
Lily's mouth opened. "I didn't," she said. It was the same insistent tone from the ballroom. "I didn't misunderstand."
I put my hand on the back of her head, feeling the heat through her curls. I knew how this looked. I was catering staff in a black buttoned dress with my pearl earrings and my name tag still clipped crooked. She was the guest in magenta satin. If this turned into my word against hers, I would lose my shift and maybe the job.
"She didn't drag anything," I said. My voice shook, but I kept it low. "She came downstairs and told me what she saw before anyone knew there was anything to find. Before you knew we were upstairs."
Marcello finally stood. He looked from the scuff to the insert on the sink to Lily pointing steady at the floor. The room went quiet except for the vent and Lily breathing through her nose.
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"She's telling the truth about the mark," I said. "You can be mad at me for bringing her to work. But don't say she's lying."
The blonde woman's smile thinned. Her fingers tightened on her gown, right over that too-round belly that now sat a little crooked to the left.
