Chapter 5 - The Hand On The Belly
The closet door stayed open behind her. The spare padding sat on the shelf in plain sight, round and wrong under the bare hall bulb, and she did not move away from it. She planted herself in the frame, shoulders square, one hand already back on her belly.
The air in the service hallway felt too thin. Somewhere below us the band kept playing, muffled through the floor, and ice shifted in a bus tub somebody had left by the wall.
Marcello did not look at me. He looked at the shape on the shelf, then at the shape under her magenta sleeves.
"How many gowns need bellies?" he said.
It was quiet. That was what made Lily go still against my leg. He wasn't shouting. His voice had dropped low, the way men get when they are trying not to make a scene and making one anyway.
The woman laughed once, short. "Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm asking you straight," he said. "How many?"
Her hand pressed harder into the satin over her stomach. The fabric pulled tight and then released. She glanced down the hall toward the stairs, like she was measuring how far her voice would carry.
"Do not touch me," she said.
"I haven't touched you."
"You want to." Her chin came up. "You all want to stand here and — and paw at me because a three-year-old told a story. Do not touch me."
Her voice cracked up on that last word. Lily flinched. I felt it through my skirt, her fingers digging into the back of my knee.
I set my tray down slow against the wall so it wouldn't clatter. The silver rang faintly anyway. Then I stepped half in front of Lily and put my hand over her ears without thinking, just cupped them loose. Her curls were damp with sweat at the temples. Her bows had slipped.
"It's loud," I whispered. "I'm right here."
Marcello saw what I did and took a half step back. He unclenched his jaw. When he spoke again, he kept his eyes on the woman, but he lowered his hands to his sides, palms out.
"Nobody's going to touch you here," he said. "You have my word on that."
She breathed out through her nose. She didn't drop her hand.
"Then we're done," she said. "This is a spare. For the foundation photos next month. Anyone on staff can tell you that."
She said it fast, like she'd found the line and wanted to get it said before he could interrupt. Behind her, the spare belly didn't move. It just sat there, too perfect, the seam showing where it had folded.
Lily pulled my hand down off her ear. She didn't push hard. She just needed her ears back to talk.
"That's not hers," she said.
Marcello looked down at her. "Lily?"
She pointed, not at the shelf, but at the woman's front. Her finger didn't waver.
"Hers fell off. Not spare."
My stomach dropped. I tightened my grip on her shoulder, not to hush her but to keep her steady. The woman's face flushed red under the hall light.
"You see?" she said to Marcello. "You see what you're doing? You're letting her —"
"I'm listening," he said.
He turned slightly, enough that the tuxedo caught the light from the sconce at the end of the hall. He was still between us and the stairs, still keeping his voice down, but something in him had shifted. He wasn't asking the shelf anymore. He was asking her.
"We can't settle it here," he said. "You said don't touch you. Fine. So let's do it right. Private dressing suite upstairs. Just us. No staff. You, me, Maya as a witness so it's proper. Five minutes."
"No," she said.
"If it's real, that's the end of it," he went on, as if she hadn't spoken. "Nobody touches you except yourself if that's what you want. You show what you need to show. Then we walk back downstairs and I apologize in front of everyone."
The hallway went quiet except for the hum of the ice machine around the corner. I could feel Lily breathing against my leg, quick and shallow.
May you like
The woman's hand never left her belly. She looked from Marcello to me, and I saw her count it — that if she kept saying no here, with the closet open behind her, it would look worse than yes.
"Fine," she said. "Five minutes. And she keeps her child quiet."
