Chapter 4 - What Boot Means
He didn't put me down. Not even when Grandmother pointed at the little space by the curtain where the wall went in and the music wasn't so loud.
We stopped there at the edge of the ballroom. I could still see the cake. It was so white it hurt my eyes under the lights, with the roses all lined up perfect. People walked past us with their drinks and didn't look, or they looked real fast and then looked away.
Dad shifted me up higher on his arm because I was slipping. His jacket was rough under my legs and his tie was squished against my knee. I still had my bag. The plastic had gone sweaty where my hand held it tight. The bitten roll was getting soft.
"You okay up there, peanut?" he said, low. Not like a party voice. Like our car voice.
I nodded, but my nose was all stopped up from crying and I had to breathe through my mouth. He wiped my cheek with his thumb. His hand smelled like soap and cold air from outside the hallway.
Grandmother stood close. Too close. I could smell her perfume and the bubbles from her glass. She smiled at a lady walking by like everything was fine.
"Andy," she whispered, "you're making a scene holding her like that. Let me have the bread. I'll have someone toss it."
Dad didn't look at her. He kept looking at me. "Give us a minute, Mother."
That was the first time he didn't do what she said right away. I felt it in his chest when he breathed.
He turned a little so his back was to the tables. Just me and him, almost. "Hey," he said. "Can you tell me what happened before I found you? Back in the hall?"
I squeezed the bag. It crinkled loud. A man in a shiny vest glanced over and I hid my face in Dad's shoulder.
"It's okay," Dad said. "Nobody's in trouble. I just need to understand."
I tried to remember the right way. Mom had crouched down with me by the gray wall where the lights buzzed. The floor was cold through my pants. She put the metal tray down for me to sit by, not on, because it was dirty. She said sit here where it's warm from the pipes. Wait, that's what she said.
"She said wait," I whispered. My voice sounded scratchy. "She said stay with the bread. Don't move."
Dad nodded slow. "Stay with the bread. What else did she say, baby?"
I thought about the door. The heavy one with the push bar. Mom kept looking at it. Her hands were shaking when she zipped my jacket. She said they wouldn't let us in that way because of my shirt. She said Grandmother said we would ruin the pictures.
"She said we boot?" I said, because that was the word I told him before and I wasn't sure if it was right. "She said we have to wait till... till..."
I couldn't get it. Boot wasn't right, but it sounded right in my mouth. Like a boot you wear. Mom had said something fast while the music started loud behind the other door.
Dad waited. He didn't rush me. He just breathed and let me listen to his heart.
"She went out to move the car?" I said finally. "She said lockdown? She said stay here so Grandmother don't see."
Grandmother made a little noise. "She's five, Andy. She doesn't know what she's saying."
But Dad's arm got tighter around me. Not hurty tight. Hold-on tight. I could feel him thinking.
"You were hiding by the tray because Mom told you to wait there?" he asked.
I nodded into his neck. "The man with the trays said I couldn't sit there. Mom said please just a minute. Then she went out the back and the door clicked."
Dad closed his eyes for a second. Just a second. When he opened them, he wasn't looking at me anymore. He was looking past me down the long hall past the cake table, toward the dark little doorway with the EXIT sign where we'd come from.
"Which door clicked, peanut?" he asked. "The big heavy one?"
"Yeah," I said. "It locked. I tried it. I couldn't... I couldn't get..."
I started crying again because I remembered pulling on that handle and it wouldn't move and my fingers hurt from the cold metal. Dad rocked me a little, side to side.
"Shh. I got you. You did good staying there."
Grandmother set her glass down hard on a little table. Some champagne splashed out. "Andy, stop this. You're upsetting her over nothing. Her mother wandered off. These service doors lock automatically. It's a safety code."
Dad looked at her then. Really looked. "She didn't wander off. She put our daughter in a concrete hallway with a bag of rolls and told her not to move. That's not lost, Mother. That's shut out."
His voice was still quiet, but it changed underneath. Grandmother heard it too because her smile went away.
"Don't be dramatic," she said. "I'll send security to walk the lot."
"No," Dad said. "I'll check it myself."
May you like
He turned with me still in his arms toward that dark doorway, and Grandmother stepped right in front of us, her dress shining purple under the chandelier.
"Andy. Not now. Not in front of everyone."
