Chapter 5 - The Pictures Were About to Start
The man in the suit didn't put his hands on any of us. He just moved so his back was to the main doors and we were tucked closer to the hydrangeas and the gold-trim chair. I could smell the flowers now, sweet and damp, and the cold marble came up through my shoes. My cheeks were still wet. I tried to breathe without making a sound.
Caleb stayed in front of me a half-step. He didn't look at the man. He kept watching her.
She glanced past the man's shoulder toward the foyer entrance. I followed her eyes. Two men with cameras were coming in with black bags over their shoulders, talking low to a woman with a clipboard. The chandelier light caught the lenses.
"They're early," the woman in green said under her breath.
The man turned his head just enough to see. "They can wait."
"No, they can't," she said. "The foundation asked for the foyer shots at eight. Donors in the foyer. Family in the foyer. That's the program." Her voice was tight, the way adults get when they're trying not to sound mad. She looked back at me. At my face, not the box. "This is why I said stop."
I pressed the gift tighter to my chest. The white bow had gone a little limp where my tears had gotten on it, and I tried to hide that part with my thumb.
Caleb frowned. "Why does her crying mess up a picture?"
She let out a short breath through her nose. "Because it does, Caleb. People don't donate to that." She gestured toward me without touching me. "Red eyes. Wet face. A child sobbing in the middle of a charity night. What do you think that looks like?"
The man shifted his weight. "Careful."
"I'm being honest," she said. "They want calm. They want grateful. They want the family together and smiling by those flowers." She pointed, quick, at the exact spot by the arrangement where the light fell best. "Not this."
I understood it then, slow and heavy in my stomach. She hadn't been trying to make me feel better. She'd been trying to make me stop looking sad. The tears themselves were the problem. Not what caused them. Just that anyone could see them.
I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand and sniffled before I could stop it. I hated the sound it made, loud in the marble space. I held my breath after, to keep another one from coming.
The photographer lifted his camera and tested a flash toward the chandelier. White light blinked across the cream walls. The woman in green straightened. She smoothed the front of her dress with both hands and touched her pearl earring like she was checking it was still there.
"Stand up straight," she whispered to us. "Wipe your face."
Caleb didn't move. "It's just a present," he said. "Why did a present cause trouble?"
She looked at him hard. "Because she brought it down here when I told her to leave it upstairs. Because it's wrapped in craft paper and she cried all the way down the hall carrying it. Because now I've got donors walking in and photographers waiting and your sister looks like —" She stopped herself and glanced at the man. "Like no one took care of her."
The man looked down at me then. Really looked. "Emma," he said, quiet. "Are you okay to stand here a minute?"
I nodded because my throat felt too full to talk. The box edge dug into my ribs. I didn't loosen my hold.
Across the foyer, the woman with the clipboard pointed toward us. The photographer nodded and started to lift his bag onto his shoulder.
The woman in green saw it too. She stepped a little closer, blocking me from their view with her body. Her smile came on fast, practiced, for anyone looking over.
May you like
"Listen to me," she said low, only for us. "No more tears when they come over. You stand by the chair. You hold that box down at your side so it isn't in every frame. Do you understand?"
My lip shook. I bit the inside of it to still it.
