Chapter 12 - White Collar
The brunch service started at eleven and by eleven-forty my collar felt starched too tight around my throat.
Daylight came hard through the tall windows and hit the silver chargers until they threw spots on the ceiling. The room was louder than the engagement dinner, more glasses, more kids allowed at the far end. Doyle was expediting at the pass, sleeves pushed up, his ticket rail full. He'd barely looked at me since lineup, which I had told myself was a good thing.
Rosa caught my eye across the table and mouthed, slow down. I didn't realize I was rushing until she did that.
Table nine needed water. An older man in a blue blazer lifted his glass without looking at me and kept talking about a boat slip. I said, "Of course," and took the pitcher from the side station. My hands were steady. That felt important.
I went to the pantry for ice because the station pitcher had gone warm. The pantry was narrow, shelves on both sides, the ice machine humming. I heard the door swing behind me before I saw him.
Doyle stepped in and let it close. "You're behind."
"I know," I said. "The ice melted, I'm refilling—"
"You've been behind all morning." He moved closer. The space didn't allow distance. The cold spilled off the machine against my back. "Since last night you've got an attitude. Walking around like somebody hurt you."
I didn't answer. I kept the scoop in the ice, listening to it clink.
He glanced toward the door, then his hand closed around my right wrist. The same wrist. His thumb pressed into the same spot, over the bone. Not hard enough to leave a shape anyone would photograph, but hard enough that I stopped breathing right.
"Fix your face before you go back out there," he said low. "You don't get to act fragile on my service."
My pulse beat up against his fingers. I could smell coffee on his breath and starch on his shirt.
"Let go," I said. It came out quieter than I wanted.
"What?"
"Let go of me."
The door opened.
A guest, a woman in her forties in a white blouse, stood there with an empty coffee cup in her hand, probably looking for someone to ask. She stopped. She saw his hand on my wrist. She saw my face. She saw the pitcher shaking in my other hand.
Doyle let go fast, like he'd touched something hot, and stepped back a half-step. "We need that water out," he said, normal volume now, almost friendly. "Thanks, Emma."
My wrist burned where he'd held it. I lifted the pitcher. The ice rattled against the metal sides, too loud. My hand wouldn't stop it.
The woman didn't move out of the doorway. "Are you okay, honey?" she asked me.
For a second I wanted to do what I'd always done at the station, lower my head, blink until it passed, say I'm fine. Doyle was watching me from behind the shelf, waiting for the script.
I heard the dining room behind her, forks and talk and that chandelier hum.
"No," I said. "I'm not."
The woman gasped, small, covering her mouth. The pitcher rattled again when I set it down on the shelf to get past her.
I didn't cry there. I didn't freeze at the station the way I had the night before with Marcus watching and Vivian holding her glass. I walked out of the pantry past the guest and past Doyle, into the hallway where the air was cooler and there were no plates to carry.
May you like
My wrist throbbed. I held it with my other hand as I walked. Behind me I heard the woman say, "Hey — what did you do to her?" and Doyle start to answer, smooth, "She's just—"
I kept walking toward the light at the end of the hall.
