Chapter 6 - Chandelier Light
I cleared dessert with my hands shaking under the plates.
The dining room had shifted into that loose end-of-dinner hum. Chairs scraped back. Someone laughed too loud near the windows. The chandelier threw warm light over the long table where white plates sat empty on silver chargers, forks laid at angles. My cheeks felt hot and tight from crying earlier. I kept my head down and worked the end nearest the sideboard, stacking small plates up my forearm the way Rosa taught me, so I would not have to make a second trip past them.
Vivian was standing now. That was worse. Seated, I could pretend she was part of the table. Standing in that strapless red satin gown, her diamond drop necklace catching every time she moved, her dark hair still pulled back clean, she owned the space between tables. She held her cut-crystal stemmed glass by the stem, half full, and she kept touching Marcus's sleeve when she talked to the couple beside her.
Marcus stood beside her in his black suit, white open-collar shirt loose at his throat. From where I was, I could see the edge of the tattoos up his neck when he turned his head. He was not talking much. He nodded while the other man talked about the foundation, and his eyes kept moving. Not hunting. Just checking.
I moved in to lift the last dessert plates from their end. My black uniform felt too warm at the collar. My bun had loosened and a strand stuck to my damp neck. I told myself to breathe through my nose and keep my gaze lowered.
He timed it clean. As I stepped back toward the sideboard with the stack, he stepped sideways too, like he was making room for a server coming through with a tray. For a second his shoulder blocked Vivian's view of me.
"You okay to keep going?" he said, low. "You need a water break?"
It was not loud. No one else would have heard it over the clink and talk. His voice was even, the way he'd said my name at the table. Not pitying. Just direct.
I stared at the plates in my hands. The silver chargers underneath reflected the candlelight and blurred my fingers. I could feel Doyle's rule in my head louder than anything else. No personal talk in the dining room. No breaks without clearance.
"It was just a kitchen thing," I said. "I'm fine."
One sentence. I kept it short on purpose. It came out flat and I hated how much it sounded like her version.
He did not argue with me. He reached for a dinner roll from the sideboard like that was what he'd stopped for, and he kept his eyes on the bread basket.
"Back parking lot office," he said, quieter. "Number's on the card by the time clock. If you need it."
My throat closed. I nodded once before I could think about what a nod meant. I shifted the weight of the plates and tried to step around him toward the sideboard drop.
That was when Vivian's hand slid into the crook of his arm.
She came up on his other side with her glass still in her free hand, chandelier earrings swinging. She smiled up at him, then glanced at me for half a second. Composed. Tense at the corners of her mouth.
"There you are," she said. She squeezed his arm and leaned in a little. "Come meet the Hendersons before they leave. They've been waiting."
She did not look at my face. She looked at my hands, at the stack, and then away, like I was part of the furniture she had already decided to move.
Marcus did not pull away. He let her keep hold of his arm. He glanced at me once more, just a quick check, no lingering that would cause a question.
"Take five if you need it," he said to me, normal volume this time, like a guest being polite to staff. "Long service."
"Thank you, sir," I said. I hated the sir. It felt like a lid on everything.
Vivian tugged lightly and turned him toward the windows. The diamond at her throat flashed. Her glass tilted but nothing spilled. She laughed at something the other couple said, and the sound carried.
May you like
I set the plates down on the sideboard with more care than I needed to. My hands left damp prints on the wood. Behind me I could hear her voice getting brighter as she introduced him, reclaiming the evening plate by plate, smile by smile. The card by the time clock. I pictured it. A white business card thumb-tacked crooked under the shift sheet. I had walked past it four times tonight without reading it.
I picked up a bus tub and went back for the coffee cups.
