Chapter 1 - Be Staff, Sweetheart
The chandelier threw warm light across the polished table and it caught on the white plates and the crystal and it caught on Lorraine's diamond bracelet when she lifted her hand to wave me away. I was standing beside the empty chair in my pink dress with the pearl neckline and the bow knotted at my back, and the room was set for donors who hadn't sat down yet. The windows behind us were dark blue with night. I should have been in that chair. Lorraine looked at me like I was part of the service.
She didn't raise her voice. She smiled with her mouth closed and said it softly, like she was correcting a napkin fold.
Julian was already standing behind me. His hands were on my shoulders and I could feel his silver watch against my collarbone when I trembled. Lorraine sat back in her black sweetheart dress with her arms beginning to cross, her low ponytail slick against her neck, composed the way she was when every eye in a room was supposed to be on her. That was the collision. Her peak and my smallness in the same light.
My name is Emma. I was six that night.
It was just past seven and the caterers had finished the table. I remembered the air smelled like polished wood and lilies and the heat coming off the chandelier. Julian's hand squeezed my shoulder once, not hard, and I watched Lorraine's eyes move to him and then away. She shifted in her seat and the black patent clutch on her lap caught the light. A silver card was sticking out of the top, embossed, half hidden. I didn't know what it was then, only that its edge glinted when she moved and that Lorraine kept her forearm over it.
Julian leaned on the empty chair next to me. The chair he'd pulled out hours earlier and told the staff not to clear. He didn't look at Lorraine when he first spoke. He looked at me, then at the chair, then at her.
"Be staff, sweetheart."
Lorraine said it dismissively, to me, as if I would understand the instruction and step back toward the kitchen hallway where the servers waited. My lips pulled down before I could stop them. My eyes filled. I tried not to shake and couldn't.
"That chair is hers tonight."
Julian said it firm and calm, to Lorraine. He didn't move his hands from my shoulders. Lorraine's arms crossed then, tight across her dress, and her earrings swayed a little when she turned her head. The clutch stayed on her lap with that silver edge showing. No one at the table breathed loud enough to cover it.
Julian knelt after that. The dining room was so quiet I could hear the soft creak of his suit and the faint tick of the wall sconces. He came down to my eye level so his face filled my view and the chandelier light softened behind him. He smelled like clean laundry and something faintly woodsy. He looked at my face for a second without speaking, and I tugged at his sleeve near his watch because I didn't know how else to ask him to listen.
"Where?"
He asked it quiet, to me. Just that one word.
I hesitated. My throat was dry and my voice came out soft. I didn't want Lorraine to hear me, but she did. I looked past Julian's shoulder at the clutch, then at the dark doorway with the vertical strip of light that led to the upstairs hall.
"I saw her with it earlier. Upstairs."
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Lorraine's head came up startled. Her posture changed. She uncrossed her arms and leaned forward a fraction, her hands pressing on the clutch. Julian didn't stand right away. He stayed kneeling, his eyes on my face, then he turned sharply toward the doorway.
Ellis stood there partially behind the dark door, in his gray suit and black shirt and tie, earpiece catching the light, his watch visible on his wrist. He was alert and still, looking toward our table. No one had moved for the stairs yet. The night air from the window seemed colder against my bare arms, and the table stayed frozen — Julian kneeling by me, Lorraine tense across from us, the silver card glinting, and Ellis in the threshold waiting for what would happen next.
