Chapter 11 - The Small Room Off the Ballroom
The ballroom was too loud to think in. The string quartet had started again and donors were gathered around the foundation banner, holding their wine glasses and laughing too hard. I stood just inside the doorway with my father's hand on my shoulder and watched Lorraine step back into that light like nothing had happened.
Dad didn't push me forward. He guided me past the edge of the crowd, past the polished table where my chair was still pulled out and empty, and into the hallway that ran beside the ballroom. The air was cooler there. I could hear the chandelier humming faintly through the wall.
Ellis was already waiting by the small sitting room door. He didn't say anything, just opened it.
It was a private room I barely remembered, with two pale armchairs and a low table and a lamp that made a soft circle on the rug. Someone had closed the curtains. The noise of the gala became a muffle once Ellis shut the door behind us.
Dad knelt down so we were at the same height. His suit jacket brushed the arm of the chair. His watch caught the lamplight.
"Emma," he said quietly. "There's a man here from the foundation. Mrs. Whitmore's attorney. He is not a donor and he doesn't work for Lorraine. He only looks at papers and decides what is true."
I stared at his ring and then at his face. He waited.
"I need to ask you something, not tell you," he said. "Would you be willing to tell him what you saw upstairs? Just what you saw. In your own words. No one will make you say more than that, and you can stop anytime."
I didn't answer right away. My throat felt tight. I kept hearing her voice from the dining table, the way she had looked at me over the plates and said it so easily.
Be staff, sweetheart.
Like I was not supposed to have a chair. Like I was supposed to stand by the wall and be quiet while everyone else ate.
"She told me to be staff," I whispered.
Dad didn't correct me or rush me. He just nodded once, slow.
"I remember," he said. "That was not right. And you don't have to be staff tonight. You get to choose. If you say no, we will find another way. I will not leave you in there. I will stay right beside you the whole time."
He held out his hand, palm up, and left the choice there. I looked at his hand and then at the door that led back to the ballroom. I thought about the clutch on the dark fabric and the silver card sticking out, and how Lorraine had looked startled when I had spoken to him upstairs.
"If I tell him, will I have to stand in front of everyone?" I asked.
"No," he said. "Just him. Just this room. Ellis will keep the door."
I breathed in and my hands stopped shaking a little. "Okay," I said. "I will tell him. If you stay."
"I will stay," he said.
He stood and opened the door just enough to nod to Ellis. Ellis stepped into the hallway and spoke quietly into his earpiece.
"Whitmore's counsel is in the foyer. I'll bring him around the north side, no floor cross. Two minutes," Ellis said. He moved a small side table away from the door, set two extra chairs straight, checked the lamp. He worked quickly and without asking anyone else to help. He folded a white hand towel over his forearm out of habit and then set it aside, so the room didn't look like service, it looked like a meeting.
While Dad was smoothing my bow in the back of my dress, the door handle turned from the outside.
Lorraine didn't knock. She pushed it open six inches and tried to smile. She still had her clutch tucked under her arm, but her bracelet had slipped down her wrist.
"Julian, darling, they're waiting for your remarks," she said, her voice sweet and thin. "Emma should come back to the table. She is tired."
She looked past him at me.
Ellis was there before the door could open further. He didn't touch her. He just stepped into the frame, his shoulder filling the doorway, his gray suit blocking the vertical light from the hall.
"Mrs. Julian, this room is reserved for counsel," he said calmly. "Mr. Julian asked for privacy."
Her smile tightened. She tried to step around him.
"She's six, Ellis," she said, quieter now. "You don't need a lawyer to talk to a child. Let me bring her out. You're making this dramatic."
Ellis didn't move. He kept his hands at his sides, his watch visible.
"Mr. Julian gave instructions," he said. "I have to keep the door."
For a second I thought she would push. Her eyes went to Dad and then to me, and I could see her deciding. Dad stood up fully then, his hand resting on the back of my chair.
"We'll be in here, Lorraine," he said. "Go look after our guests. We'll join you after."
May you like
She hesitated, her fingers tightening on the clutch. Then voices came down the hall, an older man's and Ellis's earpiece crackling, and she stepped back.
Ellis closed the door softly and turned the small lock. Through the wood I could still hear the quartet, but inside the sitting room it was just the lamp, the two armchairs, and Dad's hand steady on my shoulder as we waited for the knock.
