Chapter 2 - The Phone on the Service Corridor Floor
The marble was cold through my knees and the phone was still playing. That was the part I couldn't look away from, even with Ethan's hand in the air between us. On that little cracked screen in the rhinestone case, he kept walking across this same ballroom with that thick white envelope flat against his side like he didn't want the cameras to catch it.
My own hands wouldn't stop shaking. I had the small folded photograph pinched half-open between my fingers and I wouldn't unfold it the rest of the way. Not yet. Not with everybody watching.
Vanessa stepped closer. Her gold sequined sleeves caught the warm light every time she moved. I could smell her perfume, something sharp and floral, and I could hear her breath going short.
"Where did you get that?" She wasn't looking at the photograph. She was staring down at the phone on the floor.
I didn't answer her. Ethan took another step forward. His bow tie was a little crooked now. He pointed at the phone.
"Give me that phone."
"Don't touch me again," I said. My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to. The crowd around the banquet table went completely still. A champagne flute rattled when somebody bumped the white cloth.
He didn't pick it up. He couldn't without knocking into me, and the guests were too close. The video kept looping. A scuffling sound moved through the room, chairs shifting, somebody whispering to call security. I reached down fast and grabbed the phone before he could. The rhinestones bit into my palm.
"What are you hiding?" I asked him. I kept my eyes on his face.
It was an hour earlier. Maybe less. My shift had started at six and the service corridor behind the kitchen was already stacked with extra trays and ice buckets. I was carrying a tray of champagne flutes toward the ballroom when I saw it wedged against the baseboard by the service door, screen-down.
Nobody was around. The catering captain was yelling about table numbers. The hallway smelled like hot plates and lemon cleaner. I picked it up because that's what you're supposed to do, turn it in to lost and found. The case was cheap and heavy, covered in rhinestones, the kind of thing somebody would notice missing.
The screen lit up when I touched it. It wasn't locked. It opened right to the camera roll, to a video paused halfway. I shouldn't have pressed play. I know that. I pressed it with my thumb while balancing the tray against the wall.
It was this room. This marble floor. Ethan in his tuxedo cutting behind the floral arch with the white envelope in his hand. He handed it to someone just out of frame. It was only a few seconds, shaky, like it was filmed from behind a curtain.
I heard footsteps coming down the corridor and I shoved the phone into my apron pocket. I told myself I would hand it to the captain after the toast. Then I saw Ethan across the ballroom in person, laughing with donors by the banquet table, and my hands went cold. It was the same man. Same tuxedo. Same envelope shape bulging his inside pocket.
Back on the floor, Vanessa's eyes flicked from the phone in my hand to Ethan's face. The color drained out of her cheeks under the makeup.
"You set this up?" she said to him. Quiet, but everybody heard it.
Ethan shook his head. He looked at her like she'd slapped him. "You said nobody knew," he said.
That landed harder than anything else. A couple of guests actually gasped. Someone near the curtains whispered, "What does that mean?" Vanessa's mouth opened and closed. She put a hand out toward me, then pulled it back.
"Please," she said. "That phone isn't yours. Just let me see it."
It was one lie, one plea. I recognized it for what it was. No, I thought. If I gave it to her, the video would disappear.
I thumbed the screen so the video kept playing and turned it just enough that the two people in front could see it. "You knew the whole time," Ethan said again, but this time he was looking straight at Vanessa, not at me.
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The crowd pressed in a little tighter. My knees ached from the marble. I folded the photograph closed again with my thumb and slipped the phone screen-up into my apron pocket so the light still glowed through the fabric. I could feel its heat against my hip.
Vanessa stared at my pocket. "Claire—" she started, like she knew my name, and that stopped my breathing for a second. Behind her, Ethan was still watching her, his jaw tight, waiting for an answer she wasn't giving.
