Chapter 10 - The Cold Lot Behind the Mansion
The music had thinned to one violin by the time I got the trays cleared off the north tables. Someone had turned the house lights up a notch, and the ballroom didn't look grand anymore. It looked tired. The marble had wet streaks from the mops, the chandelier threw hard light on crumpled napkins, and the guests who were left were loud in that loose, end-of-night way.
My feet ached inside the flats I'd changed into. I kept my head down and stacked glasses by the stem the way Rosa taught me, listening to the clink, trying not to think about Victoria's log or the word defamation sitting in my jacket pocket.
Dana, the night supervisor, came up behind me with her clipboard tucked under her arm. She wasn't unkind, just done.
"Mara," she said, low. "You're cut from the floor. Clock out with the rest, but don't leave."
I stopped with a glass halfway to the rack. "Am I — did she have me fired?"
Dana glanced toward the service doors. "No. You're still on. Mr. Romano asked for you to wait."
My stomach dropped in a different direction. "Alessandro?"
"Yeah." She lowered her voice. "He said fifteen minutes. Wait in the staff lot. He doesn't want another scene in here."
I nodded too fast. "Okay. Okay, thanks."
She hesitated, then put her hand brief on my sleeve. "Just wait by your car. Don't wander back in."
I clocked out in the little service hall with the others, the time clock buzzing loud. The girls were peeling off aprons, talking about tips and Ubers. Nobody looked at me straight. I changed out of my service apron in the staff bathroom, folded my black dress smooth where it had wrinkled, checked my face in that cracked mirror. My studs were still in. My hair was still pulled back, damp at the edges. I looked like someone who'd been crying hours ago and then kept working.
The back door let out to the cold and it hit me all at once.
The staff lot sat below the mansion terrace, past the dumpsters and the catering vans, a cracked asphalt square lit by one tall pole light. The big house glowed above us, all those warm windows, but down here the air smelled like fryer oil and wet leaves. I could see my breath.
I found my old Honda in the far corner and leaned against the driver's door. The metal was cold through my coat. I hadn't brought gloves. I tucked my hands into my sleeves and shifted my weight foot to foot, watching the door every time it opened and spilled light and a burst of kitchen Spanish and dish clatter.
No Alessandro.
After ten minutes my fingers were numb. I checked my phone. 12:17 a.m. Battery at twenty-two percent. A text from my landlord from two days ago still sat unread at the top: Reminder rent due 1st + late fee after 5th. I stared at it until the screen dimmed.
I called my mom before I could talk myself out of it.
She picked up on the third ring, voice thick with sleep. "Mara? Baby, you okay?"
"Yeah," I whispered. "I'm sorry. I know it's late. I'm still at work."
I heard her shift in bed, the creak I knew from our apartment walls. "Still? It's after midnight."
"They asked me to stay. It's — the event ran long." I pressed my forehead against the cold window of my car. "Mom, if I'm short on the rent this month—"
"Hey." She was awake now. "What happened?"
I didn't want to say it. Victoria's face, Alessandro stepping between us, the whole ballroom watching. "There was an incident. A guest said I did something I didn't do. I might lose shifts. I might lose the job."
A pause. I could hear her breathing. "Did you do anything wrong?"
"No." My voice cracked on it and I hated that. "No. I swear."
"I believe you," she said right away. Too fast, like she was trying to hold me up through the phone. "You just stay polite and stay quiet, okay? Don't give them a reason. We can figure the rent. I can call Mr. Diaz, ask for a week."
My throat burned. The fee for late was seventy-five dollars we didn't have. "You shouldn't have to do that."
"I'm your mom," she said. "That's my job. You just get home safe. You want me to stay on till he comes?"
I looked up at the service door. A man in a black suit had stepped out, shoulders hunched against the cold, no coat. For a second my heart slammed because I thought security. Then he turned toward the pole light and I saw the slicked hair, the stubble.
"It's him," I said. "I gotta go."
"Call me when you're driving," she said. "Love you."
"Love you too."
I hung up as Alessandro crossed the lot. His dress shoes made no real sound on the asphalt. Up close he looked tired in a way he hadn't in the ballroom. His shirt was open at the collar now, tie gone.
"Sorry," he said. "It took longer to get her out of the office."
I straightened off my car. "Dana said you wanted me to wait."
"Yes." He stopped a few feet away, hands in his pockets. He glanced at my car, then back at the mansion looming over us. "I don't want to do this here. Cameras on the dock, staff coming and going. Can you ride with me to the diner down on Route 9? Ten minutes. Brief talk, off property."
Every warning I'd ever heard lit up at once. Don't get in a car with a man from work after midnight. Don't leave your own car somewhere you can't get back to.
I wrapped my arms around myself. "About what?"
"About what you wrote down tonight," he said. "And what happens tomorrow. I can't promise you your shifts in this parking lot. I need twenty minutes where she isn't listening."
The cold was seeping through my shoes. My phone was dying. My mom was waiting for a call that I was driving home.
I studied his face. He wasn't smiling, wasn't doing the soft voice guys do when they want something. He just looked strapped, like someone carrying something heavy and trying not to drop it on me.
"I have my car," I said. "I'll follow you. I'm not leaving it here."
He nodded once, like he'd expected that. "Fair. Diner with the blue sign. Pete's. You know it?"
"Yeah." I'd passed it a hundred times on the way to morning shifts. "Twenty minutes?"
"Twenty," he said. "Then you go home. You're still employed, Mara. I need you to know that tonight."
It wasn't safety, not really. It was a sentence that let me breathe for the first time since Victoria leaned into my space.
"Okay," I said, and unlocked my door with stiff fingers. "I'll follow you."
May you like
He stepped back to give me room. "Keep your headlights on behind me. Lot's dark past the gate."
I got in and started the engine, hands shaking as I turned the heat on full. In the rearview I watched him walk to a black SUV two rows over, his breath clouding in the pole light. I didn't know if I trusted him. I knew I couldn't afford not to hear what he had to say.
