Chapter 6 - The East Hallway Was Empty And Loud
The hallway off the east side of the ballroom was colder than the ballroom by ten degrees, and louder in a way I hadn't expected.
From the floor it had looked like nothing, just a dark cut between two columns where the catering staff disappeared. Up close it was long marble with thin carpet laid down the middle to keep our shoes quiet, and every sound bounced anyway. Ice clinking in a bucket three doors down. A phone ringing behind wood. The chandelier hum gone, replaced by the ventilation blowing hard overhead.
I checked the time on the little clock above the service door. 9:41. I had maybe fifteen minutes before Rosa noticed I wasn't at the back bar polishing glasses I’d already polished.
The right wall had no pictures. Just doors, all closed, all with the same brushed handles. Private. The first one had a small brass plate: Office. No name. The second: Dressing Suite. The third had no plate at all.
That was why it looked bad. I got that now. Anybody standing in that cut in the columns and seeing me come out of here wouldn't think errand. They'd think snooping.
I walked slow, trying to remember exactly how I'd gotten turned around earlier. It had been around eight, before the speeches. Luis had flagged me at the service entrance with an empty ice bucket and said the east bar was dying. I'd said I got it. The kitchen was backed up, so I'd cut through the back corridor with the bucket getting heavier on my arm, water seeping through the linen draped over the edge.
And then the wrong turn. The back corridor split and I took the left instead of the right because both looked the same and someone had propped a service door open with a trash can. I came out here, under this same vent, blinking. I remember thinking, this isn't the bar. I remember the carpet under my flats, the cold air hitting my damp sleeves.
I stopped where I thought I'd stopped. Near the Office door. I could see it in my head, me turning with the bucket, ice shifting, a cube slipping off the top and hitting the carpet and me bending to grab it with wet fingers.
I crouched down now and ran my hand along the edge of the carpet where it met the marble. Dust. A bobby pin that wasn't mine. Then my fingers caught on something wedged under the baseboard by the Office door.
White linen. Folded once, damp-stiff now.
I pulled it out. It was one of ours, a bar towel with the little stitched border from the caterer, stained faintly with water rings. My stomach dropped in a good way, if that makes sense. I'd draped one just like that over the ice bucket to keep it from sloshing. I must have lost it when I turned too fast.
I held it up. This was it. Proof I'd been here with ice, not with my ears pressed to a door. My thumb rubbed the stitched edge over and over.
A door clicked behind me.
Footsteps on marble, fast, heels striking hard. I knew before I turned.
Victoria came around the corner from the ballroom side, champagne beads catching even the dim hallway light. Her updo hadn't moved. Her drop earrings swung once when she stopped short seeing me.
Her eyes went straight to the towel in my hand, then to my face.
"What are you doing back here?" Her voice was low, not shouting like out there. That made it worse.
I stood up too fast. "Mrs. Romano — I was just — I came to check—"
"No." She held up one hand. "I've told the captain. Staff does not use this hallway. This is family only tonight."
"I know, I just needed to show—" I held the towel out a little. "Earlier I took a wrong turn with ice for the east bar. I dropped this. This is mine from—"
She didn't look at it again. She looked past me at the closed doors, as if counting that they were still closed.
"I don't want explanations in hallways," she said. "Go back to the floor. Now."
My throat went tight. "If you'd just listen for a second, I can explain why people saw me here—"
"People saw you where you should not have been." Each word was flat. "That is enough."
The vent blew between us and lifted the hem of her gown a fraction. The beads clicked softly. I could smell her perfume, something sharp and expensive, and underneath it the same warm ballroom air clinging to her dress.
"Please," I said, and I hated how small it sounded. "I'm about to lose my job over a wrong turn."
For a half second something moved in her face. Not softness. Calculation. Her lips pressed together the way they had on the floor when she stared me down.
"Then you should have stayed where you belonged," she said. "Out."
She stepped aside to let me pass toward the ballroom, but her shoulder stayed squared so I had to brush close to the wall to get by. I folded the damp towel tight in my fist. It felt ridiculous to hold onto it so hard when she wouldn't even look at it.
May you like
I walked past her with my eyes on the carpet runner, counting my steps so I wouldn't cry. At the end of the hallway the ballroom light spilled in, gold and loud, music swelling up again. Laughter. Glasses.
Behind me her heels didn't move. She was staying to make sure I left.
