Chapter 6: Dominic Mercer Watches The Room
Dominic did not look at Valerie after telling me to sit down. His gray eyes stayed on me, steady and unreadable, while the room held the shape of the interruption.
Lily stood beside me with one hand pressed against her apron. Her knees were still bent slightly, as if her body had not received permission to rise all the way. I could see the wet shine on her cheeks and the faint red mark where Valerie’s finger had pointed toward the floor. My own hand remained around Lily’s arm. Her sleeve was thin beneath my fingers.
Valerie’s white cashmere coat lay over the back of a chair. The wine drop had spread into a small uneven crescent, no larger than a fingernail. She touched the edge of the stain with one gloved finger, then lifted that finger and examined it as if the color carried a verdict. Her face had gone calm, which was worse than her anger. The calm made the coat, the room, and Lily’s lowered eyes seem arranged for her convenience.
Dominic finally glanced toward the tablecloth. His knife remained beside his plate, exactly where he had set it down. The silver caught the light from the glass walls. Nothing else moved.
I could not tell whether his command had protected me from Valerie or corrected me for making the room uncomfortable. The difference mattered. If he had wanted to protect Lily, he could have stopped Valerie before Lily began to kneel. If he had wanted to protect the evening, then I had only become another problem to be managed.
I released Lily’s arm. She swayed once but stayed upright.
A server appeared beyond the glass wall carrying a tray, saw the frozen room, and stopped. Dominic noticed him. Without speaking, Dominic lifted two fingers and made a small downward motion. The server lowered the tray and backed away. Dominic had not restored order; he had sealed the disturbance inside the room.
Valerie straightened the sleeve of her coat. She smoothed the cashmere around the stain, pulling the fabric so the mark sat near the seam instead of the center. Then she removed the coat from the chair and folded it over her arm. The gesture concealed the wine but did not erase it. She looked at Lily’s shoes, then at my worn ones, measuring the two of us against the polished floor.
Dominic watched that, too.
He reached for the leather folder near his plate. It had been closed beneath a water glass. He lifted the glass, opened the folder, and drew out a single cream-colored sheet. At the top was the restaurant’s name in dark lettering. Beneath it were blank lines for the date, the table, the staff involved, and a description of the incident.
My stomach tightened.
He had seen the exchange. He had heard every word. Still, the page gave the room a way to turn what happened into something official, something that could outlast memory and favor whoever controlled the pen.
Dominic placed the sheet on the table and looked at Valerie. She did not reach for it. Instead, she set her coat across the back of the chair again, stain facing outward now, deliberately visible. The red mark looked brighter against the white.
Lily’s gaze fixed on the paper. Her hands began to tremble harder.
I stepped half a pace toward the table. Dominic’s eyes shifted back to me. He put one hand over the blank form, not covering the lines but claiming the decision about what would be written there.
May you like
Then he moved the sheet away from Valerie and toward the empty chair nearest me.
The next account would not begin with her hand on the page. It would begin with mine.
