Chapter 14 - The Hallway Kept Every Word We Said
The corridor was too quiet after the ballroom. My wet shoes squeaked on the marble and I tried to stop walking so they wouldn't make that sound. Mom kept her hand on the back of my neck, not pushing, just there. Behind the dark wood doors, I could still hear the room humming, glasses and low voices and somebody laughing once like they didn't know what else to do.
A woman came out fast with her phone still up. She looked at us and then down at it, and kept walking toward the restrooms. The little light on the back was on. I watched it swing as she walked.
I realized they hadn't put them down. Inside, I mean. Nobody had put their phone down when Mom said what she said. They kept them up with the flashlights on while Richard stepped closer and while Mrs. Eleanor put her hand to her chest by the doorway. I could see the white spots when I blinked.
"Mom," I said.
She stopped and crouched a little so we were eye to eye. Her navy sleeve was damp where I'd been holding it. Her hair had come loose on one side.
"They're still recording in there," I whispered.
"I know," she said.
My dress stuck to my legs. It made a cold patch on my thigh. I kept thinking about the sound my sorry had made, twice, and how it hadn't been enough to make anyone stop looking. I didn't want that part to live anywhere except in Mom's arms. But it did now. It was on their phones.
"Is it on the internet?" I asked.
She didn't lie to me. She breathed in through her nose and looked toward the doors, then back at me.
"Maybe," she said. "Probably some of it."
I nodded because I didn't want to cry again where somebody could come out and see. A man in a vest pushed a cart with glasses past us. The glasses rattled. He looked straight ahead.
Mom stood up and leaned her back against the wall by a sconce. The warm light made the top of her head glow. She closed her eyes for a second. Just a second.
"I said it loud, baby," she said. "I can't unsay it."
I thought she might mean she wished she hadn't. My stomach dropped. I pulled at the hem of my light blue dress where it had twisted.
"Do you want to?" I asked.
She opened her eyes. "No." Her voice was low. "I mean I can't take it back and make it small again. It's out there now. With them."
Through the crack where the doors didn't quite meet, I could hear Richard's voice, muffled. Not yelling. That flat way he got, like he was explaining something. Then another voice, older, sharp. Mrs. Eleanor. Then a ripple, a lot of people shifting at once. Somebody's flashlight beam swept under the door gap and across the marble toward our feet.
I stepped closer to Mom. She put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me against her side, the way she had at the end when she faced the room. Protective. I remembered the chandelier light on the phones, all those little rectangles lifted up.
"They're still in there," I said. "Mr. Richard and Mrs. Eleanor."
"Yes," Mom said.
"They're mad."
She squeezed my shoulder once. "They're dealing with what they made."
I listened to the murmur rise and fall. I thought about going back to school on Monday and somebody holding up a phone in the pick-up line. I thought about Mrs. Eleanor's pearls and her hand pressed to them, shocked, and how everybody saw it. I thought about how Mom had run in for me while a guest behind her held up a phone, right at the start, and how there was never a second when we were alone.
"Mom, I'm sorry I got soaked," I said.
She shook her head right away. "Don't. Don't carry that."
But I did. I could still feel the water in my hair dripping down my back. A drop ran off an end and hit my arm. I wiped it hard.
The doors opened a few inches and a young guy slipped out, phone in his hand, screen lit. He saw us and stopped. Mom looked at him steady, not mean, just steady. He lowered the phone to his side but didn't turn it off. The red dot was still there.
"Sorry," he mumbled, and went past us fast down the corridor.
Mom watched him go. Then she looked down at me. We both knew there would be more of that. More eyes. More copies. The thing she'd done to protect me had put me where everyone could see me.
She knelt all the way down this time, her knees on the cold marble, and fixed the strap of my dress where it had slipped. Her hands were shaking a little.
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"We walk out together," she said. "No more serving. No more going back in to make it nice. Okay?"
I nodded. Behind us, the ballroom doors stayed shut, holding Richard and Eleanor and all those lights inside. In front of us, the hallway stretched toward the exit signs, empty and bright. I took her hand.
