Emily had changed into a dry blouse borrowed from Anika.
She stood beside Mara at the entrance as guests collected programs.
Mara had removed Conrad’s revised versions and replaced them with photocopies of the original script notes.
The pages were plainly printed and did not match the elegant gold covers, but nobody seemed to mind until Victoria appeared.
She held up a program between two fingers.
“This is unacceptable,” she said.
“The performance hasn’t begun,” Mara replied.
“I paid for the champagne ceremony.”
“That ceremony was not part of our agreement.”
“It was part of my agreement with Conrad.”
“Then you’ll need to discuss that with Conrad,” Mara said.
Victoria glanced around for support.
“There are people here who expect a certain standard.”
Emily surprised herself by answering.
“They’ll receive a performance. If they want champagne afterward, I believe the bar is still open.”
Victoria recognized her voice and turned sharply.
“You’re still here.”
“I am,” Emily said.
“Some people have no sense of embarrassment.”
“I know,” Emily replied. “I watched you demonstrate that earlier.”
Mara coughed into her hand to cover a smile.
A tall man approached from the crowd.
He introduced himself as Bennett Langford, Victoria’s younger brother.
Emily expected another lecture, but he sounded embarrassed.
“My sister called me and said the performance had been changed,” he said.
“It has been restored to the original,” Mara explained.
Bennett nodded.
“Good. I bought tickets because I saw the show in Brooklyn.”
Victoria stared at him.
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked what the show was about,” he replied.
At the far end of the room, Celia was speaking with a representative from the company that had financed the event’s printed materials.
The representative, a cheerful man named Oliver Knox, held a tablet and a contract.
“The revised program offered naming rights,” he said.
“We didn’t approve that,” Celia answered.
“Conrad did.”
“Conrad cannot sell rights to a play we don’t own.”
“The sponsors expected visibility.”
“Then the sponsors need to be told the truth,” Celia said.
Oliver looked toward Victoria, who was now arguing with her brother.
“That may be difficult.”
“I imagine it will,” Celia said.
Emily moved among the arrivals with a tray of water glasses.
It was the first time that evening she had carried a tray without feeling as if Conrad were watching the angle of her wrist.
A woman in a purple coat stopped her.
“Are you one of the performers?” she asked.
“I’m a waitress.”
“So you’re part of the performance?”
Emily considered the question.
“Apparently that depends on what I decide in the next ten minutes.”
The woman laughed kindly.
“Then I hope you decide to stay.”
Behind the curtain, Walter was sitting on an overturned crate while a young actor adjusted a microphone.
He had changed from his wet coat into an ordinary gray jacket.
Emily approached him.
“Victoria is telling people you tricked her.”
“Did you trick her?” he asked.
“I don’t think I had the chance.”
“Then don’t carry her story as if it belonged to you.”
“I still want to know why your phone call scared Conrad.”
Walter tapped the rehearsal schedule.
“Because he knew that Mara was bringing people who could refuse to do the show. He had promised a spectacle he could control, and he discovered that the people making it had choices.”
“You’re not an owner or a billionaire.”
“My landlord would be delighted to hear that rumor.”
Emily smiled for the first time since the water hit her face.
Walter stood with some difficulty.
“I owe you an apology,” he said.
Emily looked up.
“For what?”
“For allowing my entrance to resemble a test. I should have told the staff that I planned to sit in the dining room before the performance.”
“Would you have seen what happened otherwise?”
“Maybe not. But the fact that a bad thing taught me something doesn’t make the bad thing useful or fair.”
Emily thought of Conrad’s threats, Victoria’s glass, and the hungry look Walter had worn before she served him soup.
“I accept the apology,” she said. “I haven’t decided whether I want to be in the show.”
“Then your decision is still yours.”
At nine fifteen, a stagehand ran into the salon.
“Mara, the hotel across the street has sent a message.”
“What hotel?”
“The Clarion. Their banquet director says Victoria booked their ballroom as an alternative venue.”
Mara stared.
“For tonight?”
“For the guests who want to leave.”
Walter looked toward the dining room.
The richest customers were beginning to divide into two groups, one curious about the play and the other moving toward Victoria.
The audience had not yet taken their seats, and the performance was already happening.
CHAPTER SIX — TWO ROOMS
Victoria stood beneath the restaurant’s largest chandelier and announced that anyone who valued a proper evening was welcome to follow her across the street.
She had secured the Clarion Hotel’s smaller ballroom, and its kitchen could prepare a private supper at short notice.
Her announcement was not a whisper between friends.
It was a declaration addressed to the entire room.
“We can still have an elegant evening without being lectured by people who are paid to carry plates,” she said.
Several guests moved toward her, although others remained where they were.
Bennett stepped away from his sister and took a seat at an ordinary table near the center.
Victoria looked as if he had personally insulted her.
“Bennett, please.”
“I came to see a play,” he said. “I’m going to see it.”
Celia approached Victoria before the departing guests reached the door.
“You are welcome to leave,” she said, “but please don’t solicit guests inside the restaurant.”
“Solicit? I’m offering them an alternative.”
“Then offer it outside.”
Victoria looked around the room with a theatrical smile.
“You see what has happened. A place famous for good service has decided customers should be grateful merely to be allowed inside.”
Celia kept her voice low.
“You threw water at my employee. Every conversation since then has been an attempt to make that detail less important.”
“She provoked me.”
“She brought a hungry man soup.”
Victoria’s cheeks flushed.
She collected her coat and left with six guests, two of whom returned moments later because they had forgotten their umbrellas.
The loss of those customers did not settle the argument.
The restaurant had committed to an expensive production, and the night’s budget depended on selling nearly every seat.
Celia counted the empty places while Mara rearranged the room to improve sightlines.
Walter looked at the remaining audience and made a decision.
“We begin on time,” he said.
“We’re short six people,” Oliver Knox objected.
“We are not short an audience,” Walter answered.
Emily watched the departing guests disappear behind the revolving door.
“Doesn’t that cost you money?” she asked Walter.
“Yes.”
“And you don’t care?”
“I care about the actors getting paid. I care about the restaurant paying its staff. I also care about making a piece of theater worth attending. There are nights when caring about three things is unpleasant.”
“Who pays the actors if the event loses money?”
Mara answered before Walter could.
“Our contracts guarantee the cast fees. We negotiated that before accepting the booking.”
“Who guarantees ours?” Luis asked from behind them.
The question stopped Emily.
He was carrying a tray of freshly polished silverware, and his face showed no trace of humor.
“Nobody tells us whether the staff gets paid if these rich people walk away,” he continued.
Celia appeared to have heard him.
“The shift is paid whether the room fills or not,” she said.
“What about the gratuity pool?” Anika asked.
“The restaurant will cover the amount that was projected for the private service,” Celia replied after a pause.
“Can we have that in writing?” Peter asked.
Celia glanced at the clock, then took a pen from Oliver’s hand.
She wrote the guarantee on the back of the event schedule, signed it, and handed it to Anika.
“You’ll get a formal notice tomorrow,” she said.
Anika read the words twice before passing the sheet to Luis.
Emily saw how much that little piece of paper changed his expression.
At the Clarion Hotel, Victoria was discovering that a ballroom arranged in twenty minutes did not create the evening she had promised.
The carpet was beige, the flowers were artificial, and the banquet director did not have enough staff to serve a complicated meal.
Victoria asked for champagne, only to learn that the hotel could provide sparkling wine after the bar manager returned from another function.
One guest complained that the promised entertainment had not arrived.
Victoria called Conrad, who answered from the Halcyon Room’s office.
“You assured me the performance depended on my backing,” she said.
“The contract was written that way,” Conrad replied.
“Then why is it going ahead?”
“Because Celia has decided she would rather burn money than maintain standards.”
“Can you stop the musicians?”
“Not without creating a scene.”
Victoria stared at the bare little platform in the hotel ballroom.
“I did not rent this room to sit in silence,” she said.
