Beth had a pin between her lips when Claire told her.
She took it out slowly, put it on the table, and looked at the two pictures Claire had brought on her phone. The real afternoon image. The false evening one.
“You made the second?”
“Yes.”
“And sent it.”
“Yes.”
Beth put the phone down. The screen went dark beside a price card Vivian had finished yesterday.
“Why didn't you call me?”
“It was late.”
“Don't.”
Claire looked at her hands. “Because you'd have told me not to.”
Beth stood so abruptly the unfinished sleeve slipped from her lap. She caught it, then let it fall onto the chair instead of treating it gently. Claire had never seen her do that to work she wanted.
“You had all evening to call me. You had time to make a dead person.”
“I was trying to keep him away.”
“You don't know what that makes him do.”
“I know.”
“You know now.”
Claire stood by the cutting table. She had not brought the camera out of its bag. The phone was enough to do this damage, proof of how little the body itself mattered once she decided to speak with its authority.
Beth opened the real image again. “Does Evan know?”
“This one. Not the fake.”
“Why?”
“He was angry when I showed him.”
“So you gave him another reason and haven't told him.”
Claire nodded. Beth rubbed both hands through her hair, destroying the arrangement she'd spent half an hour making for today.
“I thought we could do this,” she said. “Work together. Have a room. Not have every choice become yours.”
“I wanted you to have the room.”
Beth looked at her with a weariness worse than shouting. “You don't get to want it enough to do anything.”
Upstairs, Maris called to ask where the spare cups were. Beth didn't answer immediately. Then she called back that they were in the box by the side door and asked her to come down.
Vivian arrived while they were waiting. She wore plain dark trousers and a wrap made from the red print, not the whole wedding skirt. Her left hand remained bare. She saw their faces and stopped with the door still open.
“What happened?”
Beth told her. Claire did not interrupt to make the account sound more protective. Maris came down halfway through, carrying two cups, and put them on the table without speaking.
Vivian took the phone and looked at Graham apparently dead in the yard. She held it farther away, then returned it to Claire.
“He believes that?”
“I don't know how much. He asked if I'd made it. I reminded him of the mirror.”
Vivian looked at the empty fitting corner where the old mirror had stood. “You know he can come before evening.”
“I thought about the hotel,” Claire said. “He came early to stop you talking. This picture was him. On the ground.”
Vivian looked at her for a moment. “He'll think taking me home stops it.”
Claire's phone was still in her hand. She had imagined Graham shutting his own door, letting the dangerous day pass outside. Not driving to the studio to put Vivian behind it with him.
“That's what he does,” Vivian said. “He gets me somewhere he can explain.”
“He was already thinking of coming,” Beth said. “This doesn't change that into no.”
“I know.”
She put the phone facedown on the table.
Maris looked at the false image once more. “We'll keep the front clear. I won't let him take her into my office for a private talk. People can see from here.”
“The side way too,” Beth said. “Nothing across it.”
“And the gate?”
“I can open it from inside. Keep the chain loose.”
They were adjusting a room in which guests would soon arrive. No one suggested the lie had made them safe. Vivian said she would call for help if Graham came and refused to leave, and Beth said she would not wait for him to say the force was a misunderstanding. Beth sent Lewis an update about the fabricated image and Graham's replies, with Claire beside her supplying the messages. There was no answer before Maris finished checking her phone had charge and went upstairs for the rest of the cups.
“We could postpone,” Claire said.
Beth turned toward her.
“I'm not saying you have to.”
“I know what postponing costs,” Beth replied. “I postponed being ready for this for years.”
Vivian looked at the wraps on the rail. “I can leave. If you want me to.”
“I don't,” Beth said.
“Then I'm staying.”
Claire looked at the prices beside her phone. Ruth was bringing someone; the little room would soon be full. She went to move her bag out of the way.
Beth picked up the unfinished sleeve.
“You need to tell Evan,” she said.
“I will.”
Claire put the phone in her pocket. She could call him. He was bringing a small bench Beth wanted near the fitting corner, and would come through the yard before the preview. She pictured hearing his anger before she had any work to hide inside, and postponed the call. She knew she was postponing it. There was no technical difficulty or missing number to blame.
For the rest of the morning she did what Beth asked. Carry cups. Wipe the table. Put the prices where people could see. When she suggested moving a framed picture, Beth said leave it, and Claire left it.
Vivian worked beside her, cutting little ties from scrap ribbon for the sample bags. At one point Claire said, “I'm sorry I used you at the hotel.”
Vivian kept cutting. “You used the conversation you wanted me to have.”
“Yes.”
“I'd agreed to talk. I hadn't agreed to be something you could show him.”
Claire nodded.
“Don't promise the whole afternoon is different now,” Vivian said.
“I won't.”
They finished the ties. Vivian took the scissors away when Claire tried to cut three at once, saying they would all be the wrong length. It was the first ordinary correction she had given her all day. Claire accepted it with more relief than it deserved.
At half past one Ruth knocked on the window in the blue dress. She had come early to help, bringing a tin she said held proper biscuits, an accusation directed at nobody in particular. The yellow showed as she stepped through the door.
Beth's face changed at the sight of her.
“You look wonderful,” she said.
Ruth opened the yellow panels with a turn. “I wanted your guests to see it. And look at you!”
For a moment Beth nearly cried. Then she took the tin and asked Ruth if she would put the cups out, because they had been argued over enough and needed a purpose.
Claire stood by the sample rail, watching her sister receive someone who wanted to be there. She stayed to help with the afternoon she could no longer pretend to have protected.