Juno had found a woman who wouldn't talk about the bride.
She sat on a low chair near a window, a pair of orange evening shoes on the floor in front of her. Cal had seen her at breakfast in white sneakers. Now she was trying to put a strip of padding inside one of the orange shoes without folding it over on itself.
“Don't help,” Juno said when he came in.
“I wasn't going to.”
“You were making the face.”
The woman looked up. “He can help if he has a thinner finger.”
Cal held up his hands.
“No. Never mind.” She went back to the shoe.
Her name was Mrs. Salcedo. She had kept the books for Adrian's first hotel and, according to the planner, knew where every embarrassing invoice had been buried. Juno had asked whether she wanted to say something for the wedding film. She had said no. Then she had taken the shoes out of a shopping bag, and Juno hadn't gone away.
Cal stood beside the door, letting his eyes adjust to the dimmer room. They had been given it for ten minutes while the planner tried to find out who was using it. A strip of light crossed the wall at the height of Mrs. Salcedo's shoulder. Juno had put her chair so the orange shoes were bright and her face was soft. Nothing looked arranged except the light.
“My husband says they look like carrots,” Mrs. Salcedo said.
“Where is he?”
“Getting dressed. Slowly. When I'm not there he takes longer on purpose.”
She got the strip into place and pressed it down with the tip of a pen. Juno eased closer.
“Are you going to dance in them?”
“No. I'm going to sit in them. I'm going to dance in the other ones.”
She pointed toward the white sneakers. Cal smiled. Juno stayed on the orange shoe, not taking the invitation to show the punchline.
Mrs. Salcedo slipped her foot in, stood, sat immediately.
“Too high?” Juno asked.
“It isn't the height. It's the way they want me to stand. I don't stand like that.”
She tried the other foot. Juno shifted her weight, almost imperceptibly, keeping the movement within the frame. Cal could see a reflection in the window behind her, a tall rectangle where a mirror leaned against a wall. He started to point. Juno moved before he did, lifting the camera so the reflected room fell away.
“My daughter bought them,” Mrs. Salcedo said. “She saw them and thought of me. I asked her what she thought of me.”
This time she laughed at herself, shoulders rising, one foot still half inside the shoe. Juno let the laugh pass without asking the next question.
Her husband appeared in the doorway behind Cal. A short man in a suit he was wearing with unusual caution. His tie hung straight, but he kept touching the knot.
“You look nice,” he said.
Mrs. Salcedo stopped laughing. She looked down at the shoes, then up at him.
“They're too much.”
He came into the room, making Cal step aside. “You bought them. Wear them.”
“She bought them.”
“Then she has good eyes.”
Juno was still filming. He saw the camera and stopped in the wrong place, between it and his wife. Juno didn't tell him to move. She took one sideways step, low enough to see the shoes beneath his hand as he offered it to her.
Mrs. Salcedo took the hand. He pulled her up too quickly and had to brace himself. They both laughed, annoyed at their bodies. Cal watched Juno get the small pause afterwards, the man waiting while she found her balance and decided whether she'd let go of him.
“We'll miss the wedding,” she said.
“No, we won't.”
“I'm changing them.”
“All right.”
He stayed holding her hand while she sat. She kept one shoe on and took the other off, considering an arrangement that pleased neither foot.
Juno stopped only when the husband bent to pick up the sneakers.
Mrs. Salcedo saw Cal watching and shook her head. “All this for somebody else getting married.”
He held the door while they left. The husband carried the orange shoes with two fingers, trying not to mark them. The white sneakers squeaked on the polished floor.
The planner came in with a garment bag and asked for the room. Juno packed B, and Cal carried the spare stand because she had left it leaning against his leg. In the corridor Rafi was posing two friends beside a plant, telling them to stop looking as if they were posing.
“Found something?” he asked.
Juno kept walking.
“Something good?”
“Yes,” Cal said.
Rafi came with them. He asked to see it. Juno said they had a ceremony to set up. He said he only needed a minute. She kept going, and Cal found himself enjoying her refusal until Rafi fell into step beside him instead.
“This is the person,” Rafi said, pointing at her with his chin. “You've got somebody.”
“I know.”
“We could use her. That thing last night with the girl—”
“She told me.”
“I don't mean take her. A project. With you involved. I talked to Gideon.”
Cal stopped at their equipment-room door. Juno had already gone inside.
“About what?”
“About doing something people actually look at. He's interested.”
Rafi was waiting for Cal to be pleased. Cal made the appropriate face, and the man moved on, calling after somebody who was trying to pass him without being called after.
Inside, Juno had opened the full morning folder beside Quinn's upload page. The list from her notebook lay under her hand. She began adding the original files in order, checking them against the card labels. Cal saw the next A thumbnail waiting beneath the empty terrace.
He put his hand over the trackpad.
“I need you downstairs. The singer's in the wrong place.”
“I'm doing this.”
He drew the laptop toward his chair. “I'll finish it. You know which side you need.”
She kept a finger on the notebook. He had to move the machine around her hand.
“She has this list,” Juno said.
“I know.”
“Both pairs. Both drives. Don't rename things.”
She left the notebook open beside him, took B and went. He watched her through the little window until she turned toward the stairs. Then he removed the queued folder from the submission. The source stayed intact on the drives.
Cal put the original empty location file into a new folder. He added the two public approach shots in their original lengths, not the little exports he'd made last night. The next A file was the one with Lena and Felix. He saw its thumbnail, the near rail blocking the lower half of the frame. He didn't put it in the folder.
The upload bar moved while he listened to people in the corridor. A room-service cart rattled past. Somebody tried his door and apologized through it. The little bar reached the end.
He told Quinn he'd sent the camera files for the views shown last night. She could hear the units in the outdoor material. He offered to show her the route when it was accessible again. He did not say that another file existed or that she'd received all his morning source.
The page confirmed receipt. Juno's notebook stayed open beside it, listing the material he had not sent. He sent her a photograph of the completed screen. She answered with a picture of an enormous floral arrangement standing exactly where her camera needed to be.
Cal put his phone down and opened her portrait of the shoes.
He made a short sequence and typed the title card: MERCER FILMS. Under it, A film by Cal Mercer. He exported it to the wedding's private delivery page and sent the planner the link. She asked if she could give it to the Salcedos and their daughter. He said yes. The little card went with it.
He saved the sequence under the company folder and went downstairs to move the flowers.