The manager came with Cal because he thought a wedding guest had had too much to drink.
Adrian stood at the lounge doors, waiting. He had taken his jacket off again and rolled one sleeve, then left the other where it was. Gideon remained outside. Rafi had returned to the table and was talking at him, turning his phone around at intervals to make him look.
“I want him out of the reception,” Adrian told the manager.
The man looked toward Gideon. “Has something happened?”
“I don't want something happening.”
“We can speak to him.”
“Speak to him, then.”
They went out together. Cal stayed just inside the doors. The manager introduced himself, bent enough not to stand over the seated men, and asked Gideon if he could have a quiet word.
“What about?” Gideon asked.
“If we could go inside.”
“We're all friends.”
Rafi looked from one to the other, his phone still held at the angle of an interrupted demonstration.
Adrian said, “Leave it, Rafi.”
“I wasn't—”
“Please.”
He stood this time, but he didn't go far. Neither did the guests at the next table. One lifted her glass and took a very long drink, watching over the rim.
The manager said something Cal couldn't hear. Gideon put the phone down.
“I've got a room here. I'm invited. If Adrian doesn't want me at his dinner, he can tell me.”
“I'm telling you,” Adrian said.
Gideon looked up at him. “Does Lena know?”
The manager tried again to draw them inside. He held the door, and for a moment Cal thought Gideon would come. The man stood, pushed his chair in and picked up the phone. Then he saw Lena through the open doors.
He called her name.
She had come in with the planner and a woman carrying the end of her dress. She stopped when she heard him. The planner stopped too, and the cloth sagged between them.
“Could you come out?” Gideon asked.
Adrian moved into the doorway. “She's busy.”
Gideon looked past his shoulder. “It won't take long.”
Lena did not move. Cal saw her look from the man's hand to his face, then to Adrian standing between them.
“Not here,” she said.
Gideon spread one hand, a small invitation. He had managed to make the open door feel like a stage, with everyone waiting for Lena to cross it.
The manager stepped closer to Adrian. “We can have someone come up. If you'd prefer—”
“No,” Adrian said.
He took a breath and lowered his voice. “No. Give us a minute.”
The manager stayed beside the door, unwilling to leave it to them completely. Adrian turned to Gideon.
“Come to dinner. Sit at your table. We'll talk afterwards.”
“With her.”
Adrian's face went red above the collar. “Afterwards.”
Gideon put his phone away. The woman at the next table finally lowered her glass. Rafi began talking before anyone had quite finished, saying there was no point making things awkward and they were all supposed to be celebrating.
Lena went on with the planner. She didn't look at Cal as she passed him.
Adrian stood still until the lounge had resumed its own noise. Then he asked Cal to walk with him.
They went through a service door beside the ballroom, where no one had bothered to cover the gray paint with white flowers. At the end of the passage a server was trying to turn a cart around a rack of glassware. Adrian helped her move the rack two inches and waited while she went through. His hand stayed on the metal frame after she was gone.
“I need him away from her,” he said.
“You told him he could stay.”
“Because he was going to call her over until she came.”
He let go of the rack. Cal could see his own distorted reflection in the polished side of a jug.
“There are people here who do this,” Cal said.
“There are people here who'll call more people. He'll tell them something. I don't know what he'll say.”
He looked directly at Cal.
“I want him upstairs. Somewhere he can sit and be quiet until I come. You've been talking to him. He likes you.”
Cal thought of the phone held out with his company name above the little empty conversation.
“He doesn't like me that much.”
“You can get him to go. Not drag him out in front of everybody. Tell him I want to speak to him privately.”
He paused.
“I'll pay you. This is another job.”
Cal watched a drop of condensation run down the jug. “Where?”
“The hospitality suite. 604. We have it for the weekend. There's water, a place to sit. I can talk to him there.”
“When?”
“After we've done the dance. I don't want him near her for that. Then you take him. If he starts before, take him before.”
Adrian rubbed the sore thumb against the side of his first finger, then stopped because it hurt.
“I can talk to him,” he said.
Adrian breathed out. “Thank you.”
He put a hand on Cal's upper arm. He didn't squeeze it. The contact was warmer and less demanding than Cal expected, and he stayed there until the man let go.
They found Emilio by the elevator. Adrian told him they might use the hospitality suite later and asked him to make sure there was water. Emilio looked at the clock above the service door, then at the cart he had been loading.
“We've got the gift cases in the sitting room,” he said. “And your flowers. Some of the equipment.”
“Leave it. We only need somewhere quiet.”
“Your vendors have access. I'll tell the floor staff.”
He took a key card from the labeled packet on his cart and gave it to Cal. No one looked as though a secret arrangement had been made. The room had been hired, the event had equipment, somebody needed water upstairs. Cal put the card in the little zip pocket of his camera bag.
Adrian went back through the ballroom doors. For a second, before the door closed, Cal saw him take Lena's hand.
Juno was at their small work table outside the ballroom, looking at the shoe portrait on her own little laptop. The black backup drive was connected by a short cable; she worked directly from it, as she usually did, with only her little review exports on the machine itself. Cal's larger laptop waited beside the silver editing drive.
She stopped the picture when he came up.
“What was that?”
“Adrian wants me to get Gideon out after the dance. Take him upstairs.”
“Why you?”
“We know each other.”
“You met him yesterday.”
He pulled a chair out and sat. “I know.”
She let the answer lie there. She saved her project, closed it and disconnected the black drive. Then she put the laptop and drive into her bag together.
“Where are you going?” Cal asked.
“To eat.”
“We're on in twenty.”
“Then I've got twenty.”
She went toward the staff meal without the camera. Cal looked at his own laptop, where the ceremony files were arriving on the silver drive in a long row. He could not yet pick one image and say that was the day. He kept seeing Lena's hands, Adrian's lowered head, Gideon's phone.
Emilio came past with a tray of bottled water for 604. He stopped just long enough to ask Cal to keep the return route clear, then carried it up himself.