The caption arrived at nine on Monday. By half past Mara had read it often enough to know it wouldn't alter while she wasn't looking.
Wedding dress, designed by Clara Vale for her marriage to hotelier Elias Vale. Constructed with the assistance of specialist technician Mara Bell.
There followed a paragraph about the marriage and the label. Her name did not appear again.
Attached was a settlement much longer than Noel's offer. It asked her to confirm Clara's ownership of the designs associated with the label, subject to an acknowledgement of services and the agreed payment. It was described as a routine attribution agreement.
Mara put on her coat without turning off the iron. She came back for it from the street, annoyed enough to say “idiot” aloud in the empty room. Then she drove to the hotel.
Elias was in the ballroom, discussing the height of a display case with a man who wore a pencil behind his ear. She waited until the man had gone.
“Routine,” she said.
Elias looked at the paper in her hand. “You've had the draft.”
“Was I supposed to find it easier because it's routine?”
He took it when she held it out. His face didn't show surprise. That hurt before she understood why it should.
“This isn't the final wording.”
“You knew it was coming.”
“Yes.”
“Before you hired me?”
He put the papers down. Not quickly enough to be dramatic. Not slowly enough to hide the answer.
“Yes.”
Mara felt her body become very still. The desire to move, to keep working until the conversation became tolerable, was enormous. She set her handbag on the table instead.
“Tell me what you knew.”
“There was an unresolved dispute. The prospective buyer of the hotel and label had advisers examine the label's history. They identified it. Noel said you had signed a statement at the time, but they wanted a current agreement.”
“And you thought you'd bring me here and pay me to sign one.”
“I thought you should be paid to work on the dress. You were the right person for it.”
“That's the part you've already told me.”
He looked at her hands. She moved them off the table.
“I hoped you would agree the attribution could be settled,” he said. “Yes.”
She could hear the heater. She had never liked its noise, and now it seemed indecently loud.
“Did you know about the pocket?”
“No.”
“The letter?”
“No.”
“Had you seen my apology?”
“A copy. In the buyer's file.”
Mara nodded once. He had watched her find her name in Clara's hand while holding another version of it privately. He had let her stand in the office and talk about the cancelled appointment. He had kissed her and waited until she couldn't separate the wanting from the work before she learned why he had opened the door.
“You knew I was the woman,” she said.
“I knew your name. I didn't know what had happened.”
“You could have asked.”
“I should have.”
The answer was so correct she wanted to fling something. There was nothing on the table she was willing to damage.
“Why didn't you?”
He looked toward the ballroom's high windows. “I thought you wouldn't come.”
“Yes.”
“And after the letter? You knew who made it then. Why did you send me this?” She pushed the caption toward him.
He looked at it for a long time. “I told them to leave the packet standing. The buyer had it already. I wanted your agreement signed before I corrected the sale account.”
“An agreement saying Clara owned the designs.”
“An agreement that would let the buyer use them. I thought if you accepted the payment we could deal with the credit quietly afterwards.”
“Afterwards.”
“If I withdrew the account first, they might withdraw the funding. I didn't have enough to replace it and keep the hotel on the same terms.”
“So you let me read that I was the technician. After you'd sat with me and read her letter.”
“Yes.”
He had been looking at her. Now he looked down.
“That call on Saturday,” she said. “The packet you told them to leave in place.”
“Yes.”
“You weren't waiting for me to understand it. You were waiting for me to agree before you had to tell them it was wrong.”
He ran a finger along the edge of the paper, then took his hand away. “Yes.”
She couldn't make the man at the pool and this one occupy separate rooms any more. They had always been the same man. “Were you going to tell me?”
“I was.”
“Before Friday?”
His face changed. “Yes.”
She could not know whether that was true. He had made ordinary claims impossible to weigh.
“When you paid the hours and changed the terms, did you think that fixed this too?”
“No.” A pause. “I hoped it would make the other question separate.”
“It didn't.”
He came a step nearer, then stopped because she had stepped away. She hated that she knew exactly what his hand would feel like at her waist. The memory was not loyal to her anger.
“Mara, I want—”
“Not now.”
She found the box of small tools she'd left under the table and lifted it onto a chair. She packed the blunt needles, the thread she owned, the padded roll. She left the hotel's cotton sheeting and the support form. Every object required a decision. The petty practical activity kept her from crying, which made her grateful to it and furious with him.
“I'm suspending the work. There's no next stage delivered yet. You don't owe me anything else.”
“You can take time.”
“I'm telling you what I'm doing.”
He was silent.
She checked her bag for the note. She knew it was there; she checked anyway. The photographs were backed up at home. The key was in its envelope. She could leave this room with what was hers.
At the door she stopped. Elias had picked up the caption. For a reckless second she wanted him to tear it in half. It would have been nothing, a performance with paper. Still she wanted it.
“Friday's off,” she said.
“I understand.”
“Stop saying that.”
He looked up, stripped of the next thing he had been about to say.
“I'm sorry,” he said instead.
She carried the box out. Inez saw her from reception and came around the desk.
“Is something wrong?”
“You'll need to speak to him. I've stopped.”
“For how long?”
“I don't know.”
Inez looked at the box, then toward the ballroom. She didn't offer sympathy or an argument. She held the side door while Mara managed the steps.
The car was cold. Mara put the box on the passenger seat and sat with both hands on the wheel until a delivery driver knocked gently on her window. She had parked behind his van.
“Sorry,” she said, starting the engine.
She was nearly home before she realised she had forgotten her good work apron. She cried then, abruptly and with such anger that she had to pull into a lay-by. Of all the things to leave in his hotel, it had to be something that still smelled of her own room.