Lauren stepped close to the board. “What blue dress?”
Priya opened a wardrobe cabinet. A dress hung in a clear bag, pale blue silk with a narrow ribbon at the waist. Lauren had owned an almost identical dress when she dated Reid. A few weeks earlier he had asked her to send photographs of it. He’d commissioned a copy.
“I was told this was for a surprise renewal of a personal promise,” Priya said. “He asked whether we could arrange a spotlight when you came out.”
Lauren touched the plastic cover with one fingertip. The dress was beautiful. Someone had sewn it carefully. She pictured a stranger at a sewing machine, turning a photograph into an object for a performance without knowing its significance. She felt an unexpected surge of protective anger toward that unseen worker as well as toward herself.
“Please put it away,” she said.
Priya closed the cabinet. “I can tell the video crew not to record until we sort this out. But the guests have paid. The kitchen has food ready. My boss can fire me.”
Megan nodded. “That’s why none of this should become your responsibility. I’m going to speak to the restaurant’s general manager. You can explain the production isn’t what you were told. We’ll take responsibility for what we say.”
The general manager was a tired man named Hassan Malik, who had worked with Megan long enough to trust her calculations and with Reid long enough to distrust emergencies he couldn’t see. He listened in silence as they described the situation.
“Can I cancel?” he asked.
“You can pause service,” Megan said. “You can put the microphone away. You can tell guests there is a problem with the event. We will talk to Reid. You don’t need to make a marriage decision for us.”
Hassan looked from Megan to Lauren. “If I put the evening on hold, he will accuse me of sabotaging his launch.”
“And if you don’t,” Lauren replied, “I am going to walk into that room and tell everyone I was brought here under false pretenses. That would be worse for service.”
Hassan rubbed his forehead. “You make an unfortunate point.” He called the technician and said there would be no microphones until he personally gave approval. Then he asked Priya to prepare a neutral announcement, something about a change in the program and guests being welcome to stay for dinner or receive refunds.
For the first time all evening, Lauren felt the situation shift away from Reid’s arrangements. No dramatic confrontation had yet occurred. They had simply found the people doing the actual work and asked them to stop performing a lie.
A door slammed in the corridor. Reid appeared in a charcoal jacket, carrying a bouquet wrapped in silver paper. His smile faltered when he saw Megan.
