The laughter came fast and careless. Not everyone laughed, but enough did. Enough for the sound to do its damage. My father didn’t object. Tina smiled with that pained little tilt of the head people wear when pretending cruelty is honesty. Someone murmured, “Now, Chloe.” Not to stop her. Just to add the right amount of social seasoning.
I looked at Daniel because the old reflex still lived somewhere in me, the one that braced for someone powerful to smooth things over, to give a polite half-laugh, to refuse the discomfort by joining the script.
He didn’t smile.
He didn’t move.
He just set his wine glass down on the sideboard with deliberate care and let silence fall so completely that the room seemed to hear itself for the first time.
Then he looked from Chloe to Tina to my father and finally to me.
“Interesting,” he said.
His voice was calm enough to be terrifying.
“Because you’re fired, Chloe.”
The room went still in the abrupt, disorienting way rooms do when people realize the performance has turned and nobody knows the next line. A fork clattered to the hardwood floor. My cousin Sophie let out a startled little breath. Chloe blinked rapidly, as if language itself had betrayed her.