He smiled.
It was not a kind smile.
It happened fast, and it happened slowly, the way terrible things do β fast in the body, slow in the memory, so that afterward Daphne would remember every second of it in perfect, unwanted detail.
Braddock rose from his chair in the front row. He did not ask for the microphone. He did not wait for permission. He simply stood, and the room, trained by years of his money, quieted to hear what he wanted.
He pointed at Daphne.
Not in her direction. At her. One finger, extended across the ballroom, steady as a rifle sight.
Black skin and dirty clothes. Look at this. You make me sick.
Two hundred heads turned. Two hundred pairs of eyes found her at the back of the room, tray in her hands, apron over her dress, the plastic bag folded in her pocket. Daphne felt the stares like a physical weight, pressing her back against the wall she had not realized she was touching.
Braddock crossed the room in long strides, and before she could move β before she could think β his hand closed around her arm, hard, above the elbow, and he pulled. The tray clattered to the floor. Glass broke. Someone gasped. He dragged her forward, through the tables, up the steps to the stage, his grip never loosening, his face set in a smile that was all teeth. The walk felt endless. Chairs scraped as people drew back to let them pass. A wineglass toppled somewhere and no one moved to catch it. Daphne's feet stumbled on the carpet, on the hem of her apron, on nothing at all, and each time she caught herself she felt the room's eyes follow her like a spotlight she could not step out of. She could hear her own breathing, too loud in her ears, and the rustle of her dress, and the terrible, polished quiet of two hundred people waiting to be entertained.
A Black orphan who thinks she can waltz. He laughed, and he turned to the room as if sharing a joke with old friends. "Delusional."
The room laughed.
It was not all of them. It was not even most of them, at first β but it was enough. It was Vivian Ashford, her hand over her mouth, laughing behind it. It was the men at the front tables, chuckling into their drinks. It was a wave that started small and grew, because laughter in a room like that is contagious, and because no one wanted to be the one person not laughing at Cornelius Braddock's joke.
He shoved her toward the center of the stage, toward the open floor where the band stood silent.
Dance, damn it. He spread his arms wide, playing to the crowd. "Do it right, I'll adopt you."
More laughter. Louder now. Daphne stood alone in the middle of the stage, under the chandeliers, her apron askew, her arm aching where he had gripped it, her face burning so hot she thought she might be sick. Two hundred people were looking at her, and she could feel every one of them. The laughter had a shape to it β it started at the front tables, where Braddock's friends sat, and rolled backward through the room like a wave breaking on a shore, picking up voices as it went. Some laughed because they thought it was funny. Some laughed because everyone around them was laughing. A few did not laugh at all, and Daphne, even through the blur of heat in her face, noticed those few: a woman with her hands folded tight in her lap, an older man staring at his plate, Evelyn at the edge of the crowd with her face gone white. The laughter was the worst part. Worse than the grip on her arm. Worse than the pointing. Because laughter made it a joke, and a joke made it something the room could enjoy together, at her expense.
Her fingers found the plastic bag in her pocket. She pulled it out β she did not decide to, her hands simply did it, the way a drowning person reaches for rope β and she held it against her chest with both hands. Her fingers white-knuckled the plastic, crushing it around the shape of the shoes inside, the beaten-up silver shoes, her mother's shoes, the only thing in the world that was truly hers.
Braddock leaned in close, his voice dropping to a mockery meant to be overheard. "What did you say to me?"
For a moment Daphne could not speak at all. Her throat had closed around the words, and her heart was beating so hard she was sure the microphone would pick it up. She thought of the hall at Whitmore, of the moonlight on the floorboards, of her mother's feet moving in a kitchen that no longer existed. She thought of Evelyn's warning β be grateful, be quiet β and of the twins asleep with a picture book on their chests, and of what the home would lose if she answered back. And then she thought of the silver shoes in the bag against her chest, and of the fact that no one in this room had the right to make her small, not even the man who paid for the roof over her head. Dignity, she understood in that moment, was not something Braddock could grant her. It was something she already had, and all she had to do was refuse to hand it over.
Daphne looked up at him. Her voice, when it came, was barely a whisper β but it was steady, and it was hers.
I don't need you to adopt me.
A ripple went through the room. Braddock's smile faltered. He bent closer. "What did you say to me?"