Karen looked at Mia.
“No,” she said.
Brenda gave a short, humorless laugh.
“Then perhaps unemployment will give you time to reconsider.”
The cruelty of it hung in the room.
Karen’s face went hot.
She refused to look down.
Lorenzo’s expression became unreadable.
“How much do you make here?” he asked.
Karen blinked.
“I don’t think that’s relevant.”
“It is to what I’m about to say.”
Brenda’s eyes narrowed.
Karen hesitated, then told him.
Lorenzo nodded once.
“Come work for me.”
Silence.
Karen actually looked behind herself, as if another person might have been standing there.
“What?”
“Mia has people who protect her,” Lorenzo said.
“People who drive her.
People who organize every part of her day.
Apparently what she does not have enough of are people who understand when helping means becoming quieter instead of louder.”
Karen looked at Mia.
The girl was watching her hopefully.
“I’m not a specialist.”
“You did not pretend to be one.
That’s part of why I trust what I saw.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know what you did when you believed there was nothing to gain from doing it.”
That silenced her.
Lorenzo nodded toward the security camera.
“People reveal themselves when they think nobody important is watching.”
His gaze shifted briefly to Brenda.
“Today was useful that way.”
Brenda’s cheeks burned.
Karen stood slowly.
“What kind of job?”
“We discuss that before you agree to anything.
Hours.
Responsibilities.
Compensation.
You ask questions.
You say no if it doesn’t suit you.”
Karen almost laughed from sheer disbelief.
An hour earlier she had been folding silk blouses.
Now the most feared man in the room was carefully explaining that she was allowed to reject his offer.
“And Mia?”
“Mia gets a vote.”
Mia immediately said, “Yes.”
Lorenzo finally smiled.
It transformed his face so completely that Karen momentarily understood how the frightening man in newspaper photographs could also be the father who had dropped to his knees on marble without caring who saw him.
Karen was still afraid.
Not of him exactly.
Of the speed at which her life had changed.
She looked toward the back hallway where her locker waited.
