"That's true," Claire said.
The girl nodded, as if a true thing were not an ending. The ribbon at the back of her head had loosened a fraction. She tucked her chin, shy and not retreating.
"Will you try?"
The woman exhaled through a smile that had decided to become an event. She set the glass down. The bracelet clicked once against the stem, a tiny gavel. She looked at Claire the way a person looks at a dare she believes she has already won, and she included, with a small turn of the shoulder, the diners near enough to witness the winning.
"Go ahead. Give everyone a show."
Claire looked at the piano. She looked at the maître d' station across the room, where Martin Hale was bent over a reservation book, not yet seeing. She looked at the girl's hand on the cloth. Somewhere under the apron her pulse had opinions. The rule was simple and had been said to her in an office three years ago, and again last winter when a guest had tried to sit a nephew down at the keys during dessert: staff did not play the Steinway. The Steinway was not a mascot. The Steinway was a scheduled instrument in a room that sold control.
She lifted the tray, crossed the short distance, and set the pitcher on a sideboard where it would not sweat onto wood that mattered. Then she walked to the bench. A few heads turned because a uniform moving toward an instrument is a plot, whether the room wants a plot or not. She drew the bench out. The legs made a quiet, definite sound on the floor. She sat. The height was a little off. She did not adjust it yet. Her hands rested on her thighs, just above the apron, and she could feel the heat of her own skin through the black fabric. The keys waited, uncovered, a long sentence with no verb.
The woman blinked. The public smile faltered into something more honest, which was not the same as kinder.
Claire met her eyes.