“Mr. Lin asked for those schedules,” Naomi said. “Was that because of something I said?”
“It was because of something he heard.” Priya lowered her voice. “The investors have had concerns about the public-access commitments for weeks. Victor says the English and Chinese versions are identical. They haven’t been able to reconcile the language in the latest summary.”
“Are you asking me to interpret them?”
“No. I’m telling you why the mood changed.”
Naomi nodded. “I don’t want to be pulled into a confidential deal because I happened to be carrying wine.”
“Fair. You’ve already been put on display against your will.” Priya glanced toward the tables. “But if someone offers you a job tomorrow, read the agreement before you say yes.”
The comment lingered. Naomi returned to the service station, where Elena had placed a fresh glass of water beside her tray. A younger server named Jason was watching her with open astonishment.
“You really spoke that fast?” he asked.
“It wasn’t a race.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That people aren’t figures in a construction budget.”
Jason nodded as though he understood, although she could tell he wanted the dramatic version. She picked up a stack of dessert menus. The tables still needed service. The night had not been canceled because a powerful man had embarrassed himself.
Near the exit, Henry Lin stopped on his way to take a call. “Miss Carter,” he said, “you mentioned that you once worked as an interpreter. I hope that evening did not make you regret learning our language.”
“No,” she said. “It reminded me why I learned it.”
He studied her for a moment. “Good. Because tomorrow, someone may try to turn a very important sentence into another meaning.”
Naomi looked at him, but Henry had already stepped into the hallway, leaving her with a check in the safe and a warning she had not asked to receive.
Chapter 4 — A Check and a Camera
By midnight, the restaurant had stopped pretending the wager was a private embarrassment. Phones glowed at the bar. A dishwasher asked Elena if the woman in the video was really Naomi. Two servers replayed the moment Henry Lin declared her fluent and applauded at precisely the wrong time, making Naomi wince.
“Could everybody please finish closing?” Daniel asked. “A viral video does not mean we can leave knives in the soaking sink.”
Naomi stayed to polish glasses because leaving early felt like giving the night more power than it deserved. She worked beside Elena while Daniel counted cash in the office. The regular sounds steadied her: bottles clicking into racks, the hiss of the sanitizer, rain beginning against the service entrance.
“Did you know he would make that bet?” Elena asked.
“Of course not.”
“Would you have done it for five dollars?”
Naomi considered. “I would have asked him why he needed me to perform at all.”
“And for a hundred thousand?”
“I asked the same question in a more expensive way.”
Elena laughed, then grew serious. “Marcus is going to lose his mind.”
Marcus was home working on scholarship applications. Their father had vanished years before; their mother had been their constant until illness took her away. Naomi had promised that whatever happened to her career, her brother would not have to abandon his education because the family ran out of time or money.
She checked her phone. Thirty-eight missed notifications. One message from Marcus read: Why is my biology teacher sending me a video of YOU? Below it: Are you okay? Call me.
Naomi rang him from the empty pantry.
“Please tell me that’s real,” he said before hello.
“It happened.”
“You won a hundred thousand dollars?”
“A man wrote a check. We still have to see whether a bank agrees with him.”
“Is that why everybody is sharing it? They keep calling him a billionaire. He looks like someone who yells at traffic.”
“Marcus.”
“Sorry. Are you hurt?”
The question landed differently from all the others. She sat on an overturned crate. “Not physically.”
“He was horrible to you.”
“Yes.”
“I want to find him and—”
“No. You are going to finish your scholarship essay, and I am going to come home. We are not letting a stranger choose what kind of night we become.”
He was quiet. “Mom would have laughed when you corrected him.”
“She would have corrected my grammar afterward.”
That finally made him laugh. When Naomi ended the call, the kitchen felt less empty.
Meanwhile, in a private car pulling away from the Meridian, Victor Hale watched the same video without sound. His face filled the screen at the instant he laughed at Naomi’s Stanford degree. He looked smug, unkind, and—worst of all—unaware that anybody might disagree with him. The clip had already reached tens of thousands of viewers.
“Delete it,” he told Priya.
“We can’t delete strangers’ recordings.”
“Then have legal send notices.”
“You had no expectation of privacy in the public dining room, and the recordings are not the main problem.”
“What is?”