Chapter 5 - The Correction
The first twenty minutes were almost funny.
People recognized her slowly.
“Oh, Catherine. You came.”
“How lovely.”
“Is that one of your little project folders?”
“Your sister must be thrilled.”
Paige was not thrilled.
She saw Catherine near the champagne table and went very still.
Then recovered.
That was Paige’s gift.
Recovery.
She crossed the ballroom with a glass in hand and a smile polished enough to cut fruit.
“Cat,” she said. “You made it.”
“I did.”
“I didn’t know you were coming.”
“I know.”
Paige’s eyes dropped to the portfolio.
“Still carrying homework?”
“Something like that.”
Paige stepped closer.
Her perfume was jasmine and money.
“Tonight is important. Please don’t be weird.”
Catherine looked at the stage.
At the projector.
At the donors.
“I wouldn’t dream of making your work look bad.”
Paige’s smile tightened.
Before she could answer, Lorraine appeared.
Her eyes moved from Catherine’s dress to the portfolio to the remote hidden mostly in her right fist.
“What is that?”
“A remote.”
“For what?”
Catherine looked at her mother.
“You’ll see.”
Lorraine’s face hardened.
“You were not invited.”
“You’re using my portfolio.”
“Lower your voice.”
That was always Lorraine’s first command.
Not tell the truth.
Not explain.
Lower your voice.
Catherine said nothing.
Paige laughed softly.
“Oh my God, are you still on that? You sent me files. I adapted them.”
“You changed the name.”
“I elevated the concept.”
“You plagiarized it.”
Paige’s eyes went flat.
“You should be grateful the work is being seen at all.”
There it was.
The real family motto.
Be grateful when we take from you.
Richard came over then.
He had the microphone in one hand and a speech card in the other.
“What is going on?”
Catherine looked at him.
“Ask Paige.”
Paige sighed.
“Catherine is having one of her episodes.”
Lorraine said, “I told you she would do this.”
Richard looked at Catherine with familiar disappointment.
Not surprise.
Not concern.
Disappointment.
The kind he kept ready for her, polished and accessible.
“This evening is not about you.”
Catherine smiled.
“That’s what Paige just said.”
“Then listen.”
His voice was low.
The public voice beneath the private warning.
“Leave quietly. I will handle this after the gala.”
“No.”
The word was simple.
It shocked them more than shouting.
Lorraine stepped closer.
“You do not get to walk into your sister’s night with some cheap folder and ruin—”
“Architectural portfolio,” Catherine said.
“What?”
“It’s not a cheap folder. It’s an architectural portfolio.”
Paige laughed.
Then guests began noticing.
That was when Lorraine panicked.
Not visibly at first.
But Catherine knew her mother’s panic.
It always dressed itself as outrage.
Lorraine seized Catherine’s chin.
“Look at me when I speak to you.”
Catherine did.
That was her last mistake, if it could be called one.
Lorraine’s nails cut across her face.
Now the ballroom was no longer pretending.
The white glow from the projector washed across Catherine’s scratched skin.
The first blank slide lit the screen behind Paige, though Catherine deliberately kept the real contents hidden.
Gasps moved through the room.
One donor whispered, “Is that blood?”
Lorraine looked at her own hand as if it belonged to someone else.
Tiny red lines marked two fingertips near the nail.
Paige’s champagne glass trembled.
Richard’s eyes remained on the remote.
“What have you done?” he asked.
Catherine opened the black portfolio another inch.
“You keep asking me that like I’m the one who stole something.”
Paige recovered first.
“She’s unstable,” Paige announced to the guests, voice bright but shaking. “She’s been jealous for years. I’m sorry everyone has to see this.”
Catherine pressed the remote again.
The blank white projection shifted.
Not to evidence.
Not yet.
Only to a title slide.
No readable details from the guests’ angle at first.
But Paige saw the layout.
Her stolen layout.
Her eyes widened.
May you like
Catherine smiled slightly.
“Recognize the grid?”
