THE PHONE AT THE STAGE DOOR

I had just seen the phone when Victor came up behind the stagehand.

The young man moved aside. Victor stepped through the stage door in his grey polo shirt and dark chinos, a set of car keys clenched in his hand. His short brown hair was damp at the temples.

He stopped dead.

Ella was crying on the rug. The split sandbag lay inches from her, sand spread around my knees. Camille stood beside the prop table, one hand pressed to her white shirt.

Victor hadn’t seen the bag fall. He hadn’t seen whose hands had held it.

Camille pointed down at me.

“She did it!”

Victor crossed the floor before I could get up. He caught my arm and pulled me to my feet. I opened my mouth, but his hand struck the side of my face.

My head snapped around. I stumbled into a hanging rope, lost my footing, and fell back onto the boards. My glove landed in the spilled sand.

“Victor—” I began.

He dropped to the rug and scooped Ella against his chest. Her bare feet kicked against his shirt. He ran a hand over her curls, then checked her arms and legs.

“She’s all right,” Camille said. “I was trying to get Rosa away from her.”

I tasted blood where my teeth had caught the inside of my cheek. From the floor, I could see past Victor to the stage door. The young stagehand still had his phone raised.

I pointed at him.

“He’s recording.”

Camille turned so quickly that her charcoal jacket swung open.

“Is he recording?”

The stagehand lowered the phone a few inches. “Yes.”

Camille took a step toward him. “Give that to me.”

He backed against the door. “No.”

Victor looked from him to Camille. Ella had stopped crying, but her fingers were twisted tightly in his collar.

“What did you get?” Victor asked.

Camille put out her hand. “He shouldn’t be filming backstage. There are rules about that.”

The stagehand kept the phone against his chest. He couldn’t have been much older than twenty. His thumb hovered over the screen, and I could see it shaking.

“I started when I heard you yelling,” he said.

Camille’s hand stayed out. “Delete it.”

“No,” Victor said.

She looked at him. “Victor, you saw Rosa on the floor next to the bag.”

“I saw her after it fell.”

“She knocked it over.”

“Then the video will show that.”

Camille dropped her hand. I pushed myself up on one elbow, and a sting ran across my cheek. Victor glanced at me, then looked away.

The stagehand tapped his phone. Sound came out thin and sharp: Ella crying, ropes rattling, Camille’s voice shouting, “Shut up!”

Camille lunged for the device. Victor moved between them, holding Ella close.

“Play it,” he said.

The stagehand turned the screen toward him. I couldn’t see it from where I sat, but I heard my own voice.

“Put her down!”

There was a scrape, a thud, and Ella’s scream. Then the stagehand stopped the recording.

Victor watched the dark screen for a moment. “Again.”

This time the stagehand held it so I could see too. The picture wobbled as he came through the outer doorway, but Camille was clear enough beneath the work light. Both her hands were around the sandbag. She had it raised over Ella.

Then I came into the frame.

Victor paused the video with his finger. Camille was frozen with the bag in her hands, my green sleeve just visible at the edge.

“That’s not what it looks like,” she said.

He lifted his eyes to her. “What does it look like?”

“The rigging crew left that bag where she could get to it. I picked it up.”

“Above her head?”

“I was moving it.”

“You shouted at her.”

“She wouldn’t stop crying.”

Ella’s fingers opened against Victor’s collar. He shifted her onto his other arm, away from Camille.

I got my feet under me and stood, using the prop table for support. Sand clung to my gloves. A red mark had appeared on my wrist where Victor had grabbed me.

He saw it. His mouth opened, but Camille spoke first.

“Rosa startled me,” she said. “She came charging in and knocked the bag out of my hands.”

“I caught at it,” I said. My cheek hurt when I spoke. “You dropped it.”

Camille pointed toward the screen. “You can see her diving at me.”

The stagehand looked at me. “You didn’t touch her. You went for the bag.”

Camille turned on him. “What’s your name?”

He hesitated.

“I asked you a question.”

“Don’t answer her,” Victor said.

“She works for me,” Camille said, pointing at me, “and so does he.”

The stagehand slid his phone into his pocket. “I work for the theater.”

Camille gave a short laugh. “And who do you think runs it?”

A voice came through the open stage door. “What happened back there?”

A woman wearing a headset appeared behind the stagehand. I knew her as the stage manager; she’d asked me to clear a spill near the dressing rooms that morning. She looked at Ella, then at the sand on the floor.

“Get security,” Victor told her. “And call the police.”

Camille’s face changed. “There’s no need to involve the police.”

Victor kept his eyes on the stage manager. “Please.”

The woman touched her headset and stepped back through the door, speaking into its microphone.

Camille followed her as far as the threshold. “Tell them it’s handled.”

The stagehand blocked the opening. He wasn’t broad, but he planted both feet and stayed there.

“It isn’t,” he said.

Camille stopped. She looked down at the phone-shaped outline in his pocket.

“Do you know what happens if you put that online?”

“I didn’t say I was putting it online.”

“You recorded my workplace without permission.”

“You were holding a sandbag over a baby.”

Camille drew herself up. “You don’t know what you saw.”

“I do. And I’ve got it on my phone.”

He took it out again, tapped the screen, and held it close. Camille watched his fingers.

“What are you doing?”

“Saving a copy.”

“Don’t you dare.”

He kept tapping.

Victor came over to me, still carrying Ella. Up close, I could see grains of sand caught in the fold of her romper. He brushed them off with two fingers.

“I hit you,” he said.

I touched my cheek. “You did.”

“I thought you’d hurt her.”

“You didn’t ask.”

He looked at the floor. “No.”

Ella reached toward me. I had wiped her face after lunch, and she’d spent several minutes trying to pull my headscarf loose while I carried her back to Camille. I held out one finger. She wrapped her small hand around my glove.

Victor’s keys were still in his fist. He set them on the prop table so he could hold her more securely.

“I’ll tell them what I did,” he said.

I looked at the stage door, where the stage manager was speaking to someone outside. “You should.”

Camille came back toward us. “Victor, you brought Ella here. You asked me to watch her.”

“For five minutes. You said it was fine.”

“I had a rehearsal to prepare.”

“You could have called me.”

“I did.”

Victor frowned. “You called?”

“Twice.”

He shifted Ella and pulled his phone from his pocket. After a few taps, he held the screen out. “One call. At eleven fourteen.”

“That’s when she started crying.”

“It’s eleven sixteen.”

Camille looked at the phone, then at the broken sandbag. A small stream of sand was still trickling from its torn seam.

“I was going to put it on the prop table,” she said.

“There was room on the floor,” I said. “There was room anywhere but over her.”

Camille faced me. “You can leave, Rosa.”

I stayed where I was.

“I’m your boss. Go home.”

“My mop is still in the hall,” I said.

“Then collect it and get out.”

Victor put his phone away. “She’s staying.”

Camille’s jaw tightened. “You don’t get to decide who works here.”

“No,” he said. “But the police can speak to her before she goes.”

Footsteps sounded beyond the stage door. The stage manager returned with a security guard, a large man wearing a black jacket with the theater’s name embroidered on it. He took in the sandbag and the baby, then stood beside the door.

“Police are on their way,” the stage manager said.

Camille folded her arms. “I want that video deleted. He had no permission to record.”

The guard looked at the stagehand. “Keep your phone with you. Don’t delete anything.”

Camille stared at him. “I can have you removed from this building.”

“Not before they get here,” he said.

She walked to the prop table and picked up Victor’s keys. For a second I thought she might throw them. Instead, she placed them carefully back down.

“I have a show opening this week,” she said.

The stage manager stepped around the sand and picked up a loose rope that had fallen across the walkway. “Then someone else will have to run rehearsal today.”

Camille opened her mouth.

“I heard what he said,” the stage manager went on, nodding at the stagehand. “And I saw the frame on his phone.”

“You’re taking his word over mine?”

“I’m keeping everyone here until the police arrive.”

The red curtain stirred as someone crossed the stage on the other side. A strip of brighter light widened and narrowed again. Behind us, Ella made a sleepy sound and rested her cheek against Victor’s shoulder.

I peeled off one glove. Sand poured from the cuff onto the boards. My palm was scraped where I’d fallen, with a dark speck caught in the skin.

The stage manager noticed. “There’s a first-aid kit in the office.”

“I’ll get it,” Victor said.

“You stay with Ella,” I told him.

The stage manager went instead. Victor picked up his keys and moved closer to the door, where the air was cooler. Camille watched him go, but he didn’t turn toward her.

The stagehand came over to me. “I sent the copy to myself,” he said quietly. “And to my sister. She won’t post it.”

“Thank you.”

He looked at my cheek. “I should’ve come in sooner.”

“You kept the phone up.”

He nodded and put it away again.

When the police arrived, the guard led them backstage. One officer spoke to Victor while the other asked the stagehand about his recording. Camille tried to answer for him, but the officer raised a hand.

“I need to hear from him.”

The stage manager brought me the first-aid kit. I sat on a low crate beside the prop table and cleaned my palm while the officers watched the video. Victor stood a few feet away with Ella asleep against him.

Then one of the officers came over.

“Can you tell me what happened?” she asked.

I set the blood-specked gauze on my knee. Camille was watching from across the sand-covered floor.

“I heard Ella crying,” I said. “I came through those ropes and saw Camille holding the sandbag over her.”

The officer wrote it down. I told her about the dive, the fall, and Victor coming through the door. When I reached the slap, Victor stepped closer.

“That was me,” he said. “I did it.”

The officer looked at me. “Would you like to make a report about that too?”

Victor stood still, Ella’s sleeping hand curled against his collar. I pressed the clean gauze to my scraped palm.

“Yes,” I said. “Both of them.”