My Publicist Mother Called My 8-Year-Old Daughter Useless At My Sister's $400,000 Malibu Wedding — Until Lily Stole The DJ Mic And Broadcasted The Studio Audio
The dinner service began, and the clinking of cutlery filled the temporary quiet. Eleanor had moved on to praising Julian’s business acumen, her voice now a pleasant hum in the background. My own stomach growled, but I pushed the feeling down. We were still waiting for water, for anything.
“Mom,” Lily whispered, her voice tiny. “I’m thirsty.”
I squeezed her hand. “I know, sweetie. I’m trying to get someone’s attention.”
I spotted a catering manager, a woman with a harried expression, passing by our table. I raised my hand.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Could we please get some water over here?”
She paused, then glanced nervously towards the head table. Her eyes flickered to me, then to Lily.
“Table 14?” she asked, her voice low. “I’ll… I’ll see what I can do.”
She walked away quickly, not making eye contact. Lily watched her go, a small frown on her face.
“Don’t worry,” I told Lily, pulling out my old work tablet from my bag. It was mostly for games now, but I still had my audio software on it. “We’ll figure it out.”
I started scrolling through a kid’s drawing app for her, just to keep her occupied. The manager was still gone.
“I need to find the restroom,” I said, handing Lily the tablet. “Can you hold onto this for a minute? Don’t let anyone take it.”
Lily nodded, her eyes already fixed on the drawing app. Her fingers tapped across the screen, a familiar motion. She’d watched me use my tablet to edit audio for years, picking up on my habits.
I walked toward the back of the venue, past the sound booth I’d spotted earlier. Marcus, the sound engineer, was inside, fussing with a tangle of wires. He didn’t look up.
As I made my way through the crowd, Eleanor’s words still echoed in my ears: *“Leverage their connections… for personal gain.”* The anger was a slow burn, but I pushed it aside. Lily needed me calm.
Meanwhile, back at the table, Lily had grown bored with the drawing app. She remembered the network name Marcus had casually mentioned during his sound check: “Malibu Event Server.” She’d heard him say my old username, too, “AudioMaya,” when he’d talked about the old studio cloud backups.
She’d seen me log in a hundred times. My password was saved on the tablet, a simple string of numbers and letters I’d chosen long ago and hadn’t bothered to change. She found the familiar “Connect to Cloud” icon in the corner of the network settings.
With a few quick taps, the tablet connected. The file directory for “Malibu Event Server” popped up. She saw my old project folders, labeled “CHLOE-VOCALS_PROJECT” and “ELEANOR_MEETINGS.” She didn’t understand what they were, but she recognized my name on them. She clicked the “CHLOE-VOCALS_PROJECT” folder. A single, large audio file was nestled inside. She pressed ‘download’. The progress bar crawled across the screen.
No one noticed the small, silent transfer taking place. Not me, as I searched for the restroom. Not the waiters, still avoiding Table 14. Not Eleanor, lost in her own grand speech.
More Stories
+ There are no comments
Add yours