A Slight Smile Is Very Charming on a Stone Face novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: The Panel
The ninth floor looked like a different building on Friday morning.
Someone had moved the desks against the walls and set out rows of folding chairs.
A table with a white cloth stood at the front.
Two television cameras stood on tripods in the aisle.
By ten o'clock the chairs were full.
I counted twenty-six claimants, and I knew every face.
The roofer from Lakewood sat in the second row with his arms crossed.
The woman from Slavic Village had brought a thermos.
At the back, in the last row by the door, my father sat straight in his good flannel with his cap on his knee.
Beside him sat the old man from Euclid in his wrong-buttoned cardigan, and his daughter held his cane.
Tobias sat in the third row, on the aisle, with his sketchbook closed on his lap.
He did not wave.
He only looked at me, and I felt it at my back.
Joan sat beside the front table with her red glasses on and her chin high.
In the far corner stood a woman in a grey coat whom I did not know.
She had her arms folded and a thick folder under one elbow.
She had not been introduced, and Bressler had not looked at her once.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of A Slight Smile Is Very Charming on a Stone Face are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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