Chapter 21: Play It

The film was four minutes long, and it was beautifully made.

It began with the photo of my lit window at 2:14 in the morning.

Then came the green truck, and Rafe on my stoop at dawn.

Last came a long-lens shot of the two of us kissing in the rain.

A woman's voice read over it, calm and kind, the voice of a charity appeal.

"Some families are tested by those they trust most."

"A wife who grew bored. A brother who vanished and returned. A scandal built for the cameras."

Two hundred people looked at the screen, and then, one table at a time, they looked at me.

I kept my hands in my pockets and sat very straight.

The film ended on a still of my face from the stage door, caught mid-sentence, with my mouth open.

The lights came up halfway.

Constance lowered her glass.

"The board will now," she began.

I stood up.

"Constance, I have a film too."

"Sit down, Joanna. This is not the time."

"It's exactly the time."

I looked down the ballroom to the AV riser, where the foreman stood with his hands behind his back.

The sound technician beside him looked at me, and then at Constance.

Constance said, "The Foundation's equipment is not available."

At the board's table, a woman set down her fork.

It was the woman who had put her pen down in the boardroom.

"Play it," she said.

"Sit down," said Constance.

"No. Play it," the woman said again, louder. "I'd like to see what she's so afraid of."

The old woman in lavender thumped her cane on the floor.

"Play it, young man."

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