Chapter 19: Citizen of the Year

The Grange hall held two hundred people on folding chairs, and by seven every chair was taken.

Somebody had hung a banner across the stage that said CITIZEN OF THE YEAR in gold letters.

Under it stood a lectern, a screen, and a long table with a brass plaque on a stand.

Beside the plaque was a fat white candle on a glass dish, and next to the candle, a box of kitchen matches.

At the back of the hall, a phone sat on a tripod with a ring light around it and a small red dot glowing.

Daisy had told the whole town she'd be streaming.

I wore a green dress I had bought for the dance.

It had no back.

The ink had faded to the color of an old bruise, but the letters could still be read from the aisle.

I walked down that aisle with Cal on one side of me and Peg on the other, and I felt the talk stop at every row.

Cal's father came behind us in the wheelchair, pushed by the old rancher.

The old rancher had put on a tie.

We took the front row, the five of us, and a woman I knew from the east road, who ran sheep, shuffled down her chair to make room.

"Been wanting to sit with you for a month," she said.

On the other side of the aisle, my father sat near the stage in a good suit with his cane between his knees.

He did not look at me.

My mother sat beside him with her purse in her lap and both hands on the clasp.

She did look at me, once, and she looked away fast.

At seven-fifteen the lights went down.

Daisy stepped out in a cream dress with her hair curled, holding a clicker.

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