Chapter 9: Reunion Eve

By Friday night, the Legion Hall looked like a high school gym that had swallowed a streamer factory.

Dolly stood on the stage in her fanny pack with a roll of tape in her teeth, supervising six Auxiliary ladies on stepladders.

A banner over the podium said TERN LAKE HIGH, CLASS OF 2016, TEN YEARS LATER.

"Closet's through that door," Dolly said around the tape.

"The Auxiliary has the master key. Shayla's cousin thinks he has the only one."

"Dolly."

"What? I've had it since 1998. He can think what he wants."

The AV closet was the size of a coat cupboard.

A projector cable came out of the wall, and a rack of gear blinked.

I didn't touch the thumb drive.

I didn't need to.

I opened the trunk of my car, took out a hard plastic case, and set it on the folding table with a click.

Inside lay a wireless handheld microphone, a spare battery pack, and a presentation clicker.

"What is that?" Dolly said.

"I'm a banquet manager. I own seven wireless microphones. It's like owning shoes."

"Which one are you wearing tomorrow?"

"The one nobody can turn off."

I tested it from the stage.

My voice came out of the ceiling speakers like it belonged there.

【Sue: She brought her own mic. That's not in anyone's script.】

【Pete: That's the first smart thing anybody's done in this town since 1994.】

【Helen: Is it going to be a sad speech?】

The back door banged.

Shayla's cousin came in, a lanky man of about twenty-six in a sound-company polo.

He carried a laptop under one arm and a thumb drive on a lanyard.

He saw me on the stage with a microphone, and his face went the color of cold oatmeal.

"You can't be in here," he said.

"Auxiliary," Dolly said, without turning from her stepladder. "She's with me."

"Shayla said nobody touches the system."