My Family's Bonus Was a $5 Million IOU? Cute I Took the Million-Follower Brand Enjoy the Crash novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Stage

I read the lawsuit all the way through on New Year's Day, in Marge's kitchen, with a pencil.

At noon, Louisa called.

"Trent is doing a launch," she said. "Today. At the convention center. Mom told me to wear white."

"A launch of what?"

"The new Porch Light."

I put the pencil down.

"They have a stage," Louisa said. "They have a new logo, and a slide with your name taken off. The intern is going to read the captions live. Trent's calling it a fresh voice."

"How many people?"

"Three hundred. Press. Two buyers from other chains." Her voice dropped. "Willa, I don't want to stand up there."

"Then don't."

"I mean I don't want to stand up there next to her."

"Lulu. Come anyway. Stand in the back."

By two o'clock Marge had parked her truck across two spaces outside the convention center and was handing me a lanyard that said Staff.

"How did you get that?"

"I've worked for them for thirty years, honey. Nobody ever asks the packing floor anything."

Mitch was waiting at the side door.

He looked at the lanyard and then at my face.

"You don't have to do this," he said.

"I know."

"If you do it, I'm with you."

"That's what the terms are for," I said. "So I can say when."

I held out my hand.

He took it, and his fingers closed around mine for exactly as long as it took us to walk to the curtain.

It was a breach of every rule I had made.

I let it be.

The ballroom was dark, with a pale stage under a white spotlight and three hundred chairs turned toward it.

Trent stood in the center in a charcoal suit, with the new logo glowing behind him in cursive letters.

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