The Encore of Us novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Board

The Brandvold board met in a room with a forty-foot table and a bowl of mints no one touched.

A portrait of Halvard Brandvold hung over the fireplace.

I stood against the back wall in my thrift-store coat.

Anders had asked me to come.

"I want you to see their faces," he'd said in the parking garage.

He had been calm when he said it.

Nine people sat around the table. Eight of them were over sixty, and every one wore good wool.

The ninth was Ingrid, at the head, with a leather folder in front of her and the pearls at her throat.

"Item four," the board chair said. He was the thin man in the gray overcoat, and he sounded as though his shoes pinched.

"A motion by the Foundation to remove Anders Brandvold as artistic director, for conduct unbecoming and for bringing the Hall into public disrepute."

He cleared his throat.

"Anders, you have the floor."

Anders stood.

He had a shoebox under his arm and a gray suit on, and he looked every inch his father's son.

I had never been so glad to see it.

"I'll be quick," he said. "I'd like to put something on the table."

He lifted the lid and began to lay envelopes down the polished wood.

One. Two. Three.

They made a soft slap as each landed, cream and white and pale blue.

They formed a long line from his chair toward the head of the table.

The room watched him.

Eighty-four letters is a long line.

By the fortieth, one of the women had put down her pen.

By the sixtieth, the chair was staring at the grain of the wood.

When the last envelope landed in front of Ingrid's folder, no one spoke.

"These were written by Linnea Nordahl," Anders said. "Over seven years, from the women's prison at Shakopee. Each of them is addressed to me."

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