Chapter 20: Founders' Day

Founders' Day began at ten with a brass band on the harbor hall steps and a hundred paper flags on the lawn.

I was in the hall by nine, in the green cardigan I'd worn to four of the Bradlee parties.

It still had a faint stain on the cuff from a Christmas punch bowl.

I had chosen it on purpose.

The big room smelled of floor wax and coffee, and the folding chairs were set out in rows facing the far wall.

Above the wall hung a long brass hook, empty, where the Bradlee family portrait had hung every June for eleven years.

Beneath it a small brass plate still said "The Bradlee Family."

Nobody had thought to take it down.

Teagan stood on a stepladder, taping a banner to the stage rail, with her red braid over one shoulder.

"I can't believe the committee let us do this," she said.

"They didn't let us," I said. "The man in the fishing cap said, and I quote, 'Nobody told me not to.'"

"Good enough for me."

At the back of the hall, Sabrina sat in the little booth that held the projector and the sound board.

She hadn't said much since Tuesday.

She'd brought a thermos of tea and a laptop, and she kept looking at the screen.

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