Chapter 4: Red Carpet

The Meridian album launch was in a converted theater in Hollywood, and I had built half of its stage.

Seven years ago, before anyone knew her name, I had bolted Lena's first riser together there for sixty dollars and a sandwich.

Tonight I walked in the back loading door in black crew clothes, with a headset around my neck and Maura's badge clipped to my belt.

Nobody looked twice.

A man carrying a tool bag is invisible in a building full of people who want to be seen.

"Stage left," Maura said beside me, in my ear. "The audience mic runs on a crew wire. I put you on it an hour ago."

"Who put you on the roster?"

"Nobody checked the roster," she said. "Remember that. It's the saddest sentence in show business."

She went to find a seat at the back of the floor.

I stood in the dark at the side of the stage with a cordless microphone in my hand.

Eight hundred people filled the room, and every one of them had a phone.

At nine o'clock the lights dropped.

Lena walked out into a white spotlight in a long silver gown, and the crowd stood up.

She sang three songs and I stood in the wings and listened to all of them.

She held her left hand low against her stomach the whole time.

Brandon watched from the front row with the ring on his hand.

When she finished, the host came out and sat beside her in two gold chairs.

"Lena, we've had a rough couple of days," the host said. "I know you want to say something."

The crowd made a soft, sympathetic noise.

"I do." Lena put a hand to her chest. "Brandon and I got married quietly on Friday. It was the happiest day of my life."

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