Chapter 12: What's Your Name

The check was right in front of my face.

I could read it.

Pay to the order of the Juniper Theatre. Forty thousand dollars and no cents.

The camera lights were so hot I could feel them on my arms.

The song was still playing.

His voice, singing my father's blue truck to everyone I knew.

"Somebody turn that off," I said.

Nobody did.

Hal held the microphone out toward me.

"Say thank you, Lena."

I leaned into it.

"No," I said.

It came out of every speaker in the building.

The song cut off in the middle of a word.

Somebody in the booth had finally hit the switch.

Hal's smile didn't move. He was very good at that.

"No?" he said. "Sweetheart, it's for your theatre."

"It's paid for with my words. I didn't sell them. So no."

Nobody in the Juniper made a sound.

Then the board chair stepped forward.

She was seventy years old and she had given her whole life to that building.

She took the check out of Hal's fingers with both hands.

"The Juniper accepts," she said. "With gratitude."

She didn't look at me.

Someone in row H started clapping.

Then a few more.

Not everyone. But enough.

Hal smiled at me over the top of the board chair's head.

I took the microphone out of his hand.

I didn't plan it.

I just turned toward row F.

He was standing now, with the camera light on him and the star on his wrist, and three men with cameras in the aisle around him.

"What's your name?" I said into the microphone.

It echoed off the painted peach branches.

He looked at me.

His face was white.

"Lena..."

"You said after the benefit. You said ask you. So I'm asking. In front of everybody. What's your name?"

He swallowed.