Chapter 5: The Note

The Larch Lake town hall has forty folding chairs and a flag that's been crooked since I was in school.

On Friday night there were eighty people in it.

Half of them had been at my party.

They'd come back for the second show.

Patty sat on my left in her good Carhartt, the one without burn holes. Four of my crew filled the row behind us.

My parents sat across the aisle with Chelsea between them.

She wore a sundress that showed off the bump and filmed the room in slow pans.

Dustin sat at the front in a navy blazer with a lawyer's folder he'd bought at an office store.

Hayes wasn't there.

At five past seven, the chair of the council tapped the microphone.

"We're here about the town's Labor Day fireworks contract," she said. "We have two parties claiming to speak for Blue Hour Fireworks."

"One," I said.

She looked at me over her glasses. "You'll get your turn, Ms. Buckley."

Dustin got his first.

He stood up and buttoned his blazer.

"I want to start by saying I care about Nadine. I always will."

Somebody in the back said, "Aw."

"But this is business. Last fall, when we got engaged, Nadine gave me half the company. She wrote it down herself."

He held up a sheet of paper and passed copies down the council table.

"I, Nadine Buckley, give Dustin Shepard fifty percent of Blue Hour Fireworks as my engagement gift."

My signature sat at the bottom in blue ink.

Mom nodded along.

"She's upset," Dustin said. "I get it. Nobody likes being left. But you can't take back a gift because your feelings got hurt."

He sat down.

The chair turned to me. "Ms. Buckley?"

I walked to the front with a manila envelope.

"That's my signature," I said. "But I never signed that paper."

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