Chapter 9: Guest House

By midnight the video had four million views.

I watched it on Margo's couch with a blanket over my knees, in her guest house at the edge of the festival grounds.

Somebody in the front row had filmed it from the moment I said "Wait."

Under it, the comments rolled past faster than I could read.

She wrote every word of it.

Ask the cousin to play the bridge.

Did he really say his wife was ill?

Others were not so kind.

She ruined the biggest night of his life.

Poor girl, you can tell she's unwell.

I put the phone face down.

Margo set a mug of broth on the table and sat beside me with her glasses pushed up into her hair.

"Brandon's people released a statement an hour ago," she said. "A family health matter. He asks for privacy for his wife."

"Of course he does."

"Piper has not spoken. Her mother took her home."

"Good."

"Lydia." Margo looked at me over the rim of her own mug. "I taught you from nine to eighteen. You never once lied to me. What are you hiding?"

I had not meant to say it tonight.

I had not meant to say it to anyone until I could stand without shaking.

But Margo had pulled a stool up to a piano for me when I was nine and kept me practicing through the year my father left.

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