Chapter 17: Thirty Feet Wide

Elias's POV

The projector booth at the back of Marlow Hall was the size of a closet, and it smelled of hot dust.

I had spent Sunday night in it with a flashlight and a cable.

Now it was Monday at ten, the counter on the forum read 29, and four hundred people were taking their seats.

Dane stood beside me with the booth key in his hand.

"The student body president controls the booth at a town hall," he said. "Nobody's going to ask why."

I plugged the purple phone into the cable and checked the screen on the monitor.

It showed a gray box where the dean's wheel usually sat.

On the stage, three trustees in dark suits took the chairs behind a long table.

The dean sat at the end of it.

She wore a navy suit and a pearl pin, and she was smiling.

Beside her sat a tall man with a gray beard, who kept pressing his knuckles into one eye.

He was Professor R., and one of his socks was navy and the other was gray.

I looked at the dean's shoes.

A black smear of tar ran across the heel of her left pump, and there was gravel dust on the toe.

I didn't know what it meant yet.

I put it away for later.

Jo sat three rows from the front with Roxanne beside her.

She didn't look back at the booth.

A trustee in a gray tie tapped the microphone.

"Welcome to Wexford Strong," he said. "We are here to heal."

"Thank you, Mr. Chairman," the dean said, and stood. "This has been the hardest month in our history."

She spoke about Corinna's tragic death.

She called the rumors a cruelty the college regretted.

"And no one," she said, "is more grateful than I am that our community pulled together."

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