Chapter 11: Spaghetti on the Stage

"He bought our building," Zelda said. "He bought it. With money."

"That's generally how you buy a building."

"In one afternoon? After you made fun of his ring?"

"Before. The email says this afternoon. I made fun of his ring at three."

We both looked at the case board.

I took the EDMUND card off the bar and pinned it to the wall.

Right in the middle.

[ok he's definitely the villain]

[or the author wants us to think so]

[guys the cousin is a side character. he's like four lines in the whole book]

[maybe the book just never let him talk]

The notice came Friday morning, by hand.

A young man in a Northcott jacket delivered it, and I followed him to the curb to see his face.

It wasn't the face from the alley. Too young, too tall, and he said "Have a great day" like he meant it.

The notice was one page.

The building would not be renewing any leases. Our term ended April 1.

As a courtesy, the new owner would allow us to stay until May 1.

After that we were to remove all property and surrender the keys.

At the bottom someone had added, in blue pen, "Good luck with the show!"

Zelda read it over my shoulder and said a word my old Hamlet would never use onstage.

I read it again.

Edmund was paying me forty thousand dollars to stage his reopening.

He had just made sure I'd have nowhere to stage anything after it.

That night the whole troupe came anyway.

Nobody called a meeting. They just showed up, when somebody gets dumped or a parent goes in the hospital.

The twins brought two boxes of spaghetti and a sauce their mother swears by.

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