Chapter 5: The Check

Aubrey's POV

On Wednesday I woke at 5:10 without a bell, and lay in the dark with my heart going.

The radiator banged twice.

Nobody needed a pill.

Nobody needed sixty-four degrees.

I lay there for ten minutes with my hands on my ribs, waiting to be needed, and then I laughed at the ceiling.

On Thursday I taught my first lesson in six years.

There were nine of them, ages seven to twelve, and one violin had a rubber band holding the bridge on.

The girl with the missing front teeth sat down in the front row and folded her arms.

"Are you the lady who said no to the tall man?" she said.

"I might be."

"My dad says you've got guts."

"Your dad is a very smart man," I said.

"He's also loud," she said. "Can I play a scale?"

She played it, and she played it badly, and I showed her where the second finger went.

At the end of the hour she held up her hand and wiggled her second finger at me.

"I found it," she said.

"You did," I said.

Thad handed me an envelope after class with sixty dollars in it, in fives and ones.

I held it for a while.

It was the first money I had earned since I was twenty-five.

At a quarter to five, the side door opened and a woman walked in on high heels.

She had a sleek blonde bob and a camel coat, and she held her handbag in front of her with both hands.

The children went quiet.

"Aubrey," she said, and smiled with half her mouth. "I'm Juliette."

I knew her face from a photo I had once found in the back of Max's desk.

It had been taken at a lake, eight years ago, when she was twenty-seven and laughing.

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