Helena Compared Two Schedules Beside The Cold Festival Coffee

At seven twenty, I parked near the festival office with the original records inside a biscuit tin.

Rain had collected along the curb. Across the street, someone was setting out pumpkins beneath an awning. Brattleboro looked busy and ordinary, which felt almost rude.

I had brought Not Yet in my coat pocket. His wooden tail pressed against my wrist.

Garrett was already inside, making Helena laugh about a missing sandwich tray.

He stopped when he saw the tin.

"This is getting silly," he said.

Helena set three mugs on the table.

"Then the papers should make it simple."

She wore a soft blue sweater and had brought reading glasses on a cord. Her voice could have soothed a child through a storm. Her pencil rested exactly beside the signature line on Garrett's contract.

I laid out my schedule. She placed his printout next to it.

"May I handle the original?"

"Yes."

She turned each page slowly.

"These first two pages have initials," she said. "The supplied copy does not."

Garrett reached for his mug.

"I rebuilt the file from an earlier draft. The scanner was being difficult."

"You attached the signed final page to a draft?" I asked.

"It's all the same agreement."

"Read the first sentence."

He stared at me.

I read it aloud. Then I read the first sentence on his version.

The office clock clicked into the space between them.

"Emi," he said, "we've called it company equipment in every load-in sheet for eight years."

"We also call the borrowed chairs house chairs. That doesn't make the barn ours."

Helena drew a small box around the word sole in my original.

"When did you approve the different wording?" she asked me.

"I didn't."

She wrote my answer on her pad, then turned it so Garrett could read it.

"Is there an email, a letter, anything showing that she did?"

He shook his head. For once, he did not fill the quiet with another story.

"I'm not a judge," she said. "I can decide whether the festival has reliable proof that its contractor may use these items. At present, it does not."

"She can't pull the show because she dislikes her credit."

"You removed the person whose presence was part of your equipment permission," Helena said. "That is the problem you need to solve."

I opened the ledger to our first page.

Garrett looked away before she finished reading.

Then I showed the receipts. Trailer number. Sound unit number. Lamp numbers. The small numbered cards for the figures.

"You saved a receipt for a twelve-dollar hinge?" he asked.

"Four hinges. Twelve dollars and eighty cents."

Helena did not smile.

She asked him to produce any bill of sale from me to him or the company. He said our years together should mean something.

"They do," I said. "They mean you knew."

For a moment, his face lost all its cheerful shape.

"I got us those crowds. People came because I sold the story."

"And I made the story you sold."

He tapped the program on Helena's desk.

"A festival needs a name people remember. You never wanted to stand out front."

"I wanted to work behind a screen. I never agreed to vanish from the records."

Helena moved the program aside.

"Garrett, you have until ten to provide valid written permission or another production that meets the contract. The missed performance and the advance must be addressed either way."

"She could just say yes."

Both of them looked at me.

I could have said yes. I knew the rods. I knew where the audience would laugh and when a child would call out to warn the wooden deer.

I also knew what tomorrow would look like if I went back without a new agreement.

"I will consider a new contract with my name and my authority stated clearly," I said. "I won't perform under this one."

Helena nodded once.

Garrett pushed back his chair.

"Fine. Buy me out."

"Of what?"

"My work. My years. My reputation."

"We can account for the partnership," I said. "The equipment is a separate question."

He put his coat on without finishing his coffee.

When the door shut, Helena leaned forward.

"Keep the originals with you. Send me clear copies for the contract file. And get advice before signing anything else with him."

Outside, I called a local lawyer whose office had handled our first partnership agreement. Her voicemail offered an urgent number for current clients. I left my name and a short account.

Then my phone rang.

Garrett's voice was quiet now.

"You want your precious rig? There are storage and management charges. Two thousand seven hundred dollars. Nothing leaves the barn until you pay."