The Venue Directors Put Their Pens Beside Their Screens

Friday morning, I set three chairs around my bench for people who would appear on one laptop.

Soren looked at the empty seats.

"Habit," I said.

He put a water glass at each place without smiling at me.

Ruth joined first. Ben sat beneath a paper sun in Harrison. Della had a stack of ticket envelopes beside her in Fayetteville. Their lawyers joined by phone, along with Ada and Paul.

I placed the three contracts where I could see them.

"You each paid for something Marlene couldn't give you," I said. "I won't pretend a better show makes that all right."

Ben folded his arms.

"What can you give us?"

Ada had helped me make two pages, one with money and one with dates.

Each venue could replace its old deal with a single performance and limited permission to use the characters in advertising for that event. No venue would have exclusive rights. I would sign as the owner of the characters, and the company would supply the show.

The new performance fee would be $3,000 per venue, credited from its deposit. Each would receive the other $3,000 back from the money held in trust, once the court approved the release.

The unpaid $6,000 balance on each old license would be canceled.

"And if we say no?" Della asked.

"Your claims stay yours," Ada said. "This offer doesn't make you waive them just by listening."

Ruth tapped her pen against a mug.

"We bought a fall attraction. One afternoon isn't the same."

"It isn't," I said.

I waited. I had no cheerful voice that could change the arithmetic.

"Could the afternoon include a workshop?" she asked.

I thought about the scrap bins, the felt, and the children's safety scissors in our teaching case.

"Forty minutes afterward. Paper mouth puppets. Included."

"At all three venues," Ben said.

"Yes."

Della asked about refunds if we failed to appear. Her lawyer suggested language. Ada wrote it into the draft.

Ben asked whether another builder could repair a puppet during our visit. I agreed to emergency repairs, with my written approval for any design change. He nodded at that. He wasn't trying to take my work. He wanted to know what happened if a string broke.

Paul said his client wouldn't agree to have all $9,000 released.

Ada leaned toward her phone.

"Then the venues can ask the judge. These are funds traced to their deposits."

He asked for ten minutes.

While we waited, a trolley bell sounded uphill. A visitor stopped at the window to admire Nell. I turned her stand so her face caught the light.

"You're very calm," Ruth said through the laptop.

"My feet are shaking."

She glanced down at her own desk.

"Mine too."

When Paul came back, he said Marlene would consent to the $9,000 refund distribution. The other $2,400 would remain held until management authority was settled or the parties agreed otherwise.

We worked through dates. Fern Hall kept the coming Saturday. Harrison took the following Saturday. Fayetteville took the Saturday after that.

Ben wanted all three venues named in the shared announcement.

"If we lose exclusive," he said, "we can at least look like a tour."

For the first time that morning, I could see a company at the far end of the table.

We agreed that no announcement would go out until every replacement agreement was signed. Ada arranged a consent request for the refund money. Each venue would get its $3,000 before Fern Hall's performance.

The call ended at two sixteen.

I drank from one of the glasses set out for our absent guests.

At three, the signed copies began arriving. Ruth first. Della next. Ben asked for a corrected street address, then signed at four forty.

I signed the character permissions. The company promises remained subject to final confirmation of who could sign for it. Ada had written that condition clearly.

Five o'clock came.

Marlene had returned no receipts to the company. Putting disputed money in trust had preserved it; it hadn't met the demand to restore the company's money or explain the missing spending.

Her reply contained a one-line claim for a "growth draw" of $24,600.

There was no signed approval for that draw. There were no supporting invoices.

Ada saved the message and called me.

"The cure period has ended. We'll serve your management-removal notice Monday. Paul knows our position."

I looked at the unfinished head waiting beside the vise. Its borrowed clerk voice had started as a joke about forms.

"Application received," I told it.

Then I went back to work. Moss needed a new hinge. Nell needed her silk wings cleaned. Aunt Slate needed a careful patch where the doorframe had scraped her shell.

At six thirty, Ruth called again.

"I've just received something from Marlene."

She forwarded an email bearing our old company letterhead.

It said I had withdrawn as performer and instructed Fern Hall to cancel the show immediately.