The gasp in the room was followed by a second, even louder standing ovation. Tanya’s voice cracked, her rehearsal forgotten: “But you said—”
“I didn’t promise you money,” Ivy replied. “I offered you a lesson. Now you have it. Please leave.”
The sound of the microphone being set down was final. Ivy walked out of the center with Carol, the two of them hand-in-hand under a starlit sky. They talked about the lemon bars and the roses, moving forward into a future they had built together from the scraps of a broken past. Ivy never looked back to see if Charlie and Tanya were still standing in the shadows; she was too busy walking toward the light.
