Follow Me by Joanna Scott Page A

Erna over by the banquet table. “Georgie has found herself a real fox-trotter
     for a husband.” She’d meant it as a true compliment, but Erna looked at her suspiciously and said, “He’s a decent fellow,”
     and Sally had to explain in defense that she’d meant to say just that.
    It was a trite exchange, without consequence. Erna and Sally went on to taste and compare the hors d’oeuvres together. But
     later, when Sally thought back to the wedding, she’d wonder if that’s when she started to become aware of feeling slightly
     removed from everything, as though she’d come in late and didn’t quite understand what was going on.
    Surely it didn’t help her effort to blend in when the bandleader announced that he had a special song to play, and a special
     girl to sing it for him. With everybody watching and waiting, he called, “Sally Werner, will you come up here and join us?”
    Erna shoved her with an elbow. “He said your name,” she whispered. But Sally was too stunned to move and just stood there
     pretending that she’d disappeared, which would have been better than continuing with her life right then, for even a twitch
     of a nose would give away her secret to all those staring eyes, and they’d realize that she was still standing there dumbly
     — in reality a living, breathing girl who was terrified of singing in public.
    “Is Sally Werner here?”
    No, she wanted to call back. I’m not here.
    “Here she is!” cried Erna.
    “Hush!” Sally caught Erna’s arm and pulled it down.
    “Sally Werner,” said the bandleader into the mike, “come sing us a song!”
    How did anyone know that singing was her secret pleasure? By keeping it secret, she’d meant to avoid scrutiny and judgment.
     She felt like she was becoming aware of some sort of deep betrayal. And here she was being called upon to defend herself.
    But wait a second — she didn’t even know if she could sing.
    “Sally Werner!” someone in the audience shouted.
    “Sally Werner!”
    “Sally Werner, Sally Werner,” others began chanting.
    She cast a searching look at the faces, mostly strangers, and then her eyes met Uncle Mason’s; their gazes locked for a moment
     that was long enough for him to offer her that understanding nod of his, conveying his confidence in her and revealing that
     he was the one who had come to know more about her than she’d ever intended to let him know. When she was singing along with
     the scrolls on the player piano, when she was belting out those songs on Sunday afternoons — why, either the furniture in
     the house had ears, or Mason Jackson wasn’t always quite as far away as she’d thought. And that meant… she couldn’t think
     clearly about what it meant.
    She kept her gaze on him as she would have gripped a rope rail along a wobbly bridge, holding him in view as she moved toward
     the band.
    “Sally Werner, Sally Werner!”
    All those people watching, calling, waiting for her to prove to them that she was worth something.
    “Sally Werner! Sally Werner! Sally Werner!”
    The bandleader, a neatly groomed, ruddy man nearly a foot taller than Sally, leaned toward her and murmured a song title in
     her ear. She looked at him in confusion, not because she didn’t know that song — she did know it, backward and forward — but
     she couldn’t imagine how he knew she knew it.
    “Sshh, hush,” people said impatiently. “Let her sing.”
    Sally looked over the faces, seeing in them what she interpreted as a particular kind of anticipation; she recognized it as
     the same kind of interest that she herself felt when she was at the county fair watching a man dressed up as a clown come
     into the ring riding a bull. It was the anticipation of people waiting for a fool to perform.
    The band was already playing, moving so quickly through the opening chords that Sally couldn’t enter the song on time. The
     bandleader made a discreet signal with his finger, and the musicians repeated the