The auditorium held its breath the way a church holds incense. Warm amber lights poured down from the rigging and found her at once, turning the black of her long-sleeved blouse into something almost liquid and the high-waisted beige pencil skirt into a second skin that caught every fold and highlight. Elena Vale stood center stage with a black handheld microphone whose blue band glinted once when she lifted it. Her light-brown hair, streaked with quiet blonde, fell past her shoulders in a straight, shining sheet that the lights treated like another instrument.
She had rehearsed this moment a hundred times in hotel bathrooms and empty rehearsal rooms, but rehearsal never included the exact weight of five hundred pairs of eyes. The left-side camera caught her first: three-quarter view, chin slightly lifted, mouth already shaping the opening line of the piece she had written on three sleepless nights. Her left hand hung easy at her side, white manicured nails catching a sliver of light. She looked focused, almost fierce, the way a person looks when they have decided the words will not be allowed to fail.
