Give Me Your Answer, Do

Behind Teo's back, a small tin bird was still wound up, still humming.

He stood at the door, hand still behind him, looking at the street.

I finished the last notes of "Daisy Bell" for nobody.

Then he turned around and held it up to me.

A tin bird the size of a lemon. A $14 tag tied to one foot.

"I tuned it this morning," he told me, since I was all that was left.

"Forty minutes. So it matches your first four notes."

It was meant for a birthday order. He had watched her stand under me, he said, and thought she might need it more.

"Comparable" was a present. She heard a price tag.

I would have told him. I have three songs, and none of them was that one.

At 2:50 p.m., she posted the clip.

Twenty-two seconds, no sound, and a caption Teo read aloud to the register.

"Staff made it clear I couldn't afford her. Then offered me a 'comparable.'"

In the corner of the frame, behind his hip, a tin bird showed its edge.

Nobody zoomed in. Nobody but her, I would learn.

At four, Bernie came back from the bank to a line out the door.

Teo told her everything, bird included.

Her cousin, the one who does contracts, said on speaker, "Don't mention the bird. A fourteen-dollar tin toy is exactly what she's accusing you of."

Sunday, the shop posted two lines: Molly is bolted to the wall and not for sale.

The woman in the navy cap, Dani Rae to the whole street by now, answered within the hour. They were lying.

A tourist bought the tin bird for $14 and held it up under me for his photo.

"Got my own little Molly!" he posted.

Monday, the cameras.

They pulled my cord one after another and shouted over my songs.

"Who's lying?"

Daisy Bell. Oh! Susanna. Camptown Races. Always that order, and no say in it.

Then a man in a green scarf pulled my cord down and held it.

My old catch takes a song, if the cord stays down.

I used it. "Daisy Bell," three times in a row.

Give me your answer, do.

Both sides cheered. Each heard "I'm with you."

Then the catch snapped like a knuckle.

Tuesday, 11 p.m., Bernie unplugged me, afraid I'd break for good.

She strung a velvet rope and hung a sign: NOT FOR SALE.

By Tuesday night, $40 tote bags with the same words were up for pre-order.

Wednesday, 3 a.m., the woman in the navy cap came alone.

Through the glass, I watched her read it quietly to the slot first.

"Sorry I was loud. Your bird sounds like my mother's music box. Is the little tin one still there?"

The card dropped onto three hundred letters, most of them addressed to me.

No. Fourteen dollars, Sunday.

I couldn't tell her. I couldn't even tick.

In the morning, Bernie swept the whole pile into the recycling tote.

She had stopped opening mail on Monday.

A famous woman asked to buy me, and a boy said I was not for sale.

Everyone asked whether I was for sale. No one asked whether I had something to say.

At 6:10, the truck lifted the bin. Above the register, a brass cord hung still.