I Am Girl Power

by Katie Cross

  All effective immediately.

  Chapter 2

  Come Home

  The moment I stepped into the parking garage, I whipped out my phone, flipped through my contacts, and pressed Blake’s name. Blake, Flight Team Director, could fix this.

  He had to.

  Without my badge bouncing on my chest with every step, I felt naked. Shock propelled me through the parking garage on autopilot. The ringing stopped, and a familiar, deep voice answered.

  “This is Blake.”

  “Blake! It’s Megan. You’ll never believe what just happened.”

  “NSYNC is going on tour again?”

  I stopped. “Seriously? That’s your guess?”

  “Don’t judge me.”

  “Karen just laid me off.”

  Silence.

  “Blake? You there?”

  “She did what?”

  I ran through the conversation in a maniacal ramble, adding bits here and there as I remembered them, like a kindergartener using glue and paper for the first time. My fingers ached from squeezing the phone.

  “Please tell me you can fix this. Please.”

  “Meg … I don’t know.”

  “Randy’s still retiring next month, right? Which means there’ll be an open slot. I can still apply even if I’m not employed by West End.” I pressed the phone to my ear until it crackled. “Right?”

  “First of all, I need you to take a deep breath.”

  “I’m calm!” I snapped.

  “Take it, Megan.”

  Balking at his commanding tone, I obeyed. “Okay,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m calm now.”

  “The hospital owns the flight team, which means they’ll use internal hires first.”

  “Can you hire outsiders?”

  His long pause felt like a death gong. “Not if I have qualified internal applicants.”

  “Do you?”

  “Several. I’m sorry, Meg. I can’t hire you.”

  Every challenging class, every night shift, every lost patient, and every sacrifice funneled into a finite, articulated point. The flight team. All of it turned to stone in my body, weighing me down to the very core of the earth. I wanted to sink into it and disappear. To forget Nathan. Karen. To erase the last twenty-four hours and start over again. How could I lose so much in so little time?

  Tears clouded my eyes. “I see,” I whispered.

  “I can make some calls. Look around. But we have three other candidates.”

  “Thanks.” I cleared my throat. “I appreciate your honesty. Let me know if you hear of any other opportunities, will you?”

  “No problem, Meg. I’m really so sorry.”

  A hot and stinging tear slipped down my cheek. I wiped it away with the back of my hand.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  What Do I Do Now?

  Forrest Gump this place and never stop running.

  Buy more of those things that taste salty.

  Try to—

  Call Lexie and then—

  Call the twins.

  Call Mom.

  Food?

  Live out of a van?

  Stop staring at the dirt mark on the wall.

  My phone rang far too early the next morning.

  The annoying bell reverberated through my head in thick, heavy waves. Why was my alarm on? I didn’t work until Saturday. Nathan sometimes called early to check my schedule. The ringing stopped. In the silence, lucidity brushed the dust of my fractured sleep away. No work. No Nathan. No flight team.

  I sank back into my pillows and tried to melt into the mattress. My head throbbed, and my eyes burned like hot sandpaper. The black screen of my laptop stared at me with damning judgment. It had run out of battery while I was looking for another job. Nothing that would get me back on track for flight nursing had come up within two hundred miles. In desperation, I’d even applied to a travel-nurse company before the computer shut off.

  “Nursing shortage my—”

  The phone rang again. With a growl, I scrambled toward it. Video call with my brother Mark. Fantastic. The last thing I needed was the twins prying into my issues. In true brotherly fashion, they always wanted to fix everything.

  A couple blind jabs later, I hit the green circle.

  “‘Lo?”

  “Little blister, why do you hate us?” Mark asked, his nose wrinkling. “And showering, apparently.”

  I rolled onto my back with a yawn.

  “I always look this way.”

  The picture juggled until JJ’s high cheekbones and bemused hazel eyes appeared. For being twins, they looked nothing alike. JJ wore his chocolate-brown hair in a man bun, while Mark kept his light brown hair short and messy.

  “Hey, Megara,” JJ said. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been married twice and had five kids since you last called.”

  “I talked to you last week. Did you get my check for Adventura?”

  “Yes, sugar mama. Many thanks. We appreciate the investment. Turns out running a summer camp takes a lot of money. You look like hell, by the way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Anytime.”

  Last fall, Mark found an abandoned summer camp for sale in the Rocky Mountains. Within a week, he sweet-talked a handful of investors and bought it. Upgrades on Adventura Boys Camp had been ongoing for months now in preparation for its inaugural week in June.

  Mark appeared on the screen again. I leaned against the headboard. “I didn’t know you had internet at camp,” I said, brow furrowed.

  “We’re at the Frolicking Moose Coffee Shop in Pineville bumming off theirs. We have decent cell reception in some spots but no internet. Speaking of camp, Adventura is why we called.”

  A moment of panic clutched my stomach. I hadn’t logged into my checking account for a few days. “The check didn’t bounce, did it?”

  “No, and thanks for that, by the way. That will help a lot. Listen, our chef just bailed. Some health issues popped up out of nowhere, and he can’t work for us.”

  “Doesn’t Adventura open in a week?”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “That’s too bad. But what does that have to do with me?”

  “Want it?”

  I paused. “Uh … want what?”

  “Two brothers in an eternal debt of gratitude and subject to your every whim. Or, in other words, the job as chef at Adventura Boys Camp.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Mark pressed his lips together. “Nope.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “But I am.”

  “Mark, I don’t know anything about cooking for teenagers. Or strangers. Or more than three people. Plus, everything I fix is healthy, and you hate healthy.”

  I thought of dinner the previous night and pushed the empty carton of ice cream onto a pile of unopened bills with my toe. Mostly healthy, anyway.

  “I don’t hate healthy in theory, just in taste,” he said. “Besides, you’d only cook for the staff. Twenty people max on the weekends. Ten during the week. The kids cook for themselves in their campsites. Teaches them how to be men and all that.”

  JJ came on the screen. “The benefits of the job are unbelievable, Meg. No insurance. No paycheck. No air conditioning. The only guarantee is that you’ll be so annoyed by the heat in the kitchen that you’ll shave your head and save money on hair products.”

  Mark rubbed the back of his neck. “We’re over budget with repairs and underpaying the rest of our staff. Our previous cook was doing it for free as a favor, so we’d kind of need you to do the same.”

  My brow grew heavy over my eyes. “So not only do you want me to leave for a month—”

  “Two and a half months, actually. Last week of camp ends August 4th.”

  “—but you want me to do it for free?”

  Both of them grinned, as if there were something amusing about their desperation.

  “Yep.”

  Would I want to move back to the mountains, chain myself to a kitche
n, and slave away in front of a stove for hours? Maybe a little. Being with the twins would be worth far more pain. Cooking for a handful of people couldn’t be that hard, anyway. It wasn’t like West End needed me anymore.

  Mark brought the phone close to his face. Flecks of gold filled his hazel eyes. “If you say no, you basically hate fun.”

  “Define fun,” I said.

  “Moose. Dirt. Bugs the size of your face.” Mark waved his hand in front of him. “The smell of campfire as your own natural musk. There’s a ghost bear that we hear but never see. So, that’s safe. Besides, I wouldn’t even make you sign a contract. That’s how much I trust you, blister.”

  “And you know how much he loves contracts, Meg. He made me sign one, and I’m part-owner.”

  “You make it sound so irresistible,” I said.

  “Just try not to fly in tonight. I’ll even promise you JJ’s firstborn,” Mark said.

  “JJ has no plans to reproduce.”

  “She’s not wrong,” JJ said.

  “Adventura is amazing, Meg.” Mark leaned toward the phone. “It’s freedom. It’s mountains. It’s … it’s home, all right? You have to come home. We miss you.”

  His impassioned plea tugged at my heart. It had been too long since I’d climbed a mountain. Smelled the forest. Drunk from a stream. The ghosts of IV machines and heart monitors beeped in my mind, and I couldn’t decide if I’d miss them. Could I afford to leave for two months? Probably not. Dating Nathan had taken a toll on my credit card. The abysmal job offerings from last night ran back through my mind.

  What else would occupy my time for two months if not twelve-hour shifts in a hospital?

  “Stay home, Meg.” JJ leaned back, stacking his hands behind his head with a yawn. “Then Mom can cook, and we’ll be those cool thirty-year-olds who hang out with their parents all summer.”

  I perked up. “Yeah! What about Mom? She’d be great.”

  A shadow passed over Mark’s face. “Mom has her own stuff going on this summer. And we wanted to hang out with you again. Anyway, it was worth a shot. No worries, sis. We get it. You hate us.”

  “Not true. Can I … can I just think about it?”

  “Of course. Call us back in—” He checked his watch. “—twelve hours. If you can’t, we have to find someone else.”

  Once we ended the call, I sank back into the covers and stared at the streams of sunlight flooding through the window and spilling onto the floor. Living in the mountains again sounded like a dream. But my thoughts drifted over the reasons I shouldn’t leave for two months. Money, for one. Job progression, for another. My friends, for a third.

  My mind went blank after that.

  With a sigh, I shoved off the covers and headed for the shower. Twelve hours and counting.

  Later that night, I sat on the floor with my back against the couch. An old rerun of Home Improvement played in the background while the paper foliage of my finances fanned around me. Plumbers. Mortgage. Car payment. It added up to an ugly arithmetic.

  Traveler’s Credit Card.

  Minimum Balance Due: $50.91.

  The full balance lingered at just over $2,000, a sum I had no hope of paying without a job. I sucked in a breath with a hiss. Why had I given the twins so much money to invest in Adventura? Had I really needed to spend two hundred dollars on a cocktail dress for Nathan’s gala? The four weeks’ severance would cover my mortgage and car payment for June but not much more. Paying off the credit card would have to wait.

  At 18% interest.

  I tilted my head back, resting it on the couch. I’d never been in debt before. Correction: I’d never been jobless, single, and in debt before. I reached for my phone to text Mark.

  Sorry, bro. Finances don’t add up.

  A knock at my front door startled me just as my thumb hovered over the send button. I tossed it aside to send later, shoved my papers and laptop under the couch, and hopped to my feet. Until I decided what direction my life would take, discretion was key. The Health and Happiness Society didn’t need to know my life was in shambles. Eventually, I’d get around to telling them about my breakup, job loss, and horrific financial situation.

  Just … not yet.

  Outside, four familiar voices jumbled together.

  “No, Lexie, we didn’t order an extra egg roll.”

  “No lecture on MSG, Bitsy?”

  “One meal with MSG isn’t going to kill us.”

  “Repeated exposure causes cancer.”

  “Drink lemon water. It flushes it out. You’ll be fine.”

  When I threw open the door, the rest of the Health and Happiness Society beamed at the same time. “Megan!” they cried in unison. I widened the door, beckoning them in with a smile and a wave.

  “Come on in, ladies.”

  Lexie held up two brown bags. “We brought Chinese food! The gods of takeout have smiled on us: Bitsy approved.”

  “Only for broccoli beef,” Bitsy said, wagging a finger. “The rest are just—”

  Lexie rolled her eyes, darting past me like an arrow. “Cooked MSG popsicles. We know.”

  Except for Little Debbie snacks, nothing made Lexie happier than Chinese food. Well, maybe Chipotle. Her trailing blonde hair spilled in strands of sunshine from a high ponytail as she whipped by. The gym had brought us together when she started working out for the first time. In the year and a half since, she had slenderized and toned down, finding an oval face and a sturdy pair of shoulders.

  Rachelle, Lexie’s childhood best friend, slipped by me with a wink. The heady scent of an alluring perfume hovered in her wake. My eyes darted from her leather jacket to the rip that raced up the back of her fishnet tights. She’d lost over seventy-five pounds since she joined the Health and Happiness Society last fall.

  “I brought the ice cream you texted me about,” she whispered. “Bitsy doesn’t know yet, but it’s in my purse. I’ll slip it into your freezer.”

  I gave her a discreet thumbs-up. Rachelle always had my back.

  Bitsy and Mira spilled in last. Bitsy, a single mom of two young girls, wore creamy gray slacks and a button-up shirt. She slipped out of a modest pair of pumps with a happy sigh.

  “Thanks for having us this week, Megan,” she said.

  “Anytime.”

  “Hullo, Megan, my dear.” Mira flapped a chubby hand in front of her face. “Oh, it feels good in here. It’s starting to get hot outside. I hate summer.”

  Her fluffy hair ballooned into a halo in the evening humidity, but it was her makeup that caught my eye. Her bright orange eye shadow—a near-perfect match for her loose dress—looked like a construction zone sign. I followed them into the living room, where Tim Allen grunted from the TV.

  Bitsy’s gaze narrowed on me as I grabbed the remote and shut the TV off. “You all right? You seem … off.”

  I smiled. “Fine.”

  Lexie put her hands on her hips. “Your eyes are swollen.”

  Rachelle pointed to my feet. “She’s wearing the yellow socks.”

  “And you have reruns of Home Improvement on TV,” Mira said.

  “Oh, no,” Lexie whispered, one hand over her mouth. “This is your breakup routine. Did Nathan … did he…”

  I scoffed. “I don’t have a breakup routine.”

  They stared at me. In the past year, I’d gone through two other breakups with them at my side. My shoulders slumped. Okay. I probably had a breakup routine.

  So much for discretion.

  “Fine,” I muttered. “Nathan broke up with me.”

  Lexie shoved me onto the couch.

  “Spill.”

  Lexie and Bitsy passed around cartons and chopsticks while I explained. When I finished, Mira patted my hand, and Rachelle stabbed a chopstick into a carton of beef. “Good riddance, loser,” Rachelle said.

  Lexie reached over and hugged me. I absorbed it like a dry sponge, choking back tears.

  “Thanks, Lex,” I whispered.

  Bitsy straightened. “We’re on ca
ll for girlmergencies anytime. Just don’t think you’ll always get Chinese food with it. Mira, would you like to start the meeting? Please share your good news. We’ll go around the circle.”

  Mira blushed as she mentioned missing two workouts because of dates with Pat, Lexie’s boss and a local pub owner. Rachelle had landed a lucrative, full-time summer job that would make her thousands of dollars just for watching an old man sleep and occasionally handing him his meds, and Bitsy had found an investor for her massage studio.

  “He wants to begin this month.” Bitsy leaned back, her eyes alight. “I’m interviewing interior decorators next week so we can get started. It’s going to be very busy this summer.”

  Lexie cleared her throat, casting a long glance at me out of the corner of her eye. “Well.” She cleared her throat. “I have … uh … some news.”

  “You’re pregnant!” Rachelle said.

  Lexie paled. “No! Are you kidding? We haven’t even … I mean, that’s not … don’t just drop that out there.” She cleared her throat. “Bradley and I went ring shopping last week.”

  My heart bucked. I tightened my grip on my rice carton. Bitsy gasped. Mira clapped, the loose flaps of skin on her arms wriggling. Lexie and Bradley had been long-distance dating for almost a year, but she’d never mentioned marrying him.

  “What?” Rachelle screeched. “When? Where?”

  “Tell us everything,” Bitsy said.

  A blush illuminated Lexie’s fair cheeks. She bit her bottom lip, averting her eyes. “Well, we didn’t buy anything. Just looked. I have chubby fingers! I wanted to try on a ring or two just in case.” She rubbed her ring finger with her right hand. “He’ll decide which one to buy, and he promised it would be a surprise. It could be any day now.”

  Married? But … where did this come from? When did they start talking about such a serious commitment? Nathan’s words played back through my head like a ticker tape, tightening my throat.

  We just didn’t have that it factor.

  We just didn’t have that it factor.

  We just didn’t have that it factor.

  “He also wants me to meet his family,” Lexie said, drawing me out of my thoughts. “I’m so scared I could pee. What if they don’t like me?”

  Underneath my haze of disbelief, a prickle warned me that Bitsy had locked in on my reaction. Sure enough, when I glanced over at her, she was staring me down with a mixture of concern and question. I swallowed and pasted on a dazzling smile.