Pawsitively Secretive

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  Everyone at the table, Chloe included, flinched. Amber’s shoulders were bunched up by her shoulders.

  “I’m … I’m very sorry, sir,” the woman said.

  The group was frozen like statues, but Amber turned her head slightly and spotted a middle-aged redhead standing in the doorway, her face a brilliant red. Her head was bowed, like a small child who had just been scolded.

  The seconds ticked by in silence.

  “Out with it, Ingrid,” the mayor said. “As you can see, we’re busy. It’s terribly rude to keep all these people hostage.”

  “You have a phone call, sir,” she said quickly. “It’s … Francine. Again.”

  “And I told you I do not want to speak with her—especially not now.”

  “I know, sir, but she says she won’t stop calling until she talks to you,” Ingrid squeaked out. “And she said if that doesn’t work, she’ll just show up.”

  When Amber glanced back at the mayor, she saw his nostrils flare. His fists were balled on the table.

  Frank pushed his chair back. “I’m sorry, but I have to take this. Please continue without me; Chloe can catch me up on anything I miss.” With a nod and another apology, he stalked out of the room. Ingrid had already fled.

  “Awk-ward,” Chloe sing-songed, breaking the tense silence.

  Kim chuckled nervously. “Why don’t we take a little break and see if he can join us again in ten minutes or so, hmm?”

  Nathan and Ann Marie were up in an instant and were beelining for the snack table again. Kim busied herself with pulling more things out of her bag.

  With everyone distracted, Amber turned to Chloe. “You okay?”

  Chloe’s gaze had been glued to her phone again, but she quickly turned off the screen and offered Amber a small smile. “Yep, all good. Dad just gets grouchy sometimes. Okay, a lot.”

  Interesting. Motioning to Chloe’s phone with her chin, Amber asked, “And that?”

  Chloe shrugged good-naturedly. “Just making plans with a friend.”

  She scanned the girl’s sweet, heart-shaped face for a moment. “Well, in that case, where can I find the restroom?”

  Chewing her lip and staring at Amber as if she’d just asked her to answer a complicated math equation, Chloe finally said, “Down the hall, make a left toward the staircase, then go up and it’ll be the second door on your left.”

  Amber would have thought there would be a restroom downstairs but didn’t question it and excused herself from the table. Once closed inside the bathroom—decorated in a beach theme that was all soft blues and creamy whites—Amber peeked out the window. The rain had started in earnest since her arrival here. The bathroom faced the backyard, and the trees there were still stark and bare, buds only just starting to sprout up on branches that were swaying in the wind. Their spindly limbs looked almost sinister with a backdrop of such dark, heavy clouds. A bright burst of lightning lit up the sky on the horizon.

  “One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three—” CRASH.

  Amber flinched as thunder rumbled so loud, she could have sworn she felt it in the soles of her boots. The lightning electrified her magic and sent it zipping through her blood stream. She looked around the room to find some small object she could use her magic on to dispel some of it so she could at least settle her stomach and claim some of those pastries downstairs before Nathan and Ann Marie ate them all.

  She had just picked up a small, smooth seashell out of a decorative dish on the counter when a soft knock sounded. Brow furrowed, Amber put the shell back and opened the door. Chloe stood on the other side, a look on her face that reminded Amber so much of the five-year-old Chloe who had just secretly eaten her weight in cookies while Amber was focused on making dinner, that Amber almost laughed.

  But a look such as this on a seventeen-year-old’s face was much more worrying.

  “Chloe? What’s wrong?”

  “Can I come in?” she asked, as if Amber lived in their upstairs bathroom and Chloe had stopped by to visit.

  Amber stepped aside, then closed the door behind Chloe. “Should I run the tap to drown out our conversation? Don’t they do that in movies?”

  Chloe laughed slightly at that, then plopped onto the closed toilet lid. She let out a long weary sigh.

  Amber leaned her hip against the counter, crossed her arms, and jutted her chin at the teenager. “All right, girl, spill. What’s going on?”

  Thunder rumbled outside and they both flinched. Rain pelted the bathroom window.

  “So …” Chloe sighed again, hands on her knees. Then she wrinkled her nose. “It’s about a boy.”

  Amber grinned. “Okay, so I absolutely want you to dish every detail, but I would like to state for the record that my love life is currently abysmal, so I would take all my advice with a grain of salt.”

  “It can’t be that abysmal,” Chloe said. “I heard you were dating two guys—at the same time.”

  Good grief. This was a definite downside to living in a small town. Amber wasn’t even going to bother to ask how Chloe had heard such a thing. It hardly mattered at this point. “I was only half dating one of them and it fully didn’t work out. I’m too weird to date.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Chloe said, giving Amber a once-over. “Guys like weird.”

  Amber snorted. “Does your guy like weird?”

  “Ugh. We only have like eight minutes before the break is over so I can’t go into everything, but we can talk about it all later. I mean, if you want to? I know we haven’t seen each other as much lately, but you’ve always been one of my favorite people to talk to.”

  Amber was so touched, her eyes welled up a little. “I just sort of want to hug you right now.”

  “No hugging! We only have seven minutes now.”

  Amber shook out her hands, mimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key, and then gestured for Chloe to continue.

  “You’re such a dork,” Chloe said, laughing. “Okay, so there’s this app called Scuttle that’s basically a place to chat and share stuff anonymously. Mostly younger people use it but there are adults and stuff on there too. Anyway, I’ve been talking to a guy on there for a while now. Like … three months? He’s super sweet and a really good listener. We tell each other everything, you know? I like him a lot. A lot, a lot. And he really likes me too, but he’s been kinda pushing me lately to meet him.”

  Five hundred red flags were flapping in the wind in Amber’s head. Maybe even a red banner whipping about in a torrential gale that would put the storm outside to shame.

  “Okay, wait, before you say anything,” Chloe said, hands out in a placating gesture, “I know this sounds like it could be dangerous. But he’s sent me pictures—well, a picture—and we’ve talked on the phone a couple times. He lives in Belhaven. There are chat rooms on Scuttle for different interests—like movies or TV or whatever. I was in one of the chat rooms and posted a picture of myself and there was an Edgehill sign in the background. He freaked out because, like, what are the odds that two people from really small towns so close together happen to find each other?”

  Amber pursed her lips.

  Chloe started talking fast—whether trying to get in as much information during their break as possible or wanting to dominate the conversation so Amber couldn’t voice her concerns, Amber wasn’t sure. “He’s a little older—nineteen—and he’s still in Belhaven because he’s working on an online course to get his AA and then he’s going to transfer to a college outside Portland. He’s almost done and plans to move in the next six months, so we’re kind of running out of time to meet in person while he’s still close by. I don’t feel nervous about the guy at all. I’ve gotten to know him so well. The problem is that my dad doesn’t want me to date until I’m like ninety. He’ll be so mad if I tell him; he’s so unreasonable about certain things. But I’m going to be eighteen in a month—technically an adult—and then he can’t really tell me who I can date. I’m going to college; he won’t even know if I’m dating.”
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  “You said this guy has been pushing you to meet him?” Amber said when Chloe paused long enough to suck in air.

  “Pushing is strong,” Chloe said. “We just really get each other, you know? And he’s so hot—what if I wait too long to meet him and some other girl snatches him up?”

  “If he’s meant to be with you, he won’t be distracted by someone else,” Amber said.

  Chloe huffed. “I knew you’d say that.” After a pause, she said, “You want to see his picture?”

  Amber wasn’t sure how seeing this guy would help, but her curiosity got the better of her and she nodded.

  Chloe pulled her phone out of her back pocket, tapped the screen a few times, swiped a few more, and then held the phone up for Amber to see. The young guy smiling back at her was attractive, and had a wide, easy smile. The background behind him implied he was standing outside—maybe at a park or in his yard at home—but the majority of the greenish backdrop was blurry. The boy had his hands clasping the back of his neck and he was grinning up at the camera. Maybe his mother took it. Two bracelets made of brown wooden beads ringed one wrist. As cute as the boy was, there was something … staged about the picture. Didn’t kids these days only take selfies?

  As Amber studied Chloe, who had retracted her arm and was staring wistfully down at the smiling boy, the red flag in her mind snapped in the wind again. “What’s the urgency?”

  Chloe glanced up. “I told you. He’s moving—”

  Amber shook her head. “Try again.”

  The girl sighed. “He’s going to be in Edgehill tonight.” She started swiping at the screen again. “He’s really sweet, too. Look, he got me flowers.”

  Chloe held out the phone to Amber again and showed her a photograph of a vase of six red roses in a thin glass vase. A tan-colored card was tied around the vase with black ribbon. When Chloe pulled her hand back, gaze focused on her phone, she said, “The card says, ‘To my Kitty Cat—” she glanced up at Amber for a second—“he calls me that since I come from the quote-unquote cat town.” She rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “To my Kitty Cat, you make every day brighter. Love, Snugglebear.”

  Chloe flushed.

  “Snugglebear?” Amber asked. “Anything to do with Belhaven High’s mascot being a bear?”

  Laughing, Chloe nodded. “I know it’s all kind of silly, but it’s sweet, too, don’t you think? He wants to give me the flowers tonight.”

  Another boom of thunder rumbled outside, mirroring Amber’s thoughts. “You can’t go out in this.” She waved vaguely at the storm outside.

  “We planned to meet at the arcade,” Chloe said, as if she hadn’t heard anything Amber had just said. “That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Meet in a public place?”

  Amber sighed.

  “Bethany is going, too! That’s who I was talking to earlier during the meeting,” Chloe added, clearly sensing that if Amber had been on Chloe’s side when this conversation started, she surely no longer was. “I’ll be safe. I promise. I’ll text when I get there and when I leave. Bethany and I will stick together. No going to a second location with a guy or anything. I’m not dumb, Amber. I promise I know what I’m doing.”

  “Then why are you telling me this and not your dad?” Amber asked.

  “Because he doesn’t want me to date,” Chloe said. “I just told you that.”

  “But he is a reasonable guy even if you don’t always see it that way,” Amber said. “I couldn’t in good conscience know you’re going out with some guy you’ve never met in person before and not let your dad know.”

  Chloe stared at her with her mouth slightly agape, her brow furrowed. She looked like Amber had just kicked her in the gut.

  “I know you’re mad at me right now, but either you tell your dad about this, or I do,” Amber said. “It’s not that I don’t trust you or your judgment—you’re one of the smartest people I know—but that doesn’t mean I trust anyone else. I would never forgive myself if we didn’t tell your dad where you were planning to go and something happened to you.”

  Jaw clenched, Chloe folded her arms across her chest and stared up at the window being pelted by rain.

  Amber moved to squat in front of Chloe, who still sat on the closed toilet lid. “Hey. Look at me.”

  It took the girl a moment, but she finally did, her eyes rimmed with silver.

  “Do you like this guy?” Amber said. “Deep in your gut, do you like him?”

  Chloe nodded.

  “Is he important to you?”

  She nodded again.

  “Tell your dad that. He’s worried about you—you’re all he’s got. That’s what makes him so protective. But we’re protective of the things and people we love,” Amber said. “He would be more hurt that you didn’t think you could tell him any of this. Plus, if you have to sneak around to do something, there’s likely a problem with it. So tell your dad. Let him know how much this means to you.”

  Chloe sniffed hard. “He’ll probably want to go with me on the date. I’ll be stuck with Bethany bored out of my mind while Johnny and my dad talk about football or something dumb.”

  Amber laughed softly. “Would that be so bad, though? To not have to hide that part of your life from your dad? He’s your biggest fan, you know.”

  Chloe rolled her eyes at that, but she managed a watery laugh. “Okay, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing if the two of them got along.”

  “Thatta girl,” Amber said, standing up, then held out a hand and helped the girl up. “Just be honest with him. He’ll listen.”

  Chloe still looked dubious.

  “And, in case he doesn’t, call me, okay?” she asked. “We can talk about this as much as you want if he shuts you down. You still have my number?”

  She hit a few things on her phone, then swiped up on her screen. “Yeah, I’ve got it. And I’ve had the same number since I was twelve.”

  “Good. Call or text any time. Day or night,” Amber said.

  The girl nodded.

  Once Chloe had splashed water on her face and gotten herself under control, Amber led them out of the bathroom, but came up short almost immediately. Mayor Deidrick stood in the hallway, looking even more startled than Amber felt. Her mental red flag, though, gave another frantic flap. The mayor looked nearly as guilty as his daughter had earlier. Had he been listening at the door?

  The rumble of thunder that sounded moments later told her that even if he had been listening, the raging storm outside had likely drowned out a lot of their conversation.

  “Hey, Dad,” Chloe said shakily, moving to stand beside Amber. “Could I talk to you about something?”

  His posture relaxed at the question. “Of course, pumpkin.”

  Amber’s chest twinged at the nickname; her own father had called her that when Amber was around Chloe’s age now. The memory spell she’d inadvertently cast a couple of weeks ago had allowed her to relive one of the moments when her father had called her that. Somehow it felt as if it had happened just yesterday and, at the same time, a lifetime ago.

  “I’ll see you downstairs in a bit,” Amber said, and gave Chloe’s arm an encouraging squeeze.

  Once on the stairs, Amber glanced up just before the landing above would be obscured from view, and she saw the mayor drape an arm around Chloe’s shoulder as they walked slowly down the hallway. Please let him listen to her.

  The meeting went on for another half hour, but neither the mayor nor Chloe came back down. As they packed up, Ingrid bustled into the room to help clear the plates and uneaten snacks. The mayor didn’t even emerge to bid the committee members goodbye. Amber had to hope that meant he and Chloe were having a deep heart-to-heart and had lost track of the time.

  Kim and Amber ran to Kim’s car, their coats draped over their heads in an attempt to shield themselves from the rain. Amber’s magic was even twitchier outside. Thunder rumbled.

  As Amber stared out of the rain-streaked passenger-seat window and toward the house, she hoped forcing
Chloe to air her secrets to her father had been good advice.

  Chapter 3

  “Do you have plans tonight?”

  Amber tore her gaze from the dark upstairs of the mayoral house and focused on Kim. “Uhh … no?”

  “I know you can be kind of a homebody and life has been kooky for you lately, so no pressure, okay?” Kim said, turning in her seat a little to face her. “But me and the rest of the committee are going to happy hour at the Sippin’ Siamese. Want to come? If not, I can drop you off at home first. It’s totally okay.”

  Amber was growing increasingly aware of how aware everyone else was that she was a recluse. Some part of her had hoped people would think she was busy with Very Interesting Things and that was why she wasn’t often seen about town in the evenings or on weekends. Instead, they’d all been sensing the truth: she stayed home with her cats.

  Rain still pelted the windshield, but the booms of thunder had become less frequent. The clock on Kim’s dash said it was just after 4:30.

  “Oh gosh, that’s a long pause,” Kim said, laughing nervously. “You really don’t have to go. It would be great if—”

  “Sure,” Amber said, nodding once.

  Kim abruptly stopped talking, eyes wide. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Oh, yay!” Kim said. “Are you okay with heading over there right now?”

  Amber looked down at herself. She wore dark jeans, a dark top, black boots, and a dark gray peacoat. Her choice in wardrobe colors was as bleak as the weather. She could only assume that her damp hair was windswept—and not in a sexy model way. But who cared, right? She was off the dating market as long as only non-witches resided in Edgehill; she had no one to impress. “Yep, I’m ready.”

  Kim let out an excited squeak. “Oh, I’m so glad. Happy hour at the Siamese is so fun. And since it’s Thursday, there’s even a line dancing lesson at 5:30 if you want to try that! Ann Marie has got some serious moves.”

  “Sounds fun,” Amber said, hoping her flat tone didn’t dampen Kim’s chipper mood.