Flirting with Disaster

by Sandra Byrd

  “But . . . how?” I asked.

  “That’s your problem to solve,” Hazelle said. “Be resourceful. Ask Natalie who she was using. Find another source and get reprint permission. Or—” she snorted—“write it yourself. Seems easy enough to do. Like giving advice.”

  I could have closed in for the kill right then and told her that if just anyone could write them, they obviously weren’t true. But I thought it might be better to hold that comment for another day.

  Horoscopes. This was a test, all right. A test of my loyalty to her, to the paper. To my promise to God.

  “I need the column by Monday night. You’ll have no trouble making that deadline, I’m sure.” She stood up. I was being dismissed.

  “And what about my other work? the Asking for Trouble column? the article for the paper at the end of June?”

  “I don’t want to divert your attention away from this important task,” she said. “So I’ll just put those others on hold till we talk next week.”

  I turned to leave.

  “Oh, Savvy? You can keep delivering the paper, though.”

  Chapter 40

  Penny agreed to meet me at Fishcoteque for an emergency serving of fish, chips, and Fanta, even though she said she was feeling really tired.

  “So what are you going to do?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I’m trapped. If I tell her I’m not going to do it, she’s made it very clear she’ll reassign my other work.” I didn’t come clean on exactly what that entailed, since my column was still mostly a secret. “My article for Be@titude will be killed.”

  “Killed?” Penny dipped a chip into some ketchup while she waited for me to reply.

  I tucked one leg under the other to find a more comfortable position in the leatherette booth. “Kill is a term journalists use when an article has been assigned and then the editor cancels it.”

  “Why not use the term cancel?” She went for a second piece of fish.

  “I dunno,” I said.

  Jeannie must have noticed my glum face when we walked in because she brought around another paper-wrapped cone of chips. “Here you are, luv. It’s on me.”

  “Thank you, Jeannie,” I said. Penny, of course, dove right in. “And then there are deadlines,” I said. “Why do writers have to use the word dead? I mean, can’t we just say due dates or something?”

  “Makes sense to me.” Penny sneezed. “Excuse me. Writing is a lot more violent than I ever thought.”

  Thinking back to Hazelle and Natalie, I had to agree.

  “So why did you vote for her?” Penny asked.

  “Two reasons. One, she is a good writer and editor. I felt like I could trust her, and well, I felt she would be the better person for the job.”

  “And the second reason?”

  “I never really trusted Natalie. She made a lot of promises, but I never fully believed she’d come through.”

  “Hazelle might not either,” Penny said. “But at least she didn’t make promises. So . . . why not just ask Natalie for the name of the horoscope writer?”

  “For starters, I doubt she’d give it to me. Besides, it seems like it was a friend who was doing her a favor. And maybe the biggest reason, I’m not going to arrange for horoscopes. They’re malware.”

  Penny stopped eating and smiled. “That’s the difference between you and Hazelle,” she said.

  “That and the fact that she’s the editor of the paper and can write whatever and whenever she wants,” I said.

  “Well, yes, there’s that, too,” Penny said, sneezing again. “Sorry about that. Must be the vinegar. Well, you’ve got till Monday to figure it out. And we have Saturday to look forward to.”

  “True!” I said, fervently glad that there was one bright spot in my life.

  Chapter 41

  I awoke Saturday morning to a text from Penny.

  I’m not feeling so well this morning. I’ll see how I’m doing as the day goes on, but just to make sure, Bill and Maddie are going, right?

  Let me check.

  I glanced at my watch. Tommy would be leaving for football in like ten minutes. I speed-texted.

  Hey—good luck at the match today. Bill is still coming tonight, right?

  Thanks. Bill is fine. Just talked to him—he’s gearing up for the game. Better run. I’ll see you about 7:30, right?

  Big sigh of relief.

  Yeah, see you then!

  Four hours later, Penny texted.

  Sorry, Sav. I still have a fever. Text me as soon as you get back and let me know all the details.

  I spent the next hours doing my homework, finishing my chores, and trying on about eight outfits. After finally settling on my second-best skinny jeans with gold flip-flops and tank top layered with a peasant shirt, I decided I’d better do a pedicure. My polish was chipped; it looked like mice had been nibbling at my toe tips.

  I checked my watch. Two hours to go. Plenty of time to do my hair.

  I begged my mother to drive me on her way to a dinner with the ladies in her Bible study. “Please. It’s embarrassing enough to be dropped off alone, now that Penny can’t go.” I loved Dad, but he was bound to do something mortifying. Thankfully, she agreed.

  Wexburg didn’t have its own movie theater, so we drove to the next village over. I hated arriving when no one else was there—you felt like such a loser hanging out in front of the theater alone. But Mom had insisted that we leave a bit early so she would still be able to get to her dinner on time.

  So I stood outside the cinema and waited. I hoped Tommy would arrive before Bill and Maddie. He did!

  “Hey!” He strolled up to me. It looked like he’d rubbed a little gel through his wavy brown hair, and his eyes were still as deep as dark chocolate. Lately we hadn’t been turning away from direct eye contact; we’d been holding it instead. I know it’s a cliché, and as a writer, I was supposed to avoid them like the plague, but my stomach really did do somersaults.

  “Hi,” I said. “How was the game?”

  “We won!” His face was flushed with high spirits. “But Bill got hurt. Someone actually kicked him really hard in the shin. He’s got to get it looked at, so he won’t be able to come tonight. Funny about your asking if he was coming this morning. Where’s Penny?”

  “Sick,” I said, starting to feel that way myself. “That’s why I texted you to see about Bill earlier. So Maddie isn’t coming either?”

  “Nah. It’d be weird without Bill since you two aren’t friends. I guess it’s just the two of us then. Should I buy the tickets?”

  Just the two of us. I’d have loved for him to have bought the tickets for “just the two of us.” After all, I was nearly sixteen. I mean, come on. We were at a public movie theater. He was a Christian. But even though I was allowed to go out with people, my dad had said no one-on-one dates till I was sixteen.

  Chapter 42

  “I’m really sorry, but I don’t think I can stay,” I said.

  He looked at me strangely. “Why not?”

  I hated that I had to be the person to say that word date first, because we weren’t even official. It’s not like he had asked me to go out with him. “I’m not allowed to go anywhere, um, you know, one-on-one with anyone till I’m sixteen.”

  “One-on-one?” He still looked puzzled.

  Okay, apparently I was going to have to do the heavy lifting here. “A date,” I said. “My dad says I’m not allowed to date till next month.”

  Next month. It sounded so ridiculous and legalistic. Twenty-eight days.

  “I could text my dad and ask him if it’s okay,” I said.

  He shook his head. “That’s all right. If that’s his rule, we should respect it.”

  So I texted my dad—because my mom was at church—and asked him to come and pick me up. Tommy and I stood and made small talk, which was, surprisingly, not terribly uncomfortable, given the situation. We were even laughing when my dad pulled up. Tommy waved as I got in the car.

  “Does he have a ri
de home?” Dad asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, ask him!”

  I rolled down the window, feeling ridiculous all over again. “Do you have a ride?”

  “I can hang out for a couple of hours till my dad gets home,” he said. “My grandparents dropped me off on their way to dinner. My mom still can’t drive because her cast isn’t off her foot yet.”

  “My dad said we can give you a ride home.”

  I had to admit, I was totally shocked when he headed toward the back door and opened it. “Thanks!” he said.

  I sat fairly silently as we drove to Tommy’s house. He and my dad talked about football and cars and Top Gear. I let my mind wander because I didn’t know a lot about cars. However, the thought occurred to me as I listened to them talk about test tracks that maybe tonight was one of the tests Joe had mentioned.

  We soon got to his house. It was nice—a single home, not a semidetached like mine, but not a mansion like Hill House. As I looked over the beautiful front garden, I remembered that his mom was also in the garden club that Penny’s mom and Ashley’s mom were a part of. And that my mother still hadn’t been voted in.

  “Good night, Savvy,” Tommy said as he got out. “And thank you for the ride, Mr. Smith.”

  “Not at all,” Dad said. After Tommy got into his house, Dad turned to me and said, “He’s a nice young man.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m proud of you for doing the right thing. Even if it doesn’t always feel good or work out the way you hope it will.”

  Chapter 43

  When I went to school on Monday, I felt all “prayed up,” as my old Sunday school teacher would have said. Worship was great on Sunday, and then I spent some time with my family. All in all, I felt even closer to Tommy after our movie fiasco than if we had gone. It gave us something to laugh about together and harass our friends about for abandoning us.

  He still hadn’t officially asked me to go out with him, though.

  Anyway, I was prepared for Hazelle—and our talk—on Monday. Or at least I thought I was. We’d agreed to meet after school. I sat with Penny at lunch, but when I turned around to look at the newspaper staff table, I noticed that Hazelle wasn’t eating anything for lunch. I wasn’t either.

  After school I grabbed my stuff to head over to the office.

  “Good luck,” Penny said. “Text me when it’s over.”

  The newspaper office was still pretty busy. Melissa and Jack had mainly cleared out their stuff, although Jack was there most days helping to transition Hazelle. Everyone else was hard at work writing or editing. Everyone except me, that is.

  “Come on into my office,” Hazelle said. I noticed how she rolled the words my office off her tongue with ease. She hadn’t lost her bossy tone, but maybe there was a little less sting to it than the week before.

  I sat down in the very chair I’d sat in when I was trying to convince Jack to let me write for the paper at the beginning of the school year. Here I was, nearly a year later, doing the exact same thing.

  “So have you given any thought to the horoscope column?” Hazelle asked.

  “Yes, I have. I take my writing and the Wexburg Academy Times very seriously. But in the end, Hazelle, I just can’t do anything with the horoscopes. I’m sorry.”

  She looked shocked. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not kidding. As committed as I am to this paper, I can’t compromise my principles to write a column. What kind of advice giver would I be if I told everyone to give up what they believed in so they could get something they wanted, you know?”

  “That’s not what I’ve asked you to do,” she said, defending herself.

  “I understand that. But that’s how I see it. I just can’t do it.”

  “Well, then, I’m sorry, Savvy. I need someone who can do what the paper needs.” She pulled her pencil from behind her ear and tapped it on the desk in front of her. I could hear her foot tapping underneath the desk.

  I was nervous too, but I did my best to keep my feet—and my voice—steady. “Then I guess that’s all there is to it,” I said.

  Hazelle stood and headed toward the office door. “I have to do what’s best for the paper.”

  I joined her next to the still-closed door and made my final comment. “If that’s true, you’d agreed with Jack that I could write an article. It seems like journalistic integrity would apply there, too.”

  Hazelle looked like I’d slapped her. She flung open the door and walked out. I followed close behind her, bumping into Natalie as I did.

  Natalie took one look at both of our flushed faces and then turned toward me. “I told you this would go badly. Too bad you never quite got over Rhys preferring me to you. If you had, you’d have voted for me and none of this would have happened.”

  “What do you mean?” Hazelle burst in.

  “You’re apparently not bright enough to realize that Savvy held the swing vote. I tallied up all those I could count on to support me before the election—it came to exactly six. And then I counted up your supporters. Six. Which left Savvy.”

  I stood between them again, knowing what Natalie said was true. I’d done the sum myself.

  After dropping her little bomb, Natalie turned her back to us, took her heavy book bag—presumably packed with the last of the stuff she’d had at her Wexburg Academy Times desk—and flounced out.

  Chapter 44

  On Tuesday, Penny came home from school with me. We hung out in my room with crisps and dip and Coke. She pulled out a big old navy blue case. It definitely didn’t look like the usual posh Penny fare.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “My art portfolio,” she said. “Battered and tatty as it may be.” She unzipped it and took out a booklet. Then she handed it to me.

  “The dude decoder!” I flipped through it. She’d taken our initial ramblings and sketches and made them into a real booklet. “So cool.”

  “I thought so too.” She grinned. “I showed them to the girl I’d mentioned to you—remember, the one I wanted to share an art project with? She thought it was awesome too—and she even said we could work together on our final project! Thanks for the idea.”

  We flipped through the pages and laughed over some of the drawings. I stopped at the page with the sketch of a guy about to kiss someone.

  “Not ready to turn the page?” she teased.

  I threw a pillow at her. “I’m studying the pose. Just so I’ll know what I’m looking for.”

  A couple of hours later she headed home, and as I closed the door behind her, I said to my mom, “I feel kind of bad having her over here. I mean, her house is so big. And she has a housekeeper.”

  “We may not have a housekeeper, but we do have Aunt Maude,” Mom replied, a wicked gleam in her eye. “She’s coming on Thursday. For the night. Dad and I are going to spend the night in London for a work conference.”

  No. No. No. I would have enough trouble as it was this weekend, trying to decide if I should contact Becky again before writing the article, figuring out how to make the article exciting enough to generate buzz. I didn’t need Aunt Maude on top of it all.

  Chapter 45

  Thursday after school I arrived to a house that smelled faintly like skunk.

  “Hullo, dear,” Aunt Maude said as I walked into the kitchen.

  “Hello, Aunt Maude, how are you?” I asked politely, dreading her response. My dad was grinning behind his newspaper. I knew it, even though I couldn’t see his face. I could see the paper quiver.

  “I’m simply awful,” Maude said. “My varicose veins are popping faster than a drug addict’s. Do you want to see?”

  She reached down and was about ready to pull up a polyester pant leg when I hurriedly rushed in with “No, no thank you. Weak stomach.”

  “Well, all right, then,” she said. “And then there’s the digestive system. My goodness. You’ve never heard so many noises. I never have, anyway. My friend Agnes told me that I’m rig
ht to be concerned and that she’s going to arrange a visit with a specialist on Harley Street straightaway. So we’ll be eating soft food tonight.”

  “Oh, yum. What are we having?” I leaped at the opportunity to change the subject.

  “I’m making bubble and squeak right now,” Maude answered.

  I glanced over to where my father was sitting in the corner, reading his paper. The paper was absolutely shaking now. “Dad, can you come upstairs?” I asked.

  “Sure, Savvy.” He closed the paper, and I knew he was using all his self-control to hold those forty-three facial muscles in check and not burst out laughing.

  I grabbed my book bag and headed up to my room. Dad was right behind me.

  “You’ll have a good time tonight,” he said. “Even if Aunt Maude’s digestive problems are causing her to bubble and squeak.”

  “Very funny,” I said. “You’re going to owe me for this. Like a fantastic sweet sixteen birthday. In three weeks.”

  “Hey,” Dad said, “I’ve got it. What does Savvy sound like when she’s been overchewing her gum? Bubble and squeak.”

  “Not funny, Dad.” I tossed my books in the corner as Mom came in for a quick vote of approval on her outfit.

  “Looks great, Mom,” I said. “Can I come?”

  She grinned. “Nope!”

  They kissed Louanne good-bye and headed downstairs and into London for the night.

  “So what shall we do?” Aunt Maude said once Louanne and I returned to the kitchen. Aunt Maude had already cut up half a chicken breast for Growl, his favorite, and he was resting contentedly on the back of the couch. “The bubble and squeak is boiling away. I’ve got some lovely ideas for afters, but we have some time to kill first.” She peered out the window into the back garden area. “Well, hardly a thing has been done since we cleaned it up last month. Mum pretty busy?”