by Piper Banks
“What? Why?” Charlie asked, frowning.
I looked at Nora, watching her reaction. And, unless I was very much mistaken, Nora wasn’t surprised by this news. Not one little bit. My suspicions flared a little higher.
“What, exactly, did Candace say?” Nora asked.
“She said that it was unethical for me to write the profile without disclosing that Dex is my boyfriend,” I said.
“Really? Is that true?” Charlie asked.
“Apparently. I didn’t know that, of course, or I would have disclosed it. Or written about something else,” I said.
“Of course,” Charlie said. “So how did Candace find out that you and Dex are dating?”
“She said Nora told her,” I said, looking straight at Nora.
For a moment, Nora’s face was an absolute blank. It was as though she hadn’t even heard me. But then, as if she’d reached a decision, she finally nodded once and arranged her features into an expression of concern.
“I did tell her that,” Nora said. “I’m so sorry, Miranda. I didn’t know it would get you into trouble.”
There is something going on here, I thought. Something sketchy about the way she was reacting that made my Spidey-sense tingle.
“Why did you tell Candace that Dex is my boyfriend?” I asked, taking care to keep my voice neutral.
Charlie gave me an odd, searching look. “I’m sure Nora didn’t mean anything by it,” she said.
I continued to look at Nora.
“It just sort of came out,” Nora said.
“How did it sort of come out?” I asked.
“I don’t remember exactly. I was in The Ampersand office, working on layout, and I saw that Candace was editing your piece. And I knew how hard you had worked on it, so I couldn’t help myself—I asked her if she had liked it. And she said that she thought it was an interesting angle, and wondered aloud how you’d found Dex. And I just sort of blurted it out. That he was your boyfriend,” Nora said.
“And what did Candace say?” I asked.
Nora looked down at her coffee cup resting on the table. She had both hands wrapped around it, as though she were warming them.
“She seemed pretty ticked off about the whole thing,” Nora admitted. “She might have said something about it being unethical.”
I looked at Nora with what I hoped was a cool, level gaze. Because at the moment, I didn’t feel at all calm. Instead, my head was buzzing again, as though a swarm of angry bees had taken up residence inside my skull.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
Charlie was frowning, her head cocked to one side, as she looked from me to Nora and back again.
“I was going to,” Nora said. “But ...” She trailed off.
“But what?” I prompted her.
“I was afraid you’d be mad at me,” Nora said in a small voice. She seemed to become physically smaller, too. She folded up on herself, crossing her legs and arms, her shoulders slumping forward, her chin drooping.
“Miranda’s not mad at you,” Charlie assured her. “Are you Miranda?”
Oh yes, I am, I wanted to say, feeling a flicker of annoyance at Charlie for taking Nora’s side. Charlie was supposed to be my best friend, after all. Didn’t she see that something hinky was going on here?
“I don’t understand why you didn’t warn me, so I’d be prepared when Candace talked to me about it,” I said.
Nora shook her head helplessly. “I’m really sorry,” she said.
“It’s fine,” Charlie told her. “It was just an accident. You didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“No, I really didn’t. I swear, Miranda,” Nora said.
“So, what did Candace say to you?” Charlie asked me.
“Just what Nora said. Basically that interviewing Dex without disclosing my relationship with him was a breach of journalistic ethics,” I said.
Charlie rolled her eyes. “Please. The article is for a high school magazine, not the New York Times. Don’t you think she’s overreacting just a bit?”
“Totally overreacting,” Nora agreed. “And it was a profile, right? Not a news piece. Why can’t you just say at the beginning how you know Dex? Or you could work it into the body of the article.”
“I offered to do that,” I admitted. “But Candace said no. It’s like she thinks the piece is tainted or something.”
“That chick is so uptight,” Charlie said. “What happens now?”
“Candace is giving me a second chance to write a student-athlete piece. She liked the idea of my doing a profile, although obviously I can’t write about Dex again. I’ll have to think of something else. The bad news is that I won’t get a shot at a better assignment for the second issue. And I won’t have a piece in the first issue,” I said.
“You’re not the only one,” Nora said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Nora leaned forward, eyes glowing. “When I was in the Ampersand office, I overheard Candace telling one of the guys on the staff that she’s spiking Tabitha Stone’s short story. That’s just how she said it. Spiking,” Nora said.
This piece of gossip was juicy enough to distract me from my personal plight.
“Seriously?” I asked. “Why?”
“Candace said it was terrible. Whatever Tabitha wrote was all postmodern and nonsensical. There weren’t any characters or any sort of a plot. Apparently, there was a paragraph in the middle where she just repeated the word desolation over and over again,” Nora said.
She was grinning now, and I couldn’t help smiling, too. Tabitha Stone was so full of herself, so sure that she was some sort of literary whiz. Maybe this setback would let out some of her hot air.
“Desolation?” I said. “You mean, that was part of the story? How, exactly?”
“That’s just it. It wasn’t. It was just the word repeated. Desolation . Desolation. Desolation,” Nora droned.
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” I said.
“I know. That’s what Candace said, too. She actually seemed really annoyed about the whole thing. She said that she’d been clear that she wanted an actual short story, with a plot and characters.”
“I really hate it when people have preconceived notions of art. Why does a short story have to have a plot and characters?” Charlie said.
“Because that’s the definition of a short story?” I suggested.
“Maybe a paragraph on desolation is central to Tabitha’s theme. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s fascist to dictate art,” Charlie said.
“No, it’s not. When the result is Tabitha Stone getting her short story spiked, it’s great,” I said with relish.
“You know what? You should submit one of your short stories, Miranda,” Charlie suggested.
“What? No way,” I said.
“Why not? They need a short story, and you’ve written tons of them. It’s the perfect solution,” Charlie said.
“I don’t have one prepared,” I protested.
“You have notebooks full of them,” Charlie said.
“But nothing I’ve written is ready for submission,” I argued. “For one thing, they’re all handwritten. I’d have to find one I like, shape it up, and then type the whole thing out. And I’d probably have to do it immediately, before Candace gives the fiction slot to someone else.”
“So? You could totally do that,” Charlie said.
“You definitely could,” Nora agreed.
Could I? I wondered. Was it possible?
“But would Candace be willing to consider me? Especially after the debacle with my Dex article,” I said nervously.
Nora groaned. “I’m so sorry, Miranda. This is all my fault. I really didn’t mean to get you in trouble with Candace.”
My anger at Nora, which had softened with the excellent gossip about Tabitha Stone’s rejected story, now disappeared altogether. She really did seem genuinely sorry.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I know you didn’t mean to.”
“I really had no idea she’d react the way she did,” Nora said.
“I think Charlie’s right. Candace is really uptight. Have you ever noticed that her clothes never, ever wrinkle? I mean, how is that possible?” I said, and was rewarded by a grateful smile from Nora.
“Are you going to submit a story or what?” Charlie asked, leaning forward and resting her head on her fisted hands.
“You totally should,” Nora said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s a long shot. And I don’t want to come off looking stupid.”
“If you’re going to be an artist, you have to be fearless, Miranda,” Charlie advised.
“Fearless?” I repeated.
“That’s right. Fearless,” Charlie said. “Trust me. It’s the only way to go.”
Chapter Twenty-one
I decided to follow Charlie’s advice. I would be fearless. As soon as I got home from Grounded, I went straight to my room and dug out all of my writing notebooks. I paged through one after another, looking for the perfect short story. Finally, I came across one I’d written months ago.
The story was called “The Traveler.” It was about a girl who was adopted at birth and ends up meeting her biological mother on an overseas flight. I’d written it last Christmas, when I was flying back to Orange Cove after visiting my mom in London. I’d gotten the inspiration for the story midflight, and skipped the in-flight movies to scribble it down while the idea was still fresh. I’d struggled a bit with not wanting it to all be too convenient—would the mother and daughter really just happen to end up sitting next to each other on an airplane? What were the odds? But then I decided to solve the problem by having the mother notice the girl in the waiting area prior to the flight and feel an immediate, almost haunting connection to her. So the biological mother arranges to switch seats to be next to the girl once the flight takes off.
As I read the story over, I could see the potential. This was exactly the sort of fiction piece they ran in The Ampersand. It was poignant and intriguing, and it had a plot. A good plot, I thought. In fact, I even started to feel a little excited at the potential.
I have to be fearless, I told myself. Fearless.
And then I dug out my laptop and set it up on my desk. If I was going to edit and type the story up by tomorrow, I had a lot of work to do.
My mom called just before dinner. I’d already been working for a few hours, so I was ready to take a break. Plus, I hadn’t talked to my mom in over a week.
“Hello, darling, it’s me,” Sadie said. My mother had always insisted that I call her by her name. It was part of the weirdness that was Sadie. “What’s going down?”
“What’s going down?” I repeated. “Are you trying to be hip again? Because if so, you should really give it up. You’re too old to be hip.”
“Bite your tongue. I am the embodiment of hip,” Sadie said. “As you would be, if you’d come to live with me in the bustling metropolis of London, instead of staying in that tiny hick town.”
“I like this tiny hick town,” I said.
“Tell me all of your news,” Sadie said. “And don’t leave anything out.”
“Well, something actually did happen today,” I said, hesitating. It was hard admitting my very first Ampersand assignment was a failure.
“What? Wait, don’t tell me. Let me guess. Your stepmother had a horrible reaction to her monthly BOTOX injection and her face is now swollen up like a Cabbage Patch Kid’s,” Sadie said with enthusiasm. Sadie and Peyton had never gotten along very well. “Or she finally decided to start eating carbohydrates, and immediately swelled up to the size of a baby whale.”
“No. Not even close,” I said.
“Don’t keep me in suspense,” Sadie said.
I told Sadie all about how the profile I’d written wasn’t going to make it into The Ampersand, how Candace was annoyed with me for not disclosing that I knew Dex, and how I was planning to submit a short story for the newly open fiction spot in the magazine.
“So if I can convince Candace to read my short story, who knows? Maybe she’ll like it,” I said.
“That’s a wonderful idea, darling. But how did your editor find out that you and Dex are dating? Did you tell her?” Sadie asked.
“No. My friend Nora told her. Accidentally,” I added quickly.
“Hmmm,” Sadie said.
“What?”
“People rarely do things accidentally,” Sadie said. “Who is this Nora? I don’t recognize the name.”
“That’s because you don’t know her. Nora’s new this year. She moved here from Boston,” I said.
“And why was she talking to your editor about your relationship with your boyfriend?” Sadie asked. “That sounds fishy to me.”
“It did to me, too, at first,” I admitted. “But from the way Nora tells it, I think it really did just slip out. And how could she have known it would end up getting my piece pulled?”
“Well, at the very least, I think she would have been aware that it wouldn’t make you look good. Whatever gave you the idea to profile Dex, anyway?” Sadie asked. “That wasn’t a very bright idea.”
“Actually,” I said slowly, “now that you mention it, I think Nora was the one who first suggested it.” I remembered now. It was the first time she’d come over to the beach house. I had just gotten the assignment, and was fretting that I didn’t know any athletes. And Nora had said, “Isn’t your boyfriend an athlete? Why don’t you interview him?” To Sadie, I said, “But, seriously, she was just trying to be helpful.”
“Hmmm,” Sadie said again.
“But I agreed it was a good idea. I didn’t know it was against the rules. And I couldn’t think of anything better,” I said.
“I think that’s just your nerves talking,” Sadie said. “You were anxious about doing a good job on this assignment so you’d get a better one the next time around. I keep telling you, you have to have more confidence in yourself.”
“Charlie calls it being fearless,” I said.
“That’s the perfect word. It’s the only way to go through life, darling. You have to be fearless. Just like me,” Sadie said.
It was true. My mother could be narcissistic, selfish, vain. But she was confident in herself. It was something I’d always admired about her.
Sadie continued. “I’m concerned about this Nora person.”
“Why? You’ve never met her,” I said. “You don’t know anything about her.”
“I think I do,” Sadie said. “Or I know the type. First, she talks you into focusing your article on Dex. Which, really, darling, was a truly terrible idea.”
“Yes, thank you, I’m aware of that now. Do we have to keep talking about it?” I asked.
Sadie ignored me. “And then she goes behind your back and rats you out to your editor. It sounds to me like she set you up. In fact, she reminds me of a character that appeared in one of my books. Everyone thought she was a pious young widow. And in the end she turned out to be a criminal mastermind who had murdered her husband and was getting rich blackmailing members of the aristocracy.”
“Mom,” I said, in my exasperation forgetting to call her Sadie. “First of all, we’re modern-day high school students, not members of the eighteenth-century English aristocracy. And, more important, Nora is a real person, not a character in a novel.”
“Art often imitates life, and vice versa” Sadie said darkly. “All I’m saying is that I think you should watch your back.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Promise me, darling,” Sadie insisted.
“Fine. I promise. I’ll watch my back,” I said, although I rolled my eyes heavenward. Sadie could be such a drama queen.
“And maybe you should keep your distance from this Nora girl. I’m not saying you have to cut her off entirely, but maybe just take it slowly. Don’t let her get too close too quickly,” Sadie continued.
“That’s funny. That’s almost exactly what Dex said,” I said.
“I knew I lik
ed that boy,” Sadie said.
“There’s just one thing,” I said.
“What’s that?”
I shifted the phone from one ear to the other.
“What if Nora’s not the problem? What if I’m the problem?” I said.
“You? You’ve never been a problem. Except when you were a toddler and refused to use the potty. I thought you’d still be in diapers when you started kindergarten,” Sadie said.
“Can we please stay on topic?” I said, collapsing back on the pillows piled high against my headboard.
“Of course. What were we talking about again?”
“I was saying, what if the problem isn’t with Nora, but with me?” I asked again.
“How so?”
“I’ve been jealous of her,” I admitted. “I’ll see Nora with Charlie or Finn, and I feel . . . well, threatened, I guess. And that’s not the only time I feel jealous. It also happens with Dex. I wonder about the girls he’s meeting at his new school. I hate that I get jealous, but I can’t seem to help it.”
“It’s normal to feel jealous from time to time,” Sadie said. “And I’m certainly not a fan of repressing your feelings. If you feel the occasional twinge of jealousy, you should just acknowledge it, feel it deeply, and move on. The problem comes when you let those feelings take over too much of your life.”
“But how do you keep that from happening?” I asked.
“The thing is, I don’t think it’s all that different from what we were talking about earlier. It’s all a matter of confidence. You have to have confidence in yourself. And you have to trust your friends, that they can spend time with other people and still love and respect you. And trust that Dex cares about you even when he’s away at school.”
Sadie’s words were comforting, even though I wasn’t entirely sure I bought what she was saying. Sure, having self-confidence was a good thing. But it couldn’t change reality. If Charlie did decide to make Nora her new best friend, or if Dex decided to break up with me and start dating someone at his new school, no amount of self-confidence could change that.
“It sounds a little New Agey,” I said. “Power of positive thinking, and all that.”
“I think the power of positive thinking has been misunderstood. The idea isn’t that you can change reality by beaming your brain waves at a problem. It’s all in how you react to a situation. And if you react in a positive, self-loving way, well, then, that can turn things around to your advantage,” Sadie said.