by Meg Cabot
So, sorry about last night.
Becky
12:25 PM
You have nothing to apologize for. It was my fault.
Reed
12:25 PM
How was it your fault? You said you wanted to keep things professional and I got carried away. Although I think the moonlight had a little something to do with it.
Becky
12:26 PM
Funny, I was thinking it was the sake.
Reed
12:26 PM
There was a lot of that, too. In any case, it won’t happen again. Unless of course you want it to.
Becky
12:26 PM
I think we can easily avoid it by staying away from moonlight and sake. This setting, for instance, does not lend itself to romance. What do you think happened in here? It was completely organized when I left last night.
Reed
12:26 PM
Oh, yeah, sorry about that. It was my sister, also known as Hurricane Trimble. Apparently Richard wasn’t too happy at finding his newspapers gone when he got back from dinner, so he called her to complain.
She came over and decided to take what she thought she was owed by birthright, which it looks like included several of the fondue pots, an assortment of the monogrammed highball glasses, and quite a bit of the dining room furniture.
Becky
12:26 PM
How nice. She raided the storage units, too, I see.
Reed
12:26 PM
Apparently. And the Dumpsters. My sister is nothing if not thorough. I imagine she’ll be coming by later for the chandelier.
Becky
12:26 PM
It’s good to have things to look forward to. Your sister was always a very independent thinker.
Reed
12:26 PM
That’s one way of putting it.
Becky
12:27 PM
So I hear congratulations are in order.
Reed
12:27 PM
Oh, you heard about the Lyrexica deal?
Becky
12:27 PM
I don’t know what Lyrexica is. I meant about Shenanigans dropping the charges against your parents.
Reed
12:27 PM
Oh, right. Yes, that’s good. We owe all that to your mother, I think.
Becky
12:27 PM
Oh, I don’t know about that. But yes, when she gets fired up about a cause, she’s always been very good at getting other people to champion it, and then organizing a solution.
Reed
12:27 PM
Like mother, like daughter.
Becky
12:27 PM
Stop it, you’re making me blush.
I thought we agreed to be professional.
Reed
12:27 PM
Sorry. But it’s true.
Becky
12:28 PM
My mom got something out of her little boycott, too. She sold about a million Blessie Sticks to the other protesters.
Reed
12:28 PM
What’s a Blessie Stick?
Becky
12:28 PM
It’s—never mind.
Are you going to the fundraiser tonight? She’ll be selling them there, too.
Reed
12:28 PM
How could I miss the fundraiser to benefit my own parents? Marshall says we have to go, or our image in this town will be forever tarnished.
Becky
12:28 PM
I can see that you’re smiling, and your parents think it’s funny, too—but how do you really feel about it?
I know you. You must be mortified.
Reed
12:28 PM
It’s going to get even more mortifying when the press gets hold of the story, and it’s all over *PTI*.
Becky
12:28 PM
What’s *PTI*?
Reed
12:29 PM
*Pardon the Interruption*. It’s a sport show on—now YOU never mind.
You know what, it’s fine. It’s kind, what the people of this town are doing for my parents. I don’t remember them being this kind when I lived here.
Becky
12:29 PM
Well, Bloomville may be a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, but it has its bright spots. One of them is the people who live here.
Reed
12:29 PM
I would definitely agree with that.
Becky
12:29 PM
If you’re ever in a jam, they will be there to help you out.
Reed
12:29 PM
This is so true, it’s making me wonder why I ever left.
Becky
12:29 PM
You mean besides the fact that your father kicked you out?
Reed
12:29 PM
Yes. But I’m starting to think I should have had more of a backbone about it, and fought harder to stay. I should have fought harder for a lot of things.
Becky
12:30 PM
I don’t know about that. If you hadn’t left, you wouldn’t be who you are today.
Reed
12:30 PM
I’m not sure that would be such a bad thing.
Becky
12:30 PM
Fishing for compliments, are we?
Reed
12:30 PM
You caught me.
OK, let me put it another way: If I hadn’t left, maybe YOU wouldn’t have turned out to be who you are today—which is pretty great!
Becky
12:30 PM
That’s more like it. Speaking of which, I thought today I’d use my greatness to tackle the master bedroom. There are going to be things in there I don’t think you’re going to want to see. So I suggest you stick with the office.
Reed
12:30 PM
What kind of things?
Becky
12:30 PM
What kind of things do YOU keep in YOUR bedroom?
Reed
12:30 PM
My parents do NOT have porn in their bedroom. And neither do I. You’re only implying that to keep me away from you because you’re hot for me and you know you can’t resist my manly form.
Becky
12:30 PM
Actually, I can easily resist your manly form, and I did not mean porn at all. I meant things like adult diapers. A lot of seniors wear them. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but it often makes their children embarrassed when they find out. . . .
Reed
12:31 PM
Jesus Christ! I’ll stay in the office with Dad.
Becky
12:31 PM
Aw, you wrote Dad.
Reed
12:31 PM
What?
Becky
12:31 PM
It’s the first time you’ve called him Dad and not Richard or the Judge. Perhaps you’re beginning to warm up to him again.
Reed
12:31 PM
I’m warming up to someone, but it isn’t my dad.
Becky
12:31 PM
Inappropriate. You are banished. Good luck sorting through all that paperwork. It looks like Hurricane Trimble struck in the office, too.
Reed
12:32 PM
You don’t deserve to have this now because you’re being so unkind, but here, my niece Courtney made this for you.
Becky
12:32 PM
What are you talking about?
Reed
12:32 PM
I’m sending it as an attachment. Courtney was very impressed upon meeting you yesterday when Carly brought the girls over to pick up Grandma and Grandpa to take them for dinner—not knowing, of course, that it was all part of an elaborate scheme to deprive Grandpa of one of his great joys in life, his newspaper collection.
Anyway, when Courtney got home, she was a
pparently inspired to include you in an essay about her family that she was assigned to write. Carly was so amused by it that she scanned it so you could have a copy. I think it’s A+ work, but you can decide for yourself. Enjoy.
Attachment
My Family
By
Courtney Stewart
My family is made up of my mom, my dad, me, my sister Bailey, my youngest sister Taylor, and our dog, Blinky.
We all live in Bloomville, Indiana, USA, planet Earth, in a house on Rock Cliff Road, only there is no cliff there.
My sister Bailey is seven years old and likes to dress as Ant-Man or an Indian chief. My mom says Bailey just needs to get this out of her system and to ignore it.
My sister Taylor is 4 and likes princesses. My moms says she has to get this out of her system, too.
My aunt Trimble and Uncle Tony live in the same town only on a different street with my two cousins, Tony Jr. and Ty. Tony Jr. and Ty are teenagers and they go to a different school. They do not have any pets. My mom says Aunt Trimble says pets are dirty and have germs.
Mom says our dog Blinky is not dirty which I know is true because we give him a bath once a month.
My grandpa and grandma also live in my town except now they are moving to Florida because grandpa keeps falling down in the snow. My mom says one of these days he is going to break a hip.
My uncle Reed is visiting right now from California to help Grandma and Grandpa move. He is sleeping in my bed. He sings us funny songs about a big mouthed frog and also one about a cowboy named Joe. He showed us a movie about an alien until Mom came home and said it was too scary and to turn it off.
Uncle Reed hired a lady named Miss Flowers to help Grandma and Grandpa move. She brought a lot of big storage things to their house. Also Dumpsters. Mom said “Do not get in the Dumpsters” but Uncle Reed said it was OK and so Bailey got in one and found a shoe and Uncle Reed said she could keep it, so she did.
Uncle Reed says Miss Flowers helps people when they have too much stuff. My grandma and grandpa have so much stuff you can’t even move around in their house and it makes my dad sad and sometimes mad, so he yells. Mom says he just needs to get this out of his system.
I’m glad Miss Flowers is now in our family. Uncle Reed says when she’s done with her job, I’ll be able to visit my grandma and grandpa in Florida and go swimming and see DISNEY WORLD. I can’t WAIT!
Note from Uncle Reed: Uncle Reed talks about Miss Flowers a lot. That’s because he can’t get her out of his system.
Becky Flowers created chat “Reed Stewart”
Leeanne Matsumori
12:44
(No reply)
Leeanne Matsumori
12:44
(No reply)
Leeanne Matsumori
12:44
(No reply)
Becky Flowers
12:45
Ugh, you’re not there! I know it’s because you’re somewhere over the Pacific right now, flying home, and won’t get this for hours, if ever.
But I have to tell someone:
I love him.
I still love him, now more than ever.
And it’s killing me!
He is killing me. Every time he says my name, or looks my way, every time he laughs, even if he’s only telling one of his stupid jokes about his parents idiotic World’s Greatest Grandparents mugs, he is taking my heart, pulling it from my chest, crumpling it into a little ball, and stuffing it into his pocket, as casually as if it were a napkin he’d used to wipe his mouth.
And it’s killing me! He doesn’t even know it.
But it’s true.
And there’s not a blessed thing I can do about it.
And when he leaves—because of course he’s going to leave. Why would he stay here, of all places? Especially now when I told him there could never be anything between us—he’ll take my heart away with him, exactly like he did before.
And just like before, I’ll be left with nothing, nothing, no heart, no will to live, not even a pulse. I’ll be like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, with an empty metal shell where my heart was supposed to be that echoes emptily when anyone taps on it.
And I don’t even care. I can’t do anything about it. I can’t stop it, or quit this job and walk away to protect myself, like I should, because I don’t want to. That would mean being away from him, and I can’t stand being away from him. That’s how weak I am.
When he walks into the room, I lose my breath. When he asks, “What are we having for lunch?” all I can think is “You, you, you.”
I try. I did try. I left this morning for an hour—I pretended to go to Home Depot for more packing tape, but really I just drove around, thinking, What am I doing? Don’t go back.
But I went back, and sat in the car for five minutes listening to Beyoncé for strength before he came out of the house to ask me something, I don’t even remember now what it was. When I saw his dark hair gleaming in the sunlight—why does his hair have to be so thick and dark and messy?—all I could think was, I’m lost. I’m lost to him forever.
What is wrong with me? I wasn’t this bad before, and that was high school. We haven’t even slept together this time, all we did was kiss, and when his hand accidentally brushed mine while we were stuffing packing paper into a box a few minutes ago, I thought every single one of my nerve endings was going to explode.
AND I HAVE A BOYFRIEND. WHO ISN’T HIM.
I’ve lost my soul to Reed Stewart, after I swore to myself that I wouldn’t. Not again.
What am I going to do?
I even let him pick up Blarney Burgers from Shenanigans for his parents for lunch. For all of us. It’s what the Judge and Connie wanted, and even though I’m fairly certain it’s the worst thing for a man with a history of heart disease to eat, one glance into those pale blue eyes as he shrugged, as if to say, “Oh, well, sorry, they’re my parents and they’re old, what are you going to do?” and I caved.
That’s how far I’ve sunk. I’m letting him kill his own parents with high sodium and saturated fats.
I’m doomed, Leeanne. Please come home soon and save me.
From: Lyle [email protected]
Date: March 17 1:08:22 PM EST
To: Reed [email protected]
Subject: Re: Her
My dearest boy, I must make this short as my Phalaenopsis amabilis is currently being judged (and if I do say so myself is most likely to win in multiple categories. This is not bragging, but simple truth. I don’t know what is wrong with today’s gardeners. They seem to have lost any common sense).
But I found your recent email most amusing. Not that I don’t sympathize with your plight—it is never pleasant to have one’s romantic overtures struck down.
The answer to your problem, however, is obvious. And yet you can’t seem to see it . . . or aren’t yet ready.
Look over your past emails to me. You yourself wrote down the answer.
Perhaps when we are young, we are too blind to see what our own heart most desires, even when it is directly in front of us. I sometimes wonder why that is the case. Is it misplaced pride, or a desire to lead a more exciting life than our ancestors before us?
In your case, I believe a part of you fears to take the road that fate has laid out for you, perhaps because you feel it’s only going to take you to a dark and gloomy place—one you’ve visited many times before, and have disliked since you were a child.
What you don’t seem to realize, however, is that everyone’s road is their own, with its own individual twists and turns, that takes them to their own destination. Your road isn’t necessarily going to take you to that same dark and gloomy place, even if, on the surface, it appears to. Your road could lead you somewhere completely different . . . somewhere better than you ever imagined.
Until you realize this, Reed, you will always be unhappy, and never achieve your ultimate goal.
That’s all I can tell you.
They’re calling us no
w to hand out the awards. I have faith you’ll make the right decision. Eventually, you always seem to, though I must say you take your damned time about. Good luck.
Yours truly,
Uncle Lyle
From: Reed [email protected]
Date: March 17 1:25:15 PM EST
To: Lyle [email protected]
Subject: Re: Her
Dear Uncle Lyle,
Thanks for the email. I really appreciate it.
But if you thought it was at all helpful, or supposed to make sense to me, well, it wasn’t, and it didn’t. I have no idea what you’re talking about. What road? What gloomy place?
Was that supposed to be some kind of weird Jedi stuff? Or Buddhist, or something?
Again, thanks for trying, though.
I do hope your flower wins.
Love,
Your Favorite Nephew,
Reed
From: Graham [email protected]