"Huh?" Natalie put down the tablet and stepped back from the table where she had been sorting through email and postal mail over a big mug of chocolate caramel tea. "How could you get the idea I'm friends with Dani, just based on the story I wrote?"
It was true that she had struck up a friendship with Dani Paul, the lead singer and the principal songwriter for Firesong, but she had been careful to keep that budding friendship out of the story. If anything, she had spent less time on Dani than anyone else in the band.
The week Natalie had spent covering the crusade last November had been one of the best assignments since she started working for America's Voice. She and Dani had hit it off from their first encounter, and some of their late-night conversations had left her with new insights on what it meant to trust God "in spite of it all." Plus she had a lot of fond memories of silliness and learning just how much ginger ale, popcorn and chocolate she could consume while staying awake until nearly four in the morning. Somewhere in there, she had helped Dani add another verse and polish the chorus of a snarky, silly song panning self-righteousness and legalism. Dani had threatened to give her credit on the liner notes of Firesong's upcoming album.
That's why Suzette thinks I have an in with Firesong. Bet she goes back to how she treated me in college if I don't come through. Help my old friend -- yeah, right!
Natalie closed out of email and turned back to taking care of her mail that had piled up while she was on the road. It was amazing how much mail could come during thirty-five days away from home, and how much of it was junk mail, advertisements, pleas from charity organizations she had never heard of, and political mailers. It was a good thing that America's Voice provided a service for its traveling reporters, checking on their apartments and picking up their mail for them if they were single. It provided a layer of security, because even the post office workers didn't know she was out of town.
At the bottom of the pile of grocery store flyers was a square padded envelope. She eyed it as she took each piece of junk and regular mail off the pile, but refused to dig through to find out what it was.
Natalie shivered when she picked up the last piece of mail and saw the return address -- Dani Paul, via Allen Michaels Evangelistic headquarters. She dropped a political mailer into the garbage bag and reached for the envelope. It was the right size for a CD, and a quick squeeze of the envelope showed her guess was probably right. What else could it be but the promised -- threatened? -- CD, Firesong's first official CD since joining the Allen Michaels organization? She ripped the envelope open with a knife and caught the CD as it fell out. The cover showed the members of Firesong in silhouette, kneeling before a cross-shaped beam of light that dominated the image.
"Major cool." Natalie shivered again, when the timing of all this struck her. Suzette's request and reference to Firesong, and now the CD coming on the same day of the email. No such thing as coincidence. She turned the CD over, looking for familiar song titles. She nearly dropped it when she saw the song title, "Frigidairians," in the list -- and her name paired with Dani in the credits. "No wonder…"
She had learned not to ignore sudden flashes of insight. Or in this case, suspicion and worry. She snatched up her tablet and opened the email to dash off a quick note to Dani. By any chance, had she heard from a Suzette Emsworth, claiming Natalie had recommended she write for help in launching her songwriting career? Her fingers trembled and she had a little trouble with the keys on the screen, and rewrote the letter four times before trimming it down to the bare bones. Why involve Dani in what was sure to be a poisonous email firefight?
You don't need to know all the details, but this is someone I knew in college, and she made contact after seeing the story I wrote about you guys, or after seeing my name on the CD. I haven't promised her any help, and I'm not going to put you in a bind, asking you to help someone I barely know. We weren't friends AT ALL in college, and I'm just cranky enough to believe the worst. Sorry that my problem is spilling over on you.
Wednesday, April 29
Dani's response came lined up in the email queue right before Suzette's cheery little "hey, did my last email get lost in the ether?" reminder. Natalie was sitting at the table in an editorial meeting, checking her email during the lunch break. She sat still long enough debating whether to open the emails, that Jenny Doran, sitting across from her at the lozenge-shaped table, asked if she was all right.
"Brain freeze. Not used to being in one place more than two days in a row," she quipped, earning chuckles and understanding expressions from several others at the table.
The guys and I are praying hard for you. We're pretty good at reading between the lines, especially when what you didn't say speaks a lot louder than what this chick says. People without any grasp on reality are always the biggest troublemakers. Experience speaking here. We get at least one at every concert, claiming God told them we would feature their song on our next album. Just last week, some smelly Jabba the Hutt wannabe managed to get into the theater where we're doing some youth crusades, and told me I was going to he-double-hockey-sticks because I didn't friend him on Facebook. Excuse me, but I check out anyone who wants to friend me before I respond. His profile picture alone was scary, but then I read some of his posts…
Yeah, experience!
Did you know she thinks you're just the sweetest, smartest thing God ever created? Well, I agree with the second. You've got just as much inner snark as me, so the 'sweet' label is way wrong.
"Bet she's ready to chew me out for not clearing the way two seconds after I got her email," Natalie murmured.
I'll wait to hear from you before responding to her. My knee-jerk response is to say no, you didn't contact us. I'll even lie -- gladly -- and say we haven't heard from you since you did the crusade interviews. Let us deflate her balloon. The guys will get a laugh out of it and we might even get another song out of the whole thing. I'm thinking something along the lines of people who put words in God's mouth getting their fingers bitten off. Think it'll fly?
After some thinking and weighing the options, Natalie decided to bow to Dani's experience. She went to bed early that night, exhausted from the meeting and the pity party that set in when she compared her experience with Suzette to the progress her father was making with Jonas Donnelly. It sounded like the two men had regained the close friendship they had enjoyed before Tommy's accident, and were joining with other men in the church who had gone through similar disillusionment experiences in their spiritual journey. Natalie almost wished she could join them for Friday morning Bible studies. The thought of looking into Jonas' face and holding back the angry words that had waited years to burst out told her she wasn't ready for such a big step in forgiveness.
What's wrong with me, that I'm so angry over something that wasn't even done to me? He doesn't owe me any apologies. He owes Tommy and Claire and their mother. God, please help me let go. It isn't like Tommy was my boyfriend. He barely knew I was alive, except when I baked brownies for him.
Natalie laughed softly as she rolled over in bed, and wasn't surprised when she dreamed of a food fight with Tommy, throwing brownies as big as boulders, laughing and getting messy.
Saturday, May 2
Suzette's next email was a lousy way for Natalie to start her weekend.
You hypocrite! When are you going to grow up? What gives you the right to sabotage my career -- the career God has called me to -- just to get some petty revenge for a stupid little mistake I made during my seeking years? God is going to punish you. I'll make sure the world knows what a lying, two-faced, vengeful witch you are.
"Seeking years?" Natalie couldn't seem to let go of her tablet. Her hands shook so much she couldn't scroll down to read the rest of the email. Which was a good thing, she supposed. "Stupid little mistake? It was a major campaign to remake me in your image!" She flinched, hearing her voice bounce off the ceiling of her bedroom.
That would teach her to check her email before she opened up her Bible reading application.
Please, Lord, how do I respond?
Natalie took a few deep breaths, and it seemed as if she heard Dani whispering from over her shoulder: Don't respond at all.
There was that threat to let the whole world know Suzette's version of this mess. Natalie had made the mistake of accepting Suzette's friend request on Facebook. Thinking of the flame war that might start, and how Suzette was just the kind of person to file false claims against her, she knew she had to get to work. The first thing was to block Suzette so she couldn't get on Natalie's page or follow her newsfeed or post comments or send messages when Natalie wouldn't respond to her emails. That was easy enough. Shouldn't she do something more, act in self-defense? How, without giving away too many details?
"Ounce of prevention."
An hour later, Natalie finally got out of bed and opened her Bible reading application as she walked to the kitchen to make breakfast. She had posted a status update, asking her friends not to believe any claims that might be made in the future, that she carried a grudge from years ago and deliberately sabotaged someone's musical career or ministry. She said that someone had tried to take advantage of a very tenuous link she had with a CCM band, and blamed her when it didn't work out. Then she blocked Suzette's address in her email program, and copied the HR department at America's Voice with all the email exchanged between her and Suzette, and between her and Dani Paul regarding Suzette. Better to have wasted her time and not need the self-defense measures than to have to scramble to explain everything after nasty stories threatened to damage her career or the reputation of the magazine. The Public Relations department was used to such accusations from people who thought that America's Voice owed them a platform to air their views and tell their stories, no matter how warped or weird or outright false they might be. Once warned, PR could be on the lookout for anyone voicing accusations and complaints about Natalie, and hopefully short-circuit them before the campaign became serious.
Dealing with such problems before she had her morning green tea and something in her stomach gave Natalie a sick headache and made her feel like she hadn't had any sleep.
That's what I get for checking email before I have my devotions.
Sunday, May 3
Sunday afternoon, her parents called as she was packing for another month-long road trip. Natalie asked how things were going with Jonas Donnelly and the men's healing group. Her father, probably surprised by her interest, showed how much more sensitive he had grown by asking if someone had hurt her. The whole ugly mess with Suzette came out. The worst part was that Natalie kept beating herself up over not listening to her first instinct -- to delete Suzette's initial email and pretend it had never reached her.
"You did the right thing, honey," he said. "You gave her a chance, you gave her the benefit of the doubt. I remember how you grumbled for years about Saint Suzette, the Grand Inquisitor." A bark of laughter escaped him. "When you think about it, that's what got me re-thinking my history with Jonas, even before Helen Gruber gave me that slap upside the head."
"Huh?" Natalie sat up so fast from her slump on the couch, she nearly fell to the floor.
"I saw the hurt in you, and I wanted to tell you to snap out of it and let go, that she wasn't worth tying your insides into knots. But I couldn't. I was just honest enough to know I was holding onto my complaints and enjoying them. Admit it, you enjoyed grumbling about her."
"Well, yeah. I guess."
"My conscience kept kicking at me, honey. You couldn't let go of your anger and hurt because I set the example for you, and I wouldn't let go, either." He took a deep, loud breath. "And I'm sorry, Nat. You deserved a much better father, a better example."
"Daddy…" She sniffed, and was surprised to feel warm wet fill her eyes. "I'm just so jealous. Everything is working out for you. I guess I wanted something like that with Suzette. Well, heck, I wanted her to grovel a little bit. She never really apologized, when you think about it. She explained and then said explaining wasn't apologizing, but she never really said she was sorry." Natalie sighed again. "Guess I'm not as grown up as I thought, huh?"
"You take after your old man."
Friday, May 22
"Hey, why can't we do that?" Tommy blurted, startling Nikki and Brock, who sat on a bench on the edge of the playground at the Mission. "Sorry." He grinned unrepentantly as they turned around to look at him, and gestured at the picture on Nikki's tablet.
He had come up behind them, planning a joke about how marriage should have cured their need to spend every waking moment together. Then he looked over their shoulders and saw the pictures on Firesong's website. The band clowned with wheelchairs, crutches, white canes and dark glasses, with the caption, "ADA Day in the Windy City."
"Send you to Chicago?" Nikki said, managing to hold onto a sour expression, while Brock just grinned and shook his head. "Sure. If you don't mind us shoving you out of the cargo bay door with a parachute."
Gray had got up from his spot at Nikki's feet and now put one huge paw on Tommy's knee, threatening to get up in his face. Nikki had given him the signal to lick Tommy's face so often, the big Akita probably thought it was standard procedure whenever he saw him.
"The disability awareness thingy," Tommy said, gesturing at the picture on the tablet. "Why can't we do a gimp-a-thon? I've been reading about other cities doing that, putting people in wheelchairs or having them get around with canes, to make people more aware of just how bad it is for the handicapped."
"Hate to say it," Brock said slowly, "but that's a great idea. We can schedule it for the same time as the Firesong concert in September, get a lot of coverage."
"Yeah." Nikki nodded, her expression softening. "It'd be a great way to celebrate finishing all the renovations here." A sparkle lit her eyes. "And light a fire under the bozos in City Council who are still dragging their feet about little things like wheelchair ramps on the sidewalks and fining the restaurants that still don't have accessible bathrooms."
"Didn't you hear the latest?" Tommy said. "Carr won't admit it, but he's been hinting that since Arc is so involved in Tabor, you guys ought to spring for the renovations instead of making taxpayers pay for it." His words earned a groan and another shake of the head from Brock, who had the misfortune of having to encounter Councilman Carr when he worked at the Tabor Picayune.
"Why am I not surprised?" She handed the tablet to Tommy. "Look this over and get some ideas. I'm going to catch Pastor Wally. We can plan our attack for the quarterly meeting Monday morning."
"Good timing," Brock said.
"Yeah." Tommy watched her hurry across the playground and into the building. He felt a little stunned at the ready acceptance of the idea that had just come off the top of his head. "Great timing."
Saturday, June 13
Natalie laughed as she opened up her email and saw Dani's screen name, with a subject line of, Big favor, old buddy, old pal.
I don't even know if there's enough lead time. Is that what you call it? Here's the scoop: I told you about the Mission, that my home church runs, right?
Natalie thought back to their long hours of relaxing and talking back in November. The name, the Mission, sou
nded vaguely familiar. Something about an old elementary school their church had bought and renovated, and was using for daycare and a senior center and other outreach services to the community.
We're having a big handicap awareness campaign in September. I mean, the Mission, not Firesong -- but we -- Firesong -- are going to be there to do a big concert that Sunday. The Mission is really big on handicap accessibility, and when Tommy saw pictures of us when we did the awareness thing in Chicago this spring, he got the big idea for the Mission to do it, too. It makes sense, since he's been in a wheelchair most of his life. Anyway, I would love it if you could sweet-talk your boss into letting you come out to cover the whole thing and maybe even make it a feature. It would be you, wouldn't it, since you've been doing so many accessibility spotlight pieces?
Natalie fired off a quick response, saying she would pass it on to the editorial department right away, and asked Dani and her cousins to cross their fingers and toes and pray up a storm, because it sounded like a great idea to her, too.
Crossing our eyeballs and wearing out our knees, was Dani's response on Facebook a few hours later.
Wheels (Tabor Heights Year Two) Page 6