Flirting with Disaster

by Sandra Byrd

  “Pshaw, it’s okay. You’ll be in the back room doing some writing for me. The dog will be out of the way.”

  Louanne grinned, but I barely noticed.

  “In the back . . . writing?” I asked excitedly, hoping I’d heard her right.

  Becky smiled. “Writing. Would you like to do some rough copy for the second-to-last e-mails I’ll be sending out before the auction? Only, what, a week and a half till the big event? I figure I’ll send one this week and then one just before.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  She sat me down and pointed out a stack of designer catalogs. “I’ve tabbed a few of the items I’m going to be auctioning—one-of-a-kind pieces, which is what we’re known for. Go ahead and write copy for each of those to put in the e-mail.”

  Writing copy for fashion? I thought I’d gone to heaven. I flipped through the catalog and stopped myself from drooling all over the boat trousers, khaki capris, and personal-fit jeans. Not to mention the custom-tailored LeSportsac bags. I stuck to clothes for women—women with money to bid up an auction to support Isobel. And Emma.

  An hour later, Becky came up behind me, read the copy, and exclaimed, “Savvy, you’ve done a marvelous job. I think that’ll be it for today. I’ll massage the wording just a bit and send them out. Thank you so much. Back next week?”

  “For sure,” I said. And the next week, and maybe during the summer . . . if things worked out right.

  Later that night, after buying Louanne a heaping 99, a British ice cream specialty of vanilla ice cream with a large Cadbury Flake candy bar driven into the middle of it, I got home, popped open a tube of Smarties, and began to write my Asking for Trouble column. I had a lot of homework this week, now that we were nearing the end of the school year. I had better get my column done early. I knew just the verse I was going to use.

  God helps those who help themselves.

  Chapter 15

  Thursday morning I was a bit late, so I didn’t have time to read my column before getting to first period. When I arrived, I was in for a surprise. Hazelle was in the seat next to me, and Brian was across the room.

  “Um, what happened?” I asked, sliding into the desk beside her.

  “Nothing,” she said. But she looked really, really sad.

  “Gum?” I offered.

  “I don’t chew gum, Savvy,” she barked.

  Okay then. Just for old time’s sake, I’d ice down that burn and try one last time. “How’s the book coming along?”

  “I stopped working on it,” she said quietly, and then she opened her notebook and fiddled with the lead in her mechanical pencil.

  Oh yeah. She’d been writing a romance. I’d messed up that one.

  After school I walked around the campus to pick up the extra papers. I snagged one and read my article before going to the newspaper office.

  Dear Asking for Trouble,

  I have an art project due in a couple of weeks. It’s a really important project to me because I want to send my drawing portfolio to art school next year. A friend of mine, who also likes art, asked if we could do the next project together. I know it would help her to work with me, but I’m not sure I would benefit by working with her. But then I’d feel selfish. I could do this one with her and the next one on my own. What should I do?

  Sincerely,

  Needs to Draw a Conclusion Soon

  Dear Draw,

  It’s nice that you want to help your friend, but you’re trying to let your own work shine in this project, especially since you want to be admitted to art school. And you’re right—if she’s so excited about art, she might need to get this done on her own. Maybe she’d really benefit from having to stand on her own for this project, just like you’re willing to do. I say go it alone.

  Sincerely,

  Sounds Sketchy

  Melissa had promised me she’d stay after school and help me learn how to do an upside-down pyramid news article structure and teach me how to seamlessly work in British style quotes. “So here’s where you put the comma, then,” she said as we hunched over her desk. She tapped a few times on the keyboard and, voilà! as Madame Antoinette would say. Things were looking good.

  I cut and pasted a paragraph about Be@titude’s origins. The pièce de résistance would be the sidebar showing how much money the auction made to buy business wardrobe items for mums in need.

  Hazelle had left early, for once. Her Vote Hazelle sign over her desk had lost one of its thumbtacks and now swung like a loose limb on the corkboard. Natalie was still there, though. She came up behind us. Melissa turned her head away, sending a shot of grapefruit scent from her hair into the air around us. She didn’t meet Natalie’s eye.

  “Working on Be@titude again, I see.” Natalie’s voice was chipper. “Didn’t you want to feature it earlier this month?”

  “As a part of the May Day Ball article we were going to work on together,” I reminded her, but she didn’t take the bait.

  “Looks like a worthwhile piece,” she said. “Can’t wait to see it in print.”

  Was it just me, or did that sound like a promise?

  Then she gathered up her books and closed her laptop before strolling into the hall. I could see Rhys waiting for her.

  He glowered at me before putting his arm around Natalie and walking away.

  Chapter 16

  My mom and I had made a deal. She’d do my laundry on Sunday afternoon if I’d clean the kitchen. That way I could keep my remaining clothes intact and still get my allowance. This weekend I was feeling so good about life in general that I decided to not only clean the kitchen but also shine up the bathrooms, run the vacuum, and help Louanne with the dog.

  “Wow, I’m not sure what brought on this burst of energy, but whatever it is, I hope it’s a permanent condition.” Dad lifted his feet off the floor while I ran the sweeper through the living room and turned up Top Gear so he could hear it over the noise.

  “New episode tonight?” I asked after finishing the house.

  Dad looked surprised. “Yes, actually.” I didn’t tell him that Tommy loved Top Gear too and that he’d told me Sunday nights debuted the new episodes.

  I even drew a truce with Growl. I fed him treats while Louanne groomed him. Then, after taking my cleaned and folded clothes upstairs, I sat in front of the computer at the little office nook in the kitchen to do some homework. I quickly ran through my e-mail, not wanting anyone in the room to see that I’d been getting the forwards for the Asking for Trouble column. I’d read them later on my laptop. However, one message caught my eye. It was from Hazelle.

  The subject line was “Tips for writers,” and it had also gone to Melissa, Jack, and a couple of others on the newspaper staff. Not Rodney, though, and not Natalie. No surprise there. Hazelle was finally including me in a group of writers!

  “Who’s that from?” Mom asked.

  “Hazelle,” I answered. “It’s an e-mail for writers.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “I guess so. But she’s never really included me in writerly things.”

  “Well, maybe things have changed,” Mom said.

  Yeah, like she knows the vote for editor is coming up soon. I clicked on the next e-mail. It was from Ashley. I gasped.

  Mom came up behind me as she heard the gasp. “What’s the matter?”

  “There’s a message from Ashley. She must have gotten my e-mail off a forward from Penny or something.”

  “What is it?”

  “A forward. If you send it on to ten people plus the person who sent it to you by the end of the day, you will know your true love within a week.”

  Dad piped up from the next room, “You don’t have a true love. You’re not even allowed to date!”

  “Turn the volume on the telly up, Dad,” I called back.

  Mom remained still behind my chair for a minute before speaking up. “Hmm. I don’t know if I’d advise that. Maybe your friends don’t want all these forwards. People get kind of annoyed with forward
s, Savvy.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Not in my generation. We’re used to it. It’s only the technological dinosaurs that mind them. We know what we’re doing. Plus, Ashley will totally know if I don’t return it to her. And she’ll be mad.”

  Mom looked down at me and shrugged. I could tell she hadn’t changed her mind. I hadn’t changed my mind either.

  “Has her mom or Penny’s mom talked to you about the garden club yet?”

  “Not exactly. But I did get an e-mail from Penny’s mom, and it was sent to the whole garden club. I’m not sure what to make of it. I’ll forward it to you and you can let me know what you think.”

  “Okay.” I turned back to Ashley’s forward and stared at it. I really didn’t know what to do.

  Chapter 17

  “Are you going to Be@titude?” Penny asked me at lunch on Monday. “Or do you want to hang out after school?”

  “I’d love to. I’m not going to Be@titude until Thursday—the day before the fund-raiser. I’m going to help Becky finish up the e-mails and send them out for her. So I’m open today!”

  After school we walked down the streets of Wexburg to Penny’s house. Well, estate would actually be a better word, even though it was called Hill House. Her housekeeper—yes, housekeeper—opened the door and let us in. “Hullo, Miss Penny,” she said, her graying blonde hair pulled back in a serviceable bun. “And who’s your friend?”

  “This is Savvy,” Penny said. “Mrs. Simmons,” she introduced her back to me.

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said.

  We went upstairs and sat on Penny’s floor. A few minutes later Mrs. Simmons brought up some milk and warm cookies—biscuits, as the Brits say. This was the life. I started daydreaming. I’d be writing for the Times of London. My weekly column would be a huge hit. So huge, in fact, that one day an agent would call me at the office and offer me a book contract that would pay enough for me to buy a Hill House of my own. Complete with a Mrs. Simmons, who would always have hot cookies for me and my friends. . . .

  “Savvy!” Penny jiggled my arm. “Are you okay? I’ve been talking to you for like a minute and you haven’t answered. Plus, you just got a text.”

  “Sorry!” I said, reemerging into the real world. I looked at my phone. “It’s from Hazelle.” I scanned it. “Just a little note reminding me that there’s a newspaper meeting in the morning.”

  “Oh,” Penny said. “Is she the new editor, then?”

  “Not unless Natalie gave up, and that’s about as likely as sharks swimming up the Thames. The election is in two weeks. Just before the last few weeks of school.”

  “So you’re going to vote for Hazelle, then?”

  I nibbled the crispy, buttery edge of another cookie and let the warm chocolate melt across my tongue. “I don’t know. Natalie says she’d let me write a column about spirituality.”

  Penny’s eyebrows shot up. “She said that?”

  “Almost.” I plucked a third cookie, promising myself I’d forgo my weekly pilgrimage to Fishcoteque on Friday. “And she said she liked my Be@titude article idea.”

  Penny’s eyebrows remained raised. “And what about Hazelle?”

  I shook my head. “Brian dumped her, I think. She’s really low about it. Didn’t see that coming.”

  “It’s hard to figure guys out,” Penny said. “Did you forward Ashley’s ‘true love’ e-mail to her? Maybe it would have helped.”

  Oh. Yeah. I had forgotten all about it, and now the twenty-four hours had come and gone. I tried to veer the conversation in another direction. “I’ve been studying guys’ body language lately. Have you ever noticed that if they lean toward you with their arms crossed, they’re interested and want to impress you but are not committing?”

  Penny grinned, leaped up, and grabbed a piece of her art paper. She sketched a guy in that pose. “Like this?”

  I laughed. “Exactly! And if they sit with their toes pointing inward toward each other, then they’re insecure.”

  Penny quickly inked another boy, this one looking just like a kid in my literature class.

  “So what does a guy look like if he’s just about to kiss you?” I asked.

  “Personal research?”

  I admitted it was. “I’m going to be sixteen in a month. You know, sweet sixteen and never been kissed.” I sighed heavily to dramatize the moment, but she smiled softly at me. She knew it bugged me, and she knew how I hoped it would be remedied. And with whom.

  Penny drew a boy leaning close, but not too close, looking both tentative and hopeful.

  “Looks like Oliver,” I teased her, and she blushed. “You know what? We should make a dude decoder for girls and e-mail it to our friends. I’ll do the writing; you do the drawing.”

  She agreed, and as I called out my observations, she drew the sketches for each one.

  We scanned the sketches and descriptions into the computer and sent them out to everyone we knew from Penny’s e-mail, but signed with both our names.

  “That was such a good idea,” Penny said. “I haven’t been able to use my art for much lately. I’ve got a friend, actually, who’s getting ready to apply to art school. I’ve asked her if she’ll work on an art project with me because I’d really like to learn from her.”

  I nodded slowly. Something about this was sounding familiar.

  “I think we could both contribute to each other’s projects—you know, working together, like you and I do. Plus, well, I could really use her help.”

  I swallowed hard. “Oh. What did she say?” My stomach was starting to feel sick. Too many cookies, probably.

  “She’s going to enter her portfolio for art school soon, and I think she wanted to do it on her own. But, well, I prayed about something for the first time ever. You know, like you do. And I think she might just work with me.”

  My chest felt heavy when she said, . . . prayed . . . like you do.”

  Because lately, I hadn’t been.

  In an instant I knew why this whole art scenario sounded familiar. It was last week’s AFT column. Penny clearly hadn’t read it, which was fine—it’s not like she even knew I wrote it. And right now I was really glad she didn’t know I wrote it. I could only hope that “Needs to Draw a Conclusion Soon” hadn’t read it either.

  Not likely.

  Chapter 18

  Tuesday morning I got to school really early because Melissa had said she’d help me a little bit with my writing and show me how to develop a sidebar. Since I didn’t have my own desk, she let me sit at hers while she stood behind me and gave me tips. Suddenly Hazelle blustered over.

  “It would make a lot more sense to move this—” she pointed over my shoulder at one of the paragraphs on the screen—“to the end. And we could delete this one—” she pointed at another one—“altogether.”

  Right. She could tell that by scanning it for like one minute?

  She waited to see what I was going to do. I wasn’t going to do anything immediately, that was for sure. “Thanks,” I said.

  That must not have made her happy because she followed up with “Still trying to write about that dress shop, eh? We don’t have a fashion column.” Then she harrumphed to her desk.

  I stared at the article. It bugged me to admit it, but Hazelle was right about moving the paragraph and deleting that other one too.

  A few minutes later I got up to grab my bag and head toward first period. Melissa’s desk was toward the back of the room, which gave me a good view of everything in sight. I stopped dead still and surveyed the boxing ring.

  In one corner was the little cubby Natalie had taken over. A few bees buzzed around her sweet-smelling talk. I counted them. Six.

  Then I looked over to the corner where Hazelle chewed on her pencil. A few people leaned over her desk, and a few others stood back listening and/or rolling their eyes. Six. Jack wouldn’t vote. That left thirteen voting staff members, including me.

  I wasn’t in either circle right now. But I realized at that moment that I mig
ht well be the deciding vote. My stomach felt tender and vulnerable again, and I wondered if I could make it to the loo before maths.

  Oooh. That Mrs. Simmons and her cookies.

  Chapter 19

  Wednesday night Dad dropped me off at church for coffeehouse and worship.

  “Hey!” I tapped Supriya on the shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t text you back last night. I fell asleep over my French book.”

  “No problem,” she said. “I’ve already got my coffee. Do you want to get some, and I’ll save you a seat?” She patted the crushed plush couch where we usually hung out and chatted before worship and the lesson.

  I agreed and made my way to the barista cart. I was actually kind of glad because it gave me a chance to scan the room for Tommy without Supriya’s teasing me. I carefully looked around, trying to appear like I was just casually taking in the scene, you know. As far as I could tell, he was nowhere to be found.

  I had to admit I was a little disappointed. As I waited patiently and the people ahead of me got their drinks, I heard that still, small voice I hadn’t heard as much lately as I used to.

  Didn’t you come here seeking Me?

  Even though I knew it wasn’t spoken aloud, I looked around to see if anyone else had heard it—the message was that strong. My head hung a little, and I apologized silently. As I did, a verse from VBS many summers ago came to me. As I thought about it, I promised to worship Him in spirit and truth. And I knew just how I could do that.

  After I got my coffee I went over to talk with Supriya, and just before worship was about to begin, I found the youth pastor, Joe, and tapped him on the shoulder. I was going to tell him that I would be delighted to play guitar on the worship team.