Flirting with Disaster

by Sandra Byrd

  I made eye contact with Louanne, who looked back at me. I wasn’t exactly sure how much to tell her.

  Chapter 46

  “Well, there’ve been a lot of expenses this spring,” I began.

  “I see.” Aunt Maude appeared to be thinking hard. Then she turned the heat down on the bubble and squeak and said to us, “You know, the British government requires that landlords invest a certain amount of money into their properties each year. Now I try not to grumble, as you know, but with the many ailments I must bear, it’s been difficult for me to decide what to do here. I’ve got just the idea. Let’s buy some roses and put them back there for your mum.”

  “Actually, Mom has a notebook of plants she’d like,” Louanne said. “It’s in the drawer by the microwave if you want to see it.”

  I closed my eyes and cringed. You didn’t tell someone what to buy as a present! When I opened my eyes again, though, Aunt Maude didn’t seem to be put out at all. Which was sweet!

  “Certainly she would have ideas about what she’d fancy. Well, come along then; let’s go. I’ve got to come back and make a mess very soon, so there’s no time to waste.”

  “A mess?” I inquired. Normally Aunt Maude bustled about cleaning up, not making a mess.

  She grabbed her keys and threw me an I’m-so-sorry-you’re-an-undercultured-American look. “Yes, dear, Eton mess. Strawberries, meringue, and cream.”

  After the dinner of bubble and squeak—aka cabbage and potatoes—followed by the mess, Aunt Maude informed us that she was going to make a dessert for my parents to eat when they arrived tomorrow, and would I please look through her cookery book to find something? “You do cook, don’t you?” she asked.

  “Nope,” I said.

  “She’d better learn,” Louanne teased. “She’s got her first boyfriend now.”

  “Ou’reyay eadday,” I said under my breath.

  “My, my,” Aunt Maude said. “And of course it’s a British boy. Vastly superior to all others in every way,” she said, clucking. “I’m sure he’s quite handsome.”

  “She’s got a snap of him on her phone,” Louanne volunteered before she ditched from the room.

  “Well, then, let’s have a look,” Aunt Maude said.

  I pulled out my phone and scrolled through till I got a good close-up of Tommy, and then I handed the phone to her.

  She stared at him for quite a while, her face going from teasingly positive to almost shocked. For a minute I wondered if her digestive system was kicking up again. “He’s very handsome,” she said. “It’s Tommy, right?”

  Now it was my turn to be shocked. “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “Never met him,” she said. And as much as I pressed, and later even sent Louanne to press, she would say no more.

  Chapter 47

  Friday, no-uniform day. To distract myself from my biggest worry—how to angle the article to completely engage a bunch of my classmates with summer fever—I spent an extra hour planning what to wear.

  I had a white hoodie that I loved—Hollister Malibu with red and black lettering—and I hadn’t worn my black and gray checked Vans for a while. But what jeans? Sighing, I took out my second-best pair and slipped them on. Not for the first time since the Great Laundry Disaster, I mourned the loss of my best jeans.

  On the way to school, I started thinking about the article again. I just saw no way out of it, and I started getting mad. Why should my entire career ride on one article at the end of the year? Ridiculous.

  Just before I got to Wexburg Academy, I received a text. It was from Supriya.

  Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Philippians 4:6

  Lord, thank You for helping me with everything so far. I really want to write this article—and to have a permanent spot on the newspaper staff next year, which I’d really love. Thanks again.

  Just before I walked into the building, I added, And I’d like Tommy to ask me to go out with him. If that’s not too much to ask.

  The first three periods went by quickly. I’d been planning to sit at the newspaper table that day to pick Melissa’s brain about angle ideas—after all, I had only three or four days to get the whole thing written—but she wasn’t there. Hazelle told me that both Melissa and Jack were at some meeting for sixth formers. And then—a surprise.

  “Can I talk with you in the courtyard?” Hazelle asked.

  I nodded and we stepped outside together.

  “Savvy . . . well, maybe you were right,” she began. “The Asking for Trouble column is very important to the paper. And if I want to do what’s right for the paper, I guess we’d better keep it. So if you still want to write it, you can.”

  I felt dizzy. I was keeping the column! “I’d like to keep it. Thank you, Hazelle.”

  Hazelle looked wrung out. I suspected she was facing a few testing moments of her own. “And about the other article—the one Jack promised you. You’re right about journalistic integrity. So you can do one article.”

  “On what topic?” I asked, hardly daring to hope.

  “Whatever you want,” Hazelle said. “If the article is a success—if it creates buzz, causes an effect, brings in letters to the editor—I’ll let you write regularly next school term. You can have articles under your own name and with your own byline. And if it isn’t a success, then I won’t. But you’ll still have the advice column. Agreed?”

  She’d said it was all about the paper, nothing personal, and she was keeping it that way. “Deal,” I said, wondering how an article about a ministry was going to generate buzz that would be heard at the end of the school term, when all anyone wanted to do was finish up their work and get on with holidays.

  But fair was fair. The challenge was on.

  I headed back into the lunchroom and slid in alongside Penny, which was always fun, except that she was sitting in the middle that day. Which meant we were right across from Ashley, who was holding court and complaining about something while everyone mewed sympathetically. This time, though, I could relate.

  “I still haven’t found any jeans I like,” she said. “If they fit in the waist, they don’t fit in the leg or hip. I can’t for the life of me understand why it’s so difficult to get a pair that works all at once. And I don’t want to wear something that everyone else is wearing either.”

  I looked around the table, and everyone was nodding, tossing out brand names and their general dissatisfaction. I completely agreed.

  And then I had an idea. I just didn’t know how to bring it together. I tuned everyone out and tried to figure out the details, but I couldn’t.

  “Two are better than one.”

  I leaned toward Penny. “Are you busy after school?”

  “I’ve got a few minutes, but then I’ve got to go to the dentist,” she said. “Why?”

  “Okay. Let’s talk after sixth period.” We both had Miss Nodding.

  Penny agreed, and I counted the hours.

  Chapter 48

  After a history class full of cheerful recounting of the Great Plague of London in 1665, complete with running sores, bleeding from the ears, and putrid stenches, I was ready to present my fabulous idea to Penny. We grabbed our book bags and headed out of class.

  “You know how Ashley was saying at lunch that she had no jeans and how both Alison and I had to put our jeans back when we were in London because Ashley couldn’t find anything?”

  “Are you still not over that?” Penny teased.

  “Kind of,” I admitted. “Anyway, I think most of us have a hard time finding great jeans. And who wants to pay a hundred pounds for a pair of jeans that doesn’t fit perfectly? But I also don’t want to wear jeans that make me look like Farmer Brown.”

  “Agreed.” Penny wasn’t pushing me, though I could tell by the blank look on her face that she wasn’t tracking yet.

  “So . . . when I was working with Becky, she sent me home with a stack of catalogs. I looked through the
m and found a lot of cool things, of course. One of the coolest was for a company that licenses out the right to make custom-fit jeans. The retailer—in this case, Be@titude—buys a license to sell custom jeans within a certain area, like Wexburg plus twenty kilometers all around. Then they get the exclusive right to custom-fit jeans for anyone. A perfect fit. So what if I asked Becky if she’d be willing to be the licensee for this area, and we put that in my article, and then a lot of people went into her store to buy the jeans?”

  A little smile appeared on Penny’s face, but she wasn’t exactly jumping up and down with enthusiasm like I’d hoped she would be. “What makes you think people will run right out and buy them, even if it’s in the article?”

  “We’ll take a picture of someone wearing the jeans. Like . . . you!” I said. “You could wear them, and we’ll take a snap of it and run it alongside the article with some comments from you.”

  Penny giggled. “Thanks, Savvy, but I doubt if hordes of people are going to descend upon the shop just because I’m wearing the jeans. Now, if it were someone like Ashley . . .”

  We sat on a bench at the edge of campus. “You want me to give Ashley more publicity?”

  “I want you to give the shop more publicity,” Penny said.

  I nodded. “Yes . . . that does make sense. And if Ashley likes them, everyone else will too.”

  “Exactly,” Penny said. “But you have two hurdles before you can even get to that point. Getting Ashley to agree to model them. And getting Becky to take the risk on investing in the license.”

  Chapter 49

  I decided to text Ashley.

  Hey, Ashley, it’s Savvy. I wondered if you had a minute to meet me so I could talk about an idea with you. It’s about fashion, so of course I thought of you.

  Hey, I wasn’t above a little ego stroking for a good cause.

  She texted me back a few minutes later.

  All right. You can come by tomorrow morning after ten. I’ll alert the butler to expect you.

  Hooray! I had an audience with the queen.

  My chauffeur—um, Dad—drove me to The Beeches after breakfast. Well, after their breakfast. I was too excited and worried to eat. I’d brought the catalog to show Ashley . . . even though I hadn’t asked Becky yet. To be honest, I wasn’t sure whom I should ask first. If Ashley wasn’t behind it, then I couldn’t ask Becky to waste her licensing money. But if Ashley said yes and then Becky said no, Ashley was going to be peeved, to put it politely.

  “I’ll just park down here then, miss, shall I?” Dad said.

  “Ha-ha,” I said. “Quit joking and start praying!”

  I hopped out of the car and walked up the long two flights of buttery stone steps toward the double-door entrance to The Beeches. I didn’t even need to tap on the door knocker. As soon as I reached the top flight, the butler opened the door.

  “Hullo, miss. Miss Ashley is expecting you in the sitting room.” He indicated the pinkish room to his right. I’d been there before, months ago, when The Beeches had been having an open house for the National Trust.

  I headed in that direction, wishing like everything that my shoes didn’t squeak like sick ducks every time I stepped on the polished wood floor. The door was already open, and Ashley was sitting at a large mahogany desk with a brand-new computer, doing her homework.

  “Hullo, Savvy,” she said, her voice neither warm nor cold. “Come on over here.” She indicated an upholstered wing chair near her seat.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I have an idea—a fashion idea—that I’d like to share with you.” I ran down the details as I’d explained them to Penny, leaving out the fact that I’d asked Penny to model first. “Because you’re very fashion forward, I thought of you to model them. Last time we featured The Beeches in the newspaper, there was a great response. I have every reason to believe we’d have the same response this time.”

  Ashley nodded at me. “I can see why you’d like to have me model,” she said. “So you’re suggesting The Beeches for the launch, then?”

  Launch? I hadn’t even thought of a launch, but I wasn’t going to let her know that. Nor would I ever have had the nerve to suggest The Beeches for anything. But if she was suggesting it . . . I worked really hard at keeping my forty-three muscles straight. “If you think it’s a good idea, then of course I agree,” I said.

  “It’d have to be next Saturday in order to get it done before the end of the year,” she said. “A week from today. And your article is coming out . . . ?”

  “This Thursday. Two days before the launch.” Please, God, let Becky say yes, or else I’m dead and you might as well just get a broom and sweep me up. Ashes to ashes and all that. “Is that too short notice for your mom to get things ready?”

  Ashley laughed. “My mum doesn’t get things ready, Savvy. We have staff.”

  I almost mentioned that Be@titude was the store that lost all of its computer stuff because of her e-card, but I didn’t think that guilting someone into anything was good form. Not that it would be successful with Ashley anyway. I’d learned my lesson, and I let God work.

  A minute went by, then two. I could hear “the staff” putting away the breakfast service in the dining room nearby.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll do it. I’ll talk with my mum about the launch and text you shortly.”

  “That is so great!” I said. “Thank you so much. I mean, it’s going to be like you’re wearing a Stella McCartney.”

  “No need to pour it on, Savvy. I’ve already agreed,” she said, but not too unkindly.

  I had to stop myself from hugging the butler on the way out the door.

  Chapter 50

  “Please take me directly to Be@titude, Jensen,” I said, playing along with Dad as chauffeur.

  He pulled his hat down over his eyes. “Right away, ma’am,” he said.

  As he drove, I prayed. And it didn’t take long to get to the shop. We pulled up outside in less than five minutes.

  I pushed open the door and saw that Becky was helping a customer check out. She looked up at me and smiled, her face not showing any anger or resentment over the computer issue. When her customer left, she greeted me warmly. “Hey, Savvy!”

  I nearly collapsed in tears to hear her welcome. “Becky, do you have a few minutes?” I asked, pulling myself together.

  “Sure,” she said.

  I set her stack of catalogs on the counter, with the custom jeans one on top. “I have an idea,” I started, “though I don’t know what you’ll think.” I reminded myself to speak slowly, and then I ran over everything I’d talked about with Penny and with Ashley. “Ashley said she’d check to see if the launch could be at The Beeches. It would give us the best chance. Do you know the Gorm Strausses?”

  Becky smiled. “We all know the Gorm Strausses. So I’d have to pay the licensing fee of . . . ?”

  “Three hundred pounds,” I said. “I know. It’s a lot. And there’s not much time to get everything together because you’d have to contact them and see if the license is available, and then if they could bring samples up for the launch. But you did say you wanted teens to come into the shop more. Right? This is the way to do it.”

  Becky sat there for a minute, considering. Then she said, “Let’s pray.”

  I closed my eyes, and she prayed, asking the Lord if this was the direction He was leading and, if so, to let us know. I opened my eyes, and she said, “There are still some things I need to check out . . . but I think it’s a go.”

  “Hooray!” I shouted, and at that moment I got a text from Ashley.

  Mum says fine. We’ll take care of details on this end. Can do photo shoot on Tuesday if you can get the jeans to me by then.

  I handed my phone over to Becky so she could read it.

  She nodded firmly. “I’ll work on getting the jeans here.”

  “I’ll work on the article,” I said, passionately hoping that a lot of people would read it and show up—for Becky, of course, but also for my future wit
h the Wexburg Academy Times.

  “What should we call it?” Becky asked. “Perfect Fit?”

  “That’s a bit old for teenagers. How about . . .” I racked my brain. And then it came to me. The perfect name for a line of custom-fit jeans.

  “How about InJeanious?”

  Chapter 51

  At church on Sunday I shared the news with Supriya and the worship team. They all promised to pray about my article and for the success of the event. After Sunday school, Tommy came up to me, and I told him the details I hadn’t been able to via text.

  “So,” he said, “are guys invited to this?”

  “Absolutely. They wear jeans, don’t they?”

  He nodded. “And would one need a date for this event?”

  I grinned. It wouldn’t be one-on-one, after all. “I don’t know if one would, but some might.”

  “Do you need a date?” he teased.

  “Yes . . . if the right person asks.”

  Monday at school, Tommy showed up carrying a sticky paper with the words Right Person on it. He stuck it on his shirt and said, “Would you like to go to the launch with me on Saturday?”

  I took the sticky paper off his shirt. “Absolutely!”

  I was psyched, of course. But he still hadn’t officially asked me out.