Confidentially Yours #6

by Jo Whittemore

  “We could have a recipe column, where kids write in with their favorites.” Mary Patrick regarded me with dull eyes. “Do you know how many twelve-year-olds would submit their top secret formula for toast?”

  I smiled. “Hey, slap a little butter on there, and it’s delicious.”

  Mary Patrick shook her head. “If I didn’t like the recipe column idea, Brooke also suggested a cat corner, where everyone could send in pictures and drawings of their cats. Does she not remember that I’m allergic?”

  I raised my eyebrow. “To pictures of cats?”

  Mary Patrick sighed. “Anyway, why are you here?”

  “We actually wanted a quiet place to talk fashion,” Katie spoke up. “And aside from your occasional complaining, this place works great!”

  Mary Patrick narrowed her eyes at Katie. “Do you own cats?”

  “I own a hamster named Queequeg,” said Katie, placing her box on a desk and opening it. “But I’m allergic to cats, too.”

  Mary Patrick watched her for a moment and then went back to frowning at the note from Brooke.

  Katie and I shrugged at each other, and I took the first shirt we needed to fix out of the bag. “The pink gingham tank top!”

  “Ugh!” Katie made a face. “It’s even pinker than I remember! It looks like something a giant toddler would wear.”

  “Okay, so we need a way to make the color not stand out as much,” I said. “And we need to age it up a bit. What says ‘I’m older’?”

  “Gray hair,” mumbled Mary Patrick.

  “Not helpful,” I shot back, but Katie’s eyes lit up.

  “Actually, something like that might work. The color, I mean.”

  Katie rummaged through her junk box and pulled out a packet of iron-ons. “What about this silver crest for the center of the chest, and silver rhinestones spaced evenly around the armholes and neckline?”

  She placed the crest on the shirt and plucked a couple of rhinestones from a Ziploc bag, setting them along one of the armholes. “I’d have to get some more rhinestones, of course, but that’ll only be a couple bucks.”

  “Yes! That looks so much better,” I said.

  “You’re welcome,” added Mary Patrick.

  Katie and I moved on to the next shirt and the next, pulling brilliant ideas from the boxes until we actually made it a race to see who could come up with the better solution first.

  While we worked, Tim strolled in, grinning from ear to ear.

  “I sold three more VIP passes to the fashion show this morning,” he said, fanning himself with the dollar bills. “Peer pressure is a beautiful thing.”

  “Wow, people really want what’s in those bags,” said Katie.

  “What is in them, by the way?” I asked.

  Tim leaned back to glance out the door and then spoke in a confidential voice, “Custom M&M’s with your initials, provided by my uncle Theo; lip gloss, provided by Brooke’s parents; temporary henna tattoos, provided by Katie’s parents; glittery nail files, provided by your mom.” He pointed to me.

  “Tim, you are seriously awesome for putting this all together!” said Katie, giving him a high five.

  “I’m not done with my list,” he said with a smile but still gave her the high five. “The VIP bags also have compact mirrors with a shoe design on the cover, provided by Heather’s parents, and leg warmers provided by you two.” He pointed to me and Katie, and my heart stopped.

  The leg warmers. I’d completely forgotten about the leg warmers.

  From the way all the color left Katie’s face, I could tell she had, too.

  Tim eyed us both suspiciously. “Okay, I’m feeling a lot less of the happy from you two than I was a second ago.”

  Katie turned to me and raised her hands to her cheeks. “We didn’t make them!”

  “I know!” I said. We both turned to Tim. “We don’t have the leg warmers ready now,” I said. “And we won’t have them ready by Friday, either.”

  Tim eyes became alarmingly round. “What? They were the central appeal of the VIP bags!”

  I wrung my hands. “Well, we have the mirrors and the nail files and—”

  “That’s all dollar store junk to make people feel like they got a lot of stuff,” Tim scoffed. “We need those leg warmers!” He hammered his fist into his palm with every word.

  “We’re barely going to have time to redo these pieces,” said Katie, holding one up.

  “Then you need to give me something else,” said Tim. “How long does it take you to make a handkerchief?”

  It was my turn to scoff. “Nobody carries a handkerchief these days, Grandpa.”

  “What about mittens?”

  “They’d take even longer than leg warmers,” said Katie.

  “Plus, it’s almost spring,” said Mary Patrick from the front desk.

  Tim dropped into a chair, and all of us sat in contemplative silence. Except for Mary Patrick, who was humming as she liberally applied a red editing pencil to someone’s article.

  “Hello?” There was a knock on the doorframe, and I glanced over to see Grace skulking in the doorway. Mary Patrick looked even less pleased to see her than I was.

  “Why are you saying hello like you’re not sure if anyone’s here?” she asked Grace. “You can see us, can’t you? What do you want?”

  Grace stepped forward. “To talk to Vanessa.” She smiled tightly at me. “I just wanted to make sure you’re not going to mention my name in the article about the Advice Column Killer.”

  I stared at her. Then I laughed. “Seriously? That’s what you’re worried about after you hurt other people? Yourself?”

  Anger flashed in Grace’s eyes, and she put her hands on her hips. “I already apologized, so it’s not like people don’t already know it’s me.”

  “Then what are you worried about?” asked Tim.

  “I just don’t want people to be reminded that it’s me,” said Grace.

  I snorted with disbelief. “Well, don’t worry. We won’t ruin your good name like you ruined other people’s.”

  Grace looked from me to Mary Patrick. “Promise?”

  “Yes. We’ve got more important things to worry about,” I said.

  Tim cleared his throat and turned to Grace. “You wouldn’t happen to be really good at making leg warmers, would you?”

  “You’re joking.” She actually had the nerve to fix him with a derisive stare. “And risk messing up my nails? Hard pass.”

  There was a loud clap from the front of the room that made us all jump, followed by the forward charge of Mary Patrick.

  “I knew I recognized you!” She pointed at Grace, who blinked and backed up several paces. “We had an article in our paper about you last year. You’re really good at nail art. You decorate your nails for every holiday.” She grabbed one of Grace’s hands and pulled it toward her. Sure enough, the snowflakes were gone, and now her nails sported smiling hearts on them.

  “So?” Grace jerked her hand back, and Mary Patrick looked at me and Katie.

  “That’s your extra item for your VIP swag bags. A gift certificate. Grace is going to offer to do nail art for all the VIPs.”

  “No I’m not!” Grace protested.

  Mary Patrick nodded. “Yes, you are. Because after what you pulled, you owe this newspaper a favor for endangering one of its sections. Especially when we’re being nice enough not to draw more attention to what a jerk you are.”

  Grace turned red. “What, so you’re blackmailing me now? If I don’t help, you’ll ruin my life?”

  I shook my head. “No. No blackmail. If you don’t help us, nothing bad will happen.”

  “But you will do this,” said Mary Patrick. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

  “Plus, you probably have really bad karma right now,” added Katie. “You might want to get rid of some of that.” She fanned the air.

  Grace glared at Tim, who held up his hands. “You’re not up for the challenge. I get it. Anything beyond basic cutting and ta
ping of newspaper articles can be tough.”

  “It wouldn’t be a challenge,” said Grace with a snarl. “I can go to a slumber party and do five sets of nails like that.” She snapped her fingers.

  “By my count, there are probably fifteen VIPs who will cash in their certificates,” said Tim.

  Grace’s eye twitched, but she nodded. “Fine. But after this, we’re even.” She stared at me until I nodded.

  “Agreed.”

  Grace stormed from the room, and Katie called out, “Your karma is looking cleaner already!”

  Mary Patrick faced the doorway, arms crossed in smug satisfaction. “That takes care of that.”

  I smiled at her, the growling dog missing all its teeth. But instead of petting her, I gave her a hug.

  And she didn’t try to bite me.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Vanessa on the Runway

  Katie and I finished brainstorming fashion changes at lunch while Tim eyed us nervously.

  “You look like you’re waiting for one of us to have a heart attack,” I finally said. “What gives?”

  “I just want to make sure there won’t be any last, last-minute changes,” he said. “Because I’m pretty sure the lady at the bakery is going to push me into the oven if I go back to her again.”

  “We’re sticking with what we’ve got,” I said, crossing my heart with my finger. “And we will be ready for dress rehearsal tomorrow.”

  Katie nodded her agreement. “But I do wish we could’ve put more of our original fashions in the show,” she said with a wistful smile.

  “Here’s something that might cheer you up,” said Brooke. “Well, it cheers me up, anyway. Advice requests have started coming in again!” She let a handful of paper slips flutter down onto the lunch table, even more than the ones I’d seen that morning.

  Heather, Tim, and I pounced.

  “Please tell me your friends didn’t write any of these,” I said to Tim.

  He shook his head. “If they did, it was because they really had questions this time.”

  “I’m so glad we can help all these people again!” chirped Heather.

  “I wonder if they missed asking us for advice as much as we missed giving it,” mused Brooke.

  “Probably,” said Tim. “We do give some really good advice. If I may say so myself.”

  “You may,” said Brooke. Heather giggled.

  “Let’s face it,” continued Brooke. “We’re hardly ever wrong. Right, V?”

  I didn’t answer right away. I was thinking about Tim’s declaration of our advice-giving skills. He was right; we were pretty amazing, but Brooke was also right. While we were hardly ever wrong, we were wrong occasionally.

  Like with my advice to A Little Different.

  I’d given her tips to get in good with her new fashionista friends, but I was also telling her to not be herself. Just like I hadn’t been myself with the Lazenby’s buyer.

  “V? You okay?” asked Heather.

  “Yeah,” I said with a smile. “Just thinking.”

  “About changing the fashion show?” asked Tim with an alarmed expression.

  “No,” I said. “About the advice I gave in our last column. Brooke, you were right. I said the wrong things, and I wish I could change it.”

  Heather put her head on my shoulder but just as quickly sat back up. “Hey, maybe you could write an article where you take back what you said! What do they call it?”

  “A retraction,” said Brooke, frowning. “I don’t think Mary Patrick would go for that, though. It would look bad for the paper to admit they were wrong about something.”

  “Would it?” asked Tim. “Or would it look better that we admit we’re not perfect? It could be a great think piece.”

  I leaned in eagerly. “Ooh, I’d really like to do that. I don’t want A Little Different to end up like us.” I gestured from me to Katie, and she blinked in surprise.

  “You mean awesome and with great hair? I think everything turned out a-okay,” she said.

  “Yeah, but that was after we suffered the humiliation of realizing we should’ve just stuck with our own styles,” I said. “I don’t want it to be my fault if someone else goes through that.”

  “Maybe it already happened,” said Brooke with a shrug.

  The rest of us booed her.

  “You really think that makes me feel better?” I asked.

  “I’m just saying, you might be wasting your breath. Just let it go and don’t give that advice again.”

  But I couldn’t let it go. Whenever I thought about what I’d told A Little Different, I cringed. Two minutes into the start of Journalism, I raised my hand, interrupting one of Mary Patrick’s rants about how sacred her red editing pencil was and demanding its return.

  “Do you have my pencil?” she demanded.

  “Uh, no. I was just wondering if the Lincoln Log ever printed a retraction,” I said.

  “V, don’t,” whispered Brooke.

  Everyone in class turned to stare at me.

  Mrs. H blinked in surprise but said, “We’ve printed corrections, but I don’t think we’ve ever done a retraction. Why do you ask?”

  I rubbed my incredibly sweaty palms across the table. “There’s a first time for everything, right?”

  People murmured to one another, but all eyes still watched me.

  “What is there to retract?” asked Mary Patrick in a voice that sounded almost hostile. I tried to remember Katie’s comparison between Mary Patrick and a toothless dog. “Did you lie?”

  “Of course not!” spoke up Heather. “Vanessa doesn’t lie.”

  “I didn’t lie,” I agreed, swallowing hard. “But I didn’t give the right advice, either.”

  Now the entire room was talking, but they weren’t bothering to keep their voices down.

  “I like how the advice column brags about how great they are, and now they want to print a retraction,” said Felix, the front-page team’s leader. “Are you wanting to retract that claim?”

  Several students laughed, but I didn’t care.

  “No, I’m not retracting that claim, because we are great,” I said, fixing him with an even stare. “I just want the chance to give the right advice to our readers.” Now I looked to Mrs. H and Mary Patrick. “Sure, A Little Different, that girl I wrote to, may be the only one in that situation right now, but next week it could be someone else. And they’ll remember what I wrote, and I’d like what they remember to be what’s right.”

  Mrs. H smiled. “I think that’s wonderful.”

  “Me too,” said Mary Patrick.

  The room got as quiet as if she’d let out a bloodcurdling scream.

  “What?” she asked, blushing. “I mean, okay, I wouldn’t have called it ‘wonderful.’ More like pathetically endearing.”

  “How are you not the most popular girl in school?” Tim asked her.

  “My point,” said Mary Patrick, “is that I agree we should fix this now. People believe what their news source tells them, and it’s up to us to maintain our integrity and make sure we repay their loyalty.” She nodded to me. “Come up with something by Friday, and if you need help, let me know.”

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling loads lighter already.

  Between that and tailoring my tops into something I could live with, the week was turning out better than it had started. What made me even happier was sharing our new designs with the models at Thursday’s dress rehearsal.

  “Oh my gosh, are these the same things we tried on Monday?” asked Linda. “They look amazing!”

  I smirked. “So they didn’t look amazing before?”

  She blushed and ran her fingers over a leather shoulder piece. “Well, I mean, they were good before, but now they’re even better!”

  “They weren’t good,” I said with a smile. “But thanks for being sweet.”

  “Vanessa?” Brooke appeared wearing the top she was modeling. This time, facing the right way, with the buttons in the back. “I thoug
ht I figured this shirt out, but now the armholes are really tight, and there’s all this extra sleeve fabric left over.”

  I laughed. “Those aren’t armholes. They’re for your shoulders. Your arms come out through the bottom of the sleeves.”

  Brooke laughed, too. “Phew! I didn’t want to be the one to tell you that this design was terrible.”

  Luckily, the rest of my models didn’t have as much trouble, and soon, they were lined up at the entrance of an imaginary stage, ready to walk the walk.

  I signaled to Berkeley, who cued up his music, and then Katie nudged the first model forward. I motioned for her to slow down so the imaginary audience could admire the top, and I admired it myself. We really had turned things around.

  It gave me more confidence to write my retraction for the newspaper.

  I handed it over to Mary Patrick on Friday morning, and her frown didn’t appear once as she read it. Neither did her red editing pencil, which she’d found mysteriously hidden in the trash can.

  “This is good,” she said. “And very professional.” Mary Patrick slid the letter into her notebook. “I hope I’ll feel the same about your fashion show.”

  “You’re coming?” I asked, unable to hide my surprise.

  “I’m the editor of the school paper, and that’s the biggest thing going on this week,” she informed me. “Plus, I heard a rumor that VIPs get free nail art.”

  I giggled. “Well, thanks for your support. We’ll do our best to impress.”

  “I’m impressed right now, actually,” said Mary Patrick. “You seem really calm for someone who’s making their fashion debut in eight hours.”

  “It’s just for family and friends,” I said with an easy smile. “Everyone in the audience already loves me.”

  But as four thirty drew closer, the nerves started to set in. I kept checking and rechecking everything that had to be done before the fashion show to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything.

  I sent Tim a text during history while the teacher set up a DVD for us to watch.

  Did you get gift certificates from Grace?

  Tim leaned over. “You know I’m sitting right next to you, right?”