One Hot Summer
Page 35
While I appreciate Leigh’s support, I feel too pathetic to muster a rousing, “Hell, yes, sister-friend!” so I mumble a quiet “Thanks.”
She stops mid-waddle and turns to look at me, scanning my green eyes with her brown. “Hey. Don’t get down on yourself. You don’t want to be half of ‘Manda and Bryce’ anymore, do you?”
“Manda and Bryce sounds better than Manda and no one.”
“No, it does not! He wasn’t the one, sweet thing. You were just passing time with him. The right one’s still out there waiting. You’re not giving up, are you?”
“Giving up? Hmm.” I tap my chin. “Well, my boyfriend of five years dumped me because he wasn’t “into us” anymore, which we all know means he wasn’t into me…and then he moved in with Ruby the bartender, who’s all of twenty-two. A whole decade younger than me,” I say. “Doesn’t exactly make a girl feel like a million bucks, Leigh.”
She moves the folder she’s holding under her arm and reaches for my hands, taking them in hers. “He’s out there.”
I drop her eyes because her faith in me doesn’t feel warranted. “Sure.”
“Manda!”
When Leigh uses her no-nonsense, almost-a-mom voice, I listen. “What?”
“Hear my words, girl. He’s…Out…There. You just have to believe.”
“Right. Okay.”
“You believe me?” she asks, her dark eyes searching mine.
“Yes…No…I want to, but…” I take a deep breath and sigh, looking away from her and blinking away the fat, unwanted tears that are suddenly blurring my vision. “Where? Where is he?”
“He’s not going to fly through your bedroom window with a three-carat princess cut, Manda. You gotta find him. You gotta put yourself in his path.”
On-line dating is a joke…Amen, brother.
I pull my hands away and brush at my eyes. “And where is that, oh wise one? On Tinder? Ugh. Gross.”
“No, not on Tinder,” she says, pursing her lips, full of sass. She grabs my hands again, holding them tightly in hers. Oh, crap… “Let’s visualize.”
Visualizing. Something Leigh learned recently in Lamaze class. Something she’s been practicing regularly ever since on a reluctant me.
“What…now?”
“Yes, now. No time like the present. Close your eyes. Clear your mind. Now…see what he sees. Where’s he walking? Where’s he going?”
“How do I know?”
“Shhh! Come on, now! You have to do this!” She insists. “You figure out what he sees, and you’ll figure out where to find him.”
I feel incredibly ridiculous, holding hands with my co-worker in our bustling office, to do a half-baked visualization exercise meant to help my nonexistent love life. But that steel is back in her voice, so I comply.
“Fine,” I mutter.
“Good. Now, breathe.”
I take a deep breath, filling my lungs before letting it go.
“Now, look at the world through his eyes. See what he sees.”
When I was little, I had a book about Alaska, given to me by my grandmother, so I can easily picture Sitka, Alaska, with its harbor full of fishing boats and harbor seals. I see bright green fir trees and bright blue skies. I picture orcas and humpbacks, totem poles and an old Russian Orthodox church.
“Now turn around,” says Leigh, her voice low, soft and hypnotic, “and look at him.”
I do it. I turn away from the harbor and picture…Luke.
My eyes pop open.
“Did you see him?” she asks, her eyes sparkling and happy, her hands squeezing mine with excitement.
“Ladies, can we expect your attendance? Or do you require an engraved invitation?” asks Norman Frumplestein, giving us a deeply irritated look as he passes us in the hallway, en route to the conference room for the meeting.
His name is really Norman Frum, but he always looks frustrated, rumpled and like he’s channeling Frankenstein’s monster. Ergo… Frumplestein.
Norm is the Lifestyles Editor, and therefore our boss, but each of us—me and Leigh—have a few years of seniority on Norm, and are paid almost as much he, which makes Norm kinda-sorta hate our guts.
“Oh, I’ll take an invitation,” says Leigh, not even a little bit intimidated by Norm’s bark. “I love a pretty invitation.”
Over his shoulder, he calls, “Terrific, Ms. Stanton. Here it is: get your butt into the conference room. And Ms. McKendrick, I hope your idea for the June column wows.”
“Hey, idea-girl,” says Leigh, glancing back at me, “Is our column going to…wow?”
I still got nothin’.
“Mmm. Maybe?”
“I’ma go pee, which means you have exactly five minutes to come up with something, girl. You feel me?”
What I feel is the ground tremble as she waddles away.
Pressing on my mouse again, I note the click-bait headline: BEAR ATTACKS ON THE RISE IN SITKA, hovering just over Luke’s personal ad, but ignore it.
The only “something” circling in my head is “Luke,” a single dad in Sitka with such modest hopes, and such a theoretically hot bod, I can’t help the way his name pulls at my—ah-hem—heart.
“Sounds like you boys have got sports covered.” The Sentinel’s Editor-in-Chief, Steve Halloran, looks at our boss with his bushy gray eyebrows raised. “Norm? What’s coming up in Lifestyles?”
Norm nods, turning to the young woman sitting on his left, with what passes for a smile in Frumplestein’s world. Leigh and I have a running theory that Kim Johnston, who joined the Sentinel in March and quickly secured her own column, is putting out more than articles for Norm.
“Kim’s got late-May covered. She’s going to a few area schools to talk to parents, teachers and students about the last day of school. Where’re you headed, Kim?”
Kim leans forward, looking up from her notes. “Bellevue Christian and Schmitz Park Elementary.”
“Nice,” says smug-Norm. “And you’ve got the veteran’s thing in…uh…”
“VA Clinic. Puget Sound. Memorial Day Cook-Out.”
“Right,” says Norm. “And you’re also doing a piece on the Capitol Hill Block Party in late-June?”
“All over it,” she answers. “Can’t wait to get my tunes on! Boom!”
“Great,” says Steve with an indulgent chuckle. “Good stuff. Kids, vets and local music covered. I like it. Good work, Kim. What else you got, Norm?”
“I’ve got Stacey on the Seattle Street Food Festival the first weekend in June and the International Beer Festival the third weekend.”
“Are we a sponsor this year?” asks Steve. “For the beer weekend?”
“No, sir,” says Norm, shifting in his seat. “Amazon’s the lead sponsor.”
“We missed the boat on that?”
“Didn’t realize you wanted in,” says Norm, his pasty cheeks coloring a little.
“I always want in. Bit of a fuck-up on that one, huh?” Steve gives Norm a look. He’s all about rejuvenating the Sentinel’s lagging subscribership by being a part of major local events. “Sponsorship is an easy way to keep the Sentinel relevant. It’s good local PR.” He shrugs with annoyance, then shifts his attention to me and Leigh. “Wow me, ladies. We need a winner. What’s on tap for the June column?”
“Manda’s got a great concept,” says Leigh.
“Fabulous,” says Norm, pursing his lips like he just bit into a lemon peel. “Let’s hear it.”
I clear my throat. “Umm…it’s umm…”
I look at Norm, then at Steve, who’s waiting expectantly for my idea. Except, my mind is a blank. Utterly and completely blank…except for…Single in Sitka…
“We’re planning to…”
Luke…Luke…Luke…
I turn to look at Leigh, who blinks at me, her dark eyes starting to look a little crazy.
“Share the idea with us, Manda,” she says slowly, leaning forward a little as though her sheer will for me to formulate a sudden idea will make it happen.
“Bear attacks are on the rise in Sitka, Alaska?!”
I blurt it out in a sort of combination question-statement, smiling at Steve like a lunatic.
“Huh?” grunts Norm.
“What’s this, now?” hisses Leigh at my shoulder.
I ignore her and plow forward with my non-idea idea. “Um. Bears. They, uh, they’re attacking. People. I think. In Sitka. Big problem. Massive problem.”
“Bears,” says Steve.
“Uh-huh.”
“Fascinating,” says Norm, rolling his eyes, “but we need to hear the concept, Amanda.”
“Animals being, um, crowded out of their space,” I say. “That’s the concept. People love an animal piece, right? With an environmental angle? We haven’t done one in ages. Kim is doing, uh, kids and vets and music. And Stacey’s got food and drink. We need animals. An animal piece. For summer. People will love it.”
Steve is staring at me, sawing at his chin with a stubby index finger. “Alaskan bears. Tell me more.”
“Well, we have decided…” I begin, glancing at Leigh and hoping she’ll just play along with me. “…to look into the, um, the changing behavior of the Sitka bears. They’re getting—crowded out of their natural habitat, and so they’re intimidating the locals. Why? What’s, um…What’s going on up there in—in, uh, Sitka?”
“An environmental angle, huh? Animals and the environment. That’s usually a win for our readers. We are Seattle, for God’s sake.” Steve is nodding slowly, but suddenly exhales loudly. “I’m not against it…but, I’ll be honest: it sounds a little dry. I’m not sure there’s enough there to—”
“Sorry, sir,” interrupts Frumplestein, a perennial ass-kisser and already on the ropes for the sponsorship fuck-up. “These ladies didn’t give me a chance to sign off on the pitch this morning. Bears. Eh. I think it needs a massage. Or maybe I can get Kim to jump on board, and we’ll just, um…”
I kick Leigh under the table, giving her side eyes and a crazy smile. A little help, please?
“There’s more!” chirps Leigh. “We have an uplifting, heartwarming idea you’re going to love, sir!”
“I like heartwarming,” says Steve, shifting his glance away from Norm. “People like this heartwarming animal stuff. It’s all over my damn Facebook feed. What’s the idea?”
“Well…,” she begins, “um, Manda is planning to go up to Sitka and…that is, we thought it might be awesome if…”
What’s awesome? What awesome thing are we about to do?
Suddenly, a brilliant smile—warm, deep and genuine, with more than a dollop of mischief—replaces the fake one. And, oh, shit. I know that look. It’s the look she gets as a very bad idea formulates in her head.
“Manda is going up to Sitka to do some first-hand reporting. And then we were hoping to—”
No, we’re not. I don’t know what you’re about to say, but don’t you say it. Don’t you dare say it!
“—organize a fundraiser here in Seattle for late-June. Manda will go up to Sitka to assess the, uh, the bear problem, and then we’ll have, you know, an event. Here. And all of the proceeds will go to, um, the bears. But the Sentinel will be the lead sponsor of—of the big event.”
I stare at her, my neck pivoting back and forth like a mechanical doll.
And Leigh, my sweet, demented bestie, is grinning at me like a cat who got the whole bottle of cream as she nods “yes” in perfect time with my “no’s.”
“Animals. Environment. Fundraiser.” Leigh pauses for effect, then booms: “Seattle Sentinel Saves the Bears!”
“Seattle Sentinel Saves The Bears! A fundraiser, huh? So…” says Steve, tenting his fingers under his nose as he looks at me, “you’re going to go up there and check out the situation, huh? Then come back here and get Seattle on board with fixing the problem? Hmm. Yes. I like it. Real-life reporting. A environmental angle. A story with heart. And a way to help.” He’s getting excited now and he raises his hands, spreading them like he’s reading a headline. “Join our very own Sentinel reporter on a quest to save the bears! A Beary Special Fundraiser! Or something like that…” He points to Norman. “Work on it. I want a catchy tagline for this one. It’s a winner.”
“Wait!” I jerk my head back to Steve. “Sir, I think Leigh’s overstated the situation a touch, because the fundraiser part of things was more of conversation we needed to have—”
“Nonsense!” says Norm, who knows me and Leigh well enough to sense that something hinky is going on here. “The Sentinel loves a fundraiser and you two have delivered the perfect idea!”
“Forget the beer thing. We have a bear thing! Ha ha!” Steve is practically preening in his seat. “The Sentinel will be the lead sponsor. We’ll be the Amazon of this event!” He points at Leigh. “Get Jody in accounting to cut you a check for the fundraiser expenses. You can ask a couple of the summer interns to give you a hand in planning.” He points at me. “I’ll give you two weeks in Alaska to get to the bottom of the bear issue. I want the column to run one week before the event.”
Now, first of all, I don’t actually know if there’s actually a “bear problem” in Sitka! For all I know, that headline was three years old!
And second of all, I have never organized a big scale event in my entire life. A few friends, a six-pack of beer and a package of hot dogs? I’m your girl. But a fundraiser? An actual, legitimate fundraiser with events and food and sponsors and all that jazz? Not my bailiwick. Not at all. And besides, I was hired to be a reporter, not a party planner!
Now, if my partner wasn’t 100 months pregnant, and the two interns weren’t morons, maybe she could organize the fundraiser while I researched and wrote the column…but, Leigh’s about to be totally out of commission, right? Which means I’m on my own researching and writing the article and planning the event?
Impossible.
“Thank you, sir,” says Leigh. “That sounds great. We’ll get right on it.”
We cannot possibly deliver what we’re promising, and when that happens, we’re going to be fired. I need to do something. I need to say something.
“You know, sir,” I start, trying to keep the runaway-train panic out of my voice, “if we could just peddle back a bit here, I really think that we need a little more time and—”
“Have a Heart for the Bears!” he exclaims over me, nodding enthusiastically. “It’s perfect! I like it a lot, ladies. Great work. Nice job with these two, Norm. Get on this right away. Whatever they need.”
I whip my head to face Leigh, my voice a furious whisper. “A fundraiser, Leigh? A goddamned fundraiser? I can’t plan a fundraiser!”
She shrugs her shoulders. “He wanted to be Amazon. You could see it.”
“We can’t make him Amazon!” I hiss. “I needed your help.”
“And I gave it. You go to Sitka. I’ll handle the fundraiser planning from here. How hard can it be?”
“Are you crazy?” I whisper-growl. “You’re having a baby in ten minutes!”
“We’ll figure it out,” she says, gathering up her notes and the energy to stand up. “Planning is mostly phone calls and emails. I can do that. Even with a baby.”
“Have you ever planned an event this big?”
“Does my cousin’s bridal shower count? There were, like, a hundred and—”
“No!”
I glance back at Steve, who’s making big plans for the Sentinel to sponsor my fictional, theoretical bear fundraiser.
“The bears were just supposed to be a filler until I came up with a real idea,” I lament.
“Well…now they are the real idea.” She pauses. “And if you ask me? It’s not bad.”
My shoulders slump. “What did you just do to us?”
“Nothing that we can’t handle,” she says, and I envy her confidence. We have approximately six weeks to write a column and plan an
entire fundraiser while one of us becomes a new mother. “Truly. You write. I’ll plan.”
I am entirely unconvinced that we will be able to pull this off.
“Do you have a warm coat?” she asks me with a grin. “May in Alaska’s bound to be a little nippy.”
And that’s when my semi-wobbly head finally connects to reality: like it or not, I’m about to spend the next two weeks in Alaska researching a “story” that was inspired by some headline I bearly even read. I cross my fingers under the table hoping that Sitka, Alaska, still has an actual bear problem for me to report on. What if it doesn’t? Then what?
“We’ve got to get me out of this,” I moan.
Leigh glances over at Steve. “No chance, girl. This is happening. You,” she says, pushing in her chair and waddling toward the door, “are headed north.”
“Great,” I mutter. I’m going to goddamned Alaska to save the goddamned bears. “Just great.”
2
Luke
“Five seconds, guys. Five. And then my car is pulling out of that driveway. You hear?”
I wait at the foot of the stairs for their replies.
“Yes, sir!” calls Chad, my thirteen-year-old boy scout.
“Got it!” yells his sister, Gillian, who is eleven going on fifteen.
Heading back to the kitchen, I grin at five-year-old Meghan, who’s sitting at the table, finishing her cereal.
“You gotta buckle my shoes,” she says, swinging her legs in my direction.
I take a knee and buckling each in turn. Over my shoulder I yell in the direction of the stairs. “And none of that lip gloss stuff, Gilly. I mean it! You’re too young for—”
“Oh, daddy,” she says, entering the kitchen with a pink Pusheen pack on her back, “that was a one-time thing.”
“Let’s make a no-time thing, huh? No make-up, miss. None. Not until you’re eighteen.”
“Eighteen? You’re a trip.” She rolls her eyes at me, leaning down to kiss my cheek as I finish Meghan’s second boot. “Stubbly.”
I reach up, rubbing my new beard with my thumb and forefinger. “Don’t like it?”