Breaking Walls (9 page)

“Mandy,
hey
,” Lashell said, smiling as I jumped out of my car five minutes later. Gabe, Mr. Davies, and the rest of the group—minus Fletcher—were all gathered in the parking lot, huddled in a circle. “We thought you were working tonight. Glad you could make it after all.”

“Yeah, me, too,” I said, throwing a quick glance at Carla, but she wouldn’t meet my stare. Instead, she kept looking at all the other teammates, pretending she hadn’t even noticed that I’d pulled up. I turned back to Lashell.
“Just one quick thing.”

“Sure?”

“I don’t know that Fletcher will be here this evening,” I said, and she nodded knowingly. “No, I mean, he was never informed of tonight’s event.” A few heads turned in Carla’s direction, including Gabe and Lashell’s. Everyone turned back to me. “If he doesn’t show, it’s not because he didn’t make time for the group. He just didn’t know until I messaged him five minutes ago.”

I didn’t feel the need to mention that I, like Fletcher, had just found out about this evening’s mission.

“Well, jump on in.” Lashell waved me over to join the group.

I squeezed in next to her and turned once more to say, “I don’t want his absence to reflect poorly on his commitment to the team. He would’ve been here, had he known.”

“Honey, it’s okay,” she said. “Sometimes wires get crossed. Mistakes happen. No one’s going to hold it against him.” She turned back.
Simple as that?
Fletcher had a perfect attendance record for every Sugar Creek RI event, and she was going to let it go that easily? “Okay, we were just about to break into groups and decide who was going where.”

“Actually, we already did,” Carla said. “The teams are picked.”

“Oh,” Lashell said, looking to me again. “Then pick a team.”

I looked around, but it didn’t seem as if the teams had broken off yet. They were all still standing around in one, large, congregated group. It wasn’t easy to discern who’d teamed up, so there was no way to be certain that I wouldn’t get stuck with Gabe or Carla.

“I’ll go with whoever. I’m not picky.”

“Good,” Carla said, waving me over. “You can come with us, then.”

The initial shock of her invitation took a few, long seconds to wear off.
Was she serious
? Why on earth would I ever want to join her? As I turned to survey the rest of the group, I noticed a wave of relief sweep across Gabe’s face. I knew at that moment he was working on the opposite team, and that look of relief was actually happiness; he wouldn’t get stuck working with me all evening.

“Yeah, okay,” I said, nodding, and then I squeezed in with the rest of the group. It was just then that Fletcher’s pick-up truck barreled into the school parking lot, speeding toward the first empty spot.

“Oh, look,” Lashell said, beaming a smile. “No worries, after all, Mandy. Looks like we’re a full team tonight!”

“Yay
,” I said, looking at Carla from the side of my eye. “Lucky he could make it on such short notice, huh?”

“For sure,” she smiled.
“Lucky
!”

The group chattered as we waited on Fletcher to make his way over, and my cell phone rang just as the talk started. I pulled it from my back pocket.
Jones
. I held up a finger to excuse myself from the huddle, turned away from the group, and pulled the phone up to my ear.

“Hey, I only have a second. What’s up?”

“Besides the fact that the whole Gabe-Bailey alliance has left a God-awful taste in my mouth?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

My heart ached for him, the same way it ached for itself. Bailey’s secrecy was not only a betrayal to me, but it was a betrayal to her boyfriend. Whatever was going on between her and Gabe—no matter how platonic—should’ve never been kept a secret. The fact that it
was
kept secret made it all the more suspicious.

“I’ve got your next, big idea.”

“
Are you serious?
”

“Yup!” he said. “Brace yourself.”

“I’m braced,” I said. “What’d you come up with?”

“Bailey and I got into
it big-time, man,” he said. “And as she was going on and on, talking in circles, and saying that same load of crap she fed you, I started looking around the book shop, okay?”

“Sure, sure,” I said, motioning for him to hurry along, even though he couldn't see me.

“And I started thinking: man, there are a lot of books here.”

“It’s a book shop, Jones.”

“I mean hundreds and hundreds of books. And I’ve only ever read like…what, maybe eight?” I hardly believed that, seeing as he would’ve never made it out of elementary school, let alone high school having read only eight books. “And then I thought, well, there’s nothing stopping me from reading now. Actually, it’d be a lot more enjoyable than listening to Bailey drone on and on. All I had to do was pick up a book, buy it, and start reading.”

“Jones, I love
ya dearly, but I need you to make your point a little faster.”

“Okay, so buying books is only easy when you have money to spend, and I’m just a poor, part-time employed, college freshman with no pocket change to spare.”

“Okay?”

“So then I thought, too bad I can’t just borrow a book and return it when I’m done.”

“Right?”

“So there’s your idea.”

“Jones,” I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose with my one free hand, “what you’re describing is called a library.”

“And what’s the
one
thing Sugar Creek doesn’t have?”

“We have a library, Jones,” I said. “It’s just down the road from the post office.”

“Right, yeah, I know, but hear me out, MandyMoo,” he said. “Here’s where it gets good. The Sugar Creek Public Library had to cut all of their funding to the children’s reading program last year.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Sometimes, unlike you, I actually pay attention to the things your Dad talks about over dinner.”

“Okay.
And
?”

“I don’t know how the Sugar Creek program used to work before they got the ax, but we had a similar program in Desden growing up. They designate one night each week to have a librarian host a children’s themed book party. They sit in a circle, read the book, do activities,
share their thoughts. They even have refreshments at the end of each night for the parents and kiddos. Mandy, that’s what you need to do. We don’t have a children’s reading program. Reestablish it through RI.”

“Oh
. . . ”

Getting lost in Jones’s brain was about the last thing I could imagine doing, and I’d just gotten closer to that mess than I ever wanted to be again. Even after hearing his explanation I could hardly remember how he’d gotten from an argument with Bailey to the lack of children’s reading programs, but it didn’t matter. He was right. He was absolutely right!

The RI foundation focused on creating a positive impact in the community, and re-establishing the program would definitely be a way to do that. The library would save money by using volunteers in place of staff to conduct the evening sessions—

“And I stopped by the bakery to talk to Julia,” he said. “She said she’d be happy to donate cupcakes once a week as refreshments for the parents and kids.”

“Oh my God, are you serious?”

“For sure.
Call your RI guys now and ask. I’ll get over to the library and see what I can figure out. Let’s get a move on.”

Jones assumed I’d gone home, and thankfully, I hadn’t. I could turn around right now. I could ask Lashell for the green-light, and then I could
started working toward that goal.

But what if I waited? I knew that she and Gabe
were a huge fan of playing devil’s advocate. They’d ask a lot of questions, and they’d expect just as many answers. And if they didn’t like what they heard right on the spot, they’d scrap the idea without giving it much of a chance. And with only two and a half weeks to go until the end, I couldn’t risk one
really
great idea by being careless and jumping the gun.

I had to tread carefully with this. I would carry out my responsibility this evening with Carla’s project, allowing myself plenty of time to brainstorm. After finishing up for the night, I could go home and pull together the perfect proposal. I’d get it all planned, fleshed out, and make sure the library was on board with re-establishing the program with no cost to them.
Then
I’d ask. Even with a serious time constraint, I couldn’t see my RI leaders turning it down.

I said a quick thanks to Jones
, told him I’d call back tonight, and then I turned back to the group.

“Everything okay?”
Lashell asked, and it wasn’t until then that I’d noticed half the group had cleared out and left the parking lot. All that remained was my half of the team . . . and they were all waiting on me.

God, how rude.
I’d gotten so caught up in Jones’s call that I’d forgotten where I was and what I was supposed to be doing.

“Yeah, sorry,” I said, and yet I still couldn’t stop smiling. “I’m
. . . great.”

Carla looked at me that time, her brow creased with curiosity.

“Okay, team,” she said, clapping her hands once. Though she tried to ignore the sudden onset of my smile, I could see it was eating her alive. She hated being left out of the loop. “You know the drill. Let’s get out there and get this done! Hands in, Sugar Creek on three.”

Chapter Seven

Life was unusually quiet.

I hadn’t heard from Jones si
nce talking to him on the phone yesterday afternoon. I tried calling as soon as I got home from the Neighborhood Enhancement project, but he wasn’t picking up. I concluded this had everything to do with Bailey. I heard the shrieks and groans of their phone conversation, her pleas for forgiveness as she paced back and forth in her bedroom all night. I had no idea how they left things, or whether or not Jones was still as upset as I was, but I imagined I’d find out sooner or later.

Without his guidance or vision for re-establishing the children’s reading night at the library, I was going at it alone. I called Julia at the bakery to confirm the information Jones had offered, and then I sat at my computer for two evenings putting the perfect proposal in order. I printed up a mock flier to show Lashell, and I was ready to get the feedback from my RI leaders as soon as I saw them again.

I had the plan in order: because we didn’t have a lot of time to pull it off, I wanted to set the first reading night as late as possible in the program. It was ideal to do the kick-off the Thursday night before the big, finale dance. If everything went well on the first night, then maybe—like Carla’s soup kitchen—I could find a way to keep the program running even after the RI team disbanded.

If I wanted approval, tonight was the night. Tomorrow was the opening for
Little Shop of Horrors
, and while I knew that both Gabe and Lashell would be in the audience, I wasn’t going to burden them with RI responsibilities while they were supporting Fletcher’s big night. I would catch Lashell at the soup kitchen at the end of the evening, and
then
I’d get the go-ahead for my next project. I was confident that Jones’s idea was exactly what I needed to propel me right back into running for the scholarship. I’d have to remember to hug him the next time we crossed paths.

“I guess we’re making some progress, then?” Dad asked after twenty minutes of sharing the couch. He folded the newspaper, setting aside the Desden classifieds. I looked up from the corner of my book, met his brown-eyed stare, and then slowly trailed my gaze back down to the pages of my English assignment. “Good. I’ll take that as a
yes
.”

It may not have seemed like it, but that one little look was a lot of progress for Dad and me. Up until Bailey pulled
her stunt with Gabe, I hadn’t even been able to sit in the same room with him without trying to escape. Looking at him hadn’t been much easier. Now, feeling as though maybe he hadn’t betrayed me nearly as much as my sister had, I felt
somewhat
okay with letting Dad ease his way back into my good graces. Slowly, sure. But soon enough.

“Mandy,” he said, although I’d stopped looking at him a few minutes ago
, “I’m at a loss. I’ve consumed myself trying to figure out what I’ve done to you. I don’t know if it’s something I’ve said or something I’ve done, but you have to know that, whatever it is, I’m sorry.”

I cleared my throat, finally tearing my eyes away from my school book once again.

Okay, here you go.

“You can’t be truly sorry for something if you don’t know what you’re apologizing for,” I said, and Dad sat up straight in his seat.

“Oh my God,
you’re talking to me
.” He turned to face me, his knees now brushing the side of my leg. “Mandy, tell me.
Please
. What did I do?”

“I’m not telling you, Dad,” I said, shrugging. “You know what you did, you’re just not thinking hard enough.”