Rules for Secret Keeping (11 page)

“War?” I whisper. I don't know if I'm ready for war. War sounds serious. War sounds like something you do when you're really down and out. “I don't know if I'm ready for war,” I say.

But that afternoon, there's not one secret in my locker.

“THERE WASN'T EVEN ONE SECRET!” I
rant. I'm in my kitchen, after school, going through the pantry looking for snacks. I'm pulling out Cheetos (no), chips (no), granola bars (omg, def no), until finally I locate a jar of Nutella on a shelf in the back. I pull it out, then grab a loaf of bread and a spoon.

“Well,” Tom says. If he's startled by my outburst, he doesn't say anything. He's sitting at the kitchen table, reading the paper and drinking a cup of green tea. Tom's super into antioxidants. “Maybe it was just a fluke. A
coincidence,
if you will.”

“Tom,” I say. “She said she was going to
end
me, and then there were no secrets in my locker. That kind of sounds like the beginning of the end to me, doesn't it to you?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Tom says.

“Do you want a sandwich?” I ask, remembering my manners despite the total and complete professional and personal crises that have befallen me lately. Who knew middle school was going to be so complicated? And it's only the second week! At this rate, things definitely do not bode well for high school.

“What kind are you having?

“Nutella.” Tom looks at me skeptically. “What?” I say. “It's totally healthy, it's on wheat bread! Plus it has hazelnuts in it; those are way high in antioxidants.”

“Okay,” Tom agrees, still not looking so sure. I fix the sandwiches, slap them onto plates, and plop down in the seat next to Tom.

“The worst part,” I say, “is that when this whole thing happened, it totally distracted me from the fact that I was talking to Daphne about why she was acting so weird about my dress. And I got all caught up in it, and I didn't get to work anything out with her.”

“Why don't you call her?” Tom asks.

“I texted her.” I sigh. “But she's at the newspaper meeting, and I'm not sure what time it's going to be over.” We both chew our sandwiches thoughtfully.

“It's been a bad day for me, too,” Tom says sadly. “Aren't you wondering why I'm home from work early?”

“Not really,” I say. “Sometimes you come home from work early.”

“Yes, well, today the reason I came home early was because we had this huge luncheon, where the new VP of sales was announced.”

“Oh, right,” I say. “Weren't you up for that?” I remember Tom staying up late one night last week, trying to get his résumé in tip-top shape. Those were his words, not mine. I don't say things like “tip-top shape.”

“Yes.” Tom takes another bite of his sandwich. “But I didn't get the job. So now I'm home early, because they let everyone leave after lunch. Unless, of course, you were Doug Dugan, who got named the new VP of sales. Then you got to stay and get ‘shown your new office,' which really means you see your office and then get taken drinking all afternoon with the partners.” Then Tom looks startled, like maybe he just remembered I'm only thirteen. “Out drinking Cokes,” he says. “Of course.”

“Wow,” I say, deciding this calls for a lie. “That doesn't sound like a very fun job description. Hanging out with the bosses? No, thank you.”

“It's actually the best job ever,” Tom says sadly. “And you get a raise.”

“It's okay,” I say, reaching out to pat his hand. “We don't need the money. ” We don't. My mom is the nursing
supervisor at her hospital, and she makes more than enough money to support the whole family.

This is definitely the wrong thing to say, though, because Tom gets an even sadder look on his face. Tom
never
gets even sadder looks on his face! It's probably kind of weird for him for my mom to make more money than he does.
I
don't think it's a big deal, but I guess Tom does. And it probably doesn't help that my dad is this super successful businessman who makes way, way more than my mom and Tom. Maybe even more than both of them combined.

Hmm. I really should not have said that. But then I think of something that could totally cheer Tom up!

“Hey, Tom,” I say, “do you want to go to the
You Girl
banquet with me?” When I talked to my dad this weekend, he told me he would be out of town on a business trip that night. Which I was kind of slightly relieved about. So I was planning on asking Tom anyway, but this just seems like the perfect time to do it.

Tom's whole face lights up. “I'd love to!” he says.

“See?” I say, hopping down off my chair and heading to the counter to make myself another sandwich. “I'll bet if you were a dumb VP you'd have to work that night, and you wouldn't even be able to go.”

“The vice president does have to put in a lot of extra hours,” Tom says. He takes a big bite of his sandwich.

“You see? And they probably never get to make any of their own decisions; they always have to ask the dumb president if they can do things!”

“Yeah!” Tom says. He really is like a kid sometimes. “This sandwich is really good.” He looks at it thoughtfully. “Who would've thought? Chocolate and hazelnut on a sandwich.”

“Tom,” I say seriously. “Who
wouldn't
have thought?”

The phone rings then, and I grab the cordless to answer it, even though it won't be for me. Everyone I know would call my cell. But to my surprise, the lady on the other end actually
is
looking for me.

“Samantha Carmichael, please,” she says, sounding all professional. “Speaking,” I say back, just as professionally.

“Hello, Samantha,” she says. “My name is Barb Davies, and I'm one of the senior editors at
You Girl
.”

Oh. My. God. Oh no, oh no, oh no. She must be calling because my pictures turned out completely terrible! I'm probably going to have to go down to New York and redo them. Or even worse, maybe they're going to drop me from the issue altogether! They'll cite space issues or something, but really everyone will know that it's not the space at all. It's the fact that I'm unphotogenic. Stuff like that totally happens. Everything is completely image-based now, I'm sure even for America's number one tween magazine. I
wonder how many people tried to Photoshop my eyebrows before they just gave up. This is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me

“Nice to speak with you,” I say politely. Then I decide to cut her off at the pass. “If you're calling about the photo shoot, I'd like to apologize right now. I'd had no sleep that day and my train ride into the city was just a nightmare.” That's something I heard my mom say once. That her train ride into the city was just a nightmare. It's a very grown-up type of thing to say.

“What?” Barb asks. “Oh, no, this isn't about the photo shoot, those pictures came out fine.”

Phew. “Well, thank you,” I say. “I mean, I'm not really that photogenic, but obviously the makeup helped and—”

“Yes, well,” Barb says, cutting me off. I guess she doesn't have that much time, since she's probably really busy running America's number one tween magazine. “The reason I'm calling is because we've picked a few of our finalists to do some short profiles on. We plan on including them with our announcement of the Young Entrepreneur of the Year in our next issue, and we've chosen you as one of those girls. Of all the finalists this year we felt yours was one of the more contemporary, fun businesses and we think it would translate nicely to the page.”

“Oh my God!” I say. “That is amazing!” How cool
is that? Take
that
, dumb Olivia and your dumb internet secret-passing business. Barb just called my business “fun” and “contemporary”! Contemporary! That totally means current, hip, in the now. Actually, now that I think about it, I should have been playing this
You Girl
finalist thing up as much as I could. Olivia hasn't been in
You Girl
, now, has she? No. Ha!

“Yes, we're all very excited about this year's finalists,” Barb says.

“So, yes,” I say. “I say yes to the profile.”

“That's wonderful,” Barb says. “Now, we're going to need to send someone to your place of business to shadow you.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I mean,” she says patiently, “that we will send a representative, meaning me, to your place of
business
to watch how you work, how you run your office, that kind of thing.”

“Oh, well, I don't have a place of business,” I say. “So that idea, unfortunately, won't work for me at this time.” That's another phrase I've heard my mom use. That something won't work for her at this time. It usually gets her out of anything. But Barb's not having it.

“It doesn't have to be an
office,
necessarily,” she says. “Most of our
You Girl
entrepreneurs don't have offices, since they're tweens. I was using that word more symbolically.”

“Yes, well,” I say, “I work from school—from my locker, if you will.”

“Oh, wonderful!” Barb says. “We would love to be able to send me and a camera crew down to your school to follow you around!”

“Follow me around?” And a
camera crew
? It was bad enough that I had to have my picture taken at a studio. I don't know if I can handle a camera crew. That sounds very stressful. Not to mention the biggest problem, which is that my business has started, ah, floundering. I don't think that's going to translate as well to the page as Barb hopes.

“Yes.” The sound of keystrokes comes through the phone. “I'll call your principal to set it up.”

“You will?” My mouth is suddenly very dry.

“Yes, usually the schools are thrilled to have us!”

Okay, then. “Um, when will you be coming?” I cross my fingers that it's far, far away so that I have time to prepare.

“Let's shoot for sometime next week.” Great. So I have less than a week to somehow get my business back on track, so that when Barb and her camera crew show up, I won't look like a total jerk. Not to mention hope that my eyebrows are still camera ready.

“That sounds perfect,” I lie.

“Thanks so much, Samantha!” Barb says. She sounds extremely happy and perky.

I replace the receiver and walk gloomily back to the table. “They're going to spend a day shadowing me,” I say. “They're coming to my school.”

Tom chews his Nutella sandwich thoughtfully. “Well,” he says. “You just need to get back on track.” He reaches over and squeezes my shoulder. “It will be fine.”

“Right,” I say. But I'm not sure either one of us really believes it.

Later that night, I surf around on my computer, looking up facts for my social studies research paper on the ancient Mayans. And maybe since I'm already online and everything, I just
happen
to check out Olivia's website. She's calling her business Olivia's Secrets. I know this because it's splashed across the header of her site. Also, that name is extremely generic. Of course, I don't even
have
a name for my business. Which is even more generic. It's like, how would people even know how to find me? I'm just “Samantha Carmichael, the girl who passes secrets.”

To make matters even worse, my dad called earlier and we got into this whole discussion about the importance of branding and I came to the conclusion that my business is definitely a total branding fail. I mean, I don't even have a logo! I didn't have the heart to tell my dad that branding myself is the least of my worries right now. How could I?
He would be so disappointed if he knew my business was falling apart. Instead I told him about how they're sending a camera crew to my school. He loved that.

I'm contemplating starting an account on Olivia's site so I can check out the competition, when my cell rings.

Jake!

“Hey,” he says, “I just wanted to check on you since you seemed pretty upset this morning.”

“Yeah, I was,” I say. “Well, I still kind of am.” I squint at Olivia's website. “And now things have gotten worse, since (a)
You Girl
is sending a camera crew to school to shadow me, and (b) I'm looking at Olivia's website, and it's pretty amazing.”

“They're sending a camera crew?” Jake sounds interested.

“Yeah,” I say. “To see what I'm doing, and the head of the whole magazine is coming, this very scandalous woman named Barb.”

“Why is she scandalous?”

“Not scandalous, I guess, just scary.” I sigh and abandon the computer to move over to my bed, then plop down on my green and yellow comforter. I stare up at the ceiling and decide to feel sorry for myself.

“Don't worry,” Jake says. “You're going to be fine.”