Jillian Chantal

This week, the writers of Tuesday Tales are writing to the word prompt sweat. I’m still in my story I’ve been working on for a while.

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By the time I got back to the mayor’s office with the contract, I heard Bethany say, “Well, if you can’t accommodate the mayor’s changes, we may have to reconsider using your company in the future.”

Luckily she had them on speaker phone and as I walked in, I said, “This is Heather and I have the contract here. It looks like we’re past the change deadline and I’m sorry for the call. Please continue as you are and we anticipate a full delivery of the order we previously placed on Friday morning as per the agreement.”

I shuddered at the expressions on both the mayor and Bethany’s faces but their little plot had to be thwarted.

“Are you sure, Heather? We don’t want any problems with your office. We enjoy participating in the city’s events,” Margie from the bakery said.

“You’re not going to have a problem with me. It was an internal mix up. Don’t worry about it.” I lifted my hand to silence Bethany as I saw her mouth open to make some statement. “We’ll let you go. We know you’re busy. Sorry for the interruption and don’t sweat it. No changes will be needed.”

I disconnected the call and slammed the contract down on the table. Before the mayor could make a move, I flipped to the last page. “This is your signature. Yours. Not mine.” Then I flipped to page four and pointed to three items in turn. “Petit fours. Flavors and your initials. Half sheet cake. Flavors and your initials. Large tiered cake. Flavors, design and your initials.”

Bethany opened her mouth again. I held my hand up like a crossing guard. “Wait.” I flipped to page five. “Read the portion under paragraph eight. I jabbed my right index finger on the paragraph titled damages in case of nonperformance. “You’re welcome to peruse the whole thing, Bethany. But I just saved the city thousands of dollars under this paragraph as you can see. The deadline to make changes was ten days before the event. At this moment in time, we’re four days from the event. With your unwanted interference, we might have been without any refreshments if the bakery had just decided not to perform based on the city’s violation of the contract. And we’d still have had to pay them. So, if you want to contribute to the food and drink of the day, feel free to make the gallons and gallons of punch we need to serve.” I wanted to make a dramatic exit, but I sat at the table with them. Mostly to be sure they didn’t try to call the bakery again.

The mayor glared at me. “You shouldn’t have interrupted us on that call. It was insubordinate.”