Jillian Chantal

This week, the writers of Tuesday Tales are writing to the word prompt busy. I am still in the same story about the buried treasure.

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I waved at Levi as I headed over to the table in the corner where he sat with a glass of soda in front of him and what I presumed was my water with a slice of lime in front of one of the other chairs at the four-seater. 

My phone buzzed in my pocket where I’d stashed on the way over. I decided to ignore it as it was probably the mayor’s favorite employee, Bethany, and it’s my lunch break.

I pulled out the chair and, as I sat, said, “You remembered my drink order.”

“It’s been the same for as long as I can recall. Even as a kid, you didn’t like this junk.” He toasted me with his glass.

“It’s just that it never quenched my thirst. I don’t mind the taste, but I stay thirsty when I drink it.”

I set my phone on the table and it buzzed again.

“Are you going to get that?”

I picked it up and glanced at the screen. As I thought. Bethany. “Nope. I’m on break.” I sighed. “You know what I miss?”

“What’s that?” He asked and seemed to smile at the face I made.

“Busy signals. Yep. Busy signals.”

He shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

“You know. Back in the old days, you could take the phone off the hook if you didn’t want to talk. The caller would hang up as they’d know you weren’t available.”

Levi throw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, right. All I remember about the phone being off the hook was the outrageous blaring that happened to alert the whole house and maybe the block that the phone was off the hook.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot about that. But it is annoying how many people expect because we all have phones that we are always available.”

“Boundaries.” He tilted his glass toward me. “If you don’t set them, no one will do it for you.”

I took a swig of my drink before saying, “And that’s exactly what I’m doing.” I smacked the menu. “What’s for lunch?”

This week, the writers of Tuesday Tales are writing to the word prompt, school. I am still in the treasure story. I have not been writing the last two weeks, so I apologize for missing.

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On my way to meet Levi for lunch at the café, I thought about the two women making my life complicated in the last few days. Bethany, I could handle since I would have the backing of the city attorney with her and the mayor’s nonsense about the contract for the event on Friday. I would have to watch my back though Bethany would be on the warpath now. She already was trying to finagle my job, but now she would probably redouble her efforts. But that was for another day, I was pretty sure she would be on good behavior for a minute or two after the lecture she and the mayor would be receiving on the meaning of signed contracts. At least I hope so.

As to Annette, I wasn’t sure what to do about here. At the moment, she was locked up, but her behavior over her delusion about Levi was a tragedy waiting to happen. When I think back on how we’d plotted against him when we were in school to try to prank him as bad as he’d pranked us, I never, ever dreamed she would fall for him and fall so hard that she lost her grip on reality. It was absolutely wild to even contemplate. How had she gone so far off the rails? What happened in her life that I didn’t know about to cause her to lose it? Nothing I could think of. We’d always shared pretty much everything and I was baffled by the whole thing. The hatred she showed for me was clearly something she must have harbored for longer than the few days since she didn’t get the expected proposal from Levi. I mean, she ramped up to attempted murder in a flash. No one does that without having some long term animosity simmering. Right?

I pushed the door open at Mabel’s Café and almost hit a man exiting the place. He stopped and snarled at me, “Watch it, lady.”

Over his shoulder, I noticed Levi half-stand as if he was going to come to my aid. I shook my head and addressed the man myself, “Perhaps if you slowed down a smidge, you could be happily on your way without endangering other customers.”

He huffed out a breath and shoved past me.

Tempted to follow him to let off some of my own steam that was propelling me after the last few days, I decided it would be safer to let it go. But, man, I sure want to blow up at someone and release some of the tension.

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.”

This week, the writers of Tuesday Tales are writing to the word prompt Burned. I am still working on the same story with the buried treasure and the wacky former best friend of the heroine.

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By the time I got to his office, the two of them were sitting all cozy and chummy as if they were at a coffee shop sharing a latte.

“Glad you could join us, Heather,” the mayor said. “Bethany thinks we should call the bakers and ask for red velvet cake with cream cheese icing.”

I knew, absolutely, if I just gave in and told her to take over that the disaster coming would be laid at my feet when it all went wrong in four days. I didn’t particularly want to get into an argument with them but these details had been ironed out weeks ago.  He even had signed off on the plans. “Let me go grab my notebook and the contracts and we can go over them.”

I started to back out the door to go get the binder when Bethany held her left hand up to stop me. “Let’s not worry about that. Tell you what. I’ll call over there and make the changes. You don’t need to worry about a thing.

“Listen. I don’t know what you’re both thinking, but we have signed documents that are legally binding. You can’t just change the order four days before the event.” I paused. “Actually, more like three days since they have to deliver early Friday morning.”

“You always worry your pretty head about the small details, Heather. Let Bethany handle this. It’ll all be okay. Everyone in town likes me and wants to make me happy so this won’t be a big deal.” The mayor leered at Bethany. “Right, doll? It’s all under control.”

I didn’t know what to say. This was going to end up as a fiasco and it didn’t look like I’d be able to salvage it. The bakery was not going to be pleased. I couldn’t go over his head as he was in charge. The city might very well be on the hook for more money with changes this late in the day. And it would come back to bite me in the butt and I’d be burned like I stuck my hand in a fire. I had no idea what to do. “I’m still going to get the contracts. I’ll be right back.”

I left the room with dread in my heart. This is not good. Is Bethany trying to sabotage me into losing my job? She doesn’t have the Qualifications to take my job, but the way she was sucking up to the old goat, he sure could give it to her.

I wanted to rage and scream. It was like watching a hurricane approach the coast for four days and knowing you couldn’t do a thing about it to make it not come and destroy your city. Helpless in the wake of hurricane Bethany. Will I still have a job Friday evening? And here I was thinking Annette was the worst of my problems.

This week, the writers of Tuesday Tales are writing to the word prompt, cold. I am still in the same story about the buried treasure and the psycho former friend.

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A cold chill ran down my back. “Make bond? She’s been in and out of the county jail all weekend. Just how many chances does she get to try to harm someone?”

“Ma’am, there are very few crimes where there is no bond. I’m sure the judge will have all the facts and set a fair amount.”

“Fair to who? Her or me? Large enough to keep me safe by keeping her inside? Or small enough to make it easy for her to get out?”

“The judge has to balance both of those factors.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him either way. And it probably didn’t.

“Quite frankly, that doesn’t make me feel better.”

“Most likely there will be a provision that she can’t come within so many feet of you. If she does, the bond will be revoked and she’ll be locked up.”

“But maybe not before she makes good on her threat.”

The icy chill ran down my back again. I was convinced Annette was going to really hurt someone and I didn’t want to imagine how bad it might have to get before the legal system actually tried to stop her or even to get her some assistance for what clearly was some sort of mental breakdown. No matter how scared I was, I didn’t wish her any bad outcome, but I also didn’t want her to hurt me, Levi or any of the women he’d been seeing.

“You’ll be safe for tonight for sure as she’s in lockup and first appearances are set for 8:30 in the morning. We can send a patrol car by once in a while when she posts bond. Check in on you.”

I didn’t think that would do a bit of good if Annette was determined to hurt me, but another thought occurred to me before I voiced that one. “Do you have any idea what she said there in the gun shop? She must have specifically named me for you to first go to my grandparents’ home before coming here.”

He made a grimace. “What the guy at the gun shop said she said was, “My former best friend, Heather and my fiance Levi are going to pay for what they did to me. Heather has been staying at the big house her grandparents own on Main Street. They’re going to be in for a big surprise tonight when I get there.” And then she asked to see the biggest hunting knife in the case. The owner told her he had to go to the back to get the key and that’s when he called us.”

Happy Tuesday. it’s time again for the snippets of Tuesday Tales where a group of writers write to the same word every week. I am still in my story about the buried treasure. We’re writing to the word touch this week.

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A booming knock on my door caused me to jump. “I gotta go, Grandma. I think that’s the cop.” At least I hoped it was.

“Don’t open the door until you’re sure. It could be that Annette. Call me back. I’ll be right by the phone waiting.”

The booming knock came again. “Coming,” I called out.

Disengaging the call as I stood, I walked over to the door and peered out the small pane of glass inset there. Yep. Cop.

I opened the door. “What’s going on? My grandmother called me about something to do with my friend Annette.”

“Yes, ma’am.” His hands on his utility belt, he nodded at the interior of my apartment. “May I come in?”

He looked about my age so the ma’am stung a bit, but maybe he was required to address people as ma’am and sir. I let it go without comment. “Come on in and please explain what is happening.”

“A woman named Annette Bowling made a threat on your life at Mike’s gun shop—”

“Gun shop?” Stunned, I staggered backward and almost fell. “She was going to shoot me?” All the blood drained from my head.

The cop grabbed my arm to steady me. “Hang on. She wasn’t buying a gun. She was buying a hunting knife.”

“Oh and that makes it better?” I reeled, snatching hold of the back of the closest chair.

He had the grace to look abashed. “Not a whole lot but if someone pulls a knife on you, you have a better chance of putting a safe distance between you and them than if they have a gun.”

“Point taken, but a hunting knife is still terrifying.”

“Yes ma’am, it is.”

“How did you figure out she was planning to come after me and not someone else?” My legs were rubber and I was on the verge of collapsing. “I’m going to have to sit down. Would you like to take a seat?” Something dripped in my left eye. I touched my forehead. It was clammy with sweat.

This week, the writers of Tuesday Tales are writing to the word prompt bread. I must have subconsciously read the word prompt a week ahead as when I went to check what was next, I had already put bread in my tale. So, I didn’t cheat, but my brain was working overtime. LOL!

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When I got home, I decided to take my mind off Annette by looking online for more information on the initials I had that were on the silver bracelet I found. I also decided to try to find something on different styles of lavalieres over the years and hoped to be able to locate what local jewelry store might have carried some in stock. Of course, there was no way to tell what area the thing even came from. The girl could’ve met the fraternity brother who gave it to her at any number of colleges since there was no sign at all of where the boy who gave it to his love went to school.

As I clicked on the various pictures of lavalieres trying to find one similar to the one I’d found, a bit of helplessness overpowered me for a few moments. I mean, what really were the chances of being even remotely successful in reuniting this jewelry with either the true owner or someone related to her? I wasn’t sure why I was so sure what I was doing was important, but I sure felt the pressure to make sure it happened.

After about a half hour, I was ready to give the whole thing up. Who knew this one piece of jewelry could be so hard to identify? How many different styles of these things could have been made? It was ridiculous. 

I set that search aside and focused on the bracelet initials. Surely that part would be easy. Of course, I thought the fraternity necklace would be. What do I know? Pretty much nothing,

Resisting the urge to slap my palm down on the keyboard, I decided to get up and get myself something to eat. Maybe after I filled my belly, I’d get into a better groove and find some answers.

After a bowl of cream of broccoli soup and a wedge of the olive bread my grandmother gave me the other day, I felt slightly more optimistic about my quest. Not a lot, but somewhat.

With renewed energy, I opened a new tab and put the words, Sigma Alpha Epsilon jewelry, into the search field. Maybe a wider net of the word jewelry over the word lavaliere would result in some usable hits. Couldn’t hurt.

To my surprise, there were actually quite a number of different styles of jewelry both for men and women in the area of Greek life jewels. Even some with precious stones and 18 karat gold. Must be for the wealthy frat boy. I laughed. Aren’t they all from money?

Maybe not. I had known some boys in college who seemed like the poor relations to their frat brothers. Who knew? All I knew was I’d steered clear of those organizations. I wasn’t a joiner of that sort. And my friends that were didn’t quite stay the same as before they signed up to memorize the Greek alphabet and swear undying fealty to some pact that they made to each other. Yeah, not for me.