Jillian Chantal

This week, the writers of Tuesday Tales are writing to the word prompt paint. I am still in the same story and probably will be until NaNoWriMo starts. LOL

Check out the other tales here and leave a comment if you’re so inclined.

The rest of the day wasn’t too bad. Bethany was actually not in the office for the afternoon. That caused me a bit of concern as I had no idea where she was or if she was out committing further sabotage against me.

I had to let it go so I knuckled down for the rest of the day.

When I got home that evening, I sat on the couch with a book of short stories that I kept beside my chair for when I wanted to read a little something to decompress but not dive into a full book. Tonight, I decided to read Poor Girl by the English writer, Elizabeth Taylor. A ghostly story that I always enjoyed.

I tucked my feet up on the couch and tugged a soft, blue throw over them. I only got three pages into the story when the phone rang. I let out a deep sigh.  Can’t get a moment’s peace.

 I got up to get it the phone off the charger I’d set it on as I came into the house.

I let out another sigh as I looked down to see it was most likely a spam call. I never answer calls where I don’t recognize the caller. If they really are someone who knows me, they will leave a message.

When there was no voicemail left, I sighed for the third time and returned to the couch with no intention of getting up again until I was ready to cook some dinner.

As I sat down, I grabbed the throw again but noticed my feet. I’d been wearing close-toed shoes for the last week or ten days and was appalled at the state of my pedicure. Ugh. I need to paint my toenails.

This week, the writers of Tuesday Tales are writing to the word prompt skin. I am still in the same story and probably will be until NaNoWriMo starts. LOL

Check out the other tales here and leave a comment if you’re so inclined.

“Do you have time to look more today for our mystery jewelry owner or should you get back to working on your own obligations? I appreciate all you’re doing but I don’t want to impose on too much of your time.”

“Are you kidding? I’m way too invested in this to let it for now. Besides,” he paused to scratch the skin under what looked like the beginning of a five o’clock shadow at close to one pm, “I’m calling this research for something.  It might not make it into the book I’m working on now, but everything sows a seed or two to mine later in a story.”

I laughed. “You’re mixing your metaphors.”

Levi held his open palms out at me and shrugged. “I always said you should’ve been an English teacher. You’re the most anal person I know about language.”

“Hey. That’s not very nice.” I smiled to let him know I was kidding. Truth be known, I did tend to correct people’s grammar and usage. Most of the time in my head as opposed to out loud, but he did have a point.

“It’s one of your many quirks that make you you. At least you own it.” He ate more of his chili and I dug into my sandwich.

We sat quietly eating for a few minutes.

Finally, I glanced at my phone for the time. “I better get back. This was nice. I really enjoyed it.”

“We should do it more often now that we’ve reconnected.”

“Speaking of doing something often, I’m dreading the afternoon with the mayor and Bethany.  She’s made it absolutely clear that she wants my job.” I made a face. “Not that it’s all that great a job, but it’s mine and I want to hold on to it.”

Levi crumpled the wrappers from his saltine crackers and piled them in his now empty bowl. “When you have time, let’s have a powwow and brainstorm what career would actually make you happy and want to spend time at work. It’s a vital thing to be happy where you spend most of your waking hours.”

“Oh, I get that. And I did want to do marketing when I was in school, but it’s really not what I thought it would be.”

“Nothing ever really is, is it?”

This week, the writers of Tuesday Tales are writing to the word prompt, flush. I am still doing the buried treasure story.

Check out the other tales here. Leave a comment, too, it you’re so inclined.

After we ordered—a Reuben for me and a bowl of chili with oyster crackers for Levi—I asked, “What did your research uncover?”

“During World War Two a woman lived in the house with the family of her husband while he was in the RAF…”

“Wait. His family lived here and he was British?”

“No. No.” Levi shook his head. “When the war started in 1939, some of our young men wanted to get involved and actually went over to enlist before the United States got pulled into things. A good number of the men here served.”

“I guess I knew that from history class, but didn’t remember it. So who was this guy?” I paused. “Or the wife? Since it could be her jewelry we’re talking about.”

“I’m still trying to get all the details, but it looks like they married pretty close to when he shipped out. I haven’t found the actual marriage license record yet, but I found a census where she was living in the house. I also found the record of the ship he sailed on to England. I should be able to pin down the date of their marriage this afternoon.”

“This is so exciting. I’d love to find out why she buried the jewelry and if she left anyone behind who would appreciate the return of the items.”

“We won’t know if any or all of the items belonged to her until we can pin down any survivors that know the facts.”

“I wonder if it’s possible that some items belonged to someone else. Surely only one woman was involved in burying gold, silver, and gems under a tree.”

“It is hard to fathom anyone burying their treasured jewelry, much less two women doing the same thing and at the same tree. You’re right about that.”

The waitress set our food in front of us, leaned her hip against the side of the table closest to Levi and smiled at him. “Anything else for you, sir?”

A flush crept up his neck before he nodded at me and said, “Not for me but perhaps my companion would like something.”

The waitress huffed as if offended and turned to me. “Anything?”

Stunned at the attitude she displayed, I shook my head. I wanted to say something about her rudeness, but let it go. I’d let my tip speak for me.

As soon as she was gone, Levi said, “I hate it when that happens.”

“I bet it happens a lot. It’s your irresistible charm.” I winked. “And the dimples don’t hurt either. We mere mortals don’t get flirted with like you do. Alas.”

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.

Check out the other tales here.

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.

Check out the other tales here

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.

Check out the other tales here. Leave a comment if you enjoy the story snippet.

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.

Check out the other tales here

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.