Rules for Secret Keeping

  “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 wil
l?” 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.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “You should see this website, seriously. It has this completely interactive interface.”

  “Interactive interface?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you even know what that means?”

  “Yes,” I say. “It means that the interface is interactive. Duh.” Seriously, boys can be so dumb.

  “Okay,” Jake says. “Look, we’ll figure it out.” My heart speeds up a little bit when he says “we’ll.” It’s very . . . couple-y. Like we’re in this together.

  “Will we?” I ask, mostly because I just want to try out how it feels to call Jake and I a “we.” It sounds good. Perfect, even.

  “Yes,” he says. “Look, do you want to meet at The Common tomorrow morning before school? We could get danishes and I’ll bring my laptop and you can show me this lame website you think is so great.”

  I think about it. First, I am not a morning person. Second, The Common is actually just a fancy name for a special cafeteria at our school. It’s the caf they used to use before they built a new one, and now they open it before and after school so that kids can hang out and study. Third, I am going to have to get Tom to agree to drive me there. Fourth, I don’t care, because JAKE IS INVITING ME TO THE COMMON! Is this a date? Probably not. But still. He wants to hang out with me. Alone. Not with Daphne or Emma or anyone else!

  “Sounds good,” I say. Me and Jake alone. Not that I’ve never been alone with him before, but obviously it’s different now. Completely different. His new voice is just one part of the whole “now this is different” puzzle. Why, oh, why did I wear Emma’s dress today? I should have worn it tomorrow, so I could be super cute for my date with Jake. I mean, my not-date with Jake. My sort-of-date with Jake? Whatever, the point is, I should have worn it tomorrow.

  “Great,” he says. “Meet me at seven forty-five or so?”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Oh, one more thing,” Jake says. “Did you ever give Emma my note?”

  Sigh.

  “HE MUST LIKE HER, DAPH,” I SAY THE next morning, turning my head completely toward the windows of the cafeteria so that no one can tell I’m on my cell. “Otherwise why was he freaking out about me giving her the note?”

  The thing is, I did give Emma the note. I gave it to her after lunch. And I didn’t read it. Of course I thought about reading it, I obsessed about reading it, but somehow, I was able to control myself. It was very hard. Especially when she started opening it as she walked away down the hall, and I probably could have looked over her shoulder and tried to sneak a peek. But I didn’t.

  What I don’t get is, Jake knows I would never read a secret, or hide a secret, or accidentally on purpose lose a secret. I don’t think he even knows I’ve thought about doing those things. So there was really no reason for him to ask me if I gave that note to Emma. Unless he was really, really anxious and wanted to know if Emma got it. Which means he probably likes her, too. Right? I mean, why else would he be freaking out about it? This is what I’m debating with Daphne on the phone while I wait for Jake at a table inside The Common.

  “Samantha,” Daphne says, “so what? He’ll be over it in two weeks. That’s about how long seventh-grade crushes last.”

  “That is so not what I want to hear.” Two weeks? How am I supposed to go through two weeks with Jake liking Emma and Emma liking Jake and the two of them passing notes back and forth like two little crazy note-passers with nothing better to do than to make my life miserable? Two weeks is a lifetime! Two weeks is, like, fourteen whole days. Three hundred and thirty-six hours. Twenty thousand, one hundred and sixty minutes. That is forever. And wow, I am really good at math.

  “I know it’s not what you want to hear.” Daphne sounds grumpy. Probably because I woke her up at six a.m. asking her what I should wear to go meet Jake. I tried to call and text her a bunch of times last night, but she never answered.

  I finally settled on my favorite jeans, my new comfy sweater boots, and a red-and-blue-striped sweater. It’s a very cute outfit. It was actually a blessing that I wore Emma’s dress yesterday, because otherwise I would have been obsessing over whether or not I should wear it. And now that I think about it, that dress really is way too dressy for school.

  “Listen,” I say now to Daphne. “We need to talk later. About why you’re mad at me.”

  “I’m not mad at you,” she says.

  “But in the computer lab yesterday—”

  “Look, I’m not mad,” she says. “Now I have to go; my bus is going to be here soon. I’ll see you at school.”

  She hangs up. I sigh and look out the window. Jake’s mom’s van is pulling up in the circle out in front. I pull a magazine out of my bag and pretend to be reading it.

  “Hey,” Jake says when he gets to my table.

  “Oh, hey.” I try to sound surprised, and peer at him like maybe I even forgot he was coming. “I didn’t see you there.”
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  He looks at me funny and then slides into his chair. “Yeah, well, here I am,” he says. “Do you want a drink?”

  “Sure,” I say. “A lemonade would be fab.” I reach into my bag and pull out my wallet (it’s from last year and has a rainbow on it with clouds—sooo embarrassing—but I haven’t gotten around to buying a new one, and besides, how can I afford a new one now when my business is going kaput?) and pull out two dollars. I try to hand it to Jake, but he waves me off. “I got it.” He heaves his computer bag up onto the table. “Can you boot it up while I go wait in line?”

  “Sure,” I say. Ohmigod! Jake is buying me a lemonade! Hello! That is like one step away from a date. Isn’t it? I mean, that’s what happens on dates. Guys buy the girls something. Like a lemonade, for example. Also, Jake has left me in charge of his computer! Jakes loves his computer. It’s not something he would let just anyone touch.

  I pull it out of the bag slowly, careful not to drop it. It’s a MacBook Air that Jake named Wilfred. (I know, how cute, right?) Jake saved up all his Hanukkah money and all his birthday money, and then worked, like, three hundred hours at his dad’s landscaping business to make up the difference. It’s sleek and shiny and he loves it.

  The computer is almost booted up (Jake’s background is a picture of his dog, Sylvester, even cuter) when the door to The Common opens, and Emma and Charlie come waltzing in. Well. It’s more like strutting. Seriously, they look like they’re on a runway at Fashion Week or something. And what are they doing here? Not that I mind seeing them exactly, it’s just . . . when you’re on a maybe-date with the guy you like, you don’t want the girl he’s been passing secrets with to show up. That just, you know, doesn’t really work.

  I bury my head in my magazine and decide to try and ignore them.

  “Samantha!” Emma yells, waving like a maniac. Sigh.

  “Oh, hi,” I say. I peer up at them like I really didn’t even see them come in. This look might be starting to become a thing with me.