Flirting with Disaster (14 page)

The sun began to melt into the horizon, dappling the leaves on the apple trees around us as the branches bounced and swayed. Tiny blossoms began to push their way out of the fisted buds that constrained them—promises of fruit to come. A few of their misty petals landed on us as the wind whispered again. I felt peace in my heart about sharing my thoughts with Tommy, who was, at the end of the day, a brother in Christ even if nothing else. Yet.

“I’ll be there,” I said. “I’ve got a big decision to make before I go.”

Tommy nodded.

“And I messed up one, or actually two, of my Asking for Trouble columns.”

I knew he read all of my columns, and since he didn’t disagree with my assessment, I figured he agreed with me. “Everyone makes mistakes, Savvy.”

“I hadn’t been searching in the right place for the answers,” I said. “For direction. It was a good lesson.”

He stretched, and when he was done, he ended up a few inches closer to me. “What kind of direction?”

“I’m going to look up the Bible verses from our Wednesday night groups over the past few months. And pray. And then wait to hear, ‘Go.’”

He opened his mouth as if he was going to ask what I meant, but as he did, a tidy and pretty older-looking woman walked toward us. “Gran,” he said, sounding both pleased and disappointed at her approach.

“Well, then, I wondered where I’d find you.” Her little Yorkie tugged on the leash toward me. The dog came closer and I petted him/her/it and smiled and made nice noises. It wasn’t the first time—or the last time—I’d have to fake liking dogs for political reasons. “Who’s your friend, Thomas?” Gran asked.

Thomas! Hee-hee.

He stood up, ready to ditch before we got a full-on BBC Channel 4 interview from Gran. But of course he answered her. “Her name is Savannah Smith.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, standing and holding out my hand.

“American, eh?” she said, noticing the accent I thought I’d very nearly erased.

“Yes,” I said.

“Ah, the newspaper writer, right?”

I glanced at Tommy. Had he spilled my secret? He shrugged. I could tell by the look on his face that he was as shocked as I was.

How did she know?

“Yes,” I answered honestly.

“Well, then, best be going,” she said. “Might have a few sprinkles later on, and I’ve already had my hair done this week.”

At that, Louanne ran up with a happy expression on her face—Growl must have qualified in spite of the odds—and I didn’t want
her
to know I wrote the column. So I was left silent, wondering. How, and what, did Tommy’s gran know?

Louanne and I headed east, and Tommy and his gran went west. As we walked away, he texted me.

I swear, Savvy, I have never even mentioned you to Gran before.

No problem.

As I typed it, I wasn’t sure if the fact that he’d never mentioned me before made me happy or sad.

I put my phone away, and Louanne tugged my arm. “Savvy, look who’s in the village square.”

Chapter 28

Right then I had two options—to take a turn and pretend I’d never seen them or to keep walking straight and bump into them. I would have liked to say I was courageous enough to walk straight on no matter what, but at that moment I was feeling pretty weak in the knees. But Louanne was with me, and she was heading straight, so I didn’t have much of a choice.

Plus, Growl was not about to let us veer off course.

“Savvy! Louanne! Giggle!” Emma Alderman came racing toward us. She smiled brightly at Louanne and me and then dropped to her knees and rubbed Growl behind his scruffy little ears.

Isobel came along behind her and smiled at me. Her face was lovely but still tired. The thought occurred to me that maybe being tired was a permanent condition for her.

“Hullo, Savvy,” she said. “How goes the newspaper business?”

“Oh yeah, the newspaper!” Emma said. “Is my picture in it yet? Wait. You haven’t even taken a snap of me yet.”

Louanne nudged me and whispered, “Phone.”

I looked at her, not making out what she was saying.

“Aketay the icturepay with the onephay,” she said in pig latin. I supposed she was trying to keep Emma from understanding, but for a few seconds it kept me from understanding too.

“Oh, right,” I said. “Yes, Emma, you’re exactly, dead-on right. Here. You stand with your mum, and I’ll take the snap with my phone camera. It’s really very good.”

It pained me, as a photographer, to say that.

“Oh no, not me,” Isobel said.

“Yes, you too.” I snapped a picture of the two of them grinning broadly in the fading daylight.

“Did you hear about Be@titude, then?” Isobel asked me.

“What do you mean?” I answered warily.

“Well, Becky had some kind of computer disaster. She had to replace her whole system. So the clothing program is off for a bit. Perhaps till September. We should pray for her.” Isobel made no mention of her own setback, though she would now be getting no new clothes for job interviews.

“Yes, we should pray,” I answered softly. Of course Isobel didn’t know who had caused the problem. I felt confident Becky would never have told anyone else I was to blame for the malware meltdown.

“Well, we’d best be off,” Isobel said.

“We actually get to eat supper out tonight. Though Mum says it has to be cheap and cheerful and not a posh nosh.” Emma giggled at that, and we laughed along with her. “Be sure to tell me when I’m in the paper.”

“I will,” I promised as we left. “Oodgay anplay,” I said to Louanne and was gratified to see that it took her some time to figure out what I was saying.

“So is she really going to be in the paper?” Louanne asked.

“Depends on if the new editor runs the article,” I said.

“When’s the election?”

“Next week.”

Chapter 29

After midnight that night, I snuck down into the living room—er, lounge. The draperies were pulled open, and the moonlight lit the room in a magical way, like a fine mist over everything. I settled on the couch and curled my feet up under me and opened my Bible. Then I pulled out the piece of paper from Wednesday night. I read John 15:5 and thought about the branches blowing in the park. I thought about the sweet-smelling blossoms that promised ripe fruit.

In my Bible, I found another paper Joe had handed out at church recently. I looked up the verse from the bottom of the page.

Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing.”

My real problem was that I had done what
Savvy
wanted to do without asking the Lord if that was what
He
wanted me to do. My desire was to do ministry. I didn’t ask Him what ministry He desired for me to do.

My dad had shown me how he’d protected our computer from malware. First, you needed a program that would identify anything bad that wanted to get into your system. The computer had to recognize something was wrong—Trojan horse or not—and stop it at the door.

I grinned and looked down at my Bible. Check.

Second, if something did get through, you had to remove it right away. Acting fast was the key to minimizing damage.

Repentance.

Lord, I’m so sorry I ran ahead of You. I do love You. I want to do good things. But I only want to do the good things You prepared in advance for me to do. So help me to remain connected to You and do what I see that You want me to do.

And then, in the quiet of the night, I heard it. It was in my heart, but it was loud and unmistakable.

Go!