Page 18 of Mending Fences
Mandy shook her head. “I told you, when he left Saturday evening, friend zone, remember?”
“Uh-huh. You keep telling yourself that.” Candace got up. “New topic—first date with the law student I met last week. Scarf or wig?”
Mandy pondered the options. “What did you have on when you met him?”
Candace tugged on the ends of the scarf she wore. “I think I wore the short brunette—no, the blonde.”
“Go with the redhead. It will be a big enough change but not shocking. It should get you into the conversation if you want to go there.” Mandy picked her meal back up. “I guess I am on my own tonight. Bless the woman who invented frozen dinners.”
Candace turned on the news while she dressed for her date. Mandy finished the last couple bites of chicken, chucked the empty microwave-meal container into the trash, and moved to her combination studio-bedroom to work on her project. Her giant Wacom screen was her version of Nirvana. Before the first song finished playing on her feed, Mandy was in the zone, replacing overgrown weeds with green lawn—and reminiscing. Flying kites, running on the perfect lawn in bare feet.
Candace popped her head in the door. “Guess who is on TV next?”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Mandy covered her ears in jest.
The doorbell rang.
“That’s my date. Don’t wait up.”
Mandy sat back and studied her work. The notes of a popular entertainment show drifted in from the other room. Candace had left the TV on again.
It took Mandy a minute to track down the remote. The bleach-blonde announcer started into her first story. “Is Daniel Crawford joining the paparazzi?” The same photo of Daniel carrying a bag with the photography-store logo used in the story she read earlier flashed across the screen. The blonde turned to her cohost. “What do you think DC will do with an $80,000 camera?”
Mandy shut the TV off. Candace was probably right. The camera at the school was purchased by Daniel last night. Her phone chimed Candace’s tone, then stopped. Mandy checked the screen. Pocket dial. She double-checked her text messages just to be sure. Daniel’s name appeared at the bottom of the screen from the Saturday text exchange. She opened a text window.
Hey, did you give—
Delete, delete, delete.
There was a camera donated to the uni—
Delete, delete, delete.
Thank you for donating the camera. I can graduate now. Thanks.
Send.
She waited a moment, then pocketed her phone. It beeped.
How did you figure it out?
Tabloids are often wrong.Mandy left off the question mark.
Good call.
Thank you. I was really worried about how I would pay for my portion.
Hey, if I hadn’t scared you...
Eighty thousand and he was taking the blame?Still, it wasn’t your fault.
It’s all good.
Mandy stared at the screen. How should she answer that? She sent a smiley emoji.
No more messages came. Just as well. She slipped the phone onto the desk and returned to her project. She needed to finish the base restoration work before she moved on to the “could be” versions. Halfway through the roof restoration, her phone rang. She looked at the screen, her stylus slipping from her fingers. She hit Control+Z to undo the damage while answering her phone.
