55

MORE OR LESS
THE WAY IT WENT.

I don’t know if I’ll ever figure out exactly what happened next. Everything went so fast and it was all such a shock, but I’ll do my best to explain.

Laird arrived just like he said he would at 6:30 in the morning with the new Bitsie double, and I thought I was home free.

That was until Laird said he wanted to give it to Zola personally.

I couldn’t believe it. Laird’s stupid hopeless crush was going to ruin my life! My stomach went mushy. What was I going to do?

Laird had even shaved,⁷⁴ so I knew he had no intention of leaving. In situations like that, you can’t wait until a brilliant idea comes to you. You just have to do the best you can in the time you’ve got.

That’s my excuse.

I told Laird that Zola had come down with a really bad case of diarrhea⁷⁵ and wouldn’t be in that day. I was just promising him that a check would be in the mail by the end of the week and pushing him out the door when who walks in but Zola.

Laird sucked his belly in and said, “Why, hello, feeling better are you?”

I thought it was all over then, but Zola said, “Sorry, Laird, I can’t talk now. I’ve got to run!”

Laird, of course, understood, given her little “problem” and all, and I thought I was home free again, until I realized Zola had to run because Kathleen was at the end of the hall, waving at her to come.

I grabbed the puppet double, slammed the door behind Laird and raced after Zola. Kathleen was just saying, “Zola, I wanted to thank you for taking Telly.”

I thought it was all over again, but then Kathleen saw me and stopped and ran over and gave me a big hug. “I missed you,” she said, and this time I knew she meant it.

“I have this really neat series idea I wanted to talk to you about!”

I smiled. I couldn’t honestly say I missed her—I’d been a little busy for that—but I was really glad to see her again.

“So, tell me,” she went on, “did the two of you have fun this weekend?”

And I thought it was all over again.

But before Zola could say, “I was away with my boyfriend,” Nick came flying in.

“Kathleen! I really need to talk to you!” he said. “Why weren’t you answering your cell phone?”

Kathleen went, “Cell phone?!?” like “What’s the matter with you? You were with me when I lost it.” Then Nick looked at me like “Didn’t you give it back to her?” and I thought it was all over again, but he said, “It doesn’t matter! Dorothy and Mitch caught the early plane to try and find Bess. They’re going to be here any minute.”

My parents were coming!?! Bess was missing! Kathleen looked as shocked as I did.

Then Nick said, “And there’s a commotion at the front desk you have to deal with.”

But the commotion wasn’t at the front desk anymore. A second later it was in the hall with us and its name was Bess and it was screaming and elbowing a security guard in the head and running right for me.

“Telly! Telly! You’re okay! You’re okay!”

Bess practically knocked me over. She was hugging and kissing me, and that poor security guard was sort of caught in the middle, not sure if he should arrest Bess or hug her back. She was crying and babbling something about the e-mail I sent her and knowing right away I was going to do something I shouldn’t and that it was all her fault because she’d been such a bad role model and seeing my picture in the paper and stealing her ex-boyfriend’s father’s Winnebago and driving nonstop to find me because she’d kill herself if anything ever happened to me.

And Kathleen and Zola and Nick were just cluing into what was going on and trying to find out more about that picture in the paper when my parents came barging in and saw Bess and me locked in this big wet hug.

I realize now that they must have been sick with worry over both of us, especially after reading those e-mails. But when I looked up and saw my parents there, they were both smiling. Smiling at the sight of us hugging and crying. They were crying too, of course, but mostly they were smiling and looking at us like we’d just won first place for piano duet in the Kiwanis Music Festival or something.

Like we were the two best daughters anyone could ever ask for.

I’m just glad Bitsie was hidden safely away in my knapsack because, believe me, the whole sappy scene would have been enough to make him throw up.

⁷⁴ Though not very well. He obviously hadn’t had much practice.

⁷⁵ It was the first thing I thought of. I guess because of that mushy stomach of mine.