The thing I learned about contracts is that once you sign them, you have to do what they say or you get in trouble with . . . I dunno . . . someone important somewhere. Anyway, my contract with Swiftriver said that I had to appear at “the agreed-upon scheduled photo shoots.” That was the schedule my mom had written on her Bible calendar. So you can imagine my surprise when instead of “Softball signups” on January 12th, the calendar said, “Swiftriver photo shoot — Fresno State University track.”
“Can’t we change it?” I pleaded with Mom while I laced up my bright orange Riley Mae running shoes. (Same ones that were on the pen Bob gave me.) “TJ’s gonna kill me if I don’t show up at signups.”
“No, we can’t change it. We talked about this, remember?” Mom had her hand on her hip.
I started running in place. The shoes felt really cushy.
“Talked about what?”
“About how you aren’t going to be able to do all the things you normally do and be the Riley Mae shoe girl.”
I stopped running and shrugged. “I remember you saying I’d be busy . . .”
Dad came in from the garage, tapping his watch. “Ready to go, girls? Where’s Brady?”
“Riley doesn’t want to do the shoot,” Mom said. “She wants to go to softball signups instead.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to do it. I just asked if we could change it.”
Dad put his hand on my shoulder. “Of course we can’t change it. And have you looked at your schedule for spring? You’re not going to have time to play softball anyway.”
Well — he might as well have hit me over the head with a softball bat!