Page 1 of The Friend Game

Chapter 1

THIS IS FINE.

Completely fine.

“F-I-N-E,” I mouth the letters, putting my fisted hands in the air like the cheerleader I never was. “Fine!” My voice squeaks on the completed word. Probably why I never made the team. My execution has never been great. Plus, the cheer captain Lana Marie Bell never liked me, thanks to my mom giving her a C-minus in 9th grade English. Although c’mon, y-o-u-r means your, Lana, y-o-u-'-r-e means you are.

But I digress.

Not even my pathetic attempts at cheerleading can salvage this situation. I kick one of the couch cushions lying on the floor, then survey the chaos of my living room: pillows strewn about, books all over the floor, random knick-knacks thrown off my coffee table, every surface emptied of its contents. And still no memory card.

With a heavy sigh I look over at my dog, Holly, who looks back at me with an equallymorose expression, sharing in my angst. Then again, maybe not. She’s a basset hound. Her expression is always morose.

“Where is it?” I ask her desperately. “Where. Is. It?” I sink down onto my bare couch, wincing as my butt lands on a spring. Holly waddles over and sets her head on my lap. “This is not a big deal,” I tell her. “Hugo will forgive me. The Mattisons will forgive me. People would rather remember the day with their minds than have actual photographic proof of everything that happened, right? It’s more important to capture the moment with the power of your mind than the power of a Nikon camera. Your mind can’t be lost in a fire. Photos can. Besides,” my voice cracks in hysteria, “how many people actually even look at their wedding photos?”

Holly removes her head as my body starts shaking with sobs.

“Everyone! Everyone looks at their wedding photos, Holly! And I lost them! Hugo is going to fire me! The Mattisons’ life is ruined. They’ll probably end up divorced and rueing the day they hired me, Hannah Garza, as the assistant photographer on the most important day of their lives.”

My phone rings, cutting off my sobs. Hugo. He’ll be wanting me to send over the photos. I was supposed to have them to him this morning, would have had them to him this morning if that stupidtwo inch blue memory card hadn’t vanished off my coffee table! Because that’s what happened. I absolutely did not lose the memory card. Nope. It just disappeared. Harry Potter probably summoned it away. Oh my goodness, I could really go for a summoning charm right about now.

The phone continues to ring. Any second it will go to voicemail. The third time in the last two hours I’ll have allowed that to happen. Which means Hugo will already be angry with me when I do finally call him back.

“You will always answer my calls,” he told me gruffly when he hired me a month ago to be his assistant photographer. “I am a busy man. Don’t like waiting for people.”

Slowly, I reach for the phone. “Hi, Hugo,” I whisper.

Four minutes later I’m fired.

My career as a photographer over before it really even got started.

***

“Fired? Already?” My sister Jill is aghast as she clutches her coffee mug and stares at me with round eyes. It’s the morning after the explosive ending to my short photography career (and I do mean explosive literally; Hugo burst a blood vessel in hiseye yelling at me), and I’m seeking sanctuary in one of the living rooms of Jill’s ginormous house.

“Hannah! That’s your third job in six months!” my other sister Brooke exclaims, then grimaces. “Sorry, you know that already.”

“Technically, I wasn’t fired from my job at the museum,” I protest weakly, leaning back against Jill’s sofa and letting my head flop down.

“Just banned from the premises, and therefore unable to be an employee there,” Brooke says wryly.

“Hey, what happened with the dinosaur skeleton was not my fault. That kid said he had cancer! That it was his dying wish to touch the T. rex. I had to let him touch it. Anyone with a heart would’ve done the same.”

“Maybe,” Jill agrees. “It was just bad luck that the director of the museum walked in when he did,” she adds kindly.

“You mean right when the kid was taking a selfie with Hannah behind the rope, both smiling wildly as they gripped the T. rex’s leg bone.” Brooke shakes with laughter, and even Jill can’t suppress a giggle.

“The scientific name is tibia,” I reply primly, but this only sends them into another fit of laughter. I hate my sisters.

“I’m sorry.” Jill nudges my calf with her toe. “We should not be laughing at you. In fact, I readthe most inspirational story about this very topic the other day. A guy kept losing jobs because of crazy circumstances beyond his control, but he overcame his adversity and found the perfect job for himself in the end.”

“Really?” I stare at her hopefully. “Circumstances crazier than getting fired for touching a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton?”

“Well, at least on par with that,” she amends. “Once he knocked down a whole barn just trying to get rid of a rat infestation on a farm.”

“Oh my gosh!” Brooke gasps in horror. “That’s awful.”

“Insurance probably covered that, though,” I say with a fresh wave of somberness. “I lost a memory card with a couple’s wedding photos on it. You really can’t put a price on that!”

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