Chapter 49

"Sit down. Both of you."

Damn! Family meeting. Never good. I knew Tami and I should have gotten out right after dinner.

Traci and I sat on either end of the sofa, Dad in his chair, and Mom hovered behind him instead of settling on the arm. No wonder Mom had asked Tami to wait for me in my room.

"We, uh, I, uh, we have something important to talk to you about." Dad couldn't decide how to assign blame, or responsibility, or whatever. Definitely not a good sign.

"I, well, uh, I lost my job."

"What?" Traci exclaimed.

"How could that happen?" I demanded. "They need you."

To be honest, I wasn't all that sure what dad did. He was some kind of strategic planner for the state. I didn't understand it, but I had the impression that he was good at it. At least his boss, Bill Miller, always said he couldn't do his job without Dad.

"I don't get it. How could they fire you?" I asked.

"They didn't exactly fire me. I quit."

"Why?"

Dad looked up at Mom, then back at Traci and me. "They moved my job to the capital. To Olympia."

"Oh." I'd been upset when we moved here from California. I'd had to leave my old school and all my friends. Dad didn't want to do that to me again. I looked over at Traci. It was obvious that she'd figured it out, too.

"If we have to move, I'll understand," I said. Traci nodded.

Mom smiled. "And I thought you didn't like to lie."

"It's a done deal." Dad said. "I quit two weeks ago."

Thank you, God. Wait a minute. "Two weeks ago? Why didn't you say something?" That explained why they'd been acting weird.

"You were in the middle of play-offs. I, we, your mom and I, decided to wait till that was over."

"Well, at least you get unemployment while you find something else," I said, trying to look at the bright side. I wondered if anyone around here needed a strategic planner besides the state.

"Uh, not exactly. The employment department say that since I quit, I don't qualify. I'm appealing that I wouldn't have quit if they didn't want to move me halfway across the state, but it could take awhile."

"So, for now, we're living on my salary," Mom said. "Things may get tight, but we'll be okay."

Traci and I nodded.

"Honey, I know you wanted to take some classes at the gymnastics club, but that'll have to wait awhile."

Traci's face scrunched up a little, but she nodded. Maybe I imagined it, but I thought I saw a tear in the corner of her eye.

I snagged the phone on my way back to my room.

"What's up?" Tami asked.

I explained about Dad and his job.

Tami had been sitting at my desk and playing solitaire on my computer. I picked her up and deposited her on my bed, then took her place. As I angled the monitor so that she couldn't see, she gave me a funny look. "It's not a secret," I explained as I called up my special spreadsheet and entered the password to unlock it. "It's information that's temporally inconvenient."