New Ways

TEN

Sigrid

On Saturday morning I had driven up to the Starbucks in midtown Manhattan to meet with Jean-Pierre. Mr O'Neille had specifically instructed me to aid Jean-Pierre in reviewing and re-calculating the total targeted budget to be presented to the board of directors on Monday. He added that as a vice president of the Student Union, I had to master the art of the trickiest and most crucial annual activity of the council, which was apparently, the annual budget proposal.

Well I've had my share of coming up with a budget proposal annually for the volleyball team too actually but it required lesser strategical budgeting skills because what the team needed was pretty straightforward – training and safety equipment, transportation and accommodation for championships, sometimes external coaching though not all the time, et cetera. We didn't have events to organise for the whole school and all, so come to think of it my leadership days in the volleyball team were blessed.

"Ugh, finally!" Jean-Pierre grunted, stretching his arms out and then slumped down in the wooden chair he was seated on. "Thank you so much, Sig! I didn't know you'd be pretty good at this, too."

"I did something like this too for the volleyball team so, you're welcome," I shrugged and finally took a bite out of the bagel which laid on the table for almost three hours now.

Jean-Pierre sat up straight in his seat again and clicked his tongue. "Derek's idea was amazing though."

"I know," I nodded in agreement. "It's revolutionary. We've never really had anything like that in Parmont before. I actually thought of cancelling out the external vendors and have the anti-bullying talks done myself."

"You did too? No way! I wanted to do the same thing!" Jean-Pierre playfully pushed my shoulder in excitement.

"Then maybe we should do it together," I suggested, wiggling my eyebrows at my potential accomplice. He chuckled for a bit but then it faded.

"Well that's only if by some sort of miracle someone manages to convince Amery to change her mind," Jean-Pierre murmured, his tone reflecting utter disappointment.

He was right. We needed a miracle in order to be able to change Amery's mind. That girl was such a challenge, I've never actually met someone so stubborn and uncompromising as her. Heck, we might even need more than a miracle to make Amery agree to Derek's idea. But it was still possible though. Even if it was impossible, trust me Sigrid Sharma does not know the meaning of that word.

"I'll see what I can do," I said, not wanting to promise anything I couldn't deliver even though I had enough confidence in earning Amery's approval eventually. I quickly put up my brown hair in a messy bun and slid into my acid washed denim jacket which I had a black skater dress on under. "But now I have somewhere important to be."

Jean-Pierre nodded understandingly and stood up to give me a hug. I squeezed him tightly and we thanked each other for the morning.

"See you on Monday!" I blew a kiss before rolling up the window of my car and steering away from the curb where Jean-Pierre bid me goodbye.

There was a beautiful face I couldn't wait to see today.