Page 81 of How To Plot a Payback

The terrible, horrible Lavender Rhodes.

I slap water over my face and tell myself to snap out of it. Because isn’t this just of course like her? She is turning my heart against myself, against my better judgment.

I need to replay the facts.

No.

I need to find the list.

I ransack every last box in the closet, spitting out mothballs and tearing through old notebooks, but finally I unsnap the clasp on a small leather notebook and flip to the center page.

TRANSGRESSIONS AGAINST FINN MASTERS

I read it top to bottom, nodding and growling and saying such things as “That’s right!” and “Oooh, that woman.”

When I reach the end of the list, I whip open a drawer.

Find a pen.

Begin scribbling the latest infractions, precisely, in every detail. The way she discarded ten dogs and made me late on my first day. The moment she turned the writers against me with her callous comment. My allergic reaction to forced foods. The day she got me sacked.

As the ink runs out, I pop the top off a second pen with my mouth and keep writing.

By the time I’ve documented my grievances, the contents of the takeaway bag are long gone, and I feel restored in aim and purpose. Looking at the list is the reminder I’ve needed. No sympathy. No coconut hair. No quietly being impressed by the fact that she wears worn-out flip-flops or comments on the tender blue sky rather than on the pungent lineup of overflowing rubbish bins.

No.

She is a siren.

Beautiful but deadly.

And just to make it absolutely, abundantly clear every morning henceforth, I lay the list on my desk beside my laptop, where it will remind me just exactly what happens every single time she’s even close to my personal space.

I won’t try to ruthlessly sabotage her—although doesn’t she deserve it? Just a little bit? I will just see if I can orchestrate a few instances of revenge. No, not revenge. That’s such a harsh word; it puts all the blame on the one doing the revenging.

Justice.

Just a few instances of justice.

Just a tiny smattering of retribution.

And yes, maybe I’m learning that she isn’t all bad. Perhaps, to some degree, she’s less specifically evil and more a flighty spirit who doesn’t think through how her actions affect others. Actually, she’s very much like Puck.

But still. All. Those. Things I’ve dealt with. On account of her.

Losing Delilah.

Losing career opportunities, multiple times.

Screws in ankles and paw prints on pants and red-faced bosses and ID badges flung down hallways.

She has to be held accountable for all that.

And I would be absolutely daft as a doorknob if I didn’t take advantage of my position as a writer of her character just once.

That’s all I’m asking for.

Just once.