The Fourteen Day Soul Detox, Volume Two (18 page)

“They did at first, but then they
held another meeting where a couple of the parents from the PTA
fought really hard for the dance teacher to have her job extended to
full time. They did a revote two days before the cutoff last month
and decided that without knowing the future enrollment next year,
they should ‘temporarily’ lay off the second special
needs class position.”

“That’s ridiculous, isn’t
the number of kids going into special education rising?” she
asked.

“At least at Coral Elementary,
yeah. Several of the moms of incoming kids even came to the meetings.
But, I know why the school board did it.” I shook my head.
“Some of these PTA ladies have a lot of financial sway on the
school. It’s technically a public school, but a huge amount of
their funding for equipment and day to day stuff comes from private
donation,” I said, leaning against the door frame. “When
these parents have ideas about how the school should allocate the
funds, the school board always votes in their favor.”

Amy cocked her head to the side. “What
are you planning to do?”

“I was thinking about writing
some letters to the district and the state board,” I said.

She shook her head slowly.

“What?” I asked.

She closed her laptop, turning fully to
me. “You should force their hand.”

“How could I possibly do that?”
I asked.

“You start a social media storm,”
she said, her eyes bright.

“I have absolutely no idea how to
do that. I’m still confused on how to update profile pictures,”
I said.

“I could help you,” she
said.

“You know how to do it?” I
asked.

“I know how people do it; there’s
no guarantee that it will take, but if you do it exactly right,
there’s a good chance.”

“Could they sue me, or something
for revealing info about the school?” I asked.

“You have to be very careful on
what you reveal and to only state the exact truth. And you have to be
sure that you are willing to face the social consequences, Jamie.
You’re going to be forcing the school board to take action, and
these rich PTA parents will not thank you for it. They might
retaliate against you personally.”

“Half of them already hate me
because I’m the only one who points out their bullshit at the
meetings. What would I have to do?” I asked.

“You would need some powerful
branding, a viral post or video, the video would be better since it
could draw national media attention. You would probably need to use
your celebrity status and any celebrity contacts you have.”

“I don’t have any,” I
said.

“What about Beza?” she
asked.

I nodded. “She definitely has a
lot of them, but I don’t want to force her to commit the same
parent-social suicide with me. She’s on the PTA and friends
with a lot of these parents.”

“She could do it anonymously,
like I’m going to. I probably know a lot of these parents,
too.” Amy shrugged. “But, there’s a lot of behind
the scenes things she can do to help without anyone ever finding
out.”

“I’ll ask… how would
we create a viral video?”

“It needs to be short, poignant,
inspiring, and if at all possible, entertaining. What if you sang?”

“Seriously?”

“You’re a semi-famous
singer, that’s the best weapon in your arsenal,” she
said.

“I’m not even close to
semi-famous,” I said.

“You can call back whatever
little fame you had, especially if you have help from other
celebrities.”

I looked down. “But this might
not work?”

“I’d say you have about a
forty percent chance of it going viral if you had more than ten
celebrities with a decent-sized fan base endorsing your video.”

A nervous fluttering feeling formed in
my stomach. “I would have no idea what to sing. I mean, I’ve
never written a song before…”

“I’ll do it, I can do the
research too,” she said with a small grin on her face.

“That sounds like a whole lot of
work to do today, along with your more than full time job,” I
said.

“Jamie, this will be invaluable
experience for me. Also, if there’s something I can do, I want
to help.”

“Oh, this is terrifying, I
haven’t sung in like… in years, not like that. When do
you want to do this?”

“Aren’t you supposed to do
this step today?” she asked, her grin growing.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s
so important,” I said, my voice pitching.

“Well, I do and I can get
everything together today. Also, we’re both pretty busy for the
rest of the week.”

“Oh, my god Amy, I don’t
think I can do it,” I said, laughing.

“You are so going to do it. I’ll
meet you during Sarah’s gymnastics. The sun will be just a
little west-facing, and the warehouse walls will make for a perfect
backdrop. We need to avoid recognizable buildings.”

“Except that it’s raining.”
I shrugged. “Oh, too bad…we’ll just have to do it
another day,” I said.

“It stopped raining, Jamie,”
she said.

Peeking out of Sarah’s window, I
realized she was right. The sun had actually almost entirely broken
through the clouds.

“Shit,” I said.

Amy laughed behind me. “I am
pretty excited.”

“I am most definitely not,”
I said.

Amy laughed so hard she snorted. Her
hands flew up to cover her face.

I spun to smile at her. “Oh wow,
Amy, I haven’t heard you snort in years!”

“Oh, that’s so
embarrassing,” she said.

“Not in front of me. It reminds
me of when you were little,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m
going to start setting all this up so you have to do it.”

“Oh no,” I said as I walked
out of the room. Before I had even completely stepped out, I walked
back in the room, closed my eyes and said, “Fine, I’ll do
it. You’re right; they’ll just ignore me if I try to do
it the conventional way. They’ve been ignoring me all year.”

This volume
is complete, but the story continues in
Volume
Three
, release date July 31st, 2016.

If you enjoyed this book, please
consider reviewing on
Amazon
.

I’d like to
say a big thank you to Anne Loshuk for beta reading and for her
awesome and thorough input and suggestions. Also, I’m sending a
huge thanks to my editor
Monique
Fischer
, who never ceases to amaze me. And as always, I
want to thank my sister Anna, for reading everything I’ve
pushed at her since the day I learned to scratch ink into paper.