Rock Bottom Girl(27)

There was a cute, petite Asian teacher in a flowy skirt and t-shirt already waiting at the top of the hill. I huffed and puffed my way to her.

“Hey,” I said, wheezing a bit.

“You must be Marley,” she said, holding out a hand to me. “I’m Haruko Smith. French teacher.”

I shook and tried to catch my breath. “Nice to meet you.”

“And yes, it is ironic that I’m a Japanese-American teaching French.” She tucked her blunt bob behind both ears. “Now that that’s settled, how did it feel to discipline that Hostetter punk?”

I laughed.

“Does he really get a free ride?” I asked.

“He and his brother, Ascher.”

“Ascher?”

Haruko sighed. “Yep. Named after Amie Jo’s favorite diamond cut. You’re the unsung hero of the day. We’re all terrified of her, but you had the guts to tell that wannabe surfer moron where to stick it.”

“Technically I just made him run laps.” I didn’t need some overblown story of my Amie Jo defiance blowing up in my face.

“Still,” Haruko said. “It’s more than most. Rumor has it you put her in her place in high school, too.”

A blaring horn in the parking lot captured our attention and saved me from having to answer.

“Blaire Elizabeth! Get away from that Camaro!” a woman yelled out of her open minivan window.

A girl in denim shorts and a Katy Perry tour t-shirt stomped away from a much-older-looking boy leaning against a rusted-out Camaro, its body panels a variety of colors including primer, red, and orange.

“Moooom! You’re embarrassing me!”

“Embarrassment is better than teen pregnancy! Trust me!” There was something vaguely familiar about that voice. A Pennsylvania twang wrapped around expensive education.

I peered down the hill trying to see through the glare on the windshield.

The horn honked again as the girl climbed in through the sliding passenger door. “Marley Cicero? Is that you?” The driver was hanging out of her open window and waving at me.

“Holy shit, Vicky?”

I jogged down the hill. Vicky Kerblanski—now Rothermel—my best friend through all twelve years of Culpepper schooling, popped out of the van, arms open.

She was wearing pajama pants, a tank top, and a baseball cap over her fire engine red hair.

“I can’t freaking believe you’re here!” she said, yanking me into a violent hug. Vicky always had been largely unaware of her freakish upper body strength. “Mariah said she saw you at the ice shack, and now here you are. You look gorgeous by the way. You obviously haven’t ruined your body giving birth to three ungrateful kids.”

“Mom! Are we going?” the grumpy teenager demanded from the van.

“Shut up and eat your snack,” Vicky said cheerfully. “We need to catch up.”

“Yes. Please.” I was suddenly desperate for a friend. Hmm, a friend who had played soccer with me. “Hey, what are you doing in half an hour?”

“Yelling at these bozos probably,” she said, shooting her thumb at the van behind her. “Why?”

“I need an assistant coach—”

“Yes. Oh my fucking God, yes.” Vicky said, taking me by the shoulders and shaking me. “I got laid off from the hospital two months ago, and if I don’t get out of my house to do something besides sell bullshit wrinkle cream to ‘all my closest friends,’ I will die.”

“Are you serious? I could really use the help. Like desperate measures.”

“Let me get these ungrateful wombats back home, dump them on Rich, and I’ll meet you back here.”

One of the ungrateful wombats was a sticky-looking toddler waving a plastic dinosaur at me. I waved back, and he burped.

“Thank you, Vicky. You have no idea how grateful I am.”

Vicky rubbed her palms together. “This is going to be amazing,” she predicted. She grabbed me one more time, placed a smacking kiss on my cheek, and ran back to the van. “Peace out, Girl Scout!”

She revved the engine and took off, tires squealing.

I shook my head and started the climb back up the hill. Vicky had been the ridiculous sidekick to my boring self. She brought fun and adventure to everything we did. Even if it was just sitting in class together. I’d missed her and hadn’t even realized it. Judging from the van full of kids, she had an entire life I wasn’t even aware of.

“Did I miss anything?” I asked Haruko.

“Eh, just a knife fight and an FBI van rolling through. I see you, Mr. Aucker! There’s no need for you to take your shirt off just to drive home,” she yelled to a scrawny, trucker-hat-wearing boy. “They’re basically animals, you know? Without us, they’d be not showering and wandering around naked just licking things. We’re goddamn superheroes.”

The parking lot slowly emptied, and Haruko and I went our separate ways. She to her classroom to grab her cross-stitch and Kindle to head home, me to the locker room to change for practice.

School was out, but with fall sports, there were plenty of students loitering in and around the gym. I didn’t have the energy to yell at them to stay off the climbing ropes, so I ducked into the hallway.

And ran smack into a wall of male muscle.

“We meet again,” Jake said.