Rock Bottom Girl(30)

“Let’s prank them!” a sophomore with braces said, hopping up and down.

“Yeah!”

Vicky wiggled her eyebrows at me. “What do you say, Coach?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be an adult, a mother, a respected member of society?” I demanded.

“Come on, Coach. It’ll be like a team-building exercise,” sneaky Morgan W. begged.

“You guys, I could lose my job, and you could get suspended.”

“Not if we don’t get caught,” Vicky announced.

“Are you kidding me right now, Vic?”

“Tell me you don’t have at least three ideas floating around in that devious brain of yours,” she insisted. I actually had four working concepts that I could build on. “They took our field. They humiliated us. They forced you to back down with shame!”

“You are taking this very seriously for only joining the team an hour ago.”

“We are on an elementary school playground because a bunch of zero body fat buffoons chased us off of our turf,” Vicky reminded me.

“Come on, Coach!”

“Yeah, please!”

“We need this.”

“They took our field.”

I groaned and scratched a finger over the bridge of my nose.

“I know that look,” Vicky sang.

“I refuse to dignify that with an answer.” I had a great idea, and I was pretty sure I was absolutely going to go through with it. But I didn’t need my team getting arrested with me or suspended after I got fired.

A collective groan of disappointment rose up.

“We are not retaliating. Now, don’t tempt me to make you run,” I warned them.

“Old single ladies are so mean,” one of the girls complained.





18





Marley





“What in the hell are you guys doing here dressed like freaking ninjas?” I was standing at center field in the high school’s soccer stadium at 9 p.m. facing almost the entire varsity team—Lisabeth Hooper was missing, thank God—and Vicky. All of whom were dressed in head-to-toe black.

It was dark except for the flashlight apps on our phones.

“When you and Coach Vicky whisper, you’re not nearly as quiet as you think you are,” Phoebe announced.

“Where do your parents think you all are?” I demanded.

“My parents think that I’m studying at the library with Morgan G., Morgan W., Sophie S., and Leslie,” Angela said.

“Mine think I’m at a stage crew meeting with Ruby,” Natalee said.

“My parents are getting a divorce. They don’t really care where I am as long as I don’t come home pregnant or with tattoos,” Chelsea chirped.

I sighed heavily.

“All right, ladies,” Vicky said, rummaging around in what looked like a diaper bag. “Since you’re here, let’s go over the plan.”

This was quite possibly the worst decision I’d ever made as an adult. Involving high school students in trespassing and vandalism. It was a wonder I wasn’t already fired.

“Fine,” I said. “But if I get arrested, you all showed up here to stop me, not participate.”

They nodded solemnly.

“So, what we’re doing is inserting these baggies of dye in the head of each sprinkler,” Vicky said, pulling out a small plastic bag. “Do not puncture the bags until you’ve installed them in the sprinkler heads.”

“Try not to get any dye on you. It’s not permanent, but we don’t want anything tying us to this,” I insisted as the girls collected the bags.

I watched them jog off into the dark, giggling.

Vicky grinned at me and held up two red packets. “Ready to have some fun?”

We tackled the closest sprinkler head, unscrewing the cap, inserting the baggy, and carefully poking a hole in the very top of the bag.

“Should we be wearing gloves? You know, fingerprints?” Vicky asked, wiggling her fingers.

“Not unless the sheriff’s department budget quadrupled since we were in high school,” I said dryly.

We moved on to the next sprinkler head and repeated the process.

“Come on.” Vicky nudged me. “You’re enjoying this. You don’t have to be all Droopy the Clown.”

“Droopy the Clown is my new persona,” I insisted.

Vicky put her hand on my arm. “Babe, we all go through shitty periods. I’m the mother of three. Rich and I haven’t had sex in four months. I am so far behind on the dishes that I gave up and we only eat off of paper products now.”

I dropped my ass onto the ground while she screwed the sprinkler head back on.

“I lost my job when the start-up I worked for shut down, taking all of the savings I invested with it. That was the day after Javier gently told me I wasn’t passionate enough for him and that he wanted something more than a lukewarm relationship. Meanwhile, Zinnia was just named a 40 Under 40 to the Do Gooders annual list. Her youngest is a violin prodigy. And her husband operated on the Speaker of the House last month.”

“I really want to hate your sister,” Vicky said, flopping down next to me.

“I know. But we can’t because she’s so…”