Rock Bottom Girl(56)

“You’re so weird.”

“Yes, I am.”

“So, I wasn’t kidding before. I don’t have any money.”

“Leave that to me.” My first direct deposit was burning a hole in my checking account, and I couldn’t think of a better use. “Do you want me to talk to your foster mom about the team and stuff?”

“Nah. She’s not around much. She’ll just be happy that I’m entertaining myself. She’s nice. Just busy,” Libby added. She pointed to the right. “It’s the second one on the right. The white one.”

It was a small ranch house with a more-dirt-than-gravel driveway and an entire toy store in the front yard. A little boy was chasing a young teen girl with a hose while a toddler rode a big wheel at max speed around the side of the house.

“Did their last coach really die?” Libby asked.

“Yep. And then their substitute coach played mind games with them for the rest of the season. You can be my spy and let me know how deep the damage goes.”

“Fun,” Libby said dryly.

“No game or anything this weekend,” I told her. “Practice on Monday and a home game on Tuesday.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks for showing up today, Libby.”

“Thanks for the candy, Coach.”





Me: I kicked a jerk off the team and landed a new star player. I’M INVINCIBLE.





Jake: wipes a tear My girlfriend’s a superhero! I bet you can rock a cape.





Me: I’m going to celebrate with Taco Bell. You in?





Jake: Nothing but the best for my girl. Homer loves the soft tacos. Pick me up in ten.





Vicky: Did she say yes? Does she like us? Is she going to carry us to victory?





Me: SHE SAID YES!! And she called me weird.





Vicky: Win some. Lose some. Hang on. Rich just walked into the bedroom in his socks…





34





Jake





Poker nights were my favorite nights of the month. I gathered my closest mostly-teacher pals, plied them with beer, and gabbed about shit we didn’t dare say within students’ hearing. All while trying not to go bankrupt to Mrs. Gurgevich, card shark extraordinaire.

I opened the bag of chips and tossed it on the poker table.

I wondered what my grandmother would think of me turning her formal dining room, the room that had hosted generations of family for holidays and special events, into a man cave with a green felt table and velvet Dogs Playing Poker reproduction.

At least I had a cover for the table in case I ever tried to use it to eat food off of.

Luckily, Grams went for cremation. Otherwise, she might roll over in her grave.

Uncle Max was the first to arrive. In juxtaposition to his husband, Lewis, Max was lily white with a fluffy beard and absolutely zero fashion sense. He was wearing elastic waist cargo shorts and a Queen t-shirt that had seen so many washings part of the “n” had worn off, making it look more like an “r.”

He poked his head into the living room as he handed over the covered plate he was carrying. “Kentucky bourbon beef jerky for the Anything Goes theme,” he said without preamble.

My gay uncles and their refined palates were a very bright highlight of my life. And they were both horrendously disappointed that I’d never developed an interest in creating the food, only eating it.

“Gimme,” I said, reaching for the plate.

“You know, you’d really be doing me a favor if you’d clean some of this up before poker nights,” he said, eyeing the mess that had migrated off the coffee table and onto the far end of the couch, floor, and one of the end tables.

Was that a six-pack in the bay window? I’d looked for that thing for three days before giving up and buying another.

“I’ll get to it,” I promised. And I meant it. The mess was starting to annoy me. Or Grams’s ghost was haunting me into annoyance.

The doorbell rang, and the front door opened as Floyd, gym teacher and gossip, let himself in. “What smells like meat and whiskey?” he asked, scenting the air like a bloodhound.

“Let’s move it along,” Mrs. Gurgevich grumbled behind him. “I got a half ton of sashimi on clearance. If we don’t eat it in the next thirty minutes, the parasites will start growing.” She maxed out at five feet tall with a frizzy nest of salt and pepper hair and severe black-rimmed glasses. Tonight, she was wearing a black caftan with metallic threads. Work Mrs. Gurgevich was wildly different from Out of Work Mrs. Gurgevich. She’d been married three times, knew three presidents well enough to call them by their first name, and a Saudi prince owed her a favor.

“Where’s my great-nephew?” Max asked.

“Homer’s watching Animal Planet upstairs,” I told him. My four-legged roommate would make his way downstairs to scam some table scraps from the guests during a commercial break.

“Gurgevich, I’m coming for your money!” Bill Beerman was timid everywhere but the poker table. The mild-mannered computer science teacher who got tongue-tied around pretty substitutes was a trash-talking riot after a light beer and one hand of Texas Hold ’Em. Since his shocking loss last time to Gurgevich, he was ready for battle in a neatly pressed golf shirt and shorts.