Rock Bottom Girl(76)
“Well, well,” she said smugly. “It’s about damn time. What do my dads think?”
“I’ve been putting off their family dinner invitations.”
She laughed. “Your mom’s birthday is next week. You have to bring her to the party, or they’ll riot.”
I sighed. “I know. I will. Unless she has a game.”
“Then we’ll reschedule,” she said helpfully.
I put her in a headlock and gave her glossy black hair a brotherly scruff. “Enough about me. What’s new in your life?”
“I’m pregnant with surprise baby number five, and Rob is getting a vasectomy tomorrow.”
I laughed loud and long. “Tell me this is the kid you’re finally naming after me.”
“Baby Jake O’Connell due next May,” she said, waving at her husband, a tall Irish-looking guy who was trash talking a neighbor in Baltimore Ravens gear. He blew her a kiss and raised his beer at me.
“Tell your dads yet?” I asked, raising my beer in response.
My uncles had the best good news reactions.
“Saving it for your mom’s birthday dinner.”
“She’ll love that.”
“Give your girl a heads up,” Addy said, nodding in Marley’s direction. “Does she even know what she’s getting into with the Weston clan?”
“Now, what’s the fun in warning anyone in advance? If memory serves, you didn’t even tell Rob you had two dads,” I mused.
She grinned. “Yeah. And he stuck, didn’t he?”
“Maybe a fifth kid will push him over the edge?” I teased.
“How about I go get my baby maker, and you introduce us to your very pretty lady friend?” she suggested.
“Fine. Just don’t get your fertility all over the two of us.”
45
Marley
Three months ago, if someone had suggested I’d be hanging out at a Culpepper bonfire enjoying myself, I would have called them a drunk and a dirty liar.
Yet here I was, slinging horseshoes at a barely visible stake plunked in the uneven pastureland.
Andrea, my new friend and part-time counselor, was looking cozy in a puffy jacket and headband that covered her ears. Mariah and Faith, my old friends, were bundled up against the fall chill reminiscing about back in the day.
Mercifully, no one had said a word about Homecoming. Yet.
“So you have how many kids?” I asked Faith.
“Three. They’re exhausting, and I feel like a failure every day,” she said chipperly.
“Preach, sister,” Mariah agreed. “I have two kids and work part-time, and I still can’t get a grocery list made or the Halloween costumes bought.”
“To bad moms!” They clinked beers. Andrea giggled.
I liked their honesty. There was no white-washing or one-upping. They weren’t trying to prove who was the best. And it felt refreshing.
“What about you, Marley? What’s life outside of Culpepper like?”
I could have told them lies. Could have spun real life into something that sounded exciting and respectable. But, damn it, I was tired of trying to paint a fucking picture.
“It’s busy. There’s never any time for anything but the absolute necessities. I’ve been meaning to go to the gym for six years now,” I confessed.
They laughed like I was doing a stand-up routine.
“Oh, you always were the funny one,” Faith sighed, wiping at the corner of her eyes.
“I was?” I asked. “I always thought I was the mousy, sad one, hiding in the corner waiting for someone to like her.”
“Nope. That was me,” Mariah insisted.
I blinked. Mariah had been artsy and smart and, to my recollection, rather popular.
“Uh, no way. I laid claim to Sad Mousy One,” Faith argued. She had been in every stage production Culpepper Junior/Senior High put on. And she made it to the semifinals in the state spelling bee when we were in the fifth grade.
“Guidance counselor secret,” Andrea said, leaning in. “Ninety percent of people remember high school as a miserable experience.”
“What about you, Disney princess? I bet you were prom queen and captain of the volleyball team,” I guessed.
Andrea snorted. “I had braces until I was nineteen and didn’t get breasts until I was twenty-one. And I was really into graphic novels. I got into the guidance counselor thing so I could tell kids like me that, usually, life after high school is a lot better.”
“Now, there’s someone who remembers high school fondly,” Mariah said, raising her cup in the direction of the fire.
Amie Jo strolled through the crowd, greeting people like a sash-wearing beauty contestant. She was wearing a pink parka and yet another pair of Uggs, also pink. She’d probably throw them out after an evening in a cold, muddy pasture and break out the next pair in her inventory, I guessed.
Travis was behind her. If Amie Jo’s outfit had a train, he’d be carrying it.
“She’s wearing fake eyelashes and hair extensions to a bonfire,” Faith observed with a head shake.
“I admire the effort, but I’d rather gouge my eyes out with bacon tongs than spend my free time locked in a bathroom in an endless search for perfection,” Mariah claimed.