Rock Bottom Girl(90)

“Speaking of ‘the more, the merrier,’” Louisa said from the head of the table. “I’m bringing a date to Thanksgiving. His name is Walter, and we’ve been seeing each other for six months.”

The celebrations began again, and I snuck a peek at Jake.

“About damn time, Ma,” Jake said.





53





Marley





It had been a long time since I’d slouched in a classroom desk and listened to a history lecture. And I’d never done so having biblically known the teacher. It certainly made the history part of it more interesting.

“‘We hold these truths to be self-evident.’ What does that mean?” Jake asked his class.

Hands flew up around the room, and I blinked. That never happened in any of my classes back in the day. Had students changed that much? Or was it just that Jake Weston inspired people to care?

“Jamie,” he said, pointing at a girl in the middle of the room who tentatively held her hand at shoulder height.

“It’s kind of like they’re saying ‘Duh. Everybody knows this is true, so let’s move on.’”

“Boom. Exactly! Strong opening, don’t you think?”

Heads nodded. Shoulders shrugged.

“Because what were our founders trying to do here? They were telling their story and trying to rally allies around the world to recognize their independence.”

“Like a PR campaign?” a boy with a headful of dreadlocks and a hunter safety orange sweatshirt called out.

“Yes, my friend! Exactly like a PR campaign.” Jake tossed the kid a gift card.

“Sweet! iTunes!”

“Thanks to Al here for the lead in, you guys have your assignment. We’re going to spend the rest of the week split into groups, and you’re going to write your own Declarations of Independence. Except you aren’t seceding from British rule. You get to pick what you’re leaving behind and what you’re forming. Then you’re going to decide amongst yourselves how you campaign the rest of the world to recognize you.”

There was a buzz in the classroom. The sounds of excited, motivated students were foreign to my ears. No one walked into gym class with that kind of enthusiasm. And the competitive Cicero part of me awakened like a sleeping dragon.

“We’re dividing up into four groups of five. You five. You five. You five. And you five,” Jake said, gesturing at the clumps of students.

As teenagers dragged desks and chairs into lopsided circles, Jake wandered back to me. Hands in his pockets.

“Having fun, Ms. Cicero?” he asked, playfully perching on the edge of my desk.

My coaching had improved. But teaching was still iffy territory. So here I was in Jake’s classroom looking for techniques to steal.

“I am. I didn’t know history could be so not incredibly boring,” I told him, covertly poking him in the hip.

“The secret is relevance,” he lectured. “If you can’t make whatever the hell you’re teaching relevant to them, you can’t really expect them to care.”

“Huh.” That made sense. What did my students have to look forward to besides being divided into athletic and non-athletic archetypes in activities that were designed to be fun to only the more physically capable?

“That’s all you have to say about my prowess in the classroom?” he teased.

“Be quiet. My mind is working.”

“You’re really sexy when you think,” Jake whispered.

I stuck my tongue out at him before glancing around us to make sure none of the horndog teenagers were picking up what we were putting down. But they were all involved in heated discussions about Facebook ads and live streaming declarations of independence.





When the bell rang, sending students scattering, Jake and I headed into the teacher’s lounge. We unpacked identical food containers of identical Sunday leftovers. If that didn’t say committed couple, I didn’t know what did.

“How’s it going, Gurgevich?” Jake asked, sliding into the chair next to the English teacher. She was opening a takeout container that held something delectable and red meat-y.

“Is that Kobe beef?” Floyd asked, sniffing the air like a bloodhound.

“It is.”

“How do you rate Kobe beef delivery for lunch?” Floyd demanded.

Her shoulders lifted. “I have many admirers.” I wanted to be Mrs. Gurgevich when I grew up.

I took the empty seat between Jake and Haruko and dug into my meal. I quelled the reactive grumble when Amie Jo strutted into the lounge. She was wearing a pink wrap dress, nude heels, and a necklace the size of a hubcap.

“Hello, all! I come bearing cookies from fourth period,” she said airily.

She dropped a platter of exquisitely decorated sugar cookies on the table in front of Jake.

“Wow, these look like Pinterest,” I commented.

“My students take their lessons very seriously,” Amie Jo sniffed. I think she thought I was being sarcastic.

“I’m not kidding. They look great.”

Amie Jo gave me the side-eye, trying to decide if I was kidding or not. So I reached out and took a heart-shaped cookie with pink drizzled icing.

“Yep. Delicious,” I said, taking a bite.