Rock Bottom Girl(93)

“You look like I just punched a puppy in the face,” Andrea observed.

“Do you help students with their resumes?” I asked, changing the subject.

She nodded and inhaled another bite of sandwich. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Think you could help me polish mine?” I asked.

“If you’re sure that’s what you want,” she said in that way adults spoke to kids who were being dumbasses.

I rolled my eyes. “Stop trying to guide me. Spit it out.”

“I’m just wondering why staying here and continuing what you’re doing isn’t on the table?”

“I spent my entire life trying to get out of this town. I’m not going to let a stop-over suck me back in,” I said lightly.

She wiped her mouth delicately with a paper napkin. “All right. But I think you’re making a mistake not considering it as a possibility. Especially since that possibility involves seeing Jake Weston naked all the time.”

“Yeah, well. This is fun for now. But it’s not what I want long-term.” I wanted Zinnia’s life. A sense of importance to what I was doing. I wanted to matter. To be irreplaceable. I wanted a husband or sexy life partner type to share a glass of crazy expensive wine or liquor and chortle over something super smart in front of the fire.

Jake wouldn’t leave Culpepper for me. And I wouldn’t stay here for him. That was the bottom line. The only thing that had remained constant in my life was The Plan. I couldn’t veer off course now.

“Then I’d be happy to take a look at your resume,” she said.

“It’s kind of a mess,” I warned.

“I love a challenge. Also this sandwich. I love this sandwich.”

Her desk phone rang. “This is Andrea,” she said perkily into the receiver. Her gaze slid to my face, and she pursed her lips together. “Sure. I’ll send her right over.”

She hung up. “Principle Eccles would like a moment of your time. It seems a certain Home Ec teacher was very upset about her poor, delicate sons being taught to play beer pong on school grounds.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”





55





Marley





“Heard you got called to the principal’s office,” Vicky said, cranking Bon Jovi on her minivan radio. The windows were up in deference to the cold rain that pattered outside. I adjusted my air vent. There was an unidentifiable, disgusting smell permeating the interior of the vehicle that I couldn’t put my finger on.

“For the love of…is the school bugged?” I demanded.

“No. It’s just full of a few hundred loudmouths with ears and Wi-Fi.”

“Amie Jo called the principal to complain about the gym class Floyd and I taught.”

“I heard you taught the kids how to make bongs out of fruit,” she said chipperly. She chewed her gum as if it were in danger of escaping her mouth.

“Ha. Actually I taught them how to pass a field sobriety test.”

“Life skills, my friend. Life skills,” she said, steering us out of Culpepper.

“Amie Jo told her I was teaching the kids to play beer pong. Principal Eccles didn’t take the complaint seriously.”

“But she had to appease the beast by making a show of disciplining you,” she said.

“Exactly. Annoying but not life-threatening.” I realized that that’s how I felt about Amie Jo now. She was annoying. Irksome. A buzzy little gnat. But she and her feelings about me had no actual bearing on my life. I sat a little straighter in the seat. I, Marley Jean Cicero, was finally growing up.

“That Libby was one hell of a find,” Vicky said, changing the subject. “That girl’s footwork is National Team level.”

“Tell me about it,” I said smugly. “She seems to be fitting in with the rest of the team, too.”

Practice had gone well tonight. The girls were in good moods, a rare feat. And everyone enjoyed getting a little muddy running drills. There was something about being coated in dirt and mud that made us all feel like serious athletes.

When the rain had picked up, we’d called it an early night. Vicky and I had declared it to be a two-margarita evening. I finally had a little money in the bank and was ready to treat my lifelong friend and assistant coach to some bottom-shelf tequila. Afterward, Faith, Mariah, and Andrea were meeting us for dinner.

We sang along to the radio, a nostalgic nineties station, and I tried not to think too hard about the smell that was seeping into my clothing.

The restaurant was a cute little Mexican place in a mostly okay portion of Lancaster. A real estate agent would call it “up and coming.” I’d call it pretty shabby. But the fajitas were to die for, and they’d come really close to passing their last health inspection on the first try.

“So, how’s life?” I asked Vicky after we ordered our margaritas—mango for her, traditional on the rocks for me.

“You know, it’s pretty damn good,” she said, diving into the bowl of tortilla chips between us.

I raised my eyebrows. “You have three kids—one of which is an angry teenager—and a husband who’s on the road doing whatever he does for a living fifty percent of the time.”

She pointed her chip at me before biting into it. “Don’t forget a mother-in-law who lives with me and demands that I wash and fold her delicates in a very particular way.”