Rock Bottom Girl

by Score, Lucy

  Hands on hips, I paced the sidewalk, trying to control my breathing. I’d gone through the couch to 5k program about four times in the past seven or eight years. Well, technically I’d never actually finished it. Or run a 5k, come to think of it. But every once in a while, I tried to talk myself into becoming a runner.

  However, the torturous misery of it guaranteed my failure. But this hadn’t been awful. I felt awake. And maybe just a little bit alive. The birds in the maple tree were chattering about something, and the sky was getting lighter.

  “Is that a smile?” Jake asked, amused.

  I used the hem of my tank to mop at the sweat that was stinging my eyes. “Okay. So maybe it wasn’t horrible.”

  He grinned at me, and my heart rate that had started to slow skyrocketed again. Jake held up a hand, and I slapped it. But his fingers closed around mine.

  “Nice job, Mars.” He was pulling me in, reeling me like a fish. My legs were too jelly-like to fight it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m congratulating you,” he said.

  We were standing toe-to-toe, our bodies not quite touching. There was a buzz between us. Blood thrumming through primed veins. Awareness shimmered on my skin, mingling with the sweat. I wanted him to touch me, to kiss me. But…

  “Jake. This is fake,” I said quietly. It was more of a reminder to myself. I didn’t want to get swept up in this and forget that all of this was only temporary. Only pretend.

  He traced a thumb over my lower lip. “Hmm.”

  “Jake. Focus.”

  “I’m very focused.”

  “You don’t have to put on a show at six in the morning,” I told him. “Let’s not complicate things.”

  “Mars, I don’t know if you know this about me, but I really like complicated.”

  “Why is it that everything that comes out of your mouth sounds like a come-on?”

  “It’s a gift.”

  I shook my head and took a step back. “You’re a lot to handle before dawn.”

  He grinned. “Baby, don’t I know it.”

  My running shorts spontaneously combusted.

  “Now, be a good girl and make yourself a protein-rich breakfast. I’ll see you at school,” he said.

  “Thanks for the run,” I said.

  “Anytime, Mars. Anytime.”

  I turned toward the house and whooped when he slapped me on the ass.

  “Later, pretty girl.”

  I shook my head and watched him lope off. He raised his hand in front of the mausoleum next door. “Morning, Amie Jo,” he called.

  And there she was in pink silk pajamas, gaping after him with a tiny espresso cup in her hand. The swan waddled past on her side of the fence.

  We both watched Jake’s retreating figure until he disappeared into the morning shadows. Amie Jo and I made uneasy eye contact for a long minute before I turned and went inside.

  28

  Marley

  Mars,

  Now that you’re contractually obligated to be my girlfriend, I decided to thoughtfully provide you with a Honey Do list. Quit whining. You need this.

  1. Daily run. Thirty minutes minimum. I’m happy to run with you when I can and show off my superior prowess. Helpful Hack: Do it in the morning like we did today and get it out of the way so you’re not dreading it and making excuses. Trust me you’ll feel better.

  2. Teaching. The walls have eyes at Culpepper Junior/Senior High. And those eyes are reporting that you’re a disinterested mess in the gym. Despite what the administration may have told you upon your hiring, you are there to do more than just make sure no one gets injured and sues the district.

  The most important thing about teaching is breaking through the anti-adult barrier that exists in every teenager’s brain. They’re smarter than they look. Don’t pander. Don’t try to be their friend. Do remember their names and use them. Don’t just yell at them.

  Give unexpected compliments like, “Nice back handspring into a roundoff, Julio.” Or “You really bounced back from impaling yourself on that hurdle, Tina.”

  Your job is to engage them. Get them to focus on what’s happening in class. Stretch out their phone-wielding hunchback posture. Give them the time and space to move and be present. Find ways to get them to want to do that.

  Please see the helpful video links in the appendix.

  3. Coaching. This is like teaching only in more concentrated doses. You have a group of human beings who are trying to get better at something specific. Help them get better without making them feel like shit. Again. Names. Compliments. Attention. Those are more important than imparting the fine art of whatever the hell soccer is. Kicking and falling down? Whatever.

  The secret to being a good coach is figuring out how to make your team function like a—you guessed it—team. It should be easy, right? They all like the same activity: soccer. They all have the same goal: winning. Wrong! A high school sports team, especially one of the female variety, is a wartime microcosm of popularity and belonging. These people have been programmed to think that there can be only one prom queen or only one dreamy teenage boyfriend. (Side Note: Only in the graduating class of 1998 did that prove to be true. It was me. Dreamy teenage boyfriend, not prom queen.)

  You have to use your powers to unite them. Some coaches feel like their teams should be united against them, but that’s when you wake up with a jockstrap dipped in itching powder. Find a way to force them to get along long enough for them to realize they like each other. I could tell you a couple of ways to do it, but it’s more character-building to figure it out yourself.

  Yours Romantically,

  Jake

  29

  Jake

  Dear Jake,

  Thank you for your very thoughtful, humble take on how to be better, like you. I appreciate the time you took complimenting yourself. Someday, I hope to be as blindingly confident in my awesomeness as you are in yours.

  Since you were so helpful with your 8,000-item list on ways for me to improve, I thought I’d return the favor and give you some basic ground rules of relationships.

  1. Don’t honka your partner’s breasts in public. It’s never appropriate and rarely as funny as you think it will be.

  2. Do work to memorize the important information about your partner as quickly as possible:

  A. First and last name. Bonus points for middle.

  B. Birth date.

  C. Current pets, names.

  D. Personal preferences in the following areas: bed, dishwasher loading, movies and TV viewing, restaurants/diet (don’t take a lactose intolerant person out for ice cream before sex), politics, relationship guidelines (e.g. Are stripper boobs touching your face considered cheating or just sad?).

  3. Do learn to show an interest in the words that come out of her mouth. You will earn a stupid amount of bonus points for using a callback and asking for an update on that issue at work last Tuesday involving the bad chicken salad and Keith from accounting.

  4. Learn the difference between venting and asking for advice. Hint: We’re very rarely asking for advice.

  5. Don’t stop your pursuit of physical perfection just because you’ve landed the future Mrs. Weston. She’ll still deserve your six-pack abs and hypnotic pec dance even after you’ve been married for twelve years. Put down the cheesesteak. Do it for the children, Jake!

  Let’s start here and work our way up to things like discussing whose family to spend the holidays with (answer: whoever has the best food) and when flowers are appropriate (answer: always, but the best ones are no reason flowers).

  Yours Contractually,

  Marley

  30

  Marley

  September

  “Inhale. Exhale,” I gasped to myself as my feet carried me in a slow jog toward the empty practice field. Running and I were still not friends, but if I was being totally honest, the relationship was a smidge less contentious than it had been at the beginning of the week.

  Stupid se
xy Jake being right about form and breathing and stuff. He was an annoying know-it-all.

  I glanced at the screen of my phone. Fifteen minutes left. Crap on a damn cracker, this was the longest forty minutes of my life. Had time stopped? Was my phone’s clock broken?

  Running was a lot less fun when shirtless, sweaty Jake wasn’t with me. It gave me too much time to think. I’d had lunch with guidance counselor Andrea again today and asked her opinion on the whole coaching a traumatized team thing. I still couldn’t believe Floyd or one of the girls or even Vicky hadn’t thought to mention that the last coach died during a game and that the substitute coach had been the devil incarnate. Probably some woman working her way through old high school trauma…only not in a healthy way like I was doing.

  Andrea seemed to think I could make things work with the team. I just had to tackle the biggest problem—the bad relationships on the team—and everything else would fall into place.

  A slow, rhythmic thunking distracted me from my labored breathing. I used the hem of my t-shirt to wipe the sweat out of my eyes. There was a kickboard between the soccer field and the baseball field with a yellow soccer goal painted on it. In front of it, a spritely girl juked, jived, and kicked the shit out of a soccer ball. She pegged the board in the lower left corner, a perfect shot that would challenge the best goalkeeper.

  I came to a screeching halt. Okay, maybe not screeching. More like meandered to a stop.

  She faked left, nudged the ball right, and lined up another shot. It curved gracefully into the upper right corner.

  “What’s your name?” I called.

  She eyed me suspiciously between the hoop in her eyebrow and the stud in her nose. “Morticia.”

  Cautiously, I approached. “Har. Super funny. I’m serious. What’s your name?”

  “I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” she said stubbornly.

  “Uh, you were doing something super right, and now I’m trying to recruit you.”

  “Into what? A cult?”

  In her black cargo pants, combat boots, and gray hoodie—it was almost 80 freaking degrees still—she already looked like she belonged in one of the underground bunker ones.

  “My soccer team.”

  “Aren’t you a little old to be playing soccer? Shouldn’t you be worried about breaking a hip or something?”

  Sometimes I really hated kids.

  “I’m the girls team head coach. We could use your feet.”

  “Not interested.” She turned back to the ball and kicked it. It sailed up in a graceful arc, pegging the board in the upper right corner like a postage stamp. “I’m not really a team person.”

  “What would it take to make you interested?” Lord, now I sounded like my father. “In joining the team,” I added hastily.

  “I guess you haven’t heard about me yet,” she said, her face devoid of any emotion. But I saw something simmering in those bright green eyes.

  “Look, Morticia, I don’t care if you spent last semester clubbing baby seals.” That was a lie. I wouldn’t feel great about bringing a seal clubber onto the team. But at this point I was desperate. We’d lost our second game of the season by a respectable four goals. Lisabeth called all of the midfielders dumbass hick bitches and the boys team had mooned us when we left the stadium. “I’m interested in what you’re doing this semester.”

  “I can’t play,” she said, rolling the ball up onto the toe of her boot and flicking it into the air. She caught it with her knee.

  “Why not?”

  “First of all, you’re a complete stranger. How do I even know you’re a coach? You could be some sweaty creeper trying to lure me into a van.”

  “It’s a hatchback actually.”

  I saw a glimmer of humor in her eyes.

  “Secondly, team sports cost money. I don’t have any.”

  I warmed up my argument. “If the only thing standing in your way of joining the team is money and not an outstanding warrant or the fact that you’re in the witness relocation program, then I have several solutions.”

  “Don’t need your charity.” She was freaking juggling the ball back and forth from foot to thigh. I needed this girl and wasn’t above groveling.

  “No, you don’t. But I need you and your magic feet.”

  With a clean nudge, she sent the ball sailing at me. I trapped it with my foot and thanked God when I didn’t fall on my face. I scooped it up and managed a back and forth between my knees before awkwardly knocking it back her direction.

  She took it from foot to knee to forehead. “Look, lady—”

  “Coach,” I interjected.

  She stopped, caught the ball. “I just moved here. I live in a foster home with an overworked foster mother who’s too busy working two jobs and being responsible for five kids to run me to practice and games. Happy?”

  “Where do you live?”

  She gave me a “not happening” look.

  “I can give you a ride.”

  “You’re working really hard for a stranger trying to convince me to get into her kidnapping hatchback.”

  “I have candy.”

  “They let you be responsible for students?” she asked with the ghost of a smile playing around her bare lips.

  “They were desperate. But they’re starting to really appreciate my awesomeness.” Lies!

  She was quiet for a minute, her teeth working her bottom lip.

  “Look, I can drive you to and from stuff. I have no life. We’re coming off of six years of losing seasons, and we’re off to a stellar shutout start. You could help. Uniform’s free. You’ll just need cleats, and I’m sure we can figure something out there.”

  “I don’t like charity,” she repeated.

  “I don’t blame you. But look at it this way, you’d be doing me a favor. I have a lot to prove because I think the boys coach is a misogynistic wiener and no one expects much of me.”

  She swiped the back of her hand under her nose. “No one expects much from me either.”

  “Maybe we can surprise them. Together. With the candy in my kidnapper van.”

  She sighed.

  “Look, just come to practice tomorrow. 3:30 right here. See what you think. We’re enthusiastically not good. But you might have fun.”

  “I don’t like mean girls,” she warned me.

  I mentally worked out a plan to have Lisabeth Hooper kidnapped.

  “Good thing your BFF the coach has the power to make mean girls run until they throw up.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Think about it,” I told her. “3:30 tomorrow. Free candy.”

  She nodded and bounced the ball on the grass. “Libby, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you, Libby. I’m Coach Cicero. You’ll probably see me lurking around the gym, too.”

  “Not creepy at all,” she said, that sort-of smile still hovering.

  I decided to leave before I got down on my knees and begged, terrifying her into cyber school or something.

  “See you around.” I gave her a wave and with great reluctance jogged back to the road. I had fifteen more minutes to go on this torture run, and I was going to spend it praying that Libby would show up tomorrow.

  31

  Marley

  “What’s this?” Dad asked that night, his already high-pitched voice cracking in eager anticipation as he lifted the lid on the slow cooker.

  “Pork roast,” I told him, checking the broccoli roasting in the oven.

  My tiptoe onto the scale this morning revealed a mind-boggling, four-pound weight loss. My first not credited to the stomach flu or bad hangover in years. Not since I did that low-carb, lettuce and carrot diet for my co-worker’s destination wedding five years ago had I seen a purposeful drop like this.

  Who knew chasing after a shirtless bad boy hunk in the predawn hours could be such great exercise? Oh, right. Literally everyone.

  I was feeling…gosh, what was that warm, bright feeling in my chest? Indigestion? No. It was more glowy, less burny. Was tha
t hope? It had been so long since I’d felt it, I didn’t even recognize it. I’d lived the last decade or so in constant fear of losing jobs, health insurance, the security of a relationship. I’d forgotten what it felt like to feel hopeful about the future.

  Dad poked his head in the pantry and pulled out a bottle of wine. He waggled it at me. “You look like you’re in a good mood,” he squawked. “Should we celebrate?”

  “Why not?” I said, pulling down two dusty wineglasses from the cabinet. My parents’ kitchen had been updated once. In the early eighties when Zinnia and I were rambunctious toddlers. The backsplash was a yellow and orange tile mosaic that absolutely did not match the brown Formica countertops. But as displeasing to the eyes as it was, it was the place I felt most at home.

  Dad pulled the cork out with an enthusiastic pop and poured to the rim. I laughed and sipped without picking the glass up so as not to spill it.

  “Oh, hello.” Byron the guest poked his head into the kitchen. He was close to seven feet tall and very, very pale. His hair was the color and texture of straw. It stuck out at odd angles, at least from what I could see without breaking my neck. His glasses were red, and his pants were three inches too short.

  “Hey there, Byron! How’s your stay?” my dad squeaked.

  I couldn’t imagine this scarecrow of a man was very comfortable in Zinnia’s double bed. His legs probably hung off the mattress up to the knee.

  “It’s quite lovely. Thank you.” He stared pointedly at the slow cooker. We all did.

  “Would you like to join us for dinner?” I offered.

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly intrude,” he said, now eyeing the bottle of wine. I recognized that look. Hope.

  “It’s no problem,” I told him.