Rock Bottom Girl

by Score, Lucy

  * * *

  My parents shoveled the pork roast and vegetables into their faces as if their last meal had been Styrofoam six days ago. Apparently none of their retirement hobbies had translated into any skills in the kitchen.

  Byron ate daintily with a fork in one hand and knife in the other, looking up every bite to gaze lovingly around the table.

  “So, Marley,” Dad said around a mouthful of broccoli. “How’s the soccer team coming?”

  “We’re doing okay. We still have no offense to speak of, but I think I might have solved that problem this afternoon.”

  “Did you go Tonya Harding on the opposing team’s offensive line?” Mom asked.

  “No. But I did find a ringer. Fingers crossed she shows up tomorrow.”

  Byron immediately crossed his pinky and ring fingers and smiled broadly.

  “Good for you,” Mom said. “Now, when were you going to tell us that you’re dating Jake Weston?”

  I choked on my wine. Tears glassed over my eyes as the merlot burned its way into my lungs.

  “And for God’s sake,” my mother plowed on as she shoveled more pork onto her plate, “why didn’t you at least invite him in for breakfast this morning?”

  “I, er…” I couldn’t tell them the truth. Neither one of them could keep a secret. They’d practically handed Zinnia and me itemized inventories of our Christmas presents in November because they were too excited to keep quiet. By the time Christmas Day rolled around, the wrapping was purely ceremonial.

  Byron was stuffing dainty bites of pork into his mouth and watching the conversation like a tennis match.

  “Jake Weston?” Dad asked. “Is he the one with the mustache or the one who covers the rust spots on his Volvo with NPR bumper stickers?”

  “Neither,” my mother said. “He’s the one who got caught making out with a substitute teacher in the darkroom his junior year.”

  “He’s the cross-country coach, Dad,” I said, pointedly reminding them that some of us grew up. “And history teacher.”

  “Oh. Who’s the guy with the Volvo?” he asked.

  * * *

  My parents and Byron, weirdly enough, insisted on handling clean up. So I packed up a dish of leftovers for lunch tomorrow and headed upstairs to work my way through Jake’s Coaching Appendix videos and some of the volumes of team mentality that my sister had sent in drips and trickles since the weekend.

  Before I could boot up my laptop, my phone rang.

  Zinnia. I hated the fact that just my sister’s name on my screen dulled the good feelings that had bloomed inside me.

  I accepted the call, and Zinnia’s beautiful face filled the screen. She wore her dark hair long and straight in a glossy curtain. Her lips were painted a shade of ruby that I could never in a million years pull off. Her thick eyebrows were waxed and groomed into perfection.

  “Hey, sis,” she said.

  “Hey, Zin. How’s life?”

  She gestured around her, and I could see that she was still in her office. The Washington, D.C. skyline stretched on behind her through the windows of her thirteenth-floor corner office. “Considering I feel like I haven’t left this place in three weeks, good. Rumor has it my husband and children are still alive. How’s Culpepper? Are you settling in?”

  “Everything’s fine,” I told her. I hated giving Zinnia the details of my day. It all seemed so trivial to what she spent her time doing. “Save any war-torn orphans lately?” I asked.

  “Ha. Some. I hear you and Jake Weston just signed a relationship contract.”

  I flopped down on the bed. “How in the hell did you hear that?”

  “The Culpepper grapevine is as deep as it is wide,” she laughed. “So what’s that all about?” It dented my feelings just a bit to know that Zinnia knew me well enough to know that me and Jake dating was a little too good to be true. But at least she could keep a secret.

  “It was kind of an accident. There was some drama with the boys soccer coach and another teacher, and Jake got involved, and one thing led to another, and we told the administration that we’re kinda sorta dating.”

  “Only you, Marley,” Zinnia laughed.

  Yeah. Only me.

  Zinnia was my older sister. By nine months. However, her unfair brainiac advantage and maturity had leapfrogged her ahead of me in school in the fourth grade. As much as it had chafed, it had also been a relief. Not having to share the same playing field with her. Not comparing apples to apples.

  “Is he still gorgeous?” she asked.

  “Oh my God. Take senior year Jake and multiply him times one thousand. Stubble. Tattoos. More muscles.”

  Zinnia spooned up something exotic from a takeout container and chewed thoughtfully. “I’m going to need some photographic proof,” she decided.

  “I’ll try to snap a picture of him running shirtless,” I promised.

  “You are a marvel, sister dear,” she said.

  “That’s what I keep telling people. So how’s Ralph? Still surgery-ing his ass off?”

  Conversations with my sister were odd. I didn’t want to share the pitiful details of my life with her, and she didn’t seem to like talking about how amazing her life was to me. Presumably because she didn’t want me to feel worse about myself.

  “Darling Ralph has very little ass to lose,” Zinnia said fondly. Her husband was a genius and a talented surgeon. But he had the build of a two-by-four.

  Byron poked his gawky head into my room. “Thank you again for dinner,” he said with a toothy smile. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for your ringer.”

  “Thanks, Byron,” I said, getting up and closing the door.

  “Uh, who was that?” Zinnia demanded.

  “Oh, your room is now an Airbnb,” I told her.

  32

  Marley

  Was there anything sexier than a shirtless man with a doofy dog? I pondered that thought while Jake and I muscled our way through another early morning run. Homer, the Goldendoodle something or other, was lazy and grumbly and kept stopping to pretend to pee. I admired his strategy.

  When we got back to my parents’ house, I invited them both in for breakfast and got to see the legendary Jake Weston almost swallow his tongue.

  “Breakfast? With your parents?” he choked.

  “Yeah, probably. And Byron. He’s staying another night.”

  “Mars, I can’t meet your parents like this.” He spread his arms wide and forced me to take in his godlike proportions.

  “Are you nervous?” I laughed.

  Homer flopped against my leg and slid down to the ground on a groan.

  “Nervous? Me? Ha.”

  “You look like you’re going to throw up. They’re just regular people. Mostly.”

  “I wasn’t kidding when I told you I’ve never met a girl’s parents before,” he said, swiping his hand over his mouth. “I’m not gonna do it like this.”

  The disappointment was swift, surprising, and totally uncalled for. “Oh. Yeah. I guess it would make more sense for you to give a real girlfriend the honor of your meet-the-parents virginity,” I said, leaning over to scruff Homer’s belly.

  “No, dummy. I mean I should meet your parents. But even I know it isn’t smart to show up at the breakfast table in just shorts and say, ‘What’s up? Can my dog have some bacon?’”

  “That’s quite considerate of you,” I said, biting my lip to keep the smile from making my eyes disappear.

  “I’m serious, Mars. I wanna do this right. I’m giving you good advice. I need you to do the same for me. Introducing your parents to me when it would look more like I just spent the night getting sweaty with their daughter and then expecting free breakfast? Even I know that ain’t good.”

  “But you do want to meet them?” I pressed.

  “Hell yeah, I do. They’re your parents. I assume you like them? They’re important to you?”

  I nodded.

  “Cool. Then let me know when and where and how to prepare for it.”

>   “Okay,” I said, feeling my mouth stretching into a smile.

  Before I knew it, he was leaning in and pressing a kiss to my salty cheek. “See you at school, pretty girl,” he said.

  “Bye, Jake.”

  He pulled the reluctant Homer to his feet, and I watched them jog off.

  * * *

  Gym classes should have been reasonably not horrible. The girls were on a field hockey kick while the guys played flag football. All Floyd and I had to do was divvy up teams and make sure no one got too hurt.

  Unfortunately for all of us, Rachel, the quiet junior varsity forward from my team, had the misfortune of being in class with Lisabeth, the mean, big girl from the varsity team.

  Lisabeth was like a bull shark lurking in the shallows with her rows of nasty teeth and her bad sharky attitude. I was watching as Rachel made a breakaway toward the hockey goal. And Lisabeth, running faster than I’d ever seen her do at practice, thundered in and slashed the girl right across the shins with her stick. Rachel crumpled to the ground like a piece of tissue paper. Lisabeth’s cronies, three girls with teased hair and too much bronzer, nearly fell over laughing.

  I was so fucking done with this.

  “Enough!” The rage gave my voice a boost, and not only did the hockey game stop, the flag football game came to a screeching halt in the middle of a touchdown run.

  I stalked onto the field. “Rachel? Are you okay?” I asked in a quieter, calmer tone of voice.

  “I’m fine,” she whispered, wincing.

  “Angelika, can you help Rachel to the nurse to get some ice?” I asked nicely.

  Angelika nodded, looking nervous. “Sure.”

  “Great. You,” I said, pointing at Lisabeth, feeling the rage bubble back to life.

  She shot me a what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it look, and I gave myself a satisfying second to envision me making her eat her hockey stick.

  “Everything good, Cicero?” Floyd asked nervously behind me.

  “Can you watch the hockey game for me?” I asked him without looking away from Lisabeth’s smug face.

  “Sure. Yeah.”

  “Great. Let’s go, Hooper.”

  “Where are we going?” she sassed.

  “To have a little chat.”

  Under a full head of steam, I marched Lisabeth into my locker room office. “What’s your problem now, Coach?” she asked, examining her fingernails like she was bored.

  But she underestimated me. I had experience dealing with girls like her at that age and every other age.

  “That’s funny. I was going to ask you the same thing. See, I’m new here. I don’t have the benefit of knowing you for your entire high school career. So let me tell you what I see.”

  “Goody,” she said with an eye roll.

  “I see an entitled, insecure bully trying to make herself feel good by tearing other people down.”

  “You can’t talk to me that way. It’s against the anti-bullying policy,” she snapped, her face turning crimson.

  “Oh, and what’s hitting someone with a hockey stick?”

  “An accident. She got in my way. I was going for the ball.”

  “I don’t get it. Do your parents fall for this? Your teachers? Or are they all just biting their nails and clinging to the hope that maybe you’ll get into college and move far, far away and make a bunch of strangers miserable?”

  Lisabeth was gaping at me. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. Do you think people like you because you’re an emotional, teenage terrorist? Do you think that makes you popular? Worthy? Do you think whispering mean little lies to people makes you better than them? Because let me tell you what it actually makes you. Pathetic. And I’ve seen a hundred girls like you graduate and go out into the real world and get chewed up and spit back out.”

  Okay, that part wasn’t necessarily true. Some of them married Cadillac dealership owners and lived happily ever after in their mansions.

  “You can’t talk to me like this. I’ll go to the school board.”

  “And what? Get me fired from my temporary job? Or is this finally the excuse that all your teachers and your so-called friends have been waiting for? A reason to finally take away your power. What would you be if you weren’t popular? What do you have left as a human being?”

  “I have my friends!”

  “You have people you gossip about behind their backs. You know, the acoustics in here are really good. What do you think Morgan W. would think about you telling the bronzer triplets that you think she’s a slut for going to second base with the guy you have a crush on?”

  “You’re a shitty coach and an even shittier teacher!”

  “Oooh. Now you’re swearing at me, and I feel kind of threatened,” I said, crossing my arms. “Do you know where you’ll be in five years? Sitting in a divorce lawyer’s office because your $50,000 wedding was the beginning of the end to some poor idiot who thought he loved you. But you can’t hide mean forever. And that’s what you are. A sad, mean girl whose only joy in life comes from inflicting misery on others. I feel sorry for you.”

  “I fucking hate you!”

  “Yeah, the truth hurts. And guess what? I don’t care if you were the high scorer last year. You’re off my team. I don’t have room for bullies.”

  “My mom is going to sue you and ruin your life,” she shrieked.

  Culpepper must have turned into a litigious community. This was the second time I’d been threatened with a lawsuit. But it was amazing how freeing it was to have nothing to lose.

  “She can do that. As soon as you report to the principal’s office.”

  “I’ll tell everyone that you dyed the boys team red!”

  I shrugged even though her threat made me uneasy. “Your word against mine, and I’m feeling pretty lucky today. Besides, you’re the one acting like a vindictive jerk chasing down a sophomore during gym class. I’m just the concerned coach and teacher looking out for my students.”

  “I HATE YOU, you crazy bitch!”

  “Lisabeth, this is your wake-up call. It’s not too late for you to be a better person.”

  “Fuck. You. You’re just jealous because you’re old and ugly.”

  Well, at least I tried.

  I whistled as I followed her down the hall to the principal’s office.

  * * *

  “What steaming hot mess did you bring me?” Principal Eccles asked, thumbing open a bottle of aspirin.

  “Lisabeth Hooper,” I said.

  The principal eyed me as she shoved the aspirin back in the bottle and swapped it for a prescription migraine medicine.

  “What did our lovely Ms. Hooper do?” she asked.

  “Other than being just a shitty human being?” I was still mad. Really mad.

  Eccles washed down a tablet with water. “This is where I’m supposed to tell you that teaching is not an opportunity for you to right the wrongs of your teen years. That you can’t insert yourself into student politics and hierarchies because it’s a more valuable learning experience when they live through it themselves.”

  “I’m not so sure that Rachel will survive Lisabeth,” I interjected. “Lisabeth hit her with a hockey stick as hard as she could. On purpose. If her tibias aren’t fractured, I’ll be surprised.”

  “This is me insisting that it’s imperative that students figure out their own way through social situations, the good and the bad,” Principal Eccles said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “And this is also the part where I encourage you to understand that many students who exhibit negative behavior, including bullying and general assholery, are struggling with serious issues that we may not be privy to.”

  “Look. I know I’m new to all of this. But I’ve been Rachel, and I’ve known Lisabeths. And sometimes an asshole is just as asshole.”

  Principal Eccles looked toward the closed door and sighed. “Off the record, Lisabeth Hooper is an entitled asshole, and none of the staff and faculty can stand her. Her mother, by all accounts, was th
e same kind of nightmare. And still is.”

  Relief coursed through me.

  “I can’t do much about having her in my class. But I don’t want her on my team.”

  “Are you prepared for the fallout of punishing her? It’ll be ugly.”

  “Principal Eccles, I’m only here for the semester. Who better to deal with this than someone who doesn’t have to worry about any long-term effects?”

  33

  Marley

  I felt like a teenager waiting for her prom date to show up, worrying that she was going to be stood up.

  “Would you stop pacing?” Vicky demanded from her vantage point on the practice field bleachers. The team was running a warm-up lap around the field, and I was getting ready to start gnawing on my fingernails like an animal caught in a trap. “You’re making me anxious, and I don’t like to be anxious without my medication.”

  Vicky’s medication was as many rum and Cokes as a bartender could mix during happy hour.

  “What if she doesn’t show? I just kicked the only chance we had at scoring a single goal this season off the team, and if Libby doesn’t show, how am I not going to hold that against her and fail her in gym?”

  “Desperation is not a good color on you,” she said, stuffing her hands into the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt. In true Pennsylvania fashion, summer had abandoned us abruptly and without warning.

  “Oh my God. There she is!” I grabbed Vicky’s arm and squeezed as a dark head bobbed up the steps in our direction.

  “She could be David Beckham’s twin,” Vicky said dryly.

  “Just you wait,” I said smugly. “I didn’t screw this up.”

  Libby approached slowly, her hands drawn up into the sleeves of her no-brand, off-black sweatshirt.

  “Morticia,” I said, giving her a nod.

  “Potential kidnapper.”

  “This is Vicky, my assistant coach,” I said.

  “’Sup?” Vicky said, cracking her gum.