Rock Bottom Girl

by Score, Lucy

  It made sense at the time. But now that we were here, I wasn’t so sure it was a good strategy. I should have brought everyone scratch-off lottery tickets or cash. People liked people who gave them cash, right?

  “The sooner you get out of the car, the sooner I can put a beer in your hand,” Jake said.

  I was out from behind the wheel and on the sidewalk in a flash.

  Jake was still laughing when he opened the front door without knocking or ringing the bell. Homer, obviously at home here, ran in the direction of the scent of rich food.

  Two toddler-aged kids hurled themselves at Jake, screaming in what I could only assume was delight.

  He picked them up like sacks of potatoes and submitted to their sloppy kisses and squeals of joy.

  “Someone help! I’m being attacked by rabid children,” he called.

  Adeline poked her head out of a room and padded toward us barefoot. “You’ve been vaccinated, right?” she said, pulling the smaller kid off Jake. The foyer filled with people, and I was shuffled through introductions, handed sticky children, and promised alcohol.

  “I’m Louisa,” Jake’s mom said, introducing herself over the din.

  “Happy birthday, Louisa. I’m Marley,” I shouted back.

  His mom was delicate and fine-boned. Her wardrobe taste trended toward affordable athleisure, and I felt an instant kinship with her when she shoved a beer into my hand and pointed me in the direction of the appetizers.

  There were kids everywhere. The adults congregated in the kitchen near the trendy trays of appetizers.

  I’d met Max at poker. He wasn’t wearing the Queer t-shirt tonight. Instead he was in a rumpled long-sleeve tee. His hair was still damp from a shower. Lewis introduced himself by pushing a delicate cheese wonton-like thing into my hand, and I fell madly in love with him. He was the fashionista in the family apparently, dressed in charcoal slacks, a dark purple shirt, and suspenders. My players would adore him, I decided.

  The house was a perfect balance between Lewis’s style and Max’s love of gadgets and order.

  Rob, Adeline’s husband, refilled drinks and then corralled the kids at a table in the kitchen for gourmet kid-sized grilled cheese sandwiches.

  I could have felt awkward, standing in the midst of a chaos the rest of them were so comfortable with. But with a cold beer in my hand and Jake’s arm around my waist, I felt anchored. Almost relaxed.

  The Weston family was bigger than mine. Slightly less dignified. Zinnia would raise eyebrows over the kids’ food fight. And the argument that broke out between Rob and Max over eighties rock ballads. But to me, it made them normal.

  We snacked and chatted until the kids were done with their meal. Once they were tucked into the living room in front of an animated movie with singing, we retired to the decked-out dining room.

  There were cloth napkins with napkin rings that matched the gold and silver table-scape. Candles flickered on the table and buffet.

  “This is Uncle Lew trying to class us up,” Jake explained, leading me to a chair.

  “We keep fighting him on it,” Adeline said with a wink.

  Lewis heaved a long-suffering sigh from his chair. “You heathens drive me to drink,” he insisted, reaching for his champagne glass.

  Max reached out and covered his husband’s hand, and I saw the flirty little winks they sent each other. We ate and drank and made Louisa open fussy presents. She adored the dog painting from Jake and thanked me profusely for the bottle of wine and fun corkscrew. No one asked me the viability of my reproductive organs or hinted to Jake about engagement rings. They talked politics and current events and argued movies and music.

  I observed the give and take between the relationships. Max tidied up behind Lewis who left little plates, crumpled napkins, and reading glasses in his wake. Adeline and Rob bickered constantly. But I noticed the soft looks and gentle touches. And no one could miss the way they both lit up whenever one of the kids barreled into the room to tattle on their siblings or show off what artistic creation they fashioned from pipe cleaners and Legos.

  One of their girls, Livvy, took a liking to me and climbed up in my lap. She sucked her thumb and played with my hair while her brothers and sister sang Disney songs at the top of their lungs in the living room.

  When no one made any “you’re a natural” cracks about me hanging out with a kid, I relaxed.

  Together, the Westons had created a unit. A black, white, gay, straight, Irish, loud, confusing, beautiful family unit. I loved it.

  Jake was clearly enjoying himself. At least until the “when Jake was a teenager” stories started.

  “Tell me more,” I insisted after Max finished recounting the time he had to pick fifteen-year-old Jake up in the middle of nowhere when he’d tried to jump a hay bale with his mountain bike and ended up with a broken wrist and bike.

  “It’s your turn,” Louisa insisted. “What’s your favorite memory of Jake from high school.”

  I bit my lip and felt my cheeks turn hot.

  “Oooooh,” Adeline crooned. “Tell us!”

  “We didn’t hang out in the same crowds,” I said, tentatively glancing in Jake’s direction.

  He squeezed my hand under the table.

  “But he did lure me under the bleachers at a soccer game and gave me a very memorable kiss,” I confessed.

  The Westons liked that, and I laughed with them pretending not to remember the fact that he’d unceremoniously proceeded to dump me for my nemesis. People changed. Didn’t they?

  Lewis leaned over when the conversation moved on to the cruise Louisa was taking in January. “You’re the only girl Jake’s ever brought home,” he said in a whisper.

  “Really?” I asked quietly.

  Lewis nodded. “You must be pretty special,” he said with a wink.

  Homer chose that moment to wedge his head between my knees demanding my attention and making Livvy laugh.

  “We need to decide who’s making what for Thanksgiving,” Jake announced. “I know none of you want me to be providing any of the main dishes.”

  “As if you could even find any dishes,” Max said with a roll of his eyes.

  “Marley’s a great cook,” Jake said.

  “You should bring your family to Jake’s for Thanksgiving,” Lewis decided. “Do you have a good stuffing recipe?”

  “What?”

  “Ugh, yeah,” Adeline agreed. “That schmancy vegetarian stuffing last year is not invited back.”

  “I was trying something new,” Rob complained.

  “Rob was vegetarian for six months,” Jake explained to me.

  Rob took a big bite of chicken breast and stuffed it in his mouth. “It didn’t take.”

  “I’m signing Marley up for the stuffing,” Adeline decided. “You’re allowed to make that baked corn stuff again, Jake. That was good, and the kids will eat it.”

  “Speaking of,” Jake said, eyeing Adeline pointedly.

  Adeline grinned and leaned into Rob. “Oh, yeah. We have a little announcement.”

  Max and Lewis sat up straight.

  “You guys are going to be gay grandpas again,” Rob said grandly.

  Lewis stood up so fast his chair fell over backward. Max grabbed Adeline in a half-headlock half-hug. They both were shouting.

  “God, I love it when they get good news,” Jake whispered in my ear.

  My mother had reacted to the grandparent news the same way. She would love Jake’s family. So would my dad. For a minute, I could picture us all crammed around a table at Jake’s, eating, playing games, saying inappropriate things while the nieces and nephews destroyed things in another room.

  But that wasn’t the plan. Jake’s life was here. Mine was out there somewhere, waiting for me to find it.

  “Our baby’s having another baby,” Max said. Lewis grabbed Rob for a back-slapping hug.

  “The more, the merrier,” he said, mopping tears from his eyes.

  “Speaking of ‘the more, the merrier,’” L
ouisa 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.

  “Well, I just wanted to remind everyone about my Open House this month. You don’t need to bring a thing. The caterers have it all covered,” she announced.

  There was an excited buzz around the room, and Amie left, wiggling her bedazzled fingers in Jake’s direction.

  “Open House?” I asked Jake.

  “Every year, the Hostetters open up their estate to us commoners and throw one helluva party,” Floyd supplied. “You do not want to miss it.”

  I definitely did want to. And planned to. Also, I probably wasn’t even invited.

  “It’s over-the-top. The food is insane. There’s appetizers in one room, a dinner buffet in another.” Jake sounded like he was talking about backstage passes to AC/DC.

  “And don’t forget the indoor and outdoor bars,” Haruko chimed in.

  “I ate so many crab puffs last year,” Bill said, patting his stomach at the fond memory.

  “Everyone goes?” I clarified.

  “Oh, yeah. You don’t want to miss it,” Mrs. Gurgevich insisted. “They had a string quartet in the dining room one year and a steel drum band on the patio.”

  “Remember the year Rich Rothermel got drunk and tackled the swan ice sculpture into the pool?”

  “Who was it they found drunk in the master bathtub, fully clothed?”

  “That would be Jake, four years ago,” Mrs. Gurgevich said, pointing a finger in his direction.

  Jake shuddered. “Still can’t stand the taste of a Moscow mule.”

  The teachers continued their reminiscences over the daytime talk show on the TV playing in the corner.

  “Trust me, Mars. You want to go to this shindig,” Jake whispered in my ear.

  I did kind of want to see the inside of the house. I mean, the Greek columns on the outside couldn’t be the only ridiculous display of wealth, right? “Am I even invited?”

  “Everyone is invited. Part of the fun is all the feuds and arguments that break out.”

  “Fun,” I quipped. I turned my attention back to my pot roast.

  “So, Cicero, you ready for some rainy fall v-ball?” Floyd asked.

  The morning classes had been able to go outside for another sweaty mess of field hockey and flag football. But the skies had opened up and were currently dumping buckets of cold rain.

  “About that. How much say do we have over the curricula?” I asked.

  “You guys are lucky,” Haruko piped up. “While the rest of us schmucks have to worry our butts off about standardized testing, you guys can do pretty much whatever the hell you want.”

  “Is that true?” I asked Floyd.

  He shrugged his burly lumberjack shoulders. “There’s always the presidential fitness bullshit. But other than that, we’re really only limited by the equipment required. You got something in mind?”

  I looked at Jake and foun
d him watching me with a mix of interest and affection. It made me feel like I’d just drunk a mug full of hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream.

  “I might have an idea. Do we have any Ping-Pong tables?”

  “We can check. They might be buried in the back of the supply room,” Floyd mused.

  54

  Marley

  The kids looked at me like I was speaking Pennsylvania Dutch to them.

  “So we’re not playing volleyball?” a curly-haired senior with an overbite asked.

  “No volleyball.”

  “And no Ping-Pong either?” a freckle-faced sophomore clarified.

  “No Ping-Pong,” I confirmed. “Instead, we’re going to break into teams to design and perform Ping-Pong ball trick shots.”

  They blinked at me, trying to figure out if this was some kind of elaborate gym teacher trap. At any second, they expected me to blow my whistle and force them all to start pumping out push-ups.

  “We brought you some visual inspiration,” Floyd said, whipping out his iPad cued up to a YouTube video.

  “That’s Dude, Nice Shot,” one of the kids said as they all crowded in closer.

  The class watched as four grown adults set up what was essentially a beer pong shot from an upper level running track down onto a Ping-Pong table at center court.

  A collective “whoa” arose when they successfully made the shot.

  “You guys will be evaluated on the difficulty of the shot, teamwork, and your victory dance. Extra credit for a successful shot,” I explained.

  “I call Milton for my team,” one of the boys soccer team stars shouted.

  “Nice try, Danny. Mr. Wilson and I have already divided you all up into teams.” Diverse teams from all social backgrounds. Take that, punks.

  We split the kids up and sent them off to their respective tables. We’d found five in the bowels of the storage room and had done our best to dust them off. The kids were already deep in conversation over strategy.