Rock Bottom Girl

by Score, Lucy

  Jake gave me a very slow, very thorough once-over. “Baby, I’m doing this because you look so good in that dress, I know I won’t be able to keep my hands to myself all night.”

  “Good enough for me.” I grabbed him by the lapel and kissed him until I forgot all about Amie Jo and her gold-dipped house and dust bunny dog.

  60

  Marley

  After kissing the hell out of Jake, I was separated from him by party-goers.

  Vicky, in a dirt brown dress with huge bell sleeves, dragged me to the bar for Fireball shots with the language arts teachers and their spouses.

  Jake was invited to an impromptu poker game in Travis’s man cave.

  “It’s crazy, right?” Vicky screamed over the music. The DJ was playing this party like she was in a club in L.A. and it was 3 a.m. Only the tunes were more “we peaked in the nineties” than “we’re drunk and grinding to electronic dance music.” The audience reacted like underage starlets misled by bad friends and predatory management. Everyone under the age of forty-five in Culpepper was in this house, shedding inhibitions with Coors Light and Fireball.

  “I can’t believe this kind of party exists in Culpepper,” I shouted back. I’d seen a couple who’d been married immediately after graduation making out up against the baby grand piano Pretty Woman-style.

  “See what you’ve been missing?” Vicky hollered.

  Someone bumped me hard, making me spill beer down my arm.

  “Oops. Didn’t see you there,” a mean, drunk Coach Vince sneered at me. I’d forgotten how sweaty and hairy he was.

  He burped right in my face, and the fumes of it singed my hair. I was going to need to do a deep conditioning treatment stat.

  “Lovely as always to see your hulking, beastly frame,” I said sweetly.

  He pointed a thick, fungal-nailed finger in my face. “You think you’re hot shit. Doncha?”

  “Well, at least body temperature shit.”

  Vicky snort laughed so hard she choked.

  That grated cheese finger poked me in the shoulder. Hard. “You think because you win a few games that makes you a coach?”

  “No, I’m pretty sure you can still be a coach and lose.”

  “You’re a smartass,” he slurred, dipping his receding hairline into my personal space.

  “Better than a dumbass.”

  “Whatdu call me?”

  Vicky sidled in closer. “A dumbass. SHE CALLED YOU A DUMBASS,” she yelled over the throbbing beat of R.E.M.

  “Would a dumbass have the Homecoming game every year?” he scoffed.

  “Do you always get the Homecoming game?” I asked him, already knowing the answer. Culpepper Homecoming always fell on a boys soccer game night. The Homecoming court parade took place in the afternoon with borrowed convertibles from Buchanan Ford & Tractors escorting the Homecoming princes and princesses. The always out-of-tune marching band followed, usually playing a Beach Boys song. Then there was the game and the crowning of the queen at half-time, followed by the dance.

  “Hell yeah, I get the Homecoming game. Under the lights, the stands packed with feering chans. It’s the single biggest athletic event all year.”

  If he kept poking me with that finger, I was going to have to break it off and feed it to him like the gourmet cocktail weenies in the music room.

  “Then I guess it’s true,” I said.

  “What’s true?”

  Too much time had passed since the original dumbass insult. It wasn’t worth my effort trying for a callback.

  “Never mind, Vince.”

  Drunk Coach Vince sneered in my face. “You think you’re—”

  “Hot shit,” I filled in. “Yeah. You already said that. Got anything new you’d like to add?”

  “Pfft.” The smell of cheap beer and unbrushed teeth assailed my nostrils. “You’re a loser, Sickero. A looooooser.”

  In the past, when someone other than myself identified my loser status, I’d felt shame. It was an open wound I dealt with secretly, never being good enough. However, hairy-backed Vince breathing gum disease in my face while calling me a loser was not upping my shame factor.

  Huh. Weird.

  “Well, Vince. It was great talking to you, as always. You should probably head back upstairs to that Boone’s Farm fountain,” I said, turning him around and giving him a gentle shove in the direction of the basement stairs.

  Either I misjudged my own strength or his grip on sobriety. He tripped over a pink fur ottoman and landed chest- and face-first in the salsa and guacamole spread next to the bar.

  “Uh, we should probably go upstairs immediately,” Vicky said, grabbing my hand and towing me toward the stairs.

  “Sickero!” Vince roared. His face was a green mask of wounded rage. I choked down a laugh and ran for my life.

  We escaped to the first floor of the house before we lost our shit.

  “This definitely makes the Top Five Favorite Memories from Hostetter House Party.” Vicky gasped for breath.

  “There are memories that beat this?” I asked, jerking a thumb in the direction of the wounded wildebeest who couldn’t get his size fifteen shoes to carry him up the stairs.

  “Rich and I had sex in Amie Jo’s whirlpool tub about eight years ago.”

  I gaped at her.

  “What?” Vicky asked innocently. “Married people can’t fornicate drunkenly at parties?”

  “You are so much cooler than I give you credit for.”

  “There’s my girl!” Jake hustled toward me, goofy grin on his face and a distinct lean to his gait. My cute, sexy boyfriend was drunk.

  He picked me up and twirled me around while listing dangerously to the left. I bumped my head on a low-hanging hallway chandelier with—what else?—gold freaking swan necks and heads.

  “Hey, you,” I said, patting him on the head. “How about you put me down?”

  Jake pondered this suggestion while still holding me aloft.

  “I beat your old boyfriend at poker,” he said.

  “Let’s talk about it with my feet on the floor.”

  He put me down. But before I could compliment him on his listening skills, he bent at the waist and tossed me over his shoulder.

  A long-forgotten teenage girl survival mode kicked in. I knew exactly what Drunk Jake was planning to do.

  He cheerfully slapped my ass and took off toward the back of the house at a labored jog.

  “Vicky, stop recording,” I yelled at my friend who was chasing after us with her phone out.

  “You might want to stop flicking me off and hang on for dear life,” she suggested.

  “Carry on,” Jake said, saluting the catering staff in the kitchen before wrestling the back door open.

  “Someone throw me a meat cleaver,” I begged.

  But they ignored my pleas. We were drawing quite the crowd. I stopped wriggling when I felt cold night air on my ass. Great. I was mooning half of Culpepper.

  “Jake, don’t you dare—”

  My threat was cut off when he simply walked off the patio and into the deep end of the pool.

  I screamed underwater and tried to strangle him, but he was slippery, and the cold made my finger joints useless. We surfaced together. Me gasping and choking. Him laughing his fine ass off.

  “You son of a bitch!” I launched myself at him and dunked him.

  He went under, and I felt his hands sliding up my bare legs under water.

  It was then that I realized the skirt of my dress was floating up around my neck leaving my entire body, clad only in a bra and underwear, exposed to the view of the rest of the party.

  There was cheering and applause coming from the patio. My teeth were chattering. The pool heater could only take the edge off of the October chill.

  Jake was grinning as if he’d just told the greatest joke in the history of the world. I splashed him in his stupid handsome face and mustered as much dignity as I could to climb the ladder.

  “C’mon, pretty girl,” he called afte
r me. “Don’t be like that.”

  Everyone was laughing. And then I realized I was, too. I didn’t freak out over being called a loser. And now my entire hometown had seen my pink underwear and was laughing at me. Yet I wasn’t curled in the fetal position, humiliated and wounded.

  Was I too drunk to care? I blinked the salt water out of my eyes a few times. Nope. I wasn’t seeing double or tequila triple. Was this growing up? Had my skin magically thickened?

  I turned around to face the pool. Jake was floating on his back, staring up at the night sky, spitting water out of his mouth like a fountain.

  I felt something warm break free in my chest. Probably the Fireball. Instead of shivering my way back into the house, I found myself running at full speed back to the pool.

  “Cannonball!” I yelled, vaulting into the air. I tucked my knees and had the pleasure of watching Jake’s eyes fly open as I hurtled toward him.

  I landed on his chest, and we both went under. The cheer of the drunken crowd was muffled by the blue water. We grappled, hands sliding over each other. And when we surfaced together, we were both laughing.

  “You’re a hell of a girl, Marley Cicero,” Jake said, hooking his hand around the back of my neck. The kiss was wet and cool and one of the most joyful experiences my lips had ever had. It ranked up there with chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream on a hot summer night.

  “Everybody in the pool!”

  We were drowned in the splashes of drunk bodies hitting the water.

  61

  Marley

  I sloshed into Amie Jo’s house and decided I might as well sneak next door to my parents’ to grab dry clothes. Jake, a science teacher, and the minister from the Culpepper Methodist Church were competing for a diving competition title. Winner takes the terra-cotta yard gnome. The judges were lined up in lawn chairs with hand-drawn scorecards.

  My hair hung in clumps around my face, and I was half frozen.

  “Here’s a warm-up for you,” Vicky said, shoving a glass into my hand.

  I drained it and shuddered. “What the hell was that?” I gasped.

  “Brandy? Whiskey? Maple syrup?” Vicky guessed. She was staring at me with one eye closed. This was Drunk Vicky. My very favorite person on Earth.

  “Drunk Vicky!” I slapped her on the back a little harder than I intended. My hand-eye coordination and depth perception were a little iffy. “How the hell are you?”

  “Fucking fantastic,” she said enthusiastically.

  “Ladies.”

  “Uh-oh,” Vicky stage-whispered.

  Amie Jo stood in the doorway, arms crossed. She tapped her disco ball nails in a staccato rhythm on her biceps.

  “Sorry about the dripping,” I said, looking down at my bare feet and wondering where the hell my shoes had gotten to.

  “A word, Marley?” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “You’re in trouble,” Vicky sang as I followed Amie Jo to the back staircase.

  “Upstairs, please,” Amie Jo said without looking back to see if I was following her.

  “Don’t let her murder you and roll you up in a rug,” Vicky called after us.

  I trudged up the carpeted stairs, trying not to rain pool water over everything. I wondered if Amie Jo was leading me up here to lock me in a wrapping paper closet/dungeon. Wait. Scratch that. She probably had a wrapping paper room, and with Christmas just around the corner, she wouldn’t want to have to clean up the blood spatter.

  Amie Jo paused in front of French doors and opened them with a flourish. I followed her inside and found myself in the mastery-est master suite in the history of the designation. The white carpet was so thick I sank in up to my ankles. The walls were wallpapered silver with delicate threads of gold woven into the silky texture. There was a sitting area with snow-white armchairs and a modern glass side table. The bed…

  Holy mother of God. The bed.

  It was NBA-player-orgy sized.

  White upholstered headboard. Silver duvet. Approximately three hundred throw pillows in silvers, grays, and golds. I wanted to jump on it and see how many times I could roll before I got from one side to the other. I guessed at least nine.

  “Wow.”

  I must have said it out loud because Amie Jo popped her head out of the door on the far side of the room.

  “Here,” she said, holding out a plastic bag to me and crossing the fifty yards of polar bear carpet.

  I accepted the bag. My first guess was rattlesnake. My second guess was vibrator. I wasn’t sure why Amie Jo would give me a used vibrator in a plastic bag. But I was a little drunk, so I wasn’t too hard on myself.

  Peeking inside, I discovered I was wrong on both counts. “My clothes,” I said, pulling out the yoga pants and sweatshirt I’d lent her after the Donkey Shit Incident.

  “Thank you for letting me borrow them. I had them dry-cleaned for you,” she said, interlacing her fingers in front of her. She looked uncomfortable, like being nice to me was so foreign she didn’t know how to do it.

  I wondered if old, over-washed clothes like these yoga pants could disintegrate from dry cleaning.

  “Thank you.”

  “You can change in here so you don’t destroy my house with pool water,” Amie Jo sniffed. We had officially moved past the polite part of the evening.

  “Okay,” I said lamely.

  She started for the door.

  “Thanks, Amie Jo,” I called after her.

  “You’re welcome. Try not to touch anything.” She closed the door, and I was left alone in the Arctic beauty of her master suite. The temptation to touch something was strong. But I was an adult. An inebriated one. But still. I could control myself.

  My leg brushed against the white fur throw at the bottom of the bed. I wondered if it was polar bear and if Amie Jo had killed it herself.

  I ducked into the closet to change and got distracted by the fifty-two pairs of stilettos neatly organized one shoe facing forward, one shoe facing back. Travis’s belt rack held over a dozen brown and black belts. The closet, which was larger than my childhood bedroom, was organized with a militant precision. Cashmere in every color of the rainbow was neatly stacked on shelves. Jeans, an entire corner of them, hung so straight they had to be starched.

  Raucous laughter wafted up from the first floor through the ventilation system, reminding me there was a party going on. I changed quickly, losing my balance as I wiggled into my yoga pants and tipping over into Travis’s dress shirt museum.

  “Damn it!” I took half a dozen perfectly pressed Oxfords with me as I crashed to the thick carpet.

  “Everything all right in there?”

  I froze in my puddle of monogrammed shirt sleeves. Travis Hostetter stood in the closet doorway looking pretty and preppy.

  “I was just changing. Into my own clothes. Not yours,” I said quickly, trying to stand back up and only succeeding in ripping two more shirts from their hangers.

  Travis entered the closet and helped me to my feet.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said when I bent to collect the massacred wardrobe.

  “I can hang it all back up,” I insisted.

  “Marley, relax. They’re just shirts.”

  I was more nervous around Travis than I was Amie Jo. His wife was predictable with her aggressive meanness. Travis, on the other hand, a boy I’d wounded deeply in high school, was an unknown.

  It might have been the Fireball swimming through my veins, but I was hit with a sudden clarity. I owed this man an apology. Even if he didn’t need to hear it, I needed to say it.

  I plucked my dripping dress off of the carpet and stood in front of the sodden puddle and cleared my throat. “Travis, I owe you an apology. Several actually. It’s always bothered me how I ended things with you. I want you to know that I’m sorry for hurting you, and I hope you’ll consider forgiving me.” Booze brave, I blurted out the words.

  It was true.

  Hurting Travis, who’d never been anything but nice to me,
had haunted me. Breaking up with him had been the right thing to do. But I’d been clumsy and artless about it. I’d caused unnecessary pain.

  “Marley—” he began. But I plowed on ahead.

  “I’d also like to apologize for breaking your leg and ruining your chance at a soccer career in college in a mean-spirited bid for vengeance.”

  “Okay—” he began again.

  “Against Amie Jo, not you,” I added quickly. “I wasn’t trying to get revenge on you. You were nice.” This was going to go down in the history of worst apologies ever.

  He waited a beat, probably to make sure I was done talking.

  “I haven’t been holding a grudge. If that’s what you mean,” he said, finally.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” He grinned.

  “But you ended up back here with Amie Jo.” I probably shouldn’t have said that. I’d just apologized to him and in the next breath insulted his wife.

  Travis laughed and waved me out of the closet. “What makes you think that’s not what I wanted? Culpepper is home. Everyone I love—including my very high-maintenance wife—is here. She’s different with me and the boys than she is to—”

  “Everyone else in the universe?”

  “Yeah. I’m happy. I adore her, and I love our life.”

  “You have a swan in your yard,” I pointed out. “And a twenty-foot-tall family portrait in your foyer.”

  “Making Amie Jo happy makes me happy,” he said simply.

  Maybe it was as easy as that. Or maybe Amie Jo was a circus acrobat in bed.

  I’d hurt Travis, but he’d ended up happier than I could have made him.

  “You’re not mad about Homecoming?” I pressed.

  “It was an accident,” he assured me.

  “Well, the thing with you was. I kinda planned all the rest of it,” I admitted.

  He laughed.

  “So we’re good?” I asked with suspicion. This guy didn’t hold onto grudges like I did.

  “We’re good,” Travis promised.

  “There you are!” an adorably drunk Jake bellowed from the door. He frowned, looking first at me and then Travis. “You two are alone in a bedroom?”