Rock Bottom Girl

by Score, Lucy

  “What about Jake?” she asked. I could hear her clicking a pen. Open. Closed. Open. Closed. It was her nervous tell. She was about to blow.

  “Jake and I have come to an agreement that we will be better off apart,” I said evasively.

  “Did you both come to that agreement, or did you break up with him?” she asked, side-stepping my bullshit.

  “Oh, look at the time. I have to go disinfect the shower shoes. I have to go, Andrea.”

  “Listen, as your part-time therapist and full-time friend, I feel like I need to tell you when you’re being an idi—”

  I hung up the phone then took it off the hook and put my head back down on the desk. But it wasn’t the cool metal I felt. It was thick paper.

  I sat up again with an envelope stuck to my head.

  Coach.

  I ripped it up, sending ragged slivers of paper across my desk. Inside, I found a We’re Sorry greeting card.

  Dear Coach,

  We’re sorry for disappointing you.

  Love Always,

  Your Team

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why couldn’t anyone understand? I’d disappointed them. They’d given me their all, and I’d let them down.

  A second smaller envelope shoved under my phone caught my eye.

  It was addressed to Kidnapper.

  Dear Coach,

  My mom died of cancer when I was six. My dad made a series of poor life choices and has been in and out of prison ever since. I’ve been moved from foster home to foster home for ten years. But Culpepper, this school, this team was the first time I felt like I ever belonged.

  You made me feel like I belonged.

  I say this to make you feel like epic shit for going off the “woe is me” deep end. We lost a game. Big fucking deal. Win some lose some. You in your selfish downward spiral are forgetting about all the good you did this season. You didn’t disappoint me.

  You forced me to join your weird team, make friends, and start living up to my potential. I don’t have parents who can thank you for guiding their kid. So I’ll thank you. Thanks.

  Now, get your head out of your ass and apologize to the team for losing your damn mind.

  Sincerely,

  Morticia

  P.S. I found the emergency snack cakes you stashed in your desk drawer and ate them. You’re welcome.

  77

  Marley

  I made the three-hour-and-thirty-minute drive to Pittsburgh in complete silence. The Pennsylvania Turnpike was a monotonous stretch of rest stops, tunnels, and trucks. I’d survived Monday, using the locker room as my personal fortress of solitude. I’d ducked out the back when Jake had pounded on the door after the final bell rang.

  My watch had vibrated as I jumped into my car and sped from the lot.

  Jake: You can run, but you can’t hide. We need to talk. Stop being a chickenshit.

  But I didn’t have anything to say. I was still sad, still broken, and I felt like an asshole for making an entire team of girls think that they’d disappointed me. I didn’t know how to apologize. How to make it clear that I was the one to blame.

  Tuesday, I spent the entire day on my air mattress while my mom and sister shopped for our Thanksgiving meal. I felt like an ass.

  By Wednesday morning, I was sick of myself, and the only thing I could think to do was actually go to the job interview.

  Outreach was a nonprofit start-up that matched families in need with available social services while also recruiting individuals to make monetary donations.

  Just the kind of thing the me from this summer would have been looking for. The current me, though, couldn’t be bothered to get excited about it. All I could think about was Jake looking devastated, the girls getting off the bus crying. An endless loop of disappointment.

  I found the office in a cool, renovated warehouse and sat on a couch shaped like a pair of red lips. The walls were painted in bright primary colors. All employees were dressed casually in jeans and hoodies. They were walking around with iPads in one hand and lattes in the other.

  No one was even close to my age.

  Normally, by this point, my palms would be so sweaty I’d have to wipe them before shaking hands. But I sat here stiffly on overstuffed lips and wished it was all over so I could curl up on my air mattress at home.

  Thad appeared and introduced himself. He wore skinny jeans and a hoodie and large blue-framed glasses. The rest of the team was a collection of hipsters, slobs, and people too young and optimistic to know that a start-up this cool was destined for some serious growing pains.

  Numbly I answered the standard interview questions in their glassed-in conference room. The table was an oversized surfboard. The art on the walls was colorful and confusing. Someone rolled past the door on a skateboard.

  It was exactly the kind of place I would have been looking for prior to my stint as a Barn Owl.

  Thad explained the work schedule (“Come and go as you please; just get your work done”), the role (a stepping stone to head my own team in a year or two), and the mission statement before launching into the interview questions.

  I’d done this often enough that I could almost predict the next question.

  What do you see as your top strengths?

  My ability to fail over and over again.

  Where do you see yourself in five years?

  Unemployed and single. History tends to repeat itself.

  I wasn’t even nervous. Usually, I was interviewing in a panic. I needed the job. I was desperate for not just gainful employment but a bright future.

  This time, though? I couldn’t even rouse myself to care. I hoped it made me seem cool.

  They turned me over to a chipper HR assistant who gave me the grand tour. Everything was open work spaces and primary colors. There was an espresso station and a yoga room. They were a start-up that was growing like gangbusters.

  It was exactly what I was looking for. I’d be busy. There was room for growth. There were benefits and a casual dress code.

  And I couldn’t for the life of me get excited about it.

  They took me out for lunch, and I pushed my chicken salad around on my plate. Someone asked me about my coaching experience, and I told them about the girls on the team. Told them about our season, leaving out the devastating end.

  After lunch, they showed me my potential office. A glorified cubicle but with a view of the river. They were growing, they assured me. Rapidly. They needed a data mining team in place as soon as possible. And within a year, I could be heading it.

  All I could think about was how I had ten to fifteen years of life experience on the team. How would I be a better fit here than my own hometown?

  They liked me. I could tell. Like I said, I was practically an interview professional. But did I like them? Did I want to be the team elder? Did I want to spend my working hours explaining what CDs were and who Dan Aykroyd was?

  Why did everything I’d always wanted feel so damn wrong?

  They promised to call me after the holiday. I shook hands all around, threw in some fist bumps for the knuckle-preferring crowd, and returned to my car in the parking garage.

  I got behind the wheel and thumped my forehead against it. What the hell was I doing with my life?

  * * *

  Me: I had my interview.

  Vicky: Oh, you’re emerging from your self-loathing to talk to me again? Goodie.

  Me: I deserve that.

  Vicky: Stop it. It’s no fun when you act like a kicked puppy.

  Me: Arf arf.

  Vicky: How did it go? Did they offer you a million dollars and stock options?

  Me: I think they’re going to offer me the job.

  Vicky: Are you going to take it?

  Me: I don’t feel like I’m in the position to make any life-altering decisions. I really let our girls down. I don’t know how to make it better.

  Vicky: Swing by my house. We’ll get loaded and write apology notes.

  Me: I’ll be there in four
hours.

  78

  Marley

  Thanksgiving was depressing. I was depressing. Every damn thing in this house was depressing. We were supposed to be celebrating with the Westons in Jake’s house with his nice roomy kitchen and big dining table. His sweet, doofy dog.

  Instead, we were asses to elbows falling over each other in Mom and Dad’s cramped kitchen, scrambling to prepare a feast that we hadn’t planned for.

  All because I was a chickenshit dumbass.

  The turkey and broccoli casserole were smashed into the oven while Zinnia did her best to steam more healthy vegetable sides in the microwave and on the stovetop.

  The kids were running through the house, screaming and shouting, waggling zombies and giant insects at each other. Mom and Dad were sneaking wine in the garage, pretending to look for Christmas decorations. It was Cicero family tradition for the Christmas decor to go missing for at least a week or two after Thanksgiving.

  And here I was alone, scraping gelled cranberry sauce out of the can.

  I’d gone to Vicky’s last night, and with the help of a bottle of bourbon, I’d written heartfelt cards to every girl on my team. Then, since we were wasted, we’d paid Vicky’s mother-in-law twenty dollars to drive us around to every girl’s house so we could stuff the note in the mailbox and then scream “Go, go, go!”

  In the light of morning, I was hungover and still miserable. But I’d woken up to over a dozen heart emoji messages from the team.

  Jake was probably having a great day. Hell, he’d probably found a new girlfriend since we’d broken up. She was probably helping him in the kitchen, wearing an apron, and letting him kiss her on the neck while she whisked corn starch into the gravy. I squeezed the cranberry sauce can so hard it dented on both sides.

  The timer on the oven beeped shrilly, and I wrestled the door open, knocking over a kitchen chair in the process. Smoke billowed out.

  “Fuck!” I waved a dish towel at the smoking mess. The turkey looked extra crispy and not in the delicious KFC way.

  The smoke detector wailed to life, and all three kids came running, hands clamped over their ears. “MOMMY!”

  “That’s it,” Zinnia said calmly. “I give up. I give up on everything.” She neatly folded her tea towel on the counter and stormed out the back door.

  My mom rushed in and pulled a chair under the smoke detector. She climbed up and ripped it off the ceiling. “There! That’s better,” she said cheerfully. She had a red wine mustache.

  “Mom, can you take care of this?” I asked, gesturing at the blackened bird and the rapidly blackening broccoli casserole.

  “Sure, sweetie. Ned! I need wine STAT,” she called.

  I headed out the front, stopping at the coat closet to grab my jacket and Zinnia’s cashmere wool trench. It was cool and crisp outside, not smoky and hot like our indoor inferno. I let myself into the backyard through the gate.

  “Zin?” My sister, the health nut perfectionist, was sitting in the tree, smoking a cigarette and shivering. “What the hell is going on?” I demanded.

  She ignored me, and I climbed up next to her, praying the branch could hold our combined adult weight. “Here.” I shoved her coat at her.

  Zinnia eyed it and then handed me her cigarette.

  “Since when do you smoke?”

  “Since I can’t take a deep breath without one.”

  She took the cigarette back and drew in a sharp breath. “My life is a fucking disaster, Marley. I’m such a failure.”

  The confession shook me so hard I wobbled on the tree branch and nearly fell over backward. I grabbed onto the trunk and righted myself.

  “A failure? You? Have you met me?” I squeaked. “Give me that.” I took the cigarette from her again and took a drag.

  I choked and gasped and passed it back. It had been a long time since my Mountain Dew and cigarette days.

  “Look at me and tell me what you see,” she said.

  I did as I was told. “My beautiful, insanely smart genius of a sister, who has the perfect husband, a great family, and an important job.”

  She laughed without humor. “That’s what everyone sees. You know what I see when I look in the mirror?”

  “What?”

  She took another drag and blew out a slow stream of smoke. “An exhausted woman whose husband stopped being interested in sex six months ago. Whose children don’t have any fun at all except the one time of year they’re at Grandma and Grandpa’s. My job—I work seven days a week. Because if I miss something, if I take a day off and turn off my phone, some baby somewhere could die because I didn’t connect them to the right resources. People die when I don’t do my job.”

  “Zin, why didn’t you say anything?”

  “What am I supposed to say? Complain about my perfect life and my perfect family. Whine about how hard it is to make a difference?”

  “Yes! How else am I supposed to know that your life isn’t perfect? Zin, I would have showed up on your doorstep. I would have helped.”

  “No one can help me,” she said, and I heard the familiar stone wall in her voice. Zinnia was harder headed than any one of those basketball donkeys. “No one can do everything that needs to be done the way I want it done.”

  I was reeling. The woman I wanted to be was sitting next to me on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

  “Where is Ralph?” I asked her.

  She gave another bitter laugh. “Probably sitting with his feet up on the coffee table in his underwear enjoying the peace and quiet. ‘Heart surgeons need downtime,’” she parroted in a baritone. “He’s so busy saving lives he has zero time for family. For me. He blanked on our anniversary. He can’t remember Rose’s name half the time. We go days without seeing each other.”

  “But you two always seem so good,” I pressed.

  “Good?” She sniffled. “We’re at a place where everything is more important to us than our relationship, our family. That’s not good, M.”

  A single tear rolled gracefully down her cheek.

  She took a shuddering breath. “It’s like we’re already separated. Even though we live together. I didn’t even tell him I was coming. He didn’t notice we were gone for two days because he was traveling for a consortium.”

  “Zin, I’m so sorry.” I squeezed her shoulder, wishing there was something I could do to take the pain away.

  I didn’t want to appropriate Zinnia’s mid-life crisis, but if this is what being important produced, did I really want it?

  “What are you going to do?” I asked. The woman who had everything I wanted was as miserable as I was.

  “I have no idea. I thought I’d come home and regroup. I don’t know who I am without a job that sucks the life out of me. I don’t know what kind of a mother I am without overscheduling and smothering the creativity and fun out of my kids’ childhood. I micromanage them because I’m afraid if I don’t take care of every tiny detail, they’ll turn into bullies, or get sick, or turn to a life of drugs.” She took another drag on the cigarette. “I’ve always envied you, you know.”

  “Me?” I squeaked. “Why?”

  “You’re just free to be. If something isn’t the right fit, you move on, and you try something else. I’m stuck. I’ve dug myself into a hole so deep in this job that I can’t leave or people will literally die.”

  We heard a noise next door. From our vantage point in the tree, we spotted Amie Jo, in plaid ankle trousers and a glamorous red sweater, slam the sliding patio door shut. She had an open bottle of wine in one hand. She stood staring at the pool cover, her body rigid. And then she screamed.

  It wasn’t the cry of a wounded animal. It was a battle cry.

  79

  Marley

  “Everything okay over there?” I called to her.

  She jerked around and found us in the tree.

  “Want a cigarette?” Zinnia offered, holding up the pack.

  “What I want is to burn this house down with everyone in it,” Amie Jo seethed.
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  “Well, why don’t you bring your wine over here, and we’ll start with a cigarette. Then if burning the house down is still the right answer, we’ll help you,” I offered.

  She thought about it for a minute and then held up a finger. She disappeared back inside her house and reappeared on the back porch a minute later. She had two bottles of wine and a puffy winter coat. Amie Jo jogged to the fence separating our yards and dropped the wine bottles over into the grass one at a time.

  She took a running start at the fence and scrambled over.

  Zinnia and I scooted farther out on the limb, and Amie Jo handed up the wine. I pulled her up, and she settled on the branch next to me. It creaked a little.

  “Rough Thanksgiving?” I asked.

  Zinnia lit another cigarette and handed it to Amie Jo.

  She accepted it and pulled the stopper from the first bottle of wine. “My sister just announced she’s getting married for the fourth time. Her daughter, Lisabeth, is pregnant with some dropout’s baby. And worst of all, my in-laws hate me,” Amie Jo announced.

  “What? You and Travis have been together since senior year.”

  “And they’ve hated me since then. They think I got pregnant on purpose in college so Travis had to marry me. To them, I’m just a gold-digging prom queen.”

  Zinnia and I shared a glance.

  “Well, that’s not fair to you,” I said to Amie Jo.

  “I know! I’ve done everything I can to make those horrible people like me! I gave them beautiful grandsons. I make sure their son has a home he can be proud of. A wife he can show off. We’re upstanding members of the community, and the turkey is still too dry, and the house is still too drafty, and maybe I shouldn’t show so much cleavage at a family dinner!”