Getting Schooled, Page 2

  I toss my keys on the front hall table and head into the living room to find my best friend curled up, asleep on the couch. He's soft, snow white--like a baby seal--and weighs about twenty-five pounds. He's a great listener, he gets fired up at the TV when a ref makes a bad call, and his favorite pastime is licking his own balls.

  I found him, small and dirty, in the ShopRite parking lot my senior year of high school. Or maybe . . . he found me.

  "Snoopy," I whisper, pressing my nose into his downy fur.

  His dark eyes spring open, lifting his head sharply, like my old man when he catches himself falling asleep in the recliner.

  I stroke his back and scratch his ears. "What's up, bud?"

  Snoopy stretches, then steps up on the arm of the couch to wash my face with his tongue. His tail wags in a steady, adoring rhythm. Can't beat this kind of devotion.

  In people years, he's seventeen, so not as spry as he used to be. He's also partially blind and diabetic. I give him insulin shots twice a day.

  Snoopy's my boy. And there's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for him.

  After a shower, I put the Steelers game on, and as I pick up my phone to order Chinese, the front door opens and Tara Benedict walks into the living room.

  "Worst day ever." She groans. "If I have to listen to one more woman tell me the size of her new Gucci boots must be off, I'll rip my hair out. The boots are fine, bitch--your chubby Fred Flintstone feet are nowhere close to a size six!"

  Tara's an online customer service rep for Nordstrom's. She was a year below me in high school--we started hooking up a couple months ago when she moved back to town after her divorce.

  I raise my eyebrows. "Sounds rough."

  Snoopy hops on the couch, stretching his neck, preening for Tara's attention. He's such a needy bastard.

  "Sorry I didn't text before I came over. Are you busy?"

  Tara was cute back in the day, but now, at thirty-three, she's gorgeous--an avid tennis player with long dark hair and sweet curves.

  "Nope. I was just going to order Chinese. Hungry?"

  She unzips her black skirt and lets it slide to the floor--leaving her thigh-high stockings and shiny black heels on. "Later. First I need to fuck away some of this frustration."

  Tara's a great girl.

  I drop the Chinese menu like it's on fire.

  "You've come to the right place."

  She strips her way up to the bedroom, leaving a trail of clothing behind like an awesome porn version of Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs. I start to follow, but pause in the hallway--because Snoopy's the best . . . but he's also a voyeur.

  His eyes are round and attentive as I point at him.

  "Stay here, dude. And don't listen--I told you--it's fucking weird."

  ~

  Two hours later, a much less frustrated Tara and I sit at the kitchen counter, eating great Chinese food out of takeout containers.

  Tara dabs her lips with her napkin. "The County Fair is coming up."

  The County Fair--beer, great barbeque, decent live music, and rides worth risking your life for.

  "Joshua's really excited--every time we pass a sign, he asks me how many more days until he can go." She picks up a piece of steamed chicken and holds it down to Snoopy's drooling mouth. "So . . . I was wondering, what you thought about you, me, and Joshua going together?" She looks up at me meaningfully. "The three of us."

  I narrow my eyes, confused. "That's . . ."

  "I know that's not what we said when we started seeing each other . . . we agreed to nothing serious. But . . . I like you, Garrett. I think we could be good together." She shrugs. "I'm a relationship kind of girl--and even though my marriage crashed and burned, I'm ready to start over. To try again."

  I like Tara--but even if I didn't, I wouldn't bullshit her. A man gets to a point in his life when he realizes that honesty--even if it's not what someone wants to hear--is just simpler.

  "I like you too. But I also like my life the way it is. A lot." I gesture towards the next room. "I bought a Ping-Pong table last week, for the dining room. I like that I didn't have to discuss it with anyone--that I didn't have to consider anybody else's feelings. I like that the only emotional worry I have is wondering how the hell I'm going to get around North Essex High School's defense this season."

  "You should have kids, Garrett," Tara insists. "You'd be an amazing father. It's a sin you don't have kids."

  "I do have kids. Thirty of them, six periods a day--and another forty every day after school during football season."

  Interest is the key with teenagers--with getting them to listen--they have to sense that you give a damn. That you care. You can't fake it--they'll know.

  I don't know if I'd be as good of a teacher as I am if I had kids of my own--if I'd have the energy, the patience. It's not the only reason I'm not married with kids, but it's one of them.

  Like I said--I don't mess with a winning streak.

  Tara pushes back from the table and stands. "Well. Then, it looks like it's Match.com for me. And I don't suppose a new guy is going to be real keen about me keeping a piece of hot coach on the side."

  Gently, I push a strand of hair behind her ear.

  "No, I don't think that'd go over too well."

  "This was fun, Garrett." She reaches up and kisses my cheek. "Take care of yourself."

  "Yeah, you too, Tara. I'll see you around."

  With one more smile and a nod of her head, she picks up her purse, pats Snoopy good-bye, and heads out the door.

  Snoopy watches her go, then turns to me--waiting.

  I tilt my head towards the glass doors that frame the setting sun as it streaks the sky in pinks and grays and oranges.

  "You wanna go bark at the geese on the lake?"

  Snoopy's ears perk high, and he rushes over to the back door as fast as his old little legs can take him.

  Chapter Two

  Callie

  Looking back now, I should've known it was too good to be true. The best things in life usually are--long-lasting lipstick, Disneyland, dual action vibrators.

  "Okay, let's check you out," Cheryl says, bending her knees, so she's eye level with me. At five-seven, I'm not exactly short, but Cheryl is like a warrior woman of Sparta at over six feet tall with eye-catching dark red hair and a broad, often-laughing, always-louding mouth.

  Cheryl works in the back office, here at the Fountain Theater Company. We crashed into each other--literally--on campus when we were both students at the University of San Diego, sending the papers in her hands scattering like leaves on a windy day. It took twenty minutes for us to catch them all--and by the time we did, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

  I open my eyes so wide my eyeballs would fall out if they weren't attached to my head.

  "Corner makeup gunk?"

  "You're good," Cheryl confirms.

  I pull back my lips and grit out, "Teeth?"

  "Clean and shiny like a baby's hiney."

  I tilt my head back. "Nose?"

  Real friends make sure there aren't any bats hanging in the cave.

  "All clear."

  "Okay." I shake out my hands and whistle out a deep breath. "I'm ready." I close my eyes and whisper the words that, through the years, always helped settle my nerves. Words that aren't mine.

  "Visualize the win. See it happen, then make it happen. You got this."

  "What's that?" Bruce asks.

  I open my eyes at the blond, lanky, impeccably attired man in a gray tweed jacket, camel pants, and red ascot standing behind Cheryl's right shoulder.

  "Just something my high school boyfriend used to say." I shrug. "He played football."

  Bruce is an actor with the Fountain Theater Company, like I was years ago, before I moved behind the scenes for a steadier paycheck and worked my way up to general manager.

  "I don't know why you're nervous, Callie. Dorsey is a jackass, but even he has to see you should be executive director. You've earned this."

&nb
sp; Theater people are a rare breed. For the truest of us, it's not about money or fame or getting our picture on the cover of People magazine--it's about the performance. The show. It's about Ophelia and Eponine, Hamlet and Romeo, or even chorus girl #12. It's the magical connection with the audience, the smell of backstage--dust and makeup and costume fabric--the warm heat of the lights, the swoosh of the velvet curtain, the roll of the sets, and the clip-clap echo of shoes across a stage. It's the piercing thrill of opening night, and the tear-wringing grief that comes with the closing performance. Behind the scenes or in front, cast or crew, stage left or right--there's nothing I don't love about it.

  But for our newly retired executive director, Madam Lauralei? Not so much.

  She was more concerned with her television production work on the side and her recurring voice-over role for a successful string of inflammatory bowel disease medication commercials than growing the company. Than putting in the time and energy to expand our audience and choose innovative projects that could turn us into a cultural fixture in Old Town, San Diego.

  But I could change all that. As executive director, I'd be equal to the artistic director, below only the founder, Miller Dorsey, who enjoys the prestige of owning a theater company but tends to take a hands-off approach in the actual running of it. I'd have a say in budgets and schedules, marketing and advertising and how our resources are allotted. I would fight for the Fountain, because it's a part of me, the only place I've ever worked since college. I would throw down like the Jersey girl I am--get in faces, bribe, barter, and blackmail if I had to. I've got the experience, the skills, and the determination to make this company the powerhouse I know it can be.

  I want this position--I want it bad. And that's why I'm so nervous. Because the harder you reach for something, the more it hurts when you end up slapping the pavement with your face.

  Mrs. Adelstein, Miller Dorsey's secretary, comes out into the hall. "Miss Carpenter? He's ready for you now."

  Cheryl gives me the thumbs-up and Bruce smiles. I take another deep breath, then follow Adelstein through the office door, hearing that steady, strong voice in my head.

  "You got this, Callie."

  ~

  "Wooooohooo!" My lips pucker as I down a fourth lemon-drop shot. "I can't believe I got it!"

  "Of course you got it, girlfriend!" Cheryl yells, even though we're standing right next to each other.

  We started out at a hip, too-cool-for-school wine bar--because that's where thirtysomethings are supposed to go to celebrate. But we end up at a dirty dive bar in the seedy end of town because that's where the real fun is.

  The large, burly bartender with tattooed arms as big as my head gives Cheryl a smile from beneath his bushy blond beard as he pours us another round. Cheryl catches his smile and bats her false eyelashes.

  But they get stuck together, so the overall effect is less flirty, more seizure-like.

  Bruce is in the back corner, chatting up a friendly, middle-aged blonde in a tank-top and leather pants. He's charming, suave with the ladies . . . but he also has the "nice guy" curse. It's awful and stereotypical--but true. Bruce is too polite--there's no edge to him, no excitement. I should know. He and I tried dating when we first met, years ago, but it was quickly apparent that the only spark for either of us was a friendship ember.

  With one eye open, Cher turns to me, lifting her shot glass. "I just thought of something! This means you can finally move out of that rinky-dink building that's teeming with piss-poor graduate students and move into that place you've been creaming over for years--the one with the seals!"

  I still live in the same apartment I lived in my senior year of college. But I've been saving up, year by year, little by little, for a down payment on a beautiful two-bedroom, ocean-front condo in La Jolla.

  There's one unit in particular, with a balcony and perfect view of the rocks where seals come to sun every afternoon. It's peaceful and magical--my dream home.

  Excitement buzzes up from my toes, spreading through my body, and I feel just like Kate Hudson in Almost Famous.

  "It's all happening!" I pick up my glass, sloshing a bit of cloudy liquid because I'm literally bouncing.

  And scary-bartender-man raises a glass for himself, toasting with us. "To the seals. Love those fuzzy little fuckers."

  ~

  As the night winds on, me, Cheryl and Bruce get the kind of drunk they make montages out of in the movies. Life is reduced to snapshots of moments--moments like Bruce swinging his ascot over his head like a helicopter blade, like Cheryl dancing on a chair . . . right before she falls off of it, like the three of us forming a personal conga-line and choo-chooing around the bar as "C'Mon Ride the Train" plays from the speakers.

  Eventually, we make it back to my tiny one-bedroom apartment. I kick off my shoes in the corner and Cheryl does a trust-fall onto the couch.

  Bruce spreads out his sports coat on the beige carpeted floor, then lies on top of it, sighing.

  "Oh! Oh," Cheryl yells, reaching into her blouse to pull a balled-up napkin out of her bra, "Look what I got! Mountain Man's number!"

  "Mountain Man?" Bruce asks.

  "The bartender." She breathes out, then mumbles, "Gonna climb him like a mountain." Cher's an avid climber in her spare time. "He can sink his crampon into me anytime . . ."

  Her voice drifts off and I think she's fallen asleep. Until Bruce rips the beige throw pillow out from under her head.

  "Hey! What the hell, dude? I need that pillow."

  "You have the couch, Cheryl. If you get the couch, I get the pillow," Bruce grumbles.

  "I can't lie flat after drinking. My acid reflux will burn a hole in my chest."

  And this is how you know you're old.

  "You have selective acid reflux," Bruce argues. "You only bring it up when you want something."

  "Screw you, Brucey."

  Cheryl and Bruce are like a cat and a dog that have been raised in the same house.

  "Settle down, children. I have extra pillows and blankets in the closet."

  When things are good, it's easy to forget Murphy's Law--anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. But that's when you need to remember it most. Because Murphy's Law is like a quiet snake in the grass at a picnic. When your back is turned, when you're not expecting it . . . that's when it reaches up and sinks its fangs into your left ass cheek.

  As I step towards the hall, my phone rings. I try to fish it out of my messy purse, but the little bastard's hiding, so I end up having to dump my whole bag out, pelting Bruce with rogue Tic Tacs as they bounce off the coffee table.

  I peer at the screen and see the smiling face of my big sister staring back at me, with my adorable nieces surrounding her, sticking their tongues out. I took the picture last Thanksgiving at Lake Tahoe--where my parents, my sister, and I rented a cabin for the holiday.

  It doesn't occur to me that she's calling me at two in the morning. I just answer.

  "Hey, Colleen! What's--"

  Her words come out in a rush. And I think . . . I think she's crying. Which is weird, because--there's no crying in Colleen. My big sister is rock solid. Badass. She gave birth to three children au natural . . . nothing rattles her.

  Only, right now, something definitely has.

  "Col, slow down, I can't understand you . . ."

  Between my drunkeness and her hiccups--I can barely make out her words.

  "Mom . . . Dad . . . car a-acc-accident."

  Ohmygod. Oh. My. God.

  I turn to Bruce and Cher, instantly stone-cold sober--any thought of my promotion dissipating from my mind like mist in the morning light. There's only one thought, one focus.

  "I have to go home."

  Chapter Three

  Callie

  It turns out, Colleen wasn't crying.

  She was laughing.

  And twelve hours later, while I'm standing in the harsh, white, sunlit hallway, outside my parents' room on the sixth floor of Lakeside Memorial Hospital . . . she's sti
ll chuckling.

  "Their legs?" I ask the doctor, hoping I heard her wrong. "They broke their legs?"

  I didn't hear wrong.

  "That's correct." Dr. Zheng tiredly pushes back her dark hair and adjusts her glasses. "One leg each."

  My sister snorts into her hands behind me, sounding like a horny goose.

  "I want them to stay in the hospital another day or two for observation, however, given their ages, your parents are in surprisingly good health."

  Yeah. It's their vices that keep them young.

  My parents sent Colleen and me to Catholic school, but that's not why we were "good girls" growing up. That was because nothing your parents do can ever be cool. It's why some behaviors skip a generation. If your parents have tattoos, tattoos are not cool. If they have long hair, crew cuts are way cooler. If they dress in tied-off, midriff-exposing tops and skin-tight jeans, nuns become your fashion icons.

  My parents' heydays were the '70s Disco balls and bell-bottom pants, Woodstock and psychedelic drugs--they ate that stuff up with a spoon . . . literally. And in their minds, it's still the '70s--it will always be the '70s. Lung cancer? It's a conspiracy from the money-hungry medical establishment--go ahead, light up another menthol. Liver disease? It only strikes the weak--pour me another whiskey sour. Monogamy? It's unnatural--where's the next key party? Yeah, before me and my sister came to be, our parents were swingers.

  At least, please, for the love of God, let it be "were."

  I push that line of thought right out of my head and focus on what Dr. Zheng is saying.

  "With their advanced ages, the bones will take much longer to heal. They'll require extensive physical therapy--for months. I've given your sister all the paperwork."

  I nod, numbly. "All right. Thank you, Doctor."

  I turn around and gape at Colleen, who's leaning her blond head against the wall.

  "How did this even happen?" I ask.

  My sister holds up her hands. "How it happened? That's a whole other story."

  I flinch. "Do I want to hear it?"

  "Nope." She grins evilly. "But I had to, so you're going to also."

  Colleen fixes her gaze behind me. "Ryan, you're back. Perfect timing."