Getting Schooled

  I turn around--and look at that--Ryan Daniels is a Lakeside cop. I did not know this. He's also the older brother of my high school boyfriend--I practically lived at his house for those four years. The last time I remember seeing him was when he came home from college early and caught me and his brother dry-humping on his parents' living room couch. Great.

  He smiles at me warmly. "Hey, Callie. Good to see you."

  "Hi, Ryan."

  He must be thirty-six or thirty-seven now, but he looks almost the same as I remember--just with some new, light wrinkles around the eyes and a few strands of gray in his dark hair. But he's still broad, tall, and handsome, like all the Daniels boys.

  "So . . . I reviewed the report again and, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to give your dad a ticket for the accident. There's really no way around it. Reckless driving."

  Colleen nods, suppressing a giggle. "It's fine."

  "It's not fine!" My father yells from inside the hospital room. "I've never gotten a ticket in my life and I'm not paying the man now!"

  Then he starts to sing "Fuck tha Police," by NWA.

  "Dad!" I yell. "Stop it! I'm so sorry, Ryan."

  "They've got them hopped up on a lot of painkillers," Colleen explains.

  He chuckles. "No problem."

  "Fuck, fuck, fuck the police . . ."

  I clench my teeth. "How does he even know that song?"

  "The new Buick he bought came with a free satellite radio subscription," my sister says. "He's been listening to Urban Yesterday, all the classics are on there--NWA, Run-DMC . . . Vanilla Ice."

  My father stops singing and goes back to yelling. "I remember you, Ryan Daniels--puking in our rosebushes after drinking that crap liquor you brought to Colleen's sweet sixteen!" Then he does a spot-on impression of Scarface. "You're not giving me no stinking ticket."

  A pink flush crawls up Ryan's neck. "Wow. Your dad has a really good memory." He calls into the room, "Sorry about those rosebushes, Mrs. Carpenter."

  "That's all right, honey," my mother's gravelly voice calls back. "You can regurgitate in my bushes any day--as long as you rally afterwards."

  I cover my eyes. Praying for a tear in the space-time continuum to swallow me whole.

  "So, a reckless driving ticket?" I ask Ryan. "Dad's usually a great driver; what happened?"

  "His mind wasn't on the road, that's for damn sure," Colleen answers.

  Ryan's flush burns brighter. "Your parents were being . . . affectionate . . . at the time of the accident."

  "Affectionate?" I repeat, happily clueless.

  Until Colleen ruins it.

  "Mom was blowing Dad," she busts out, then folds over with horrified laughter.

  I think I scream. Because those words should never, ever be put together in the same sentence.

  "We had a good night at the slots in AC," my mother yells back. "We were celebrating." Then her tone turns disgustingly proud. "I've still got it. Though I think taking out the dentures might've helped."

  I'm stunned, speechless--afraid to say anything that could make it worse. With my mom and dad it can always be worse.

  "Your parents are so much funnier than mine," Ryan says, and now he's cracking up with my sister.

  "Oh yeah?" I raise my eyebrows. "Wanna trade?"

  ~

  Coming home to Lakeside always feels kind of odd--the way everything seems smaller and yet, no different at all. It's been longer this time since I've been back . . . years. I look out the window as my sister drives us from the hospital to my parents' house, passing the streets I know so well and the sweet ghosts that live on every corner. Colleen fills me in on the latest happenings around town--who's having babies, who's getting divorced. There was a fire at Brewster's Pharmacy a few months ago, but they rebuilt, painted it an ugly orange color.

  It wasn't really a conscious decision for me to come home less often . . . life just sort of worked out that way. Money was tight my first few years of school; my parents were footing the bill for two full-time college tuitions, and a plane ticket from California to New Jersey wasn't cheap. I waitressed my way through those first Thanksgivings and spring breaks at a diner near campus . . . only coming home for Christmas.

  It wasn't bad--I liked San Diego--the newness of it, the sunshine. And my mom had, once upon a time, hitchhiked her way from one corner of the country to the other--so she was always encouraging me and Colleen to get out there, see the world, make their own nests, and get to know the birds on all the other branches . . . to fly.

  I started doing theater productions in the summers, so coming back to Jersey in May when the semester ended was out. My third year in school was a game changer. Money was better with Colleen having graduated and I got an off-campus apartment. My parents came out to visit and met Snapper, my glaucoma-afflicted, medical-marijuana-card-carrying neighbor. He was like their soul mate--I swear they would've adopted him if he wasn't forty-seven.

  He lives in Oregon now and my parents still send him Christmas cards.

  The year I graduated, I came home to be the maid of honor in my sister's wedding. But then, I sort of became my family's time-share--their excuse to go on a vacation every year. Them visiting California eventually evolved into all of us picking a different place each year to spend each holiday. Sometimes it was Lake Tahoe, sometimes it was Myrtle Beach . . . but only once in a rare while was it Lakeside, New Jersey.

  On Main Street my sister gives two quick beeps on her horn and Ollie Munson waves at our car. I smile and raise my hand against the glass, waving back.

  My voice goes soft. "Ollie's still here, huh?"

  Colleen makes a duh face at me. "Of course he is. I would've told you if something happened to Ollie."

  A few minutes later, we pull into my parents' driveway--the same brown ranch I grew up in, with the neat front yard, white wicker chairs on the front stoop, and my mom's dream-catcher wind chimes hanging beside the door.

  "So." My sister turns the car off. "We need to talk about a schedule. How we're going to handle Mom and Dad's recovery."

  It's the "we" that hits me, right between the eyes. A big red flag with a bull right behind it that signals my life is about to change.

  "I hadn't thought about it."

  It's been like a tornado since her phone call--a whirlwind of throwing stuff in a bag, getting the first flight to New Jersey that I could, and grabbing a taxi to the hospital.

  Colleen's head tilts with disappointment. "Callie-dally. I realize you have this whole shiny, single life going on in California--but you couldn't really think I'd be able to do this all by myself."

  Embarrassment thickens in my blood--because that's exactly what I thought. Maybe it's little sister syndrome, but Colleen's always so on top of everything, a regular Super Woman, I've never considered there's something she can't handle alone.

  "Can we hire a nurse?"

  "Ah, no. Medicare won't cover that. Gary does okay at the insurance company--well enough for me to stay home with the kids--but we can't afford a private nurse. Not for the amount of time they'd need help."

  My brother-in-law, Gary, is a nice, average guy--in every way possible. Medium height, average build, medium brown hair--even the tone of his voice is average--not too deep, not too high, always spoken at a steady, even volume. And like Colleen said, they're not rolling in dough but he makes a good enough salary to take care of his family, to allow my sister to be the stay-at-home, PTA-warrior, dinner-on-the-table-at-five soccer-mom she always dreamed of being. Just for that, I love the guy way above average.

  "I can take care of Mom and Dad during the day, after I get the kids on the bus," my sister says. "I can take them to their doctor and rehab appointments. But at night, you're going to have to be here in case they need anything, fixing them dinner, keeping them out of trouble. You know Dad--he'll be trying to hobble out the door with Mom in his arms and squeeze both their freaking casts into the Buick for a joyride, on day one."

  I laugh. It's funny because it's true.


  And then I rub my eyes, exhausted, like mustering that laugh took all the energy I had left in my bones.

  I give my sister my big news, with considerably less excitement than I'd felt yesterday. "I got a promotion. I'm the new executive director."

  She hugs me tight and strong, the only way Colleen knows how. "That's awesome! Congratulations--I'm so happy for you." Then the joy dims on her face. "Is taking time off going to screw that up?"

  The tendons in my neck feel stiff and achy. "I don't . . . think so. I have to look into it, but I'm pretty sure they'll let me take an emergency family leave and hold the position for me. But the pay for that kind of time off is only a fraction of my normal salary. It won't cover my rent."

  And if I start dipping into my savings, I can kiss my seals goodbye forever.

  My sister skims her palms over the steering wheel, thinking.

  "Julie Shriver, the theater teacher at the high school, is pregnant and just got put on bedrest."

  "Julie Shriver is having a baby?" I ask.

  Julie Shriver was always the odd girl around town. Her hobbies were beekeeping and pen-paling with the prison inmates in Rahway.

  "Yeah! One of the inmates she wrote to was released last year and turned out to be a really nice guy. They got married a few months ago--he plays on Gary's softball team and is the new deacon over at Saint Bart's. Adam or Andy . . . something like that. But the point is, Miss McCarthy is in desperate need of a theater teacher for the year--she'd hire you in a heartbeat."

  Miss McCarthy was the grouch-ass principal when I went to Lakeside--and I can't imagine the seventeen years since have made her nicer.

  "Teaching? I don't know . . . that would be weird."

  My sister waves her hand. "You have a master's degree in theater arts." Her voice takes on a teasingly fancy tone. "And you're the executive director, now, la-dee-da. A high school theater class should be a piece of cake for you."

  Note to Past Callie from Future Callie: Should be, are the operative words there.

  "Is, uh . . . is Garrett still teaching at the high school?"

  "He sure is." Colleen nods. "Still coaching too."

  "That could make it even weirder."

  "Oh come on, Callie," my sister says. "That was forever ago--it's not like you guys ended on bad terms. Would it really be so bad to see him again?"

  My stomach does a little tumble, like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, because seeing my high school boyfriend again wouldn't be bad at all. Just . . . curiouser and curiouser.

  I blow out a breath, vibrating my lips. "Okay. This could work. It might be a clusterfuck . . . but it could work. I'll make some phone calls first thing in the morning."

  My sister pats my arm. "Come on, let's go inside, you're probably beat. I stopped at the store for some supplies before; I'll bring them in."

  I love the scent of my parents' house--it's unique, no place on earth will ever smell just like it. A whiff of April Fresh fabric softener from the laundry room, and I'm eleven years old again, climbing under the cool summer sheets in my bed. The hint of cigars and Old Spice in the living room, and I'm instantly seventeen--hugging my dad as he puts the keys to his prized Buick in my palm, my freshly laminated driver's license heavy in the back pocket of my jeans and my head buzzing with the excitement of freedom. A whiff of roasted turkey from the kitchen stove and a dozen years of family dinners dance in my head.

  It's like a time machine.

  My sister walks past me into the kitchen and sets the brown paper bag in her arms on the counter. Then she pulls a bottle of wine out and slides it onto the wine rack below the cabinet. And then another bottle.

  And another.

  "What are you doing? I thought you said you bought groceries?"

  Colleen smirks. "I said I got supplies." She holds up a bottle of pinot noir. "And you and I both know, if our sanity is going to survive the time it takes for those old leg bones to heal up, we're gonna need every bottle."

  My sister is wise.

  And it's true what they say . . . life comes at you fast. Then it runs you right the hell over.

  Chapter Four

  Garrett

  "You're a good kid, Garrett."

  Michelle McCarthy. She was a crazy piece of work when I was a student at Lakeside, and now she's my boss. I sit across the desk from her, in her office, a half hour before I have to be on the football field for the start of the last week of August practices.

  "You always were. I like you."

  She's lying. I wasn't that good of a kid . . . and she doesn't like me. Miss McCarthy doesn't like anyone. She's like . . . Darth Vader . . . if Darth Vader were a high school principal--her hate gives her strength.

  "Thanks, Miss McCarthy."

  Even though I'm an adult, I can't bring myself to call her by her first name. It's like that with all the adults I grew up with around town--it'd be like calling my mom Irene.

  Michelle . . . nope . . . too fucking weird.

  The fact that she looks almost exactly the same as when I first met her, only makes it worse. She has one of those ageless faces--firm, round cheeks, hazel eyes, a bob of reddish-brown hair--the kind of woman who looks better with a little extra weight, who would look like a flabby, deflated balloon if she were too thin.

  Miss McCarthy takes a blue plastic bottle of TUMS out of the top drawer of her desk, tips her head back, and pours some into her mouth.

  "You're a leader in this school," she tells me as she crunches the chalky tablets. "The other teachers look up to you."

  Not every teacher has their shit together, like I do. In fact, the majority are frighteningly hot messes. Messy personal lives, messy relationships with their children, messy head cases who can barely put up a stable front for seven hours a day with an occasional crack in the veneer. Those cracks are what you read about in the papers--when a teacher finally goes ape-shit on a smartass student or throws a chair through a classroom window because one kid too many came to class without a pencil.

  That's how our former vice principal, Todd Melons, went out last year.

  And that's how I know what McCarthy is going to say next.

  "Which is why I want to promote you to vice principal."

  She leans forward, staring me in the eyes like a Wild West gunslinger on a dusty, tumbleweed-scattered Main Street at high noon, waiting for me to reach for my piece so she can shoot it out of my hand.

  But I don't have a piece--or, in this case, excuses. Too complicated--I'm all about being a straight shooter.

  "I don't want to be vice principal, Miss McCarthy."

  "You're ambitious, Daniels. Competitive. The VP position is one step closer to being top dog around here. You could institute real change."

  Change is overrated. If it's not broke, don't fix it--and from where I'm sitting, there's nothing broken about Lakeside High School.

  I like being in charge; I like calling the shots. But I'm not a fucking idiot.

  Being vice principal sucks. Too many headaches, not enough upside. And the kids hate you because you're the disciplinarian--in charge of detentions, suspensions, and enforcing the dress code. By definition, the VP's job is to suck all the fun out of high school, and while high schoolers can absolutely be selfish, shitty little punks . . . sometimes they can also be really funny.

  Like last year, a sophomore brought a rooster to school on the first day. He unleashed it in the halls--shitting and cock-a-doodle-doo-ing everywhere. The maintenance guys were terrified. I thought it was hilarious.

  But Todd Melons didn't think it was hilarious--he couldn't--he had to come down hard on the kid, make an example out of him and babysit him through six weeks of Saturday detention. If he hadn't, he would've had fucking farm animals roaming the school halls every day of the year.

  Non-administration teachers can still enjoy the funny. And some days, the funny is the only thing that gets us through the day.

  McCarthy lifts her hands, gesturing towards the cramped, insane-asylum-b
eige-colored walls. "And one day, when I retire, this could all be yours."

  She'll never retire. She's single, no kids, doesn't travel. She's going to die at that desk--clutching a bottle of TUMS--probably from a massive, stress-induced heart attack brought on by the stupidity of my co-workers and the senility of her long-time secretary--sweet little Mrs. Cockaburrow.

  No thanks.

  "I don't want to be principal, Miss McCarthy." I shake my head. "Not ever."

  McCarthy scowls--giving me the pissed-off principal face I remember from my youth. It makes me feel seventeen-and-just-got-caught-getting-lucky-in-the-janitor's-closet, all over again.

  "The students respect you. They respond to you."

  "My players respect me," I correct her, "because they know I can make them run until they barf up both lungs. The students think I'm young and cool--but they won't if I move into the vice principal's office. Then they'll just think I'm a douche. I don't want to be a douche, Miss McCarthy."

  Her eyes narrow and her pretty, pudgy face twists. "So, it's a no?"

  I nod. "A hard no."

  And schwing . . . out comes the flaming red light saber. "You're a cocky little shithead, Daniels. You always were. I never liked you. One of these days, you're going to need something from me and I'm going to laugh in your smug, pretty-boy face."

  I'm not offended. Sorrynotsorry.

  "That's a chance I'm willing to take."

  She pushes her chair back from the desk. "Cockaburrow! Bring me those god damn resumes."

  Mrs. Cockaburrow scurries into the office like Dr. Frankenstein's Igor.

  Then McCarthy shoos at me with her hand. "Get the hell out of my office. Go get that team ready to win some football games."

  "That, I can do for you, Miss McCarthy." I tap the door jamb as I walk through it. "That I can do."

  ~

  "Nice job, Martinez! Donbrowski--I said left! You go left! Jesus, were you absent the day they taught left and right in fucking kindergarten?!"

  Times have changed since I was a football player on this field. The things a coach can say--and can't say--have changed. For instance, my coach--Leo Saber--liked to tell us he was going to break our legs if we screwed up. And if we really screwed up, he'd rip our heads off and take a dump down our necks.

  Today, that would be frowned upon.

  These days, it's all about behavior-centric criticism. We can't call them dumbasses, but we can tell them to stop acting like dumbasses. It's a minute difference, but one me and my coaching staff are bound by. Some changes have been good, important--vital. Back in the day, coaches weren't as aware of health issues, like multiple concussions. It didn't matter if you were hurt--we were always hurt--it mattered if you were injured.