Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
Being friends with Leah has its perks, but it also has a downside, which is jealousy. If anyone used their frickin’ brains, they’d realize that Leah Mitchell has worked hard for and cares about her career, and isn’t going to do anything to jeopardize that. But high school teachers are still in high school, and it’s been clear to me that they are not my biggest fans. They’re jealous of my connection to Leah, and they view that connection as a free pass to favoritism, which then equates to getting the things I need as both a teacher and coach.
Bluebell High has a shortage of extra money, so the truth is, no one is getting a damn thing this year. I’m pretty sure they spent the remainder of their budget on my job. Still, their glares and whispers tell me I need to work harder to integrate myself with current staff. I have to try harder to make friends.
There is never a time when high school is easy, is there?
The teachers’ lounge radiates laughter and conversation, the smell of freshly reheated day-old lasagna and buttered popcorn infiltrating my senses, reminding me I only had a granola bar for breakfast. Despite my nerves, my stomach rumbles. I smooth my hands down my skirt—and yes, I went with a skirt today. Because in my efforts to make teacher friends, I realized that dressing casual all the time could be part of it, too. Cadence Caine, the frosh coach, wears heels and skirts everyday, and only opts for jeans or warmups at practice. Maybe I’m just too casual. Maybe it’s the combo of knowing Leah personally and not dressing the right way?
I roll my lips together and finger comb my waves, making sure I feel good when I walk in. With a deep breath, I push open the door, and eleven heads turn to stare at me. Conversation halts, forks pause their journeys to mouths, and the science teacher, who was clearly showing something to another teacher on her phone, locks her screen with a loud click.
Cadence is here, but her body language does not call for me to sit with her, and her eyes never leave her plastic container filled with greens and protein. Fine. Just because we both cheer doesn’t mean Cadence has to be my friend. The door closes behind me, bumping my ass, sending me forward a few paces. With my nylon lunch bag between my hands, I keep my chin high as I walk toward the open window seat overlooking the football field.
I came here to make friends, or at least try to be social, and now I’m beelining for the only seat alone. C’mon Riley, I hum under my breath, determined to be successful. I need something to go right, and I’m not going to sit around and hope it falls into my lap. I’m chasing it, damn it.
Stopping a few paces before the glorious empty window seat, I sink into a chair at a mostly full table, setting my bag down.
“Hello,” I say awkwardly, testing out my voice volume so as to not be heard by the entire room. Slowly, chatter picks back up, filling in around me, allowing me to breathe.
“Hi,” another woman says, one I’ve never seen around the halls or in the gym or… anywhere. Not yet at least. She extends a hand over her glass container full of brown rice and salmon. “I’m Denae, I’m the executive assistant to Ms. Mitchell.”
“Ahh,” I nod, because Leah has mentioned her new assistant a few times. Makes sense now as to why I haven’t met her–she’s always busy. “Nice to meet you Denae. I’m Riley Rivers, I started here this school year, too. I teach health and I’m also coaching JV cheer.”
From the table adjacent to mine, in her flowy lavender colored skirt and flowery pink blouse, Cadence dunks her spoon into her yogurt, clearing her throat to get everyone’s attention. “How are you liking JV coaching, Miss Riley?” she asks, licking vanilla yogurt from her plastic spoon. She would like plain vanilla, and her plastic spoon is ruining the planet. I narrow my eyes but plaster on a smile.
“I really like it, thank you.”
She taps the end of the spoon against her chin. “How many years did you coach frosh at your last school?” I know the question is rhetorical, but I don’t know if all the people in this break room know the game Cadence is playing, and I’ll only look like a pompous asshole if I don’t reply, so with my fake smile I say, “Three.”
She nods, her shiny blonde hair literally nearly blinding me. How does she do that? Seriously, and how does her makeup still look so perfect by this time of day? It’s lunch. I sweated through my first layer of mascara hours ago. But of course, yogurt eating, clothes ironed, shiny hair having Cadence looks perfect, even at noon.
I want to roll my eyes, but I don’t.
“Oh wow, so you’re new to coaching then,” she states and before I can defend my honor, she adds, “I’ve been coaching freshman girls for nine years. This is actually my tenth year.”
I know I should take a second and check myself. I should. And next time, I will. But I’ve been fielding glares and snotty remarks from Cadence for three months and I’m fucking over it. She let a student get hurt, she talks to the girls like crap, and she is not a leader.
“Well, if you want to shadow me, you’re more than welcome.” I open my lunch bag and take my turkey and cheese sandwich out. The mayo is warm, and the cheese is soft, but I eat it with so much confidence you’d think they were filming a fucking sandwich commercial.
“Shadow you?” she laughs around another bite of boring-gurt.
I overly chew the bite in my mouth before swallowing. “Yeah, I mean, if you want to see how to coach in a way that leads to promotion, shadow me. I can teach you some stuff.”
A man at the table with me who I’ve learned is, Coach Dean McAllister, chokes on his bite of chili. I slide him my metal water bottle. “Water?”
He shakes his head, bringing a napkin stained with orange grease to his lips. “Uh, no, ma’am,” he says. I look around my table, maybe for the first time, and notice no one is making eye contact with me except Denae. “I’m not an asshole,” I whisper to her, as our heads come together conspiratorially. “She’s been super rude to me for months. She hates my guts and you know what? I’m a nice person. Honestly. I am. So I’m just… sick of it, you know?”
Denae keeps her focus on me while she eats forkfuls of massive green salad, nodding. “Good for you. I mean, you didn’t say anything that wasn’t kind of true.”
I glance around the table, gauging how much privacy we have. Coach Dean is powering through his chili, doing his best to get away from the table, while the other two are engrossed in their phones.
“I mean, does everyone really think I just got my job because I’m friends with Leah? Because that’s literally insane.”
Denae stabs a baby tomato with her fork, but the friction proves too much and it slides in the dish, popping up, flying through the air. I swear I don’t have to look when I hear it plunk-land. The sound is the unique music of yogurt splattering against a table.
Slowly, Denae peers around me and I turn my head to see Cadence’s face marked in a splash of white yogurt, the baby tomato sitting on the surface.
She twists her head, glaring at me with so much misery and hate in her expression that I panic.
“It was an accident,” I blurt out. “She didn’t mean to,” I continue. “Plastic fork, slippery vegetable. Well, slippery fruit, because a tomato is a fruit, you know? Of course you know. You’re a teacher. Anyway, that was an unfortunate accident.”
“I’m sorry,” Denae adds quietly .
Cadence gets to her feet, yogurt sliding down her forehead. Coming to stand over me, she turns her yogurt upside down, and cold plops of sweet dairy dribble onto my head, down my face and all over my nice clothes. “Oops,” she says, smirking, before dropping the yogurt cup onto my head. “Quick, run and tell Leah.” The plastic cup topples to the floor as she leaves the breakroom. I’m sure she’s beelining for the bathroom to fix her face, and as much as I want to follow after her, I don’t.
I glance around the breakroom, my cheeks flaming with embarrassment. Denae loops her arm through mine, and we take a detour through the science building to get to Leah’s office. After I’ve changed out of my clothes into a spare set of PE loaners, I flop down in front of Leah’s desk with Denae at my side.
“Care to share why you needed to use my office as a dressing room and why you’re wearing high school gym clothes at noon on Tuesday?” Leah asks as she returns to her office, after collecting her makeup bag from the car.
I dig through her stuff, looking for mascara and lipgloss. Once I find them, I get to work fixing what the yogurt fucked up.
“Cadence was talking shit in the break room,” I start, but Leah cuts me off, prodding the heap of messy clothes on her desk with the tip of a pencil.
“Why were you wearing a skirt and blouse anyway?” she asks, her face scrunched up with disgust, and I honestly think it’s over the shock that I was wearing those clothes, and not the fact that yogurt coats them.
I swipe almost black mascara over my bottom lashes. “Because everyone here hates me and I was trying to fit in.” Another few swipes and I close up the tube, dropping it back into the small silver bag. “I thought they either hate me because I’m friends with you,” I tell her, uncapping the lip gloss. “Or because I dress too coachy all the time. Either way, today was my attempt to rectify those issues.” I roll it on then rub my lips together before re-capping. “But then Cadence dumped yogurt on my head and, well, I’m pretty sure everyone in that break room likes me even less than before.”
Denae gets up, scooping the clothes off the desk to salvage the manila folder beneath it. “Let me just find you a bag for these,” she says, slipping out of the office for a moment.
“So you wore that and then what? Asked Cadence Caine to swap yearbooks and she dumped a Yoplait in your hair?” Leah asks, a smirk twitching her lips. There’s a benefit to having your best friend be much older than you. She knows when it’s time to sweat things, and if she’s not sweating a mini food-fight in the breakroom, then neither am I.
“Noo,” I defend. “I wore this and then decided to eat lunch in the breakroom to try and make friends. You know, friends that aren’t you,” I tease, letting out a long sigh as I melt into the chair. “It’s been a shitty week. This just made it shittier.”
“What else is going on?” Leah asks, opening her drawer to pull out a king size Snickers bar. “You want?”
I roll my eyes. “Uh no, put it back. I’d rather not have a king size Snickers.” I reach across the desk and snatch it from her, unwrapping it immediately. The first bite is heaven as I sink back into the chair. “Okay, this helps.”
She slides her readers on as she opens her laptop. I love how she’s always busy but always makes time for me, even when I’m probably annoying. I’d never tell her this because it would do a mind fuck on her but… I wish my mom were more like Leah.
“So, what else made the week shitty, pre-Snickers of course? ”
I sigh. “Jo Jo Turner is still upset with me. I like Jo Jo so much. I see so much of myself in her, and I just want her to be happy. I thought pulling her up to JV was good for both Cadence and Jo Jo, since Cadence has no way to help Jo Jo flourish, and because Jo Jo has so much to offer. But I guess the younger girls got jealous and her non-cheer friends don’t like that she does cheer and–” I let out a sigh. “I don’t know why I care so much about this girl. But I do.”
Leah shrugs. “Sometimes they get under your skin. I’ve had a few like that over the years.”
I nod. “Well, the thing with Jo Jo isn’t all.” I swallow hard and take another huge bite of Snickers, prolonging the inevitable. Leah types for a moment then slides her eyes to meet mine. “What else?”
I look down at my blue shorts, the words PROPERTY OF BLUEBELL HIGH stenciled on in bright yellow paint. “Just thinking of that awful call with my parents Sunday morning.”
Leah’s laptop clicks as she pushes it closed, sliding off her glasses to give me her full attention. “Share?”
I lift the half eaten monster sized Snickers to show her how that phone call went, and how it’s been going since. Leah nods. “Still, tell me about it.”
I take a deep breath in and launch into a condensed version, because my fifty-three minutes of midday freedom are almost up. “They’re friendly with Michael, Brian and Linda. And they asked me if I’d be open to taking a call from Michael to, and I quote, end all of this ,” I tell her, using my fingers to put quotes around my mother’s callous words.
“They’re still deep in the gaslighting phase, aren’t they,” she surmises aloud, shaking her head.
“They act like I am making up what Michael did. But he’s admitted it! He apologized to them for it and they accepted and now my mom has completely and utterly rewritten history. Michael has never done anything wrong and now it’s me, I’m the problem, I’m the person throwing a wrench into their perfect country club lifestyle. It’s insane. It’s absolutely insane and I swear to God, Leah, if I ever have children, I will listen to every single thing my child tells me. I will hear them and honor their vulnerability with belief and action.” At some point, tears flooded my eyes because now they stream down my cheeks, hot and wide.
Leah gives me a sad, conciliatory smile when she quietly says, “Fuck ‘em.”
I sink back into the seat and take another whopping bite of Snickers. “I lived my entire life thinking I had the greatest parents in the world. Kind, supportive, patient. But when it’s put to the test, they’ve shown me that… They're strangers. Because I do not know these two people who refuse to support me.”
The first bell rings, and Leah reaches across the desk for me. I place my hand in hers and she squeezes. “I’m sorry Riley. I wish they were handling this differently. I wish that they were there for you the way you deserve.”
“Thanks,” I whisper, trying my hardest to stop crying.
Leah sinks back, a smile slowly curving her lips. “You want me to bust Cadence for the yogurt?”
Denae slips back into the office, my clothes now in a clear plastic bag. She passes them to me. “I’m so sorry again, this was totally my fault.” She looks at Leah. “I was trying to eat a cherry tomato with a plastic fork and pop,” she says, simulating a tiny explosion with her hands. “It bolted through the air, and landed in Cadence’s yogurt. It was… kind of perfect,” she says with a smile.
“She just dumped hers on you to retaliate?” Leah prods.
Denae takes over, and it gives me a chance to finish this Snickers before I have to high-tail it across campus and teach the fifth period freshman class about night erections.
Goody.
“Cadence asked Riley how many years she coached at her old school, and then implied that Cadence had the job of JV cheer coach stolen from her, and also implied she was more qualified because she had ten years of experience.”
“To which I simply pointed out that if she wanted to shadow me, she could, because ten years without a promotion is a long time and maybe she could learn something from me,” I say around a mouthful of caramel and peanuts.
Leah reaches out and I clap my hand against hers. “That’s how you do it. You stand up to bullies,” she commends, and it’s only right then that I realize Cadence is a bully.
I wave my hand between us. “Yeah well, she basically said I’d run here and tell you, and she wasn’t wrong about that," I admit.
“But you didn’t come tattle,” Denae says, holding up the clothes bag. “You came to change and talk to your friend.”
I nod. “I know.” And even though I know it’s true, still, the weight of Cadence’s words feels heavy on my shoulders today.
Leah gets to her feet and Denae follows. I know the second bell is coming so I reluctantly get to my feet, too. Denae hands me the manila folder she rescued earlier.
Leah taps it. “This is for you anyway so it’s great you came by. It’s research for the article. Maybe getting started on that tonight will give your mind somewhere to go.”
I look down at the folder, and remember our plans. I nod. “Yeah, this is good. I could use this as a distraction.” I flip through the papers inside, and look up between Leah and Denae. “If I get it done tonight, I’ll send it to you.”
Leah nods. “I can’t wait. ”
I’m on my way out, ready to sprint across campus, when Leah stops me. “Hey, remember, she’s wrong about why I hired you.”
“Thanks, Leah.”
I manage to get through my last three classes with only a few laughs as to why I’m wearing loaner PE clothes, but by the time cheer practice rolls around, I’m emotionally exhausted.
Jo Jo is still giving me the cold shoulder, and as much as I’d like to pretend I’m unaffected, I can’t. I hate that Jo Jo is struggling, even if she’s taking it out on me, I still hate it for her and want it to change.
That night, after a six mile run and a bowl of pasta bigger than my skull, I flip open the manila folder and get to work writing the best article I can possibly write. And when I’m done, I send it to Leah to proofread. I’m sure things will need to be changed, and I have no doubt she’ll check my tone, but all in all, I love the first draft and can’t wait to see where it ends up when it’s ready to hit the newspaper.
And she was right. It did make me feel better, or at the very least, distracted me from my bummer mood for a couple of hours.