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“And now you’re a feminist icon,” Mara laughed and gave my shoulder a sympathetic pat. “Deal with it, sugar.”
“I don’t have time for all that. The next game is soon, which means we need to raise the money and get permissions slips to parents and returned in less than a week.”
“We’ve got you,” Eva said. “Don’t worry, this town will come through for those girls. Trust me.”
I had no choice but to trust in the folks of Pilgrim, because plan B was to simply pay for the rooms myself, and I really didn’t want to have to resort to that.
Ben
“I just can’t believe those girls are forced to scrub floors and clean out old Howard’s attic just to pay for a hotel room.” The voice wasn’t exactly familiar, but it was one of the older gossips in town speaking just loud enough to be heard. “I am so disappointed in Principal Rutherford. I thought he was a better man than that.”
Those words captured my attention, as she no doubt intended, and I turned to find Mirabelle Vargas glaring at me.
“What did I do?”
“Nothing,” she snapped. “And that’s exactly the problem.” Without another word, she turned back to her group of friends, gossiping at a much lower decibel this time since they didn’t want to be heard this time.
I had no idea what Mirabelle was going on about, and I doubted very much that I wanted to know, so I turned my attention to the specials board in search of something new and delicious to go with my morning coffee. I wondered what kind of pastries Joss liked, and if I’d score any points by bringing something for her.
She hadn’t spoken to me in two days and worse, she’d made herself scarce, avoiding the teacher’s lounge as well as the teacher’s table in the cafeteria. I know because I checked. Often.
“Howard Smith was pleased with the work and doubled his original donation.” That voice I knew well, it belonged to Tanisha Johnson, one of Joss’ soccer girls. She was incredibly smart, but the girl never stopped talking. “His wife wants to clean the attic too, which will get us closer to the fundraising goal.”
“Bless Coach Callahan for thinking of the girls. Becky has a real shot at a college scholarship because of that woman.” I didn’t recognize that voice, but I knew it was another soccer mom. “It’s just too bad they’re not getting the support they need from the rest of the school.”
Which meant, in short, me. I wanted to say something, to defend myself, but only parts of the conversations made sense to me. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Joss had put the word out that there was no additional funding for the girls’ soccer team, and I was now public enemy number one. For something that was completely out of my control.
“At least this will be another community project for their college applications.” The woman shook her head, disgust in her voice. “I had to put up with the same thing on the state winning basketball team back in my day. You’d think there might be some comfort in knowing that some things just don’t change. There’s not.” The women shared a laugh and kept on talking.
I bit back a groan and buried my face in my phone screen to avoid any unwanted conversations, which seemed to be all conversation at the moment. Eventually the soccer moms left with their lattes and muffins, and it was my turn at the front of the line.
“Morning, Mara.”
“Rutherford,” she growled at me. “What’ll it be?”
I didn’t bother to hide my groan this time because Mara could take it and give it back ten-fold. “Not you too. What in the hell did I do?”
Mara folded here arms and glared up at me. “Nothing. You did absolutely nothing to help those girls, forcing them to split their already limited time between school, practice and now fundraising. Otherwise, you did nothing at all.”
“It’s not like I’m withholding funds out of spite, I can’t do anything.”
“It’s a good thing the rest of the town is willing to help. Now, what do you want?” I rattled off my order with an annoyed huff.
“If there was money someplace else, I would.”
“Sure, you would,” she shot back over the sound of the coffee grinder. “Did you even ask, or try to help?” When I tried to answer, she pushed the grinder button again to drown me out.
I wanted to scream and shout at the top of my lungs, but it was pointless, because Mara was right, I hadn’t tried to help Joss or the soccer team in any way. That only pissed me off more, and this time it was aimed mostly at myself.
And a little at Joss.
When I arrived at the high school, I made a beeline for the teacher’s lounge and found Joss there, hunched over a tablet with her headphones in place.
