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Merkle is Donna Merkle—the megafeminist art teacher at Lakeside.
I flip him off.
We’re sitting down at my dock later that day, fishing and drinking a few beers while I tell him about seeing Callie again, the story with her parents, and how she's going to be subbing at the school this year.
Dean shakes his head. “Just be careful with that, D.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I was here, dude. I remember how you were when you came back from California after you guys broke up. It was rough. And that’s being really fucking generous.”
I reach down to where Snoopy is lying on the dock and scratch his belly. He rolls over to give me full access, the shameless bastard.
“That was years ago; we were kids. We’re adults now. We can be friends.”
He shakes his head again. “See, it doesn't work like that, man. Like, take me and Lizzy Appleguard. We were neighbors, friends—borrowing cups of sugar, I helped her hang her TV, shit like that. We screwed for a few weeks and it was good while it lasted. And then, we went back to being friends. I was an usher in her wedding. You and Tara, same thing—you knew each other in high school, passed each other in the halls, you bumped uglies for a few months, now you’re friends again, passing each other in the grocery store, “Hey, how you doing? What's up?”
Dean reels in his line, giving his fishing pole a little tug. “But you and Callie . . . I remember how you two were back in the day. It was intense. A ton of heat, and there was love . . . but I don't remember a single day when you two were anything close to friends.”
Chapter Six
Callie
Days go by, and I’m not able to text Garrett to catch up. Because time really flies when you have ten thousand things to do: paperwork, fingerprints, background check—all so I can get emergency certification to teach in New Jersey. There are phone calls to make—to the HR department to set up my emergency family leave, and to Cheryl and Bruce who prove their BFF worthiness by packing up my whole wardrobe and other essentials and shipping it all to me.
My parents coming home from the hospital is a fiasco in and of itself. Between picking up the medical equipment—matching wheelchairs and crutches—and the stress of ordering and fitting a double-wide hospital bed in the middle of the living room—Colleen and I drink through half of her “supplies” in the first week.
Then, before I know it—before I’m anywhere close to prepared or organized—it’s the day before the first day of school, and I have to report to the high school at 8 a.m. sharp for a staff in-service meeting.
I step through the side door of the auditorium a few minutes early. The rows of dark seats, the thin black carpeting beneath my feet, the dim lighting, and quiet, empty stage hidden behind the draping of the red velvet curtain . . . it all takes me back to twenty years ago.
Like it was just waiting here for me, frozen in time.
I made a lot of memories in this room—on that stage and in the secret lofts and caverns behind it—and there’s not a bad one in the bunch.
The heavy metal door shuts against my back with a resounding clang, turning every head in every seat my way. Of course.
Most of the faces are new, but some I recognize—Kelly Simmons, who was the head cheerleader and top mean girl of our graduating class. Her eyes drag up and down over my body before she gives me a tight, unfriendly smile—then whispers to the two equally blond, long-acrylic-painted-fingernailed women on either side of her. Alison Bellinger adjusts her yellow-framed glasses and gives me a vigorous open-palmed wave. She was the student council president in the class above me and judging from her unruly, brown curly hair, effusive expression, and brightly colored Lakeside sweatshirt, she’s just as boisterous as she was then. And look at that—Mr. Roidchester, my old bio teacher, is still alive. We figured he was like a hundred years old back then, but his crotchety, gray, wrinkled self is still kicking.
Obviously voodoo.
Towards the back, I spot Garrett’s dark hair and handsome face. He lifts his chin in greeting, then tilts his head towards the empty seat next to him. I smile, relieved, and head straight for him, like he’s my own hot, personal dingy in a sea of choppy water.
Something I can hold on to.
Before I reach him, Dean Walker stands up from the seat behind Garrett and meets me in the aisle. In relationships, friend groups usually mix, meld together. When we were young, Garrett knew a lot more people than I did—his brothers’ friends, the football players and their girlfriends, were a crew, a pack. Over the years we dated, my old friends became acquaintances, people I’d talk to in school and celebrate with at the cast parties after the fall drama and spring musical but didn’t hang out with otherwise. I was pulled into Garrett’s group—and his friends became mine.
