Down and Out in Bugtussle (6 page)

I pick up my folders and get up to follow Stacey Dewberry out the door.

“Ms. Jones,” Chloe says as I’m about to step out the door.

I turn around. “Yes, Mrs. Stacks?”

“What period are you off again?”

“Second,” I say. “You need me to do something?” I ask, hoping she might send me to D Hall so I can spy on Cameron Becker.

“Could you come to my office, please?” She smiles and winks.

Dammit! I think, remembering the conversation with Lilly a minute too late. Stepped right into that one! “Sure,” I say, turning to go. “See you then.”
Wonderful. Just wonderful.

First period, Brittany Franks acts like a fool for the entire first fifteen minutes of class. About the tenth time she starts talking out loud to her friend three rows over, I slide a detention sheet out of my sub folder and, while she continues to run her mouth, I scribble her name at the top. Without a word, I walk over and put her pink copy of the slip on her desk.

“I can’t have detention,” she says in a panic. “I have cheerleading practice and we’re getting ready for tryouts!”

“Take it up with Mr. Byer,” I say. “I can buzz his office and tell him you’re on the way.”

She takes a deep breath and looks at me like she wants to rip my face off. “Not necessary,” she hisses, then slams her books around until, low and behold, she’s working on today’s assignment.

When the bell rings, I somehow refrain from screaming,
Oh thank you, Jesus!
at the top of my voice. I turn out the lights, lock the door, and then make my way through the students, none of whom seem to be in any hurry to get to their next class. Since I’m not exactly in a rush, either, I move along at their pace without saying a word.

By the time I get to Chloe’s office, I have a laundry list of excuses and/or plans for the entire weekend. While I’m waiting for her to get off the phone, I text Lilly and tell her to pretend to go to the restroom and come up to Chloe’s office and help me get out of this. She shows up a few minutes later, but we are unsuccessful in our attempts to dissuade Chloe from the topic. Not that Lilly tried that hard.

“Okay, well, if I’m going on another blind date for you, then you have to do something for me.”

“The date is not for me, Ace. It’s for you,” Chloe says.

“No, sister, it’s for you. Trust me.”

“What then?”

“You have to make sure I get my job back.”

“Ace, I don’t have time to discuss this right now.” She looks at Lilly. “Is this your planning period?”

“Uh, no,” Lilly says. “And I was just about to head back to class.”

Chloe picks up a stack of papers. “Okay, I’ll see y’all later. I’ve got to get busy helping Mr. Byer finish evaluations so we can get his recommendations to the county office by the deadline this Friday.”

“That’s it!” I say. “Have y’all evaluated Becker yet?”

“You know I can’t discuss that,” Chloe says.

“You haven’t, have you?” Lilly asks. “Because yesterday, y’all stopped with Mrs. Callon and Mr. Wendell, right?”

“How do you know that?” Chloe snaps.

“Teachers’ lounge. Duh.”

“Please don’t use that word.”

“Sorry.”

“Chloe, you could talk to Mr. Byer and very nicely suggest that the current art teacher not be recommended for renewal,” I say, glancing at Lilly who jumps onboard.

“That would be too easy,” Lilly says. “Mr. Byer will do anything you suggest and he kind of owes you one because you’ve been saving his ass this whole entire year.”

“Mr. Byer doesn’t owe me anything.”

“Chloe, please,” I say. “I’m dying here. If I don’t get my job back, I’m gonna be screwed.”

“But, Ace,” Chloe protests, “that would be nothing short of a blatant show of favoritism, and you despise small-town political shams, remember?”

“You know, I really don’t so much anymore,” I say.

“Ace Jones!”

“C’mon, Chloe,” Lilly says quietly. “None of the students like Ms. Becker, and even the other teachers say she’s terrible. Sometimes I hear her yelling all the way down in my room. You would be doing the school a huge favor, and all you have to do is make a subtle suggestion. Then, bingo! Ace gets her job back.” Lilly winks at me. “You know she’s the better teacher.”

“Be that as it may,” Chloe says, “maybe Ace shouldn’t have quit her job to begin with if it was so important to her.”

“What?” I say, shocked by her snide tone. Lilly looks at me, eyes wide.

Chloe shoves several files in her satchel and doesn’t look up. “Ace, I fixed you up with a very nice guy this past weekend and you weren’t interested. Nor do you seem very interested in meeting the perfectly nice guy I just mentioned. I told you about the job openings in psychology and you weren’t interested. Now you want me to blackball a first-year teacher and I’m not interested.” She looks at Lilly and then at me. “Good day, ladies,” she says smartly, then walks out the door.

I look at Lilly, who appears to be as shocked as I am by Chloe’s outburst.

“What the hell was that?” I ask.

“Who the hell was that?” Lilly says. “Maybe the stress of that massive renovation project is starting to get to her.”

“She hired a decorator and a construction crew!” I say.

“Well, she still has to make a lot of decisions and she said last week that her cabinets had to be refinished because the glaze was all wrong. Maybe that’s why she’s in such a bad mood.”

“Maybe so,” I say. “And J.J.’s brother moving back has really gotten on her nerves.”

“Tate?”

“Yes. Tate, with a stuffed fox and a collection of mounted fish and deer.”

Lilly giggles at that. “I haven’t seen him in years. How is he?”

“She said he was awful,” I say, laughing. “He and his stuffed fox are staying with J.J. right now and apparently the fox is on display in J.J.’s living room.”

“Wow,” Lilly says. “I hate to say it, but that’s kind of funny.”

“She doesn’t think so at all,” I say, getting up. “So I guess I’m going out with Dweeb Numero Dos this weekend.”

“I don’t think that’s such a bad idea,” Lilly says. “I mean, it’s a free meal and—”

“Don’t say it, Lilly.”

“What?” she says with a sly smile. “Don’t say he might be your future husband?” She giggles and I give her the evil eye. “Just go out with him,” she says. “Then call and tell Chloe how great he was and how much you appreciate her setting you up.”

“Right,” I say, getting up. “Because that’ll surely put an end to this blind date madness. Thank you.”

She glances at her watch. “Aw, man. I’ve got to get back to class!”

“Talk to you later,” I tell her.

“Hope your day is better today.”

“Thank you.”

*   *   *

During afternoon break, I’m sitting in the teachers’ lounge listening to Stacey Dewberry mourn the passing of Axl Rose’s singing voice, when the door flies open and a gorgeous chick dressed to the nines bursts into the room. Hot on her four-inch-high heels is a very dapper Freddie Dublin.

“Oh my stars,” Stacey whispers. “It’s your nemesis from D Hall.”

“What?” I whisper to Stacey. Then it hits me. “Is that—” I behold the face of my replacement.

“Cameron Becker,” she replies.

“What is her problem?” Cameron Becker asks as she jiggles ass and titties across the room to the fridge without bothering to acknowledge Stacey or me. “Who the hell does she think she is?”

“Cameron, you should hire a lawyer and demand that evaluation be dismissed. You could lose your job over this.”

“How dare she?” Cameron Becker fumes as she jerks the refrigerator door open. “Where are your Vitaminwaters, Freddie?”

“Uh, that would be the only Vitaminwater in there, sweetie,” he says. “And you can’t just let this go. You need to go up there and talk to her face-to-face and let her know what’s up.”

“I just did, Freddie, and she made a fool of me in front of Mr. Byer and Mrs. Marshall!” Cameron Becker takes a swig of purple Vitaminwater. “She’s the one who should be fired. She thinks she’s such hot shit sitting up there in her counselor’s office with all of her pretty plaques on the wall. Well, I’ve got news for her.”

“Hold on a minute!” I say, standing up.

“Ace, uh, Ms. Jones, I d-don’t think you should—,” Stacey Dewberry stammers.

“If you’re talking about Chloe Stacks, you better stop right there.” I look at Cameron and then at Freddie.

“Excuse me, Ms. Substitute Teacher,” Freddie snaps. “This is an A and B conversation, and you need to C your way out of it.”

“Are you serious?” I ask Freddie. “Did you really just say that?”

“Why, yes, I did,” he says, giving me a wry look. “And I may have even meant it, too.”

“Who are you?” Cameron Becker asks, scowling.

“This is Ms. Jones, former art teacher turned permanent substitute,” Freddie says with a smirk.

She narrows her eyes and looks at me. “Oh, so you’re the one that I was hired to replace?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Yes,” Freddie Dublin says. “And she’s Mrs. Stacks’s BFF.” He looks at Cameron. “I told you to get a lawyer.”

She stares me down for a minute. “So you’re the reason she gave me a bad evaluation?”

“Or maybe it was because of your not-so-great teaching abilities,” Stacey says.

“Or maybe it was because of your not-so-great teaching abilities,” Freddie says, mocking her. “What do you know about any of this, Dewberry?”

“I know Mrs. Stacks is a fair and honest person and I know that Ms. Jones asked her to give you a bad evaluation this morning and Mrs. Stacks flat-out refused.”

Now I’m the one scowling—at Stacey. “What?” I practically shout at her. “What are you talking about?”

“I was standing outside her office this morning while you were talking to her,” she says to me. “Second period turned out to be Mr. Harrison’s planning period, so I was going to ask her if there was anything else she needed me to do during that time because I heard her ask you to come up there, so I was going to see if maybe she needed me, too.” She shrugs and looks back at Cameron Becker. “Ace wants her job back. Who wouldn’t? She was just looking out for herself, and I heard Mrs. Stacks swear on a stack of Bibles she would give you an evenhanded evaluation.” She looks over at Freddie. “So there. That’s what I know about this.”

“She didn’t say she would swear on a stack of Bibles,” I say, then stop short. “And I didn’t ask her to do that.”

“Yes, you did,” Stacey says. “I was standing right outside the door and heard—”

“Not helping!” I yell at Stacey.

“Well, she had no right to jump all over me like she did when I went to speak to her about it,” Cameron says, eyeballing me.

“She jumped all over you?” I ask, thinking Chloe must be having the worst day ever.

“Uh, yes.”

“That is so not like her,” I say. “If it makes you feel any better, she jumped all over me this morning, too.”

“It doesn’t.” She smirks, then looks at Freddie. “Something smells here, don’t you think?” Freddie nods in agreement.

“Don’t blame me. I sprayed the restroom down double-time,” Stacey says. Despite my best effort to keep a straight face, I laugh a little at that.

Cameron Becker stares at Stacey with disgust and says, “I think you’re right, Freddie. I do need a lawyer.”

“Well, a girl like you shouldn’t have much trouble finding a lawyer who accepts sexual favors as payment,” Stacey says, and we all turn to look at her.

“What?” Cameron Becker snaps as Freddie Dublin’s eyes bug out of his head.

“What do you mean what?” Stacey replies, mirroring Cameron’s glare of annoyance. “This is your first year teaching and we all know what you make and we all know it’s not enough to afford a bad lawyer, let alone a good one, and personally, I don’t think you have a leg to stand on, which means you’re gonna need a really good one, so I’m just saying you’re attractive and pretty and everyone says you like pecker, so I just thought I’d throw that out there.” She shrugs and picks up her Dr Pepper. “You could say thanks.”

The bell rings, so we all have to disperse, but not before I text Lilly and give her a quick summary of what just happened along with the quote, “Cameron Becker loves Pecker.”

She sends back, “LOL” followed immediately by “WTEH = W w/C?” I interpret that to mean “What the effin’ hell is wrong with Chloe?” Or something to that effect.

T
he week finally drags to a close and I go home Friday and fall out on the couch. Buster Loo wants to go for a walk, but I tell him that I can’t because I’m dying. He jumps up onto my chest and starts sniffing my face, no doubt checking my story.

I get a text from a mystery number that turns out to be my blind date for the evening and even though I promised Chloe I would go, I just can’t. I’m sure she’ll run me over with her newfound crazy train when she finds out, but I’ll deal with that on Monday. I’m staying home tonight. I very cordially postpone what would certainly be another terribly awkward evening, then dial the delivery number for Pier Six Pizza.

Saturday, my effort to sleep late is thwarted by Buster Loo, who wakes me up by using his front paws to mine for gold in my hair. I roll out of bed, have a cup of coffee, then take him out for what turns out to be a very pleasant stroll. I take a deep breath, happy
the air no longer freezes my lungs. Upon returning to our house, Buster Loo takes off to his secret hiding place behind the love seat. I have another cup of coffee and a few Oreos and then head over to Ethan Allen’s bar where I find my pal Jalena Flores looking through a fabric catalog.