Getting Schooled

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.