Carolyn Jenkins strives for two things—to be the greatest teacher ever and to find true love. She’s as skilled at both as an infant trying to eat with a fork. Carolyn’s suburban upbringing and genuine compassion for people who don’t fit effortlessly into society are no match for weapon-wielding, struggling students, drug-using colleagues, and a wicked principal.

Meanwhile, her budding relationship with a mystery man is thwarted by his gaggle of eccentric sisters. Carolyn depends on her friends to get her through the hard times, but with poverty-stricken children at her feet and a wealthy man at her side, she must define who she is.

The reality of life after college can be daunting — the road to full-fledged adulthood long and unscripted. Can Carolyn craft the life she’s always wanted?

5-star praise from Amazon readers:

A+ for Love and Other Subjects!
“…The pages flew through my hands; it’s riveting from the start….”

Shoop’s best book yet
“I loved this book. Simply loved it…I found myself laughing out loud in some parts and tearing up in others…am really glad that I had a rainy Saturday to enjoy reading it.”

an excerpt from

Love and Other Subjects

by Kathleen Shoop

1993

Chapter 1

I stood at my blackboard, detailing the steps for adding fractions. It wasn’t exciting stuff. It was stab-yourself-in-the-eye boring, as a matter of fact, but it was part of the job—part of my brilliant plan to change the world. And I had constructed a downright solid lesson plan.

Said lesson was met with exquisite silence. I looked around. Thirty-six fifth and sixth graders. All seated, almost all of them paying attention. So what if six students had their heads on their desks.

I told myself my dazzling teaching skills must have finally had an impact on their behavior. The bile creeping up my esophagus said I was wrong. The truth was they had probably stayed up too late and now were sleeping with their eyes open. I ignored the heartburn. I willed myself to revel in the tiniest success.

“Tanesha, what’s the next step?” I asked brightly.

Tanesha sucked her teeth and threw herself back in her seat.

I opened my mouth to reprimand her but the sudden sound of chairs screeching across hardwood filled the room. The resulting flurry of movement shocked me. Some students bolted, scattering to the corners of the room. Others froze in place. My attention shot back to the middle of the classroom where two boys were preparing to dismantle one another.

Short, fire-pluggish LeAndre and monstrous Cedrick sandwiched their chests together, rage bubbling just below their skin. Different denominators, I almost told the class. Right there, everyday math in action.

“Wait a minute, guys.” I held up my hands as though I had a hope of stopping them with the gesture. These daily wrestling matches had definitely lost their cute factor. “How about we sit down and talk this—”

LeAndre growled, then pulled a gun-like object from his waistband and pressed it into Cedrick’s belly. I narrowed my eyes at the black object. It couldn’t be a gun. The sound of thirty-four kids hitting the floor in unison told me it was. No more shouting, crying, swearing—not even a whimper.

“It’s real.” Marvin, curled at my feet, whispered up at me.

I nodded. It couldn’t be real. My heart seized, then sent blood charging through my veins so hard my vision blurred.

“Okay, LeAndre. Let’s think this through,” I said.

“He. Lookin’. At. Me.” Spittle hitched a ride on each syllable LeAndre spoke.

“I’m walking over to you,” I said. “And you’re going to hand me the gun, LeAndre. Okay?” I can do this. “Please. Let’s do this.” I can do this. I can do this. There were no snarky words to go with this situation. There was no humor in it.

Cedrick stared at the ceiling, not showing he understood there was a gun pressed into him. I stepped closer. Sweat beaded on LeAndre’s face only to be obliterated by tears careening down his cheeks. He choked on sobs as though he wasn’t the one with the gun, as though he wasn’t aware he could stop this whole mess. The scent of unwashed hair and stale perspiration struck me. The boys’ chests heaved in unison.

I focused on LeAndre’s eyes. If he just looked back at me, he’d trust I could help him.

The whine of our classroom door and the appearance of Principal Klein interrupted my careful approach.

“Ms. Jenkins!”

He startled everyone, including LeAndre and his little trigger finger.

**

In the milliseconds between Klein’s big voice bulleting off the rafters and the gun firing, I managed to throw myself in front of a few stray kids at my feet. I can’t take total credit for my actions because I don’t even remember moving. Suddenly, I was there on the floor, thanking God that Jesus or some such deity had been bored enough to notice what was going on in my little old Lincoln Elementary classroom. LeAndre fell into Cedrick’s arms, wailing about the gun being loaded with BBs—that it wasn’t real.

My foot hurt, but I ignored it and assessed the kids while Klein focused on LeAndre. Could everyone really be all right? I checked Cedrick, who appeared unfazed. He was injury-free, simply standing there, hovering, as though guarding everyone around him.

I moved to other students—no visible harm. I hauled several up by their armpits, reassuring them with pretend authority. A firearm-wielding child usurps all of a teacher’s mojo in a short, split second.

I made up comforting stuff—words of phony hopefulness that might convince them that nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred. And with each lie came the odd feeling that I was actually telling the truth. A little gun in a classroom was nothing.

Klein stuffed the piece into his pants and carried the withering LeAndre out of the room in his arms as a man would carry a woman over the marital threshold. His voice was devoid of its usual venomous tone and soothed LeAndre’s gulping sobs. Perhaps he’d been shot with a dose of compassion during the melee.

Stepping back inside the room, still holding LeAndre, Klein shoved his thumb into the air, giving us the old Lincoln thumbs-up. No one returned the gesture, but I figured that was all right this once. The school counselor came into the room and announced she’d take everyone to the library while I met with the police. Leaving the room, I noticed Cedrick’s face appeared to have been drained of blood and finally revealed his true feelings about what had happened. The rest of the students—their faces expressing the same shock I felt inside—wrapped themselves in their own arms, shook their heads and trailed the counselor out of the room.

It was like watching a scene through a window that wasn’t mine, that I couldn’t remember stepping up to. I forced calm into my voice and actions as I funneled the kids still inside the room to the door and told myself I could let the impact of what just happened hit me later. To get through the day, to be the type of teacher who could handle a weapon in the classroom, I had to leave the assimilation of the events for later.

These poor freaking kids. Where the hell did they come from and how did they end up with this life? I thought I’d known the details of their lives. Apparently not.

“Ms. Jenkins,” Terri said. She stopped and pointed at my foot. “Your boot.”

I gasped at the sight of the leather. It gaped like a jagged mouth, tinged with blood. I wiggled my stinging toe making more blood seep through my trouser sock. Nausea slammed me. LeAndre’s shooting arm had obviously moved in my direction when he’d been startled by Klein. Had that really been just a BB-gun?

I straightened against my queasiness. “Terri, go on. I’ll meet you in the library in a minute.”

She left the room. I collapsed into my desk chair and removed my boot and the torn, bloody sock. “Jeez. That hurts like a mother,” I said. I turned the boot over and a teeny ball fell out of it and skittered across the floor. I swiveled my chair and took my Pittsburgh Steelers Terrible Towel down from the wall. I dabbed my toe with it, staining the towel red.

I thought of the reason I’d become a teacher. That I’d searched for a way to make a difference in the world and thought, well, damn, yes, a teacher. I could save the urban youth of America. I just needed a little help and some time. I was only two months in to my teaching career, and I already knew chances were I wouldn’t be saving anybody.

The footfalls grew louder as they neared my room. I knew it was her. I turned my attention to the doorway. Our secretary, Bobby Jo, wheezed as she leaned against the doorjamb. With new energy, she pushed forward and barreled toward me. I set the Terrible Towel on the desk and stood to move out of her path, but she caught my wrist and swallowed me into the folds of her body with what she no doubt imagined was a helpful hug. She gripped the back of my head and plunged my face into her armpit. The spicy fusion of ineffective deodorant and body odor made me hold my breath.

Aside from being a secretary, Bobby Jo was an emotional extortionist. She pushed out of the hug, but, still gripping my shoulders, stared at me. Her labored breath scratched up through her respiratory system. I squeezed my eyes closed in anticipation of her “I’m Klein’s right-hand woman” crap. Not today, Bobby Jo. Not now.

She glanced around the room, and then dug her fingers nearly to my bones. “The boss is so upset.”

I gave her the single-nod/poker face combo, as disgust welled inside me. He’s upset? I weighed my inclination to tell her to leave me the hell alone with the ensuing sabotage that would follow if I didn’t kiss her ass hard and immediately. I wiggled out of her grip and leaned against my desk.

“The boss,” Bobby Jo said. “He’ll be in as soon as he’s off the phone with the superintendents from areas four, five, and six. They’re using your sit-u-a-tion as a teaching case.” Bobby Jo’s plump fingers with their fancy, long nails danced stiffly in front of her as if she could only form words if her hands were involved.

Man, this school year was not going as planned. I might have been delusional to think I’d alter the course of public education in just two months, but I hadn’t expected to be held up as a “what not to do in the classroom” example for one of the largest counties in the United States. Fame was one thing, scandal was another.

I looked back at my shoe, hoping Bobby Jo wouldn’t mistake my attempt to ignore her for the need for another hug. I was about to ask if I could see our nurse, Toots, about my wounded foot.

“It was only a BB-gun. You’ll be fine,” Bobby Jo said. “I don’t know why everyone’s so worked up. I heard the whole thing.” She ran one hand through the other, massaging her fingers.

“What do you mean, you heard?”

Bobby Jo looked around the room again. “Okay, okay, you got me. I’ll just spill.” Her eyes practically vibrated in their sockets. “I heard the entire thing because I was listening on the intercom.”

“What?” You can do that?

“The boss. He tells me to. Says your classroom techniques warrant that I get a handle on what’s happening.”

Chills paraded through my body as though they had feet and marching orders. No wonder he knew every move I made, was able to appear in my room at the worst time of the day—every day.

I readjusted my poker face.

The shuffle-clack-shuffle-clack of Klein’s clown feet stopped me from telling Bobby Jo what she could do with her intercom. She shambled back toward the door. “I’ll finish the report, Boss.” They gave each other the Lincoln thumbs-up—Klein’s way of encouraging school spirit while sucking it out of me.

I hobbled around my desk and picked up a paper that had flown off it. “I’m okay. Boy, that was something. I knew LeAndre had big problems.”

“Jenkins,” Klein said, “because of this incident, I have four meetings to attend before the day’s over, so we’ll have to meet about this on Monday.”

Guess that wasn’t newfound compassion I’d witnessed him offering LeAndre.

He crossed his arms across his chest and spread his legs, his pelvis jutting forward as though he needed the wide base to hold his slim upper body erect. “You’ll have to meet with some parents. Bobby Jo will bring the police in as soon as they get finished with her interview.”

He blew out a stout puff of air, the sound you heard when a bike pump was removed from the tire mid-pump. “I need you to think long and hard about how this transpired—about how I’ve gone twenty years with nary a gun incident and as soon as you show up, the kids start packing heat.”

Please, I’d been at Lincoln two months sans gun incident. “You can’t be serious. I’m not their mother. I only have the kids seven hours day. I didn’t—”

Klein held up his hand to shut me up. “I don’t have the whole story. LeAndre actually had two guns. The BB and another one that’s convertible from toy to real. That one was still in his pants. Doesn’t matter. What I need is for you to get your kids under control because there’s a reason this happened in your room and not in one of the other classrooms.”

“The reason is,” I said, “I’m the one with a child who is just this side of certifiable. I love LeAndre, I feel bad for him, but he’s not normal. I can’t get his mother to come in to see me or call me back. Maybe now he’ll be expelled and get help before he kills someone.”

“I wouldn’t count on that.”

“Which part of that?”

“LeAndre won’t be expelled. There are many reasons not to take that action. What good will it do him to sit at home all day, not learning anything? We can service him here.”

“He talks to clouds at recess,” I said. “He has conversations with himself all day. And not the kind you and I have when we’re trying to remember what we need at the grocery store. I swear there is something really wrong with him.”

Klein thrust his hand into the air again. “I’ll see you first thing Monday, Carolyn Jenkins,” he said. “And, for the last time, when I give the Lincoln thumbs-up—” he shoved his thumb nearly into my chest “—I don’t care if you’re in the grip of a stroke, I expect you to return the gesture.”

Oh, yeah. I’ve got the perfect gesture for you, buddy boy.

**

Two hours into my three-hour meeting with parents, police and suited men with thick, gold-plated pens, I realized Toots, the nurse, wasn’t going to swoop in and provide me with any sort of medical care. So while enjoying a lovely interrogation as to my role in the shooting, I rehung my Terrible Towel and fashioned a bandage from Kleenex and Scotch tape.

Once everyone had left, I was ready for a drink. Okay, ten drinks in a dank bar where I was a stranger, where I wouldn’t have to rehash the shooting. There was nothing like a good mulling over of Lincoln Elementary events in the company of my roommates. But as I limped to my car, a no longer frequent, but still familiar blue mood bloomed inside me.

It stopped me right there in the parking lot. I’d forgotten how the dread felt, that it actually came with warmth that almost made me welcome it. Driving down the boulevard, I decided not to go to the Green Turtle to meet Laura, Nina and my boyfriend, Alex. I wanted to be alone at The Tuna, the bar where nobody knew my name.

**

I drove my white Corolla to The Tuna and pondered my most recent teaching experience. Two months ago I’d been busy dreaming about saving the world and such. Man, those were the days. This afternoon’s event did not resemble my educational pipedreams in the least. I couldn’t stop replaying the shooting in my head.

Okay, so LeAndre hadn’t been aiming at me. And the bullet had only grazed my toe (but ruined one of my beautiful patent leather Nine West boots) and the bullet was actually a BB, but still, I’d been shot and frankly, it offended me. I loved those kids and apparently that meant shitola to them.

The further I drove from the school, the more I realized each and every county administrator and police official who’d interviewed me had implied I was somehow responsible for being shot by a disgruntled fifth grader. That left me feeling like I’d undergone a three-hour gynecological exam. The only logical next step was to get drunk.

Once in the parking lot of The Tuna, I shuffled across the pitted asphalt, squeezing in between a splotchy Chevy Nova and a glistening, black BMW. I paused and looked back at the vehicle. Who the hell came to The Tuna in a BMW? What did it matter?

Inside, I fussed with my purse while giving my eyes a chance to adjust to the murky atmosphere. The thick beer stench—the good kind—loosened the grasp of self-pity that had taken hold of me. I wove through mismatched tables and snaked a path to the roughhewn pine bar. The thunk of billiard balls punctuated quiet rhythms wafting from the jukebox. Several men cloistered at one end of the bar sent assorted, non-verbal hellos my way.

Before I reached my stool, the bartender I’d met the week before—the one with the sausage arms, overstuffed midsection and blazing red buzz cut—cracked a Coors Light and set it at my seat. I chugged the ice-glazed beer and swallowed the unladylike burp bubbling in my belly.

I blew out some air and thought about the day. Crap Quotient: 10/10. At least that bad. I’d coined the phrase Crap Quotient (C.Q.) after spending an entire day in grad school with a head cold, zero ability to smell and a hunk of dog crap on the bottom of my shoe. I’d traipsed around campus without any sweet soul letting me know I’d become the embodiment of the word stink.

I glanced at the hefty barkeep. He cracked a second beer before I had to ask. There was something precious about not knowing the person’s name that knew the beer you wanted at exactly the moment you needed it. I raised the bottle to salute him. He smiled while drying glasses and silverware. I wondered if that was part of the attraction promiscuous girls felt toward anonymous lovers. It was a near-miracle that a relative stranger could serve you in some perfect way even for a short time.

I plucked at the sweaty label on the bottle with my nail, thinking about Nina and Laura, my sisters in education. The greatest roommates a girl could have, except they were forever including my boyfriend, Alex, in everything we did. I’d have to get rid of Alex if I were to reap the full benefits of having such terrific friends. Alex and I were simply not a fit and me wishing exceptionally hard that I’d fall back in love with him wasn’t going to make it happen.

Because I’d missed lunch, the beer quickly did its job at anesthetizing me and eliminating the sensation that my skin had been removed and reattached with dental floss. A dark haired man slid onto the stool next to me. Great. Some slack-ass cozying up after the kind of day I had? I watched him in the blotchy, antique mirror across from us. He ordered a Corona then minded his own beeswax, thus, instantly becoming interesting. He was dressed in jeans and a blue, wide-ribbed turtleneck sweater, and his wavy hair whispered around his ears and neck. This was a guy with purpose, I could tell. I could feel it.

I admired someone who could communicate with nothing more than his appearance and manner—someone who had his shit together. That was exactly why we could never be a pair. I knew nothing about who I was. My shit was all over the place. Still, I was drawn to him as though we’d been destined to meet. I studied him. Maybe thirty-five years old. The cutest thirty-five-year-old ever.

This guy got points for reminding me of my eleventh grade creative writing teacher, Mr. Money. We girls had sat in class and fantasized that while reading our words, Mr. Money was falling in love with each of us.

The Mr. Money parked beside me in The Tuna made the air crackle and me want to grind my pelvis into his.

“All the parts there?” He swigged his beer.

“Hmm?” I swiveled to face him, studying his profile.

“I’d say take a picture, but that’d be wickedly clichéd.” He turned fully toward me. His knees touched mine, sending sizzling energy through my body. I shivered. I was in love. I clutched my chest where just hours before, searing, crisis-induced heartburn had made its mark. Now there was a good old-fashioned swell of infatuation.

“That’s a good one,” I said. We lingered, staring at each other, his direct gaze making me feel as though I’d come out of a coma to see the world in a new way. I turned back to the mirror and stared at him in the reflection again. He slumped a bit, and looked into his beer in that brooding way that made men attractive and women reek of need.

I searched for something interesting to say to a guy like this. I had nothing. If I couldn’t converse with a perfectly good stranger in a perfectly dingy bar, would I ever control my life? I didn’t have to marry the guy. Just have a freaking conversation about nothing. Not school, not my students, not my principal. Just brainless talk. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel like tossing myself off the Key Bridge.

I swiveled toward him again. “Okay. I’ve had a hairy day and now I’m here and you’re here, too. Wearing those fantastic, understated cowboy boots. You don’t look like a cowboy. And your sweater and jeans—all blend to create a look of nonchalance.” I circled my finger through the air. “A man unconcerned, I might say.”

His profile, as he smiled, absorbed me. I could feel him watching me in the mirror.

“Hmm.” Mr. Money emptied his Corona.

“That’s all you have to say?” I said.

“That’s it.” He swung the bottle between thumb and forefinger in a silent signal to the bartender, who brought him another one.

“Humph.” I swiveled back toward the mirror and peeled the entire Coors Light label from the bottle in one piece. I must be losing my looks—the most important component of my Hot Factor. A person’s H-Factor (which was sometimes influenced by the level of her Crap Quotient, though not always) rated her appearance, potential for success, attitude toward life and sense of humor in one easy-to-digest number. One’s H-Factor was simply a person’s market potential.

I was never the girl who drew the most attention in the room with an effervescent personality or magnificent golden locks, but I was pretty. When attempting to discern her own H-Factor, a girl had to be brutal about her shortcomings, but glory in her strengths. And like my roommate, Laura, who had an irrefutable IQ of 140, I had indisputable good-lookingness.

“Your lips. They’re nice,” Money said. We made eye contact in the mirror. “Boldly red,” he said, “but not slathered with bullshit lip gloss. Perfect.” He sipped his beer.

“That’s better,” I said. “Mind if I call you Money?”

“What?” He gave me the side-eye.

“Nothing. An inside joke. So you’re okay with it, right?”

“Inside with whom?”

“With me,” I said.

“Very odd.”

His lips flicked into a smile that flipped my stomach.

“What do you do?” He swigged his beer.

“FBI.” I shrugged.

He chuckled. The corners of his friendly eyes, with their tiny crow’s feet, were not the mark of the twenty-three-year-old guys I usually spent time with. I wanted to kiss those paths of history, absorb some wisdom.

“I’m serious,” I said. I feigned maturity by tensing every muscle I could.

“That’s perfect,” he said. “I’ll go with it, Miss FBI. I’ll go along with your charade, but you have to do me a favor.”

“Sure. Though I really am in the FBI. Rest assured.” I held up my foot. “See that hole? I took a bullet. Today, right through the leather.”

He leaned over, glimpsing my boot, for two seconds. “That’s a hole all right. Looks like a small caliber. Very, very small.”

My face warmed. I didn’t respond. An FBI agent wouldn’t need to. Besides it was a bullet hole.

Money pulled a box of cigarettes from his pocket and emptied four joints onto the bar. “Tonight is kind of a thing for me,” he said. “Don’t make me smoke dope alone.”

I didn’t think anyone should have to do anything alone if he didn’t want to. As an only child, I knew sometimes a person just didn’t want to be alone.

Money shuffled the doobs around. I never smoked pot. It just wasn’t me. At one point I’d gone through this whole, “I’m going to marry a politician” phase that precluded doing anything that could remotely harm my unknown, future hubby’s rep. A real barrel of laughs.

Now, what if I got caught? A teacher smoking dope in a public place. What did I really have to lose? I’d been shot, for Christ’s sake. Screw it. Live like I’m serious about it.

“I’m off duty,” I said. “Really, what’s the diff between a few beers and a few joints? Other than a pesky law or two. For your ‘thing,’ whatever that is. I’ll do—”

He put the joint to my lips and lit the match, shutting me up.

Just a half hour later, an easy, goofy smile covered my face. I could feel its clumsiness and see its warmth in that mirror. Sort of.

We talked, we didn’t talk. The silence was spectacularly warm. I still didn’t even know his real name, but we connected in a way that almost made me cry. Sappy, cheesy, whatever people might say. It’s exactly what happened and I’d swear on Bibles and whatever else carried that type of weight that sitting in that bar, I experienced a genuine, once-in-a-lifetime soul slip. Sitting there with him, newly acquainted, feeling like reunited friends.

And that meant it was the perfect time to leave. Mid soul slip, before things slid back to normal. Perhaps if I left at that point, a bit of him would go with me. To keep for later when real life bore down.

I called a cab. There were just so many laws I was willing to break at one time. Going home made me think of Alex. I’d forgotten about him. Proving it was time to break up. Finally, I was sure.

“Cab’s here, Sweetie,” the bartender said.

“Thanks.” What to do about Money? I’d never see him again if I didn’t act. But it wasn’t like perfect would last past these few minutes, anyway.

“Give me your number, Money.” I controlled my voice as it wavered.

He stood and shoved his hands in his pockets. His brown eyes shone in the darkness of the bar. He stared at me as though giving up his number was akin to sharing state secrets.

“I don’t know what this thing of yours was,” I said. “But you can’t take my pot-smoking virginity and not give me your number or tell the story behind the whole, glum guy with the cool boots, alone in a dive bar on Friday night. It’s simply not done.”

“Give me your number,” he said.

“No.”

He looked at his feet.

What could he be thinking? He was no spring chicken. Married? No ring.

He reached across the bar to grab a cardboard coaster, wrote on it, took my hand and wrapped my fingers around it. His gaze penetrated my insides, making me shudder as he nested my hand in his. I didn’t want to look away, but I had to see his hands around mine, to memorize the shape and what they said about him.

“There’s something sad about you,” Money said. “In a nice way.” He took my other hand and I swear he started to put it to his lips before he dropped both of them and sat back down on his stool. “See ya. Careful on that case of yours. I’d hate to hear you’d been shot again.”

“No need to worry, Money. Not to worry at all.”

And I sauntered toward the cabbie, hoping I could do just that.

Chapter 2

On the drive home from The Tuna, the cabbie rambled about all the benefits of living in various parts of Maryland, the Washington Redskins and the traffic over the Bay Bridge. Only blocks from the house I rented with my roommates and boyfriend, a car swerved in our lane. We nearly entered some guy’s home through his front window before whipping back onto the road and picking off the mailbox. I ricocheted from one side of the cab to the other.

Out of the cab, standing safely in front of my house, I slung my purse over my shoulder and patted the outside pocket where I’d hidden the coaster on which Money had written his number. I recalled the soul slip, the wholeness I’d felt.

I dug my fingers inside the pocket to nestle the coaster down deep where Alex would never see it and I could always find it. I closed my eyes against the crisp night wind that lifted my hair and cooled my hot neck. Where was it? I dug deeper into the pocket. Maybe I’d put it in the main compartment. Under the street lamp, I fell to the sidewalk, emptied my purse and sifted through lip liner, mascara, pencils, a notebook, and receipts. The coaster was gone. Gone. Gone.

Kneeling there, I ran my hands through my hair, too tired to feel anything other than spiky pebbles under my knees and a familiar “it figures” sensation. I always lost stuff. Disorganization and I were partners in life, but losing a piece of cardboard the size of a steno pad inside of five minutes was bad, even for me.

Everything back in the purse, I stood, chuckling. Through the bay window in the wood-sided Victorian I shared with Nina, Laura, and sometimes Alex, I could see them laughing their asses off about something.

My teeth chattered. Nina and Laura were the siblings I’d never had. Our friendship was like an afghan, providing warmth, but enough space between the fibers for each of us to have our own personalities, to get some air.

Alex waved to them then moved out of my view. Laura and Nina repeatedly mimed something, falling together, laughing some more. The light in my bedroom flicked on. Alex stood in the window, took off his shirt and yanked another one back over his head. He moved out of sight. Got into bed, probably.

When I pictured Alex in my life, I wanted to cut around his body with an X-Acto knife, extricating him from the image cleanly, painlessly. But that kind of removal was far too neat for the likes of me. I’d spent the last year wanting to be in love with him again, trying to ignore that we were unsuited for each other in every way. Tonight at The Tuna, everything had changed. There was no going back. The whole soul slip deal pushed the breakup from someday to pending.

I stepped inside the door and choking laughter greeted me. Laura and Nina recounted some story about beer coming out of one guy’s nose and spraying over the top of some other guy’s toupee. The story wasn’t all that terrific, but their laughter infected me.

They questioned me about my whereabouts, the meandering message I’d left on the machine. I waved them off, telling them I’d fill them in on everything in the morning. They were drunk enough to take my physical wellbeing as evidence I was the same person I’d been when I left for work that morning. And so they tripped off to their beds and I to mine.

I pulled on sweats and snuck into bed, barely moving the mattress. I hung off the edge, my back to Alex, hoping he was already asleep. But it only took a minute for him to mold his body around mine. His clammy foot touched mine, making me cringe. So far, no noticeable erection, thank goodness.

It was wrong to not just break up with him. Back in my undergrad years, I thought he hadn’t loved me enough. But as soon as I got tired of his wandering eye and cooled off toward him, he finally decided he was in love. By then it was too late.

He flopped his arm across my side, pulling me further into his body. His hot, boozy breath saturated the back of my neck. I held mine, waiting for Alex’s trademark heavy rhythms that would guarantee he was asleep and I wouldn’t have to have sex with him or be forced into avoiding it.

His hand crept up my stomach toward my breast. I shrugged it off, employing my own (fake) version of sleep breathing. I wanted to leave my body and start a new life somewhere else.

He nuzzled closer, kissing my neck in a way that felt more like licking. I stiffened then phonied up a snore.

“Mmm…Carolyn. I missed you. Here, let me see you, I missed you.” He rolled me onto my back. I kept my face toward the dresser, where stacks of teaching manuals teetered on the edge. I gave a full-slumber groan.

He slurped at my cheek, my neck, my shoulder. His hand caressed my breast and then he pinched my nipple.

“Jeeze,” I elbowed him away. “That hurt, Alex. Jesus, I’m asleep.”

“You never complained before,” he said. I could feel his face hanging over me, breathing into my ear, whistling like a hurricane.

I glanced at him then looked away again. “I’m pretty sure I never thought one caress and a nipple squeeze was a good thing.”

His whiskey breath slipped into my nostrils. He rubbed up against me.

“I’m tired, Alex. I had a terrible day and I just want to sleep.”

He stilled, his face hung above me. “Fine. Just don’t expect me to up and have sex with you the next time you’re in the mood.”

I turned to him and stared at the angular bones, the strength meshed with sweetness that I knew lived beneath his skin, the combination that used to make me crumble with love and ache to have him love me back. But at that moment, examining that same face, a continent of space between us wasn’t enough. Everything about him seemed wrong.

I looked away.

Alex slammed his body back on the bed. “This isn’t like you, Carolyn. And if you push me too far I’ll be out the door. You’re not a cold person, but fuck, you’re looking like one and I… Just fuck it.”

I winced at every word, unwilling to engage further. Two minutes later, he was snoring. This left me relieved and sad, but at least I could breathe again. I’d like to say our relationship exploded into that mess, but it didn’t. It sort of collapsed, both of us letting pieces of it fall away until we suffocated under the brokenness. At least I was suffocating.

And yet I was mired in the crap of indecision. If I couldn’t love him the way I used to, why hadn’t I just moved on already?

I felt bad knowing I had to break up with Alex, but it wasn’t the first time I considered the fact he didn’t really love me either, not in that genuine soul slip kind of way. I’d never be what he wanted in a woman. He was simply afraid of change and saw me as good enough. I frustrated him as much as he bored me. He hated that I hated cooking. He wanted me in an apron, elbow deep in cooking oil. Please. I was not that kind of girl. We were not that kind of match. He’d be relieved when we broke up.

I curled into myself and pulled the pillow over my head to block out the sound of his ragged breathing. Mentally, I went back to The Tuna, watched Money’s hand slip over mine, excited by the prospect of someone new. Someone mysterious.

But the coaster. Shit. How’d I lose it? It must have flown out of my purse in the cab. If things were meant to be different, the coaster would’ve been tucked in my purse, waiting to be sprung into action instead of knocking around in the back of some taxi.

**

I woke at 7:00 a.m. as Alex’s mucousy rasps hammered through my skull. With no chance of falling back asleep, I showered and thought about the shooting. I had to call my parents and tell them what happened. They’d want to know that I was okay. And I needed my mother. Like all daughters, I needed some reassurance that she believed in me in spite of my failures. I wanted to know that she didn’t think I’d made the wrong decision in becoming a teacher. I hoped that in this one phone call she would be the mother I needed her to be.

“Oh, hey, Carolyn,” my mother said over the phone. I recognized the rushed tenor. They were probably heading to breakfast at O’Reilly’s. If you didn’t get there by eight, you had to wait an hour for a seat. That would set off a series of unlucky events that might span weeks, at least. Don’t ask.

“I know,” I said. “You’re running out the door, right?”

“Oh, Carolyn. Don’t be snippy, please?”

“I’m being morose. Did the tone not come through?”

“Carolyn.” My mother sighed.

“Mom,” I said.

We were silent for nine seconds. It was my job to let her go without making her feel guilty. “All right, Mom. Call me back later. It’s nothing. Unless Dad’s there. Is Dad right there?”
“Nope. In the car, engine running, Madame Butterfly cranked. You know him. We’ll be back in two hours. Call us then, at the normal time. Love you Caro, darling. Love you truly.”

Yeah, right. I slammed the phone harder than I should have and caused a faint echo of the bell to rise from it. Was I the only person in the world who couldn’t count on her mother? I adored my parents in a complicated, resentment-infused way. They thought I was all right. I know, I know, boo-hoo. Until Laura, Nina, and I started living together, I’d always felt as though I were a puzzle piece tucked inside the wrong box. With them I finally belonged.

I’d like to be able to say my frequent moodiness stemmed from a childhood of slumbering in cold gutters, draped with trash bags, head pillowed on used diapers. But I’d managed to nurture such moods while in the embrace of a whole, middle-class family with parents who taught music and read compulsively.

I knew I shouldn’t complain. My parents were one of eleven couples in America who had been in love the entire length and depth of their relationship. Love like that is insane and almost unattainable but there it was with my very own parents. I was sure if I had siblings, I would have appreciated their relationship more. If I’d had siblings, I wouldn’t have always felt like an outsider in my own family.

My father was more affectionate than my mom, more interested in me, and more loving, when I really got down to it. He’d always filled in the gaps for her and when she could and was in the mood, she’d be warm, too. It was as though from time to time she awoke and realized I might need her to confide in, to go to for help, to have fun with. She seemed to struggle or wasn’t interested in offering any of the stuff other mothers seemed to do naturally with their daughters. I should have been used to it and satisfied with all my father did to bridge our gap, but I still wanted my mom’s approval over his.

Teaching—making a substantial difference in the world—was supposed to be the perfect thing to impress my parents. And teaching in a school where twelve out of twenty-four teachers were replaced each year would make my victory actually seem victorious. I’d do something good for the world (something I’d wanted to do since I was seven) and end up providing my parents with a true, important story. I would be the character they’d want to read about. Except things didn’t seem headed in the direction of me becoming an Educational Power Broker anymore. And that pretty much sucked.

**

Nina, Laura and I snuck out of the house before Alex awoke. By 8:45 Saturday morning we were cocooned in a booth at the Silver Diner. We perched next to the beverage station, close enough that we could serve ourselves when running low on the thermonuclear java that would see us past hangovers and into a day of lesson planning.

The girls bombarded me with questions about the gun, my foot, Klein’s latest abuses and where the hell I’d been all night. Saying I’d spent the evening at The Tuna put an end to that line of questioning. They’d never suspect, for many reasons, that I’d met someone interesting there.

“LeAndre’s loonier than a stuck pig. But a gun?” Laura drawled, drawing the word gun into twenty-three Southern syllables.

“Two guns,” I said, “though I only saw one. A BB-gun and some other thingy the cops said was a convertible. You can change it from shooting toy blanks to real bullets. Don’t ask me how that’s possible.”

“LeAndre needs a good ass-whooping.” Nina smacked her hands together. “When he comes off suspension, I’ll accidentally pelt him with the dodge ball a few times. Just for you, my sister.”

“Sweet child of Mary,” I said. “You can’t just pelt kids with fucking balls.”

“F-word.” Nina held her hand up. I pushed it down. She used every other swear word without hesitation, like the girl who’ll have every sexual experience known to man except traditional intercourse and call herself a virgin.

“The Lord—” Nina said.

“Bag the Lord stuff. For the love of God,” I said. My hangover was gnawing away at my nice-girlness.

Nina looked at me, eyebrows raised. She dug her fingers into her short, tight curls and twirled a section of it around her forefinger. I knew she was silently saying my prayers wouldn’t have a shot in hell of being answered. Laura, a full-blooded virgin, nodded. She always agreed with anyone who suggested taking the pristine, ladylike path in life.

Laura and I went to college together and then earned our Master of Arts in Teaching degrees there, but we became especially close once we realized we’d have to move to an unfamiliar state to get teaching jobs.

In Pittsburgh there were no jobs to get. The jobs there were too comfortable for most teachers to retire and they certainly didn’t quit. But, the Maryland/D.C. border was fairly bursting with positions.

Laura and I had met Nina at our new teacher workshops. Twenty-four years old, she exemplified the modern teacher: strong, knowledgeable, and confident. Trouble with her was she didn’t really deserve all that confidence. She didn’t know a whole lot about anything other than sports.

Oh, she’d kick my ass for saying that, but still. Sometimes the truth hurts. Nina talked with administrators as easily as friends, and never seemed unnerved or flummoxed by the odd situations at our school. It was as though she’d already taught for twenty years but still actually liked it. Even with all those admirable attributes, she sometimes wore an abrasive arrogance that could put off new friends. Me? I appreciated it most of the time.

“You need to toughen up.” Nina pointed her fork at me. “You’re the boss of those kids.” She broke into a broad smile. Not one blemish or laugh line marred her beautiful, cocoa skin. She could pass for a high school kid if she needed to.

“You mean,” I said, “I should pelt my kids with dodge balls? Maybe chuck a stapler or pair of scissors at them? I can’t get away with showing them I’m the boss like some people can.”

“Like the music and physical education teachers? I overheard you say that one time.” Nina said.

My head swam with fatigue and Coors Light. And thoughts of Money. But I couldn’t share him just yet. Ever really, because there was nothing to share. Had he really been there? Nina’s accusatory gaze pushed me further into our script.

“Honestly? Yes. You, the gym teacher, can get away with a lot more than a classroom teacher. The kids love gym. Let me see you teach them reading once and we’ll see who has trouble keeping a lid on things.”

“Physical education teacher.” Nina squinted at me.

“Same thing,” I said.

“No it’s not,” Nina said. “But you have to—”

“Nina,” I hissed. “A kid BB’d up my foot and Klein yelled at me for six hours. Suffice it to say my Crap Quotient’s high and anxiety-inducing.” My hands shook as I sipped coffee, then slammed the cup back onto the saucer.

“Your H-Factor ain’t setting the world on fire either.” Nina leaned forward.

“Really? You think so?”

“Nina,” Laura said. “Be like the old lady who fell out of the wagon.” Laura’s back straightened and her accent thickened. She was not a fan of a good argument between great friends.

Nina got up to get the coffee carafe. She shook her butt as she traipsed away. She looked back over her shoulder. “You just need to get to know the kids and their culture a little bit more. Read an article or two on race.”

I nodded. If only there was time to read such things. “But we have white kids, too.” I shook a sugar packet. Laura took it from me and put it back in the jar. I shrugged. “Katya’s white. Her mother is a wreck and her dad’s in jail. I know race is important, but it’s not race that keeps my kids from reading. Clearly it’s not that. I think they would have mentioned that in our coursework, if it were the case.”

Laura rubbed my back. “Everything’s going to be fine. You’re a great teacher.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. It’s hard to be good when on top of teaching, you have to run some sort of combination psychiatric ward-slash-parole office-slash-jail and social work operation.”

“You worry too much, is all,” Laura said. “Now let’s talk about household chores…”

I shook my head. Laura needed people to tell how to do stuff like study, clean, straighten out their lives. And sometimes it suited me to be that person—especially at times like this.

For hours we sat and talked. I was grateful to no longer be talking about job woes. We bickered back and forth and finally, forever forward, Nina and I shot down her weekly chores idea. There was a lot of other nothing discussed. These moments lifted the dread brought on by all the ways I was unsure of life.

I tried to remember exactly when our friendship had locked into place like a steering wheel on a car. It didn’t matter when it had happened because the friendship had formed and in it, I felt fitted.