Page 6 of Here We Go Again

“When was the last time you took a vacation?”

She blinks in surprise at the question. “I—I went to that equitable grading practices conference in Cincinnati last fall.”

“I saidvacation, not work trip.”

She scoffs. Did he expect her to recall some excursion where she sat by a pool sipping an umbrella-garnished cocktail? Ridiculous. She doesn’t own a swimsuit, and she hates open-toed shoesand unnecessary sun exposure. Besides, she doesn’t drink, and she doesn’t do idle time, but she can’t explain any of this to a man who currently has BBQ sauce on his chin.

Miller sighs and his gaze once again wanders to the coaches. “Look, I should really get to the party and start celebrating with the staff. You know… for morale, and stuff.”

“Sure.Morale.” Rosemary demurely slides off her barstool. Or, more aptly, she slides as demurely as a five-foot-one woman in a pencil skirt and three-inch heels can manage. She is walking out of this Applebee’s with her dignity intact.

“You’re an incredible teacher, Hale,” he says, even as he’s mentally already shooting bottom-shelf tequila with his bros. “We’re going to do everything we can to hire you back in the fall. In the meantime, try to relax this summer.”

Relax?

She stomps out of Applebee’s, each step accompanied by the sharp clack of her heels on the pavement.

Relax?Principal Flip-Flops wants her to relax while her career—her life—hangs in the balance?

Like hell she will.

Her hands shake with fury as she fumbles for her car keys. She’s not going to waste time relaxing. She’ll update her résumé and apply for a teaching job at abetterschool. She’ll get a PhD in educational leadership and steal Miller’s job. She’ll publish several academic articles on pedagogy, frame them, and mail them to Miller’s house.

She’ll tear out that one wall in her condo that makes her feel uneasy, and she’ll finally replace her bedroom carpet with hardwood floors, and she’ll train for a marathon, and the absolute last thing she’ll do for the next ten weeks is sit around with herthoughts.

But right now, she’s going home so she can cry in peace. She’s going to unzip the top of her skirt, take off her heels, and let her feetsink into her plush white rug. She’ll make herself some cold brew and she’ll water her plants and click on her Roomba, and she won’t let herself think about any of this at all.

“Siri,” she says as soon as she’s in her car. “Play ‘Bitch.’?”

“Playing ‘Bitch’ by Meredith Brooks,” Siri repeats. The car fills with the opening guitar strings Rosemary memorized long ago. Listening to this song became part of her first-date routine back in New York after the third woman in a row ended a date by calling her emotionally closed-off.

“But you are a little emotionally closed off,” her mother had helpfully pointed out during a post-date phone call.

“Of course I am! But I don’t think it’s a polite thing to tell someone on a first date!”

So, before her next date, she listened to “Bitch” on repeat for thirty minutes, screaming the lyrics to herself.

Incidentally, she never developed a second-date routine.

And then she moved back to Vista Summit and stopped dating altogether.

Still, she listens to “Bitch” whenever she feels the intense need to rage, because raging is so much safer than the alternative: the untethered spiral of anxiety that spools out whenever she loses control.

Andthis. Losing her job. She hasn’t felt this out of control in four years.

As Meredith Brooks reaches the crescendo of her musical manifesto, Rosemary sing-screams along. She grabs a mostly melted iced coffee from the center console and takes a drink and rage, rage, rages.

She’s shouting about being someone’s hell when the song cuts off and the dash screen flashes with an incoming call. Joseph Delgado.

“Joe?” she snaps as soon as the call connects, her voice raw. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t freak out,” he starts, “but I’ve had another little fall.”

Unemployment is suddenly the furthest thing from her mind.“Joe! What have I told you about trying to go to the bathroom without your walker!”

“Nothing is broken,” the deep voice insists through the speakers. “Nothingmajor.”

“Where are you right now? I’ll be there in five.”