Page 128 of Rock Bottom Girl

“Cicero, this is fucking genius,” Floyd said as we watched the teams launch into a thorough examination of the props we’d provided, including red Solo cups procured from Mrs. Gurgevich’s desk drawer.

“You know,” I said, nudging him with my elbow. “There’s one Ping-Pong table left.”

“Oh, I’m picking up what you’re putting down.”

* * *

I wasn’t goingto lie. Watching several of Culpepper’s high school star athletes and general popular population lift the scrawny Marvin Holtzapple on their shoulders to celebrate the physic geek’s Rube Goldberg-style trick shot got me a little verklempt.

“That was fucking beautiful, Cicero,” Floyd said, mopping at the corners of his eyes with his sweatshirt sleeve when the kids cleared the gym.

“Yeah, it wasn’t bad,” I sniffled. For a brief, shining moment, an idea I had lifted the misery of unpopularity for a student who probably dreaded school as much as I had back in the day. I felt like a goddamn hero.

“We need to do more of this,” Floyd decided. “Gym class should be inclusive. Even the pregnant girls can participate in shit like this.”

“You’d be open to something besides volleyball?” I teased. Floyd’s hatred of spending five months of the school year watching bored kids play boring v-ball badly was legendary. The Pennsylvania winters were long and annoying, but budgets didn’t exactly allow for a ton of athletic equipment. So our options for the cold weather months were limited.

“This was the most fun I’ve had in a class since Lindsay P. pegged one of the Hostetter twins in the nuts with a lacrosse ball.”

I laughed and headed into the locker room, a few ideas rippling beneath the surface.

The high of doing something good and being actuallylikedwithin the walls of a high school stayed with me into lunch.

“Gimme gimme!” Andrea wiggled her fingers when I poked my head into the guidance office. “I’m starving,” she exclaimed.

“I hope you like horseradish,” I said, unpacking the two roast beef melts I’d packed this morning.

“As long as it’s not made out of actual horse, I’m sure I’ll love it,” she insisted. Her red mermaid-like hair was draped over her shoulder in a long braid. Curls exploded out of it in all directions.

I dropped into my usual chair and popped the top on the sole soda I allowed myself a day. I’d discovered that cutting back on the sugar combined with running was having quite the positive impact on my waistline—as in, I had one now. If I’d known returning home humiliated and getting myself a hot, fake boyfriend was this good for me, I would have tried it years ago.

“How’s your day so far?” I asked, taking a bite of sourdough bread, swiss cheese, tomato, and roast beef.

“Mmm. Mmm.” Andrea rolled her eyes as she chewed quickly. “Not bad. No aggressive parent phone calls or sobbing teenage girls yet today. I heardyourday is going well.”

I cocked my head to one side, silently questioning while I chewed.

“Kids are loving the Ping-Pong trick shot thing,” she said.

“Really?” I felt as victorious as I had in third grade when my teacher had given me a literal gold star for memorizing my multiplication tables.

“It’s creative and fun and includes students of all abilities. Essentially, you just removed the misery of gym class for the fifty percent of the school population that isn’t athletic,” Andrea said.

“I was just looking for something fun for them to do,” I said, brushing off the praise.

“But I can tell it made you happy,” she said, pointing her sandwich at me.

I shrugged, blushing on the inside. “It was fun.”

“I’ll tell you what it looks like to me,” she said, opening a lunch bag and unpacking two baggies of baby carrots. She passed one to me. “It looks like you’re finding your place. Hitting your stride. You’re identifying problems like boring, socially painful gym classes, and you’re offering up creative solutions.”

“What are you getting at?” I asked, biting into a baby carrot.

“You look happy. In just a few short weeks, you’ve gone from displaced and feeling alone to making a place for yourself here. That’s no small feat, especially in high school.”

“I’m an adult in a high school,” I clarified. This wasn’t exactly my shot at a re-do.

“Trust me, the same popularity power plays exist at the adult level,” she said. “You look like you’re thriving. Your team is playing well together. You’ve landed the George Clooney of Culpepper. And if I’m not mistaken, you’re looking leaner than when you first started, you bitch.”