Page 22 of Rock Bottom Girl

But I was thirty-eight. I had experience. I’d been through high school and survived it. Barely.

Maybe I could use that? Maybe I didn’t have to be the hard-ass that my coach had been. Maybe there was another approach.

* * *

I headed homeand dove straight into an icy shower, scrubbing every inch of my skin and hair to remove all traces of the epic puke fest fail. I ran the washcloth over the back of my thigh and thought about the four-leaf clover birthmark there. I’d always thought it meant that I’d be lucky.

So far though, I was still waiting for my dose of luck to kick in. It seemed as though my sister had landed both our shares. Important job with her own assistant. Gorgeous, heart surgeon husband that doted on her. Three well-mannered genius kids.

And here I was, vomiting in front of high school students.

When I got out, I downed another bottle of water and opened my laptop at the dining room table.

“How’d it go, snack cake?” Dad asked, peering into the room.

“I nearly gave the team heat stroke, and then I threw up on Jake Weston’s shoes.”

Dad’s eyebrows winged up.

“Upside, I ran into my friend Mariah when Jake took the cross-country team and my girls out for Italian ice to rehydrate them.”

“Um…” Dad wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “And how are you feeling about that?”

He’d read a lot of “raising teen girls” books back in the day.

“Embarrassed. Hopeless. A little nauseous.”

“Well how about I warm up some Hamburger Helper, and you tell me all about it?” My parents were as committed to convenience food as they had been in the eighties.

“Do you want to watch some sports movies with me?” I asked. “I have a few hours before the next practice. Maybe I can find some inspiration?” It sounded stupid. Really stupid.

But his eyes lit up behind his glasses. “That’s a great idea. You fast forward through the previews, and I’ll warm up the leftovers.”

We ate and watched while I took notes of anything that seemed remotely feasible. I was not going to encourage my team to spend all night at a strip club or bond against an evil coach, thank you very much,Varsity Blues. Nor was I going to get a DUI a laThe Mighty Ducks. Fun seemed important and music. The music montages were when everyone got along.

I made a note. I knew I was grasping at straws. But I was desperate. I honestly wasn’t sure I could survive another failure. I’d reached for the stars so many times and been smacked back down by the tennis racket of fate. Over and over again. Every time, it was harder to get back up.

Was this my story? Was I just a hot mess?

I yawned and thought about Jake. He was familiarandstrange at the same time. The twenty years since high school had clearly been very, very good to him. Of course his attitude was brash, his personality was know-it-all. But he’d treated my entire team to hydrating Italian ice. There was also a good chance he’d run straight to Principal Eccles with a complaint about me. I might be fired before the first day of school. A new record even for me.

I wondered if Jake remembered me. Remembered that kiss…remembered how much I’d despised him after. I obviously didn’t hate him anymore. I mean, I didn’t want to be judged based on my teenage shenanigans so it wasn’t fair to hold his against him.

An hour later, I woke to an alarm thoughtfully set by my father. There was a blanket draped over me and a sports drink with a sticky note that said, “Drink me and have a good practice, snack cake.”

I really didn’t deserve such great parents.

Groaning, I sat up and stretched. I could be the first coach in Culpepper history to have an entire team quit on them. One for the record books. But I was at least going totryto do something good.

* * *

This was quite possiblyone of the stupidest ideas I’d ever had. Including the time I thought hosting an employee appreciation karaoke event for a bunch of work-from-home hospital billing coders would be great. Introverts, it turned out, do not enjoy karaoke. Or work events.

I unloaded my supplies, closed the trunk of my car, and trudged to the top of the hill. No one was on the field yet. I was still early, but the sense of foreboding was heavy. Would anyone show? Or was this the end of my very brief temporary career?

A human being shouldn’t have this many brushes with failure.

“Do better?” Easy for him to say. He had a team that respected him, students that loved him. What did I have? Looking around the empty practice field I had…not much. I had my water bottle. Two of them actually. A full cooler for the girls who probably wouldn’t show up and my mom’s genius idea of a food storage bag full of cold, wet paper towels for sweat-mopping during breaks.