Page 66 of Rock Bottom Girl

D. Personal preferences in the following areas: bed, dishwasher loading, movies and TV viewing, restaurants/diet (don’t take a lactose intolerant person out for ice cream before sex), politics, relationship guidelines (e.g. Are stripper boobs touching your face considered cheating or just sad?).

3. Do learn to show an interest in the words that come out of her mouth. You will earn a stupid amount of bonus points for using a callback and asking for an update on that issue at work last Tuesday involving the bad chicken salad and Keith from accounting.

4. Learn the difference between venting and asking for advice. Hint: We’re very rarely asking for advice.

5. Don’t stop your pursuit of physical perfection just because you’ve landed the future Mrs. Weston. She’ll still deserve your six-pack abs and hypnotic pec dance even after you’ve been married for twelve years. Put down the cheesesteak. Do it for the children, Jake!

Let’s start here and work our way up to things like discussing whose family to spend the holidays with (answer: whoever has the best food) and when flowers are appropriate (answer: always, but the best ones are no reason flowers).

Yours Contractually,

Marley

30

Marley

September

“Inhale. Exhale,” I gasped to myself as my feet carried me in a slow jog toward the empty practice field. Running and I were still not friends, but if I was being totally honest, the relationship was a smidge less contentious than it had been at the beginning of the week.

Stupid sexy Jake being right about form and breathing and stuff. He was an annoying know-it-all.

I glanced at the screen of my phone. Fifteen minutes left. Crap on a damn cracker, this was the longest forty minutes of my life. Had time stopped? Was my phone’s clock broken?

Running was a lot less fun when shirtless, sweaty Jake wasn’t with me. It gave me too much time to think. I’d had lunch with guidance counselor Andrea again today and asked her opinion on the whole coaching a traumatized team thing. I still couldn’t believe Floyd or one of the girls or even Vicky hadn’t thought to mention that the last coach died during a game and that the substitute coach had been the devil incarnate. Probably some woman working her way through old high school trauma…only not in a healthy way likeIwas doing.

Andrea seemed to think I could make things work with the team. I just had to tackle the biggest problem—the bad relationships on the team—and everything else would fall into place.

A slow, rhythmic thunking distracted me from my labored breathing. I used the hem of my t-shirt to wipe the sweat out of my eyes. There was a kickboard between the soccer field and the baseball field with a yellow soccer goal painted on it. In front of it, a spritely girl juked, jived, and kicked the shit out of a soccer ball. She pegged the board in the lower left corner, a perfect shot that would challenge the best goalkeeper.

I came to a screeching halt. Okay, maybe not screeching. More like meandered to a stop.

She faked left, nudged the ball right, and lined up another shot. It curved gracefully into the upper right corner.

“What’s your name?” I called.

She eyed me suspiciously between the hoop in her eyebrow and the stud in her nose. “Morticia.”

Cautiously, I approached. “Har. Super funny. I’m serious. What’s your name?”

“I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” she said stubbornly.

“Uh, you were doing something super right, and now I’m trying to recruit you.”

“Into what? A cult?”

In her black cargo pants, combat boots, and gray hoodie—it was almost 80 freaking degrees still—she already looked like she belonged in one of the underground bunker ones.

“My soccer team.”

“Aren’t you a little old to be playing soccer? Shouldn’t you be worried about breaking a hip or something?”

Sometimes I really hated kids.

“I’m the girls team head coach. We could use your feet.”

“Not interested.” She turned back to the ball and kicked it. It sailed up in a graceful arc, pegging the board in the upper right corner like a postage stamp. “I’m not really a team person.”