Page 77 of Rock Bottom Girl

Was that a six-pack in the bay window?I’d looked for that thing for three days before giving up and buying another.

“I’ll get to it,” I promised. And I meant it. The mess was starting to annoy me. Or Grams’s ghost was haunting me into annoyance.

The doorbell rang, and the front door opened as Floyd, gym teacher and gossip, let himself in. “What smells like meat and whiskey?” he asked, scenting the air like a bloodhound.

“Let’s move it along,” Mrs. Gurgevich grumbled behind him. “I got a half ton of sashimi on clearance. If we don’t eat it in the next thirty minutes, the parasites will start growing.” She maxed out at five feet tall with a frizzy nest of salt and pepper hair and severe black-rimmed glasses. Tonight, she was wearing a black caftan with metallic threads. Work Mrs. Gurgevich was wildly different from Out of Work Mrs. Gurgevich. She’d been married three times, knew three presidents well enough to call them by their first name, and a Saudi prince owed her a favor.

“Where’s my great-nephew?” Max asked.

“Homer’s watching Animal Planet upstairs,” I told him. My four-legged roommate would make his way downstairs to scam some table scraps from the guests during a commercial break.

“Gurgevich, I’m coming for your money!” Bill Beerman was timid everywhere but the poker table. The mild-mannered computer science teacher who got tongue-tied around pretty substitutes was a trash-talking riot after a light beer and one hand of Texas Hold ’Em. Since his shocking loss last time to Gurgevich, he was ready for battle in a neatly pressed golf shirt and shorts.

“All right, gang. You know the drill,” I said, leading the way into the kitchen. I’d at least made an effort to shovel some of the trash and old leftovers into the garbage can before everyone arrived. Bill dug out my ever-present stack of paper plates and doled them out.

Why use dishes if you just have to wash them?I was basically the Mark Zuckerberg of kitchens.

“I really thought you’d clean up your act now that you have a girlfriend,” Mrs. Gurgevich mused, unwrapping the sashimi and shooting a side-eye at the overflowing trash can in the corner.

“If you haven’t tamed me yet, how can you expect any other woman to?” I teased.

“Do you think she’ll survive the Hooper Horror?” Floyd asked, grabbing a spoonful of the pulled pork that I’d picked up from the barbecue joint.

“I just got a royalty check in the mail. I’m willing to use it to pay her legal fees if it gets that sociopath out of my fifth period,” Mrs. Gurgevich said.

“Royalty check for what?” Bill asked.

“Marley can’t really get into trouble, can she? I mean from what I hear, Lisabeth basically assaulted another girl. How’s that going to blow back on Mars?” I asked, stuffing a piece of jerky in my mouth.

“Never underestimate the power of parents who think their children are perfect and special,” Mrs. Gurgevich snorted.

Uncle Max was staring at me openmouthed.

“What?” I asked, dumping the plastic utensils on the counter.

“You havea girlfriend?” he demanded. “Like an actual human woman who agreed to be in a relationship with you?” Uncle Max was not good at keeping up with gossip. I took after him in that aspect.

“No, she’s a blow-up doll I met at a porn store,” I said. “Yes, a human woman. Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yes,” they all answered in unison.

“Funny. Real funny. We gonna play cards or gossip all night?”

* * *

“You should invite her over,”Uncle Max said, reorganizing the cards in his hand.

“Huh? Who?” I asked, eyeballing my pair of ladies.

“Marley,” Floyd said. “Does she play?”

Christ. They weren’t letting this go. Even after Homer came down and did his table and lap surfing for scraps, they were still talking about me having a girl.

I threw my chips in. “I dunno.”

“How do you not know if she plays poker?” Bill asked.

“Because we just started dating. We’re taking things slow. She hasn’t even been inside the house yet,” I said. She’d picked me up last night for celebratory Taco Bell, but I’d been waiting outside. I may have been used to the mess. But that didn’t mean I was comfortable with it.