Big & Beautiful 4: Bulky & Beauteous

The bell rang, interrupting my sentence mid-way. “Okay, guys, have a great weekend. Eat lots of turkey. I’ll see you on Monday. No homework!”

Cheers followed my students out the door. I don’t think any of them expected homework over Thanksgiving break, but I always liked to clarify. I had a few students who loved homework, who craved the extra challenge. For those students I always held on to an extra assignment, just in case.

Kendall, one of my favorite students, stopped at my desk. “Miss James, I wanted to let you know my family is going out of town this weekend. I might not have time to do an extra assignment.”

I smiled. Kendall was one of the students who always looked for additional work. She was also one of the ones who consistently turned in high-quality work. It was kids like Kendall that made me love being a teacher.

“It’s not a problem, Kendall. You can take the extra assignment if you want. If you don’t get to it, it won’t count against you. You know that.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, chewing on her bottom lip.

“Positive. It’s your choice.”

“Okay, thanks, Miss James. Have a great weekend.” Kendall waved the paper with the weekend assignment in the air as she vanished into the hallway.

Students rushed past my door, shouting to friends, slamming lockers, and running to catch their bus. The sounds of the end of my day were always welcome, even though I loved teaching. I felt like my life was defined by bells, from my alarm going off in the morning to the bells signaling the start and end of each period to the ringing of the phone in the middle of the night. Silence was welcome once the day ended, and I was more than ready for a four-day weekend. One I hoped was without drama.

As the sounds outside the door died down, I packed up my things for the afternoon. My second and third period classes had tests that I needed to grade, my fourth period class turned in a group project, and my sixth and eighth period classes had an experiment which took up the class time. Overall it was a good day, and the work would keep me busy through the weekend.

Of course, that was assuming I didn’t get roped into my sister’s craziness.

I had time to relax during the winter with tennis done for the season and lacrosse not yet started. I coached both for Winterville High School for the last few years and loved it, but having time off was nice, too. Winter was usually a quiet season for me, and I was hoping it would stay that way for a while. It’d been a few weeks since I’d had to bail Cassandra out of trouble.

With my tests, projects, and experiment results all packed up, I pulled up the handle on my rolling computer bag (yes, I was well aware of how uncool I was) and headed for the door. As I was locking my door, I heard a voice behind me. “I knew I’d find you here still. Are you up for a drink, Addi?”

I turned and grinned at Melanie Fletcher, a math teacher I’d bonded with over being the only women in male-dominated teaching fields. Everyone always thought of teaching as a woman’s field, but once you decided you wanted to teach math or science you were thrown back into a man’s world, something Mel and I both struggled with.

Mel was exactly what I’d expected from a plucky new teacher. Blonde, cute, outgoing, and a great laugh. The surprise came when we became friends, especially since most of my friends came from the chubby end of the spectrum. When Mel dropped into a seat next to me in the teacher’s lounge her first month of school and asked how I put up with the chauvinistic assholes we had to teach with, I knew we’d be friends.

“I’ve got tons of work to do, but I’m sure I could be talked into a drink.”

“Excellent,” Melanie grinned. “What’s Sam up to?”

Sam Reed was my best friend and roommate. We were assigned roommates our freshman year of college and when we both decided to stay in Winterville, New York after college at the town’s Erie University, we figured why not live together. We rented a two-bedroom house near the center of town, close to Sam’s photography studio and not too far from Winterville High.

“I’m not sure. I’ll text her. Sam’s usually up for a drink.”

Mel and I laughed, knowing Sam rarely passed up a chance at a bitch fest and a beer. Or wine. Or anything else.

“How was your last day?” I asked Mel as we headed for the parking lot. A few parents were picking up kids in the teacher’s lot, but for the most part it was full of other teachers leaving for the weekend like we were.

Mel shrugged and tugged her jacket tighter. It was getting chilly, our first snowfall predicted for that night. “It was okay. My kids were ready to be done. I think you’ve got the right idea with an exam or something big the last day. They end up climbing the walls and making me crazy. I always have to repeat the lesson the following week because I know none of them actually retained any of it.”

I nodded, sympathetic. After almost seven years of teaching, I’d figured out a few tricks that made my life easier. Mel had only been teaching two years so she was still figuring out how to do things in a way that got the work done but didn’t make her crazy in the process.

“I did that for a few years, too. It just takes some figuring out to make it all work. When I plan my calendar, I look at where the breaks are and back through my lesson plans from there. It takes some finagling every year, but it works out for the best when I can send the kids home without studying for a test or a big homework assignment over breaks. I always hated when teachers did that.”

Mel cringed beside me and I laughed. “You didn’t,” I said in an accusatory tone.

“I didn’t mean to, but my test falls next week. And they have to do some homework to make sure they’re prepared.”

“Oh, Mel, you’ll regret it. I’ll give you a tip… Don’t do it again over Winter Break.”

Mel laughed. “Yeah, I’m learning my lesson. Where do you want to go for a drink?”

I shrugged. “How about Janey’s?”

“Perfect. I’ll follow you.”

I stashed my bag in the backseat of my car and sent Sam a text. She was on board with going for drinks and said she’d meet us there.

A few minutes later I walked into Janey’s with a smile on my face. Mel and I started going there after work when she started. Part of me thinks she never would have lasted so long as a teacher if it weren’t for our nights out to bitch over beers at Janey’s.

Janey’s was your typical bar with dark lighting, the overarching smell of beer and sweat, and a pair of pool tables in the back. Janey, the owner, was a fifty-something woman who’d clearly paid her dues. Tanned, wrinkly skin draped over her bones without much padding between the two. She was always behind the bar, offering customers a crooked grin and a dirty joke, or two. Her long gray braid flopped behind her as she worked the taps with the efficiency of someone who’d spent plenty of hours behind the bar.

Janey nodded to Mel and me and slid two mugs full of dark amber liquid to us. We raised our glasses in thanks knowing Janey would open a tab for each of us, as usual.

“To four-day weekends,” Mel said as she lifted her glass in the air. I knocked mine against hers and brought the frothy brew to my lips. The cool liquid slid down my throat in a most satisfying way, making me wish I could toss off my usual sense of responsibility and have more than one.

Sam joined us as Mel finished her first beer, mine still mostly full. “Hey ladies. How was the last day?”

“One of these days I’m going to listen to the brilliant woman sitting next to me. My students are going to have me fired if I don’t.”

Sam laughed, tossing her long, brown hair behind her shoulder. Her trademark red glasses framed rich brown eyes that never missed anything, even if you wanted her to. It had to be part of being a photographer that she took everything in. That and looking put together all the time. Sam was wearing dark jeans, a red cowl neck sweater, and brown boots. She was a little bigger than me, something we lamented over many times in college when the weather got warm and the skinny girls seemed to come out of the woodwork.

“I’ve learned over the years that it’s almost always better to just listen to Addi. She knows what she’s talking about. It’s a little annoying to be around such perfection all the time, but I’ve gotten used to feeling inadequate next to her.”

Mel snickered as I shoved Sam, nearly knocking her off the stool she was perched on. She deserved it. Sam caught herself with a slap on the bar, which earned her Janey’s attention, and a dirty look. Sam held her hands up then pointed at me, trying to pass the buck. I shook my head and pointed right back, which made Janey roll her eyes and Mel laugh.

“She really is perfect, isn’t she? I know my math, but scheduling is not my forte. Addi makes me feel like there isn’t anything she can’t do, and yeah, inadequate.”

“Excuse me,” I interrupted, not willing to sit back and let them talk about me without defending myself. “I am not perfect, not even close. I like to keep things in order, yes, but that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me, or either of you. I’m just particular.”

I looked back and forth between them, knowing Sam understood much better than Mel why I was such a stickler for being organized. I’d shared a little with Mel, but not enough that she understood exactly what led me to my anal tendencies.

“I know,” Sam acquiesced. “Truth be told, I’m not too different from her.”

“What?” Mel squeaked, clearly frustrated at having been commiserating with someone who didn’t get it at all. “You’re as organized as she is?”

Sam shrugged and lifted the glass Janey set in front of her to her lips, her tongue darting out to capture the liquid left behind. “I run my own business. If I don’t keep things organized, no one will. Living with her does make me a bit more aware of it though.”

“I feel like such a screw up. Hell, the guy who came home with me last weekend woke me up when he was trying to sneak out because he tripped over a pile of clothes in front of the bedroom door,” Mel confessed.

Sam and I glanced at each other then erupted in laughter. Sam slapped the bar again, earning another glare from Janey, which only made us laugh harder. My side pinched from the lack of air, but I couldn’t stop picturing a half-naked man sprawled in a pile of Mel’s underwear. I knew Sam was thinking the same.

“How do you keep your lesson plans straight?” Sam asked Mel.

Mel shrugged. “Not very well, I guess.”

We all laughed, even Mel. Being a teacher was harder than most people thought. Most of the parents assumed we had the easiest job in the world because we only worked about nine months of the year and taught the same thing year after year. Yeah, the schedule was awesome, but the work was hard. The workday and teaching was barely scratching the surface, and that still required endless patience, creative thinking, and time management skills Steven Covey could only dream of.

“I couldn’t be a teacher. I love taking pictures of little kids, but working with them day in and day out, and being responsible for their education, I couldn’t do it.”

Mel and I exchanged a look that said we understood where Sam was coming from. There were plenty of days I wondered why I became a teacher. Then I’d see the lightbulb switch on for one of my students and I knew it was worth it.

“I’d much rather spend my days with a bunch of teenagers than a bride who thinks she’s the queen of the world. Teenagers are trying to figure out who they are and where they belong in the world. It’s a scary time for them, but also exciting. With adults, like your brides, I’d just want to strangle them. They’re too spoiled and too old to be such bitches,” I countered.

Sam shook her head. We’d had that argument many times over the years that we’d been friends. We both agreed the other was crazy and we’d never want each other’s job. Then again, what keeps me away from photography and what keeps Sam out of teaching are the same things we each find most frustrating about our jobs.

But having friends you can bitch with makes it worthwhile.

“Yeah, but just like with your students, having that one perfect client, the one who falls completely in love with the way I captured her wedding day or her family or even the head shots for her business, she’s the reason I do it. Those other ones… they’re not that frequent. Usually.”

As Sam was talking I noticed Mel’s cheeks turning pink and her eyes darting back to the pool tables. When I followed her glance I saw a table of four guys playing pool, clearly more interested in the scenery than in the game. One was making eyes at Mel, which she was clearly encouraging, two were watching a pair of women sitting at one of the tables, and the fourth was staring right at me.

Holy hot damn, he was sexy.

His lips turned up in a way that said he knew exactly what I was thinking, but somehow it didn’t seem cocky on him. He was wearing a red and black ski jacket, and he was hot with a capital H. His hair had that effortlessly perfect look guys could pull off, you know where you could tell he’d been running a hand through it all day, but it still looked sexy. His eyes were locked on mine and even though I didn’t know what color they were, I could tell I’d be hooked by them. The scruff on his chin added to my intrigue.

But what drew me to him more than any of those things was the tilt of his lips and the brightness in his eyes when he grinned at me. A grin that said I was totally busted, but he was happy to have me look. When his friend nudged him our eye contact finally broke and I was able to breathe again.

“He’s cute, Ads. You should go talk to him,” Sam said, raising her glass to her lips. She knew I didn’t pick up guys in bars. Hell, I didn’t pick up guys anywhere. I was in a dry spell so long I was pretty certain my vagina had withered into a raisin. Sam was the adventurous one, the one who could talk to guys. I was the one who hid in the shadows and waited until everyone needed a ride home. I played it safe.

Always.

I shook my head at Sam and gave one last wistful look to the guy at the pool table. He was talking to his friend, the one who was still checking out Mel. “Maybe one day I’ll let go. But not today. Hey Mel, you might want to go to his house. Then you won’t have to worry about him suffocating in a pile of your dirty laundry when he sneaks out.”

Mel shot me a dirty look while Sam and I cackled then slid off her bar stool. She gloated, “Don’t wait up ladies.”

Sam and I had gotten used to Mel disappearing into the crowd. God knew if I had her figure I’d take advantage of it too.

Well, I’d like to.

Shit, no. I wouldn’t.

But that didn’t mean she should go home alone like I always did. I didn’t begrudge Mel, or anyone else, a good time. Just because I couldn’t let go and act like none of it mattered didn’t mean everyone had to live that way. God knew I wish I could just have fun once in a while. Go home with a guy and put an end to my dry spell. Or better yet, never have had one in the first place.

But that wasn’t me. I’d been to too many shady apartments and too many clubs after closing to put myself in a situation like that. I wasn’t going there.

Even if it meant hanging a Closed For Business sign on the front of my pants.

“Well, if you’re not going to take advantage of the hottie checking you out then we can go home. Grease is on TV tonight.”

I smiled and finished the last of my beer. Sam and I each threw some cash on the bar. “Danny Zuko is going to have to get me through another night.”

“Ew, I didn’t need to know you masturbated to Danny Zuko!” Sam exclaimed.

I just rolled my eyes. Only Sam would go there.