Down and Out in Bugtussle

by Stephanie McAfee

  “Okay,” she says, scribbling.

  “The Peg-Boards are in the gym, so just ask a few of the coaches to help you.” I stop and look at her. She looks down, and then I remember. “I guess you, uh, know who to ask about that. You only need two or three, and Hatter will be glad to help. He helps me every year.” She doesn’t say anything, and the air between us becomes tense and awkward. “Cameron?”

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just—” She looks at me. I decide to be nosy.

  “What happened?” I say. “With you and Wills. What was that all about?”

  “I guess you heard what I did.” She appears to be somewhat ashamed of herself.

  “Yeah, it’s a small town. Everybody knows everybody’s business and it’s certainly none of mine. I was just wondering because, well, I like Wills. He’s a good guy.” She looks up at me. “And I like you. But you don’t have to tell me anything. You don’t owe me an explanation of any kind.” But you certainly owe Drew Wills one.

  “I’ll tell you,” she says. Then we just sit there for a minute.

  “Okay…”

  “I was just trying to figure out where to start.”

  “We’re waiting on the buses to leave, sweetheart. You can start from the beginning.”

  “Well, I liked Drew as soon as I saw him because I’m fond of the big athletic type. So I started going to the gym and flirting, but I didn’t want to be obvious about it and just flirt with him, so I flirted with everybody and while that eventually got me a date with him, it also got me labeled as a hussy.” She looks at me.

  “I never said that.”

  “Everyone else did. And remember that day I failed my evaluation, when Stacey Dewberry said I liked pecker?” I suppress a giggle. “It’s okay—you can laugh,” she says. “Cameron Becker who loves pecker.” She mocks Stacey Dewberry’s country accent. “I certainly didn’t appreciate it at the time, but Freddie thought it was hilarious. I guess it was pretty funny.” I laugh a little, but not too much. “Anyway, after we started dating, I fell in love with him so fast because he’s so sweet and he’s funny and he’s kind. No one has ever been so nice to me. So I kept going down to the coaches’ office every morning because I wanted to see him and I kept carrying on with everyone because I didn’t want to smother him and run him off like I did the only other boyfriend I’ve ever had in my life. I was so happy to be with him, but I did everything wrong.”

  “How have you had only one other boyfriend?”

  “One serious boyfriend. I’ve dated my fair share of a-holes and losers, but I’m just, I don’t know, kind of defensive. I’ve never had any real friends and so many people have turned on me, lied to me, and, well, I was scared. I didn’t want to overdo it. Then when he popped the question, I just freaked out. I was like, ‘I’ve never been able to maintain a healthy relationship in my life. He’ll eventually be like everyone else. He’ll use me and then leave me.’ It was more than I could stand, so I ran. I grabbed a bottle of his alcohol and ran.” She shakes her head. “How’s that for tacky? Then the next day, I wanted to talk to him, so I went down to the lounge, but then I freaked out again because I didn’t know what to say, so I just talked to everyone else but him. He got up and left and I knew I’d hurt his feelings, but I didn’t know what to do.” She looks at me. “Needless to say, we don’t speak anymore and Freddie is the only friend I have and I know I’m getting on his nerves. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m like a wrecking ball on relationships. I’m either swinging back and away or flying forward and crashing. I wish I could just level out and be normal.”

  “I don’t think anybody is normal,” I say. “At least I hope not.”

  She giggles a little, then says, “So if you don’t mind me asking, why did you move back home? It seems like a dream to live in Florida right next to the ocean.”

  “Because I’m crazy,” I say. Then I decide that maybe she deserves a better explanation. She was having a hard enough time being an inexperienced first-year teacher at a brand-new school and then I showed up wanting her job. So I tell her the truth. “Once upon a time,” I say with a smile, “I formulated this idea of what my life needed to be like in order for me to be happy. I clung to that idea and believed in it with all my heart and all my soul, and so it became my biggest dream. I put that dream up on a pedestal, looked up at it every day, and thought, ‘If only I could have that, I would be perfectly happy.’ Then about this time last year, a bunch of crazy shit happened and I saw my chance to live that dream. Guns blazing, I took that opportunity. I went for it. And within a matter of months, I had exactly what I always wanted. The amazing guy. The amazing house. A super-cool art gallery of my very own. I had it all.” I have to stop because I start tearing up. “I’m sorry. But it still hurts a little.” I look at her, so pretty and young, and wish I had found out when I was her age that my dream was a sham. I take a deep breath and continue. “Then a terrible thing happened, Cameron. I discovered that I wasn’t quite as happy as I always imagined I would be. And that realization was as embarrassing as it was disappointing because I’d given so much power to that one idea. That one dream. So then I gave it every chance I could before I finally gave up and came back home in January.” I’m surprised by how liberated I feel after telling her all that. Other than a string of therapists, she’s the only one I’ve told the whole truth about how I really feel. I’ve told parts and pieces of what happened to Chloe and Lilly, but I didn’t want to burden either of them with the whole ugly truth. “So don’t think you’re the only one who has made terrible mistakes,” I tell her. “I wrecked my whole life for a dream that turned out to be all wrong for me. And that’s the worst, having to admit to yourself that you were wrong.” I look up and see that the buses are gone. “So, how’s that for depressing? Do you feel any better now?” She giggles. “See, it’s not so bad, is it? You’re lucky. You have something that can be fixed.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “Please don’t say anything to him.”

  “I won’t say anything to him, but you know I’m really good friends with Hatter, right?”

  “Are y’all still sleeping together?”

  “How does everyone know about that?”

  “Everyone doesn’t. Stacey told Freddie and he told me.” So everyone knows.

  “Okay, well, no. He’s great, but we aren’t sleeping together. Anymore. So let me just pass it along that you want to talk to Wills, and we’ll see what happens here in a day or two.”

  She smiles that big beautiful smile of hers and we get back to discussing the art fair. She jots notes in her stylish little notebook, and I decide to talk to Chloe and see if she can offer some suggestions on what Cameron could do to pass that last evaluation. I know it’ll be the final nail in the coffin of my old job, but maybe I can think up something else to do with my time. I make a mental note to have some business cards made up to put at Jalena’s diner when it opens next month. Who knows, that just might work out for me. I mean it probably won’t, but it might.

  I go home and take Buster Loo for a walk at the park. While we’re there, I spend a considerable amount of time wondering what I’m going to do now that I’m almost sure I’m about to be unemployed. I’m damned sure not going to sign up for another year of subbing. Even though things have improved considerably now that the semester is almost over, hell will freeze over before I do something like that again. I decide that I don’t want to go to summer school because I’m not particularly interested in teaching psychology. Being crazy and teaching about crazy are two totally different things. I think about sending applications in to some other districts, but I don’t want to start all over in a new school. I don’t even really want to teach anymore, but that’s my safety net, so I can’t stop my mind from coming up with ways to make it work. I finally decide that I will indeed have some business cards made up. I can design them myself and then ask Jalena which printer she uses. I get a peaceful feeling when I think
about painting murals and glazing walls for a living. I stop short of conjuring up a bunch of if/then stipulations. I’m just going to try to see what happens. Like Gramma Jones used to say, it’ll all work itself out in the wash.

  When Buster Loo and I get back home, I pick up the phone to call Logan Hatter.

  “Hey, sexy baby,” he says when he picks up. “What can I do for you?”

  “Hey, Hatt,” I say. “I’ve got some gossip for you.”

  “Well, it’s about time,” he says, laughing. “I was going to cut you off if you didn’t start putting out soon.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I wouldn’t.”

  “So how’s Wills?”

  “Well, he’s still pussy-whipped by that damned old screaming girl and won’t even think about looking at anyone else, let alone try to hook up, but other than that I guess he’s all right. Why? You interested? Want me to fix you up?”

  “Ha-ha. No. And has that damned old screaming girl not let up any these past few days?”

  “Come to think of it, she has,” he says. “And I saw y’all in the library after school today. What’s up with that? What are you doing? Are y’all having an affair?”

  “Wow, you’re on a roll today, aren’t you, Hatt?”

  “Always, baby, always. So what’s the gossip?”

  “Cameron wants to get back with Drew.”

  “The hell you say.”

  “She’s sorry. She wants him back. She misses him. You know the drill. But she doesn’t want to rush things. She’s skittish about relationships, so he needs to ease up and be patient with her. That’s the story. Can you handle it?”

  “I can handle it. I’ll call him right now. I mean, this is a little seventh grade, but I loved seventh grade. I was a stud in seventh grade.”

  “You’re a stud now, Hatt, and you know this.”

  “Yeah, right. I’ll holler back.”

  I don’t have any classes at all to cover on Thursday, so I decide to spend the morning putting together a file for Cameron Becker that will help her not only pass her final evaluation but also do exceptionally well. I recruit Chloe to help and while she refuses to show me Cameron’s classroom report, because that’s confidential, she does offer a few key points for her to consider. Like writing the day’s assignment on the board and not forgetting to call roll.

  After school, I sit down with Cameron and go over everything. I look over her lesson plan book and help her map out the rest of the year, which is really easy since the students are working on individual projects for the next week. I suggest she wrap up the year with a short unit on whatever aspect of art she loves the best.

  “I love Picasso!” she says.

  “Well, there you have it.”

  “Too easy,” she says. “I did a major research paper on him during my senior year, so I have lots of facts.” We discuss the best way to translate that to classroom instruction. “I wish you had been my mentor this year,” she says. “Mrs. Knight was nice, but we just didn’t, I don’t know, click.” She pauses. “Okay, I’m not telling you the truth about that. She wasn’t nice at all. Actually, she was kind of mean to me.”

  “Mrs. Knight has no business being a mentor,” I say. “She only does it because she gets a little extra money. She’s one of those psycho-jealous people who doesn’t like anyone who’s slimmer and/or prettier than she is.” I look at Cameron and smile. “So it could be said that she, um, doesn’t like anyone.” We giggle and pack our stuff to leave. I don’t mention Wills and she doesn’t, either. I wonder what the holdup is on that.

  When I get home, I walk out onto the back porch and look at the star magnolia that I bought to plant for Gramma Jones. I look out at the star magnolia already in the yard and think about the Post-it note labeled “Baby Jones.” I go to the garage and load up my wheelbarrow, then haul my new little tree out to the far corner of the yard. I set it on the ground next to the other one. I dig a hole, sprinkle some fertilizer, and, after wrestling the tree out of its container and tickling the roots like the man at the nursery told me to, I lower it into the ground. I work with it for a minute, making sure it’s set straight, then fill in the gaps with potting soil. I water the tree and then go sit on the edge of the porch and look at it. Buster Loo comes to sit beside me.

  “Look at that, Buster Loo,” I say, but he doesn’t. He puts his snout on my leg and rolls his eyes up to look at me, so I pick him up and give him a big chiweenie hug. “It’s like it was meant to go there,” I tell him. He puts his snout on my shoulder and I sit there, petting my dog and admiring that special little tree.

  35

  Friday is a full day of subbing and I don’t know if I left my rose-colored glasses home or what, but it’s awful. I have lunch with Stacey, who tells me she’s also having a worst day ever. She invites me to go out with her tonight and I invite her to go to Ethan Allen’s so we can keep it low-key.

  “It’s a pretty regular crowd,” I say.

  “I went into that place one time and some big tall fellow behind the bar wouldn’t stop looking at me. Kind of freaked me out. I left and never went back.”

  “Was he wearing a cowboy hat?”

  “How did you know?”

  “That’s Ethan Allen. He was at the party you came to at my house, remember? He was probably staring because he’s never seen anything like the full-blown glory of your spectacular hair.”

  She pats her hair. “Well, not everyone can do this.”

  “That’s true,” I tell her. “So what do you say? Give Ethan Allen another chance? He’s actually a very nice guy. His girlfriend, Jalena, is also pretty cool. Maybe Lilly will come with us. And I’ll invite Freddie and Cameron, too.”

  “Okay,” she says. “But he better keep his eyes to himself.”

  “He’s not like that at all, I promise.”

  After school, I go down to D Hall to check on Cameron and I run into Lilly in the hallway.

  “Hello, sunshine,” she says. “What brings you down this way?”

  I point to the end of the hallway. “Ms. Becker.”

  “Chloe is so proud of you for all of that,” Lilly whispers. “And so am I. It’s really nice. Very not like you.”

  “Thanks, Lilly,” I say, laughing. “I see you’re back to your usual self.”

  “Well, Dax is almost finished with that damned training, so he’s calling every night.”

  “Good. Hey, why don’t you come to Ethan Allen’s tonight? Stacey is going and I’m going to invite Cameron. I think you would really like her.” Lilly looks skeptical. “Or maybe not. I don’t know. Just give her a chance.”

  “Freddie Dublin really did a number on you, didn’t he?”

  “It wasn’t him,” I say, and she raises her eyebrows at me. “Okay, it wasn’t all him.”

  “Right,” she says.

  “So will you go? You can go to Ethan Allen’s office if Dax calls while we’re there.”

  “Sure,” she says. “Why not?”

  “Great,” I say. Yee haw! I’ll be springing that garden club idea on her soon.

  I knock on Cameron Becker’s door and walk into my old classroom.

  “I love what you’ve done with the place,” I say.

  “Come see what these kids are doing for the art fair,” she says. “I cannot believe how talented they are! I let them pick what they wanted to paint and, honestly, this is the best work they’ve done. I’m so proud of them.”

  “They have so much personality and creativity, but they’ll just sit there, pretending not to be on their cell phones until a worthy challenge arises and then presto! They’re geniuses!”

  “Look at this one.” She points to an impressive portrait of a monarch butterfly resting on a magnolia bloom. “Worst kid I’ve had all year. Couldn’t stand her and I’m sure the feeling was mutual. She wouldn’t cooperate with me on anything and was about to fail and now look. It’s like we’re best friends all of a sudden, me and that little smarty-pants.�
��

  “She needs to start putting together a portfolio for college.”

  “I know!” she says. “That’s exactly what I told her.” I follow Cameron back to her desk where she picks up the file folder. “This has been a real eye-opener,” she says. “If I’d had this at the beginning of the year, my life wouldn’t have been so horrid for the past eight months. Do you need it back?”

  “Nah. Just hang on to it and pass it on if you see someone who needs it.”

  “Thanks,” she says. “So, guess what.”

  “What?” I say. I don’t have to guess because I know. Hatter has already called and told me all about it.

  “I have a date tomorrow night.”

  “Oh really. With who?”

  “Oh, some guy named Drew Wills.” She giggles.

  “Good for you.”

  “He was so sweet. He called me and was like, ‘I wanna slow things down and show you that you can trust me.’ I cried like a baby. He came over. We made up. It was great.”

  “Well, good for you,” I say. “So why aren’t y’all going out tonight?”

  “Oh, his mother’s birthday is today and they’re having a party. Big family get-together. He invited me to go, but I told him I’d rather not. I’m just not ready for that. I was afraid it would hurt his feelings, but it didn’t.”

  “Well, that is great because tonight you can go out with Lilly and Stacey and me, and we can invite Freddie, speaking of whom, I haven’t seen him in a day or two.”

  “He’s on the coast.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Job interviews.”

  “What? No way.”

  “Yeah, he doesn’t love it here. Wants to be down closer to home and closer to New Orleans. He loves New Orleans. Plus, he has a friend in New Orleans who came up here for a visit and didn’t love it either and now he won’t come back.”

  “That’s so sad, but I don’t want him to leave!”

  “I know. Me, either.”