MARY CASTILLO
In Between Men
This book is dedicated to four special women in my life:
Ilona, who is a woman of strength
and lives with grace and dignity.
Betty and Pam,
who are my mom’s friends,
come rain or shine,
through thick and thin.
And finally, my Grandma Margie,
who planted the seed
that grew into a career of telling stories.
Conntents
1
Isa demanded a recount.
2
“That was quite a turn,” Alex called out when Isa…
3
Isa’s eyes snapped open when Susan shouted in her face,…
4
By seven that night, Isa realized that her plans to…
5
“Are you done yet? My arm’s tired.”
6
Alex tapped his chin with his cell phone’s antenna, debating…
7
Caught up in a whirl of irrational panic, Isa knew…
8
“’Kay listen up out there,” Rocco Ramie shouted over the…
9
The school office was quiet and the late-afternoon sun slid…
10
Walking up to El Serape, Isa nearly fell flat on…
11
Alex wiped rain off his face and out of his…
12
Alex followed Isa under the trees that dripped fat drops…
13
When Isa registered the third wolf whistle, she tossed a…
14
Isa flinched when someone knuckled her window. As if in…
15
This guy was a frickin’ idiot. Through droopy-lidded eyes, Rocco…
16
Alex tossed his cell phone on the passenger seat, determined…
17
“Oh darling, these days get to be tedious,” Joan sighed,…
18
“You’ve been pretty quiet,” Isa prodded Andrew when they passed…
19
Isa’s only consolation was that this night would eventually end.
20
Alex wished Isa had invited him to stay a little…
21
The rest of the week managed to float on untroubled…
22
“Well hi there!” June said when Andrew opened the door.
23
Alex sat with a long sigh, seemingly unaware that everyone…
24
When Alex woke up the sun hadn’t even made a…
25
“I want to help.”
26
“I need you to come down here,” Isa said when…
27
“What does it say?” Alex asked through the bathroom door.
28
When Alex pulled up to the giant Craftsman in Newport…
29
“You have to see this,” June said when Isa checked…
30
Isa’s students drew her out into the parking lot of…
31
Isa had just finished opening the second bottle of sparkling…
32
Isa thought she felt the bed give behind her and…
33
“You’re not going to believe who’s out there,” Lydia shouted…
34
“Hey there!” Isa said when June stood in her doorway…
35
“Mom told me that your brother is okay,” Andrew said…
Epilogue
There was nothing like air-conditioning and ultrasound jelly smeared across…
About the Author
Other Books by Mary Castillo
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
ISA AVELLAN’S HOROSCOPE FOR SEPTEMBER 7
What’s happening here? Appreciate this as a transformative experience and remember that someday soon you’ll even be able to laugh about it.
Isa demanded a recount.
Rereading the poorly photocopied “Sex Savvy Senior Survey,” she felt something break off inside her and land with a thump.
The last thing she expected to learn that Tuesday afternoon at the emergency staff meeting was that the student body of Isa’s alma mater and current employer had voted her the unsexiest teacher alive.
Actually the survey was a little more specific: the most unfuckable teacher alive in big bold letters next to her admittedly unfuckable staff photo.
Intellectually she knew better than to care about a high school prank. And Isa damn well knew if she put her mind to it, she’d be a helluva good lay.
She conceded that four years was a long time between men. Well, maybe it was longer than that, but this was ridiculous. She was a modern twenty-nine-year-old woman whose ESL students had the highest GPA in the entire district.
No, this wasn’t just ridiculous. This was insulting. Especially considering the competition she had in the category: Myrtle the ancient librarian, Celeste the bearded lunch lady, and Bill Weisshaar, the twitchy biology teacher the kids called Bildo.
Damn right she deserved a recount. This was a matter of principle.
“I wanted everyone to know about this little survey our students circulated,” Principal Quilley said as the shock settled among the crowded lounge. “We confiscated it when Carrie Barcus and Addison Pinchly were smoking behind the bleachers.”
Isa turned when she heard a woman’s voice catch. Myrtle, who happened to be a delightful and intelligent woman, held a shivering hand to her candy-pink lips.
“I…I never thought…” Myrtle sobbed. “This is…oh this is just…”
“Nice to know some of us are so highly regarded,” Stan Fields boasted.
Outrage boiled up Isa’s throat, tasting nasty and metallically sweet. She could barely breathe while the others—mainly the athletics department—chortled. With his one-size-too-small shorts and carefully styled white-boy do, Stan had been voted the sexiest in the male category.
Of course that pinche reina enjoyed this. Isa’s hand itched to deliver an Alexis Carrington–style slap across his smug face. Stan might be a former all-star athlete and head of the PE department, but that mama’s boy made Steven Cojocaru look straighter than Trent Lott.
“Quite.” Principal Quilley clipped off the laughter in his Shakespearean voice. “I spoke with their parents and they will be composing a letter of apology to the staff here at the school.”
“That’s it?” Isa’s question killed what was left of everyone’s amusement. “I’m sure Carrie and Addison didn’t have the only copy,” she added. Did she really have to say the obvious? “Do we want our students circulating this around about us?”
“They will also be suspended from school for one week,” he answered, his eyes dark with compassion. “Anyone who is caught with a copy will be given a week of detention.”
Isa glanced at Myrtle, who now cried quietly into her hankie, and at Bildo—Mr. Weisshaar—who stared wide-eyed at the table. The three of them would have to face the students every day for the rest of the year, knowing how they looked at them, judged them. At least Celeste had the power to spit in their food.
No punishment would be good enough. Isa’s inner Alexis Carrington insisted she speak the hell up. Like the episode when she wrested Denver Carrington from Blake and threatened the board of directors with dismissal if they crossed her. And girlfriend did it in a fabulously massive shoulder-padded suit. If Isa had a little less Krystle Carrington and more Alexis in her, she’d get her recount.
Stacking her hands on top of the other and pulling her unpadded shoulders back, Isa did her best.
&nbs
p; “I think this is indicative of the general lack of respect we have from the students,” she heard herself saying out loud. “I think we should use a class period to have an open discussion of respect not only for men, but women as well.”
A tide of outrage and complaints drowned Isa’s voice.
We don’t have time to discuss this on class time with the state exams next month.
We shouldn’t be perpetuating this behavior by addressing it in the classroom; let their punishment speak for itself.
“Ms. Avellan, remember you have students who also rely on you,” Principal Quilley said gravely when the clamor ebbed away. He had been her favorite teacher when she was in this high school, he encouraged her to take a full AP load, and then helped her find scholarships for college. He knew her better than her own father did and in spite of all her personal failures, Dr. Quilley’s respect never faltered.
“Frankly, I feel any further discussion will only make it worse,” he continued. Why, she asked silently, why would he not take her side? “Better to let this little incident die down and focus on education.
“Don’t you think?” he asked, looking up at Isa like a patient father ministering to his complaining teenager.
“No,” she spat, shoving her chair back. “I really don’t.”
“Girl, I thought you were going to castrate him with your eyes, I swear you were,” June declared. The school secretary’s stiletto boots clattered to keep up with Isa’s red Keds.
Isa could almost hear the creaking hinges as she forced her lips into a grin. She was almost angry enough to say something against Dr. Quilley. But not quite. “You made out well.”
The approving glow in June’s eyes dimmed. “I’m a married gal,” she countered. “Ted will really appreciate that high school guys jerk off to thoughts of me.”
Maybe they wouldn’t if June started dressing like an adult. Then again, part of Isa envied June for just letting it all hang out there in clothes that inspired cattiness.
The whisperings that went on behind June’s back speculated that she got her secretary job because of her bra size rather than her typing speed. It didn’t help that June wasn’t shy about sharing her opinions, which further alienated every other woman in the school, except for Isa. Now she likened the friendship to being adopted by a cat.
June planted a hand on a sassily cocked hip when they stopped at Isa’s mobile classroom, on what the kids called Trailer Trash Row. As budgets tightened and the student population swelled, mobile buildings crept up like mushrooms after the rain. “Now will you go out with my brother-in-law?” June pleaded.
“No.”
June’s sly grin collapsed. “Why not? He’s a good guy, he has a great job and trust me, what happened back in that room is already makin’ the rounds. You need damage control, girl.”
Why her, Isa pleaded. Why? June had only been living in Sweetwater, an L.A. suburb wedged between Montebello and Norwalk, for a few months and she knew full well how fast word got around. And around here no one needed the Internet, cell phones, or TV. All you needed was to tell Susan Contreras. Isa loved her best friend’s mother, who had taken her and her son in when they had nowhere to go. But no secret was sacred when it landed in Susan’s ear.
“I’m not dating Alex so people will think I’m—” she looked over her shoulder and whispered, “fuckable.”
“Oh, but honey, I’ve lived in his house long enough to know that he is,” June remarked and then saw Isa’s look of eww. “I’m just being honest.”
June’s brother-in-law was the first guy in a long time who made Isa nearly forget her hard-won lessons about men. Guys like Alex were too charismatic, too…too much for a girl like Isa. In some ways, he reminded her of her ex husband when she had first fallen senselessly in love at fifteen. Now she was almost thirty and she’d learned never to make that mistake again.
“Alex is Andrew’s soccer coach,” Isa informed June.
“More reason for you to get in there and snatch him up before them other soccer moms do.” Inspired, her drawl sharpened. “This is what we’ll do: new hair, a little makeup to bring out your eyes and shorter, tighter outfits…we’ll make you a MILF!”
“A what?”
“MILF. Mother I’d like to—” June looked over her shoulder and finished clearly. “Fuck.”
Isa shook her head. Just because they were in a high school didn’t mean they had to talk like they were students. “I promised Andrew I wouldn’t be late for his practice,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster on a day like this. “See you at lunch tomorrow?”
“Soccer practice? You’ll be there tonight?”
“Well I thought so since my son is on the team an—” Isa realized the direction where June’s thoughts were headed. “Oh no. If you try to set me up with Alex I’ll never speak to you again.”
“Just an introduction?”
“No. I already met him.”
“And?”
“He shook my hand and gave me the schedule.”
“That’s it?”
“I have work to do.”
“You’re telling me,” June said before wiggling back to the main building. June reminded Isa eerily of her mother, Dara. The same Dara from whom Isa hadn’t heard in four months. Aside from her blue eyes and boobs, Dara hadn’t ever given Isa much.
But where Dara had been the MILF of all MILFs, her daughter drew her sweater closed and resigned herself to being the dependable mom she’d always been.
2
“That was quite a turn,” Alex called out when Isa slammed the car door shut, dropping her backpack while hugging a store-bought potato salad she’d artfully arranged in a ceramic bowl to look like homemade.
Backpack forgotten, she looked up and saw him—Alex—hefting a net of soccer balls over his shoulder. “Ready for the new season?” he asked.
Remembering that the air-conditioning died in her classroom, Isa clamped her free arm to her side. And she wondered why she beat out Myrtle, Celeste, and Bildo for the title?
“Hardly.” She sniffed the coconut oil in his sunscreen as he bent down to pick up her backpack. “How about you?”
He shrugged her backpack up on his shoulder and Isa bit back a sigh. “Can’t back out now.”
Isa wondered what that meant, noticing his brown poet’s eyes were underlined with dark half-moons and that melt-in-your-mouth smile was nowhere to be seen.
“Have you heard from your brother?” she asked, remembering that Ted Lujon had originally been the head coach but had been called to active duty.
“Uh, no,” he answered as if he’d already forgotten they were walking together. “Not in a while.”
See, Isa would’ve told June. This is why she would not go through the humiliation of a makeover for a man who couldn’t remember her presence while he carried her backpack.
“I’ve been waiting fifteen minutes for you to get here,” Susan Contreras shouted at Isa from the gazebo. “And honey, how many times do I have to tell you to get rid of that ratty old backpack?”
Isa had known Susan since she was six years old and interpreted this greeting: “Hi. How are you?” in Mexican Mama speak. But she’d really wished Alex wasn’t holding the offending backpack right this very second.
“I was so worried and you never answer your cell phone,” Susan complained, wrapping Isa into a hug and the Carolina Herrera she sprayed on religiously every morning. She looked like a tropical cocktail garnish in her straw hat and lime Capri set. “And everyone’s talking about the, you know, that thing that happened at your school.”
“Here you go,” Alex offered, holding out her backpack from its duct-taped strap.
“Thanks,” Isa murmured.
“Go take your balls to the field,” Susan ordered him. For the first time Alex grinned at Isa, and even though she felt so inelegant, his brief attention felt like the sun warming her bare skin.
“And m’ijo, make sure you take some bottled water,” Susan continued as if t
ime hadn’t stopped and Alex wasn’t looking at her. “It’s very hot out there.”
“I will.” He turned and every female eye watched him bend down over the ice chest, except for Susan, who started lecturing Isa about her backpack. Isa took in the other moms in their colorful, cute clothes and shoes.
You know better, a voice spoke unheeded. Isa heaved in a breath when Susan swatted her arm. “I was wondering when you’d notice.”
Isa immediately cleared all thoughts in case Susan really could read minds. Ever since her best friend Tamara brought her home that day after kindergarten, Susan had treated her like a second daughter. She set her potato salad on the table, which was already crowded with homemade brownies, cookies, salsa, salads, and beans.
Susan narrowed her eyes behind her sunglasses. “Why aren’t you wearing makeup or at the very least lipstick?”
“Well I—”
“And I hope you’re drinking more water and wearing that sunscreen I gave you. It’s not too greasy, is it?”
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