“I offered to study with you. Did you get my text?”
“Yes.” I’ve received approximately five thousand texts in the last week and have responded to maybe two. “I studied. But what’s the point? We’re gonna be actors. We should be acting in this class.”
“It’s important to understand our foundation. Learning a little history won’t hurt us.”
“Did Audra McDonald need history to be successful? Did Lin Manuel Miranda?”
“He literally wrote a play about history.”
Okay, so maybe Hamilton is a teeny-tiny exception. “Still seems like a colossal waste of time.”
“Dr. Maddox’s tests are easy.”
“For you.” I’m a terrible test taker. I’ll study until my brain overheats, but as soon as a test is put in front of me, everything I’ve learned flies out my ears, not swooping back to perch until it’s way too late.
Jeremy checks out the opening classroom door. “Whoa. What happened to her?”
I follow the path of Jeremy’s befuddled stare to see Maxine easing inside, limping as though she fell out of a tree.
Maxine pats the cheek of a sophomore who gives her his muscular arm and assists her to her seat. “Well, aren’t you the sweetest? Cody, you’re simply a gem.”
“Can I get you anything, Maxi?” This from Cody’s friend, whose name I don’t know. But he leans close to my grandmother and hands her his bottle of water. “Unopened. Just got it out of the vending machine.”
“What a dear.” She cracks open the bottle and holds it in a toast. “Here’s to you, sweet boys. May you find girls worthy of you, and may you never know a pain like I feel radiating from my firm, sculpted tookus.”
She eases into her empty seat with a wince that almost tugs at her cosmetically modified face.
“Are you okay?” Jeremy asks.
“Oh, Jerms!” Maxine digs into her backpack and pulls out what looks like a giant whoopee cushion. “I fell during a dance rehearsal, and now I gotta wear this bootie donut.” She lifts up a hip and slides it beneath her jean-clad bottom. “A bootie donut!”
I bite my lip on a chuckle. “What exactly happened?”
Maxine settles onto her inflatable and visibly relaxes. “I fired that cheater, Raul.” Leaning toward Jeremy, she gives him a quick fill-in. “I caught my pageant talent coach with another woman.”
My dramatic friend covers his overly shocked mouth with a hand. “No!”
“Yes!”
“I hope you kicked him to the curb.”
“That’s exactly what I did, Jerms. Then I hired Francisco Montablan. He used to be a backup dancer for Maroon 4.”
“You mean Maroon 5,” Jeremy says.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought when I hired him. Turns out Maroon 4 is a cover band that performs Adam Levine hits in polka.” Maxine shrugs. “I’ll say this for Francisco, he looks great in lederhosen.”
Maddox will be here any second, and I need to move this story along. “How did you hurt yourself?”
“I tried an advanced move in the new routine Francisco created.” She rearranges her inflatable. “I fell on the coffee table and landed right on my statue of Madonna.”
Jeremy pats Maxine’s hand. “I’m sure the Holy Mother will understand.”
“She means Madonna, the singer.” After opening my laptop, I pull up my class notes and try to speed read through them. It’s no use though. I’ll never remember half of this stuff. Who cares what year the Globe theater burned? “It sounds like your routine is too complicated.”
“That’s what my dear sweetie Sam said, but I reject that negativity.”
“Maybe your bootie donut says otherwise.” Maxine does not find my comment humorous. “And maybe Francisco isn’t the guy for you either.”
“He’s highly sought after.”
“By who? The county fair?” I soften my tone and let the air out of some of my sass. “Stick to Raul’s dance routine. It’s too late to learn something new, especially if it’s super complicated.”
“But Francisco’s routine is hip, it’s fresh, it’s young.” She turns to Jeremy. “Reminds me of myself.”
“Totally.” Jeremy ducks his head and focuses on his own laptop.
“Is this pageant worth all this trouble?” I ask.
“Yes! All this and more.”
“Remind me why you’re doing this again?”
“Because I can. Because I want everyone to see I’ve still got it.”
“Nobody doubts you still have it,” Jeremy says.
“Thank you, my sweet petunia, but next spring is a big birthday for me, and I wanted to prove to myself that I could still wow a crowd.”
“In a little over a month, you’ve made friends with the entire Hendrix football team,” I say. “How can you doubt your ability to wow a crowd?”
She waves a dainty hand at a guy three rows back. “I am quite the tour du force, aren’t I?”
Jeremy smiles. “That you are.”
“Which just affirms I need to carry on and tackle this new routine. It’s the only way to beat Gloria Hardcastle. If that woman thinks she can steal my talent coach and high-kick her way to Mrs. Silver Texas, she’s out of her All Bran-eating mind.”
“Sorry, I’m late!” Dr. Maddox finally breezes inside, his grad assistant trailing behind him. “The copy machine ate all my papers. I considered letting that be my sign we didn’t need to have a test.”
We all sit up straighter, energized by hopeful expectation.
His smile is straight-up diabolical. “But then I came to my senses.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Tate handsomely stands in a ray of sunlight outside the Walker Athletic Complex, where I’m seconds away from my last class this Friday—Intro to Fitness. Also known as Intro to My Nightmare. Historically, physical education classes have not been kind to me.
“I’m fine,” I tell him.
He brushes a hand across my cheek, careful to avoid the small cast still on my nose. “You look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”
“That’s because I haven’t.”
“Katie—”
“I’ll sleep on Thanksgiving break. Right now, I have too much to do.” Jemma and I got into another fight this morning over my desk decor. I told her HGTV would find my urn a lovely addition. It goes well with shiplap, area rugs, farmhouse style, or even mid-century modern. She did not concur. I know I’m days away from her turning me in to the R.A.
Or the police.
Depending on her mood.
“I’m worried about you,” Tate says.
“Don’t be.”
“You never talk about your mom.”
“Why would I?”
“Because she just passed away.”
As if I could forget. Like I don’t think about her every moment I’m not cramming for a test or running lines. “I don’t want to talk about Bobbie Ann.”
“Maybe you’ve forgotten what a good listener I am.”
“Let me grieve in my own way, Tate.” I give him a quick hug. “Have fun in New Orleans.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“No, you won’t.” I smile as I say this. “But it’s nice of you to pretend you will.”
“If you joined our sister sorority, we could hang out more.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“See you Monday?”
I nod and let Tate kiss me.
When he lifts his face, he wears a frown. “I’ll call you every day.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” I pat his cheek. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
“When I get back…we should talk.”
I think about the banquet conversation I had with that girl on the terrace. I should’ve asked Tate about all his last-minute events, but maybe I don’t want to hear the answer. “Sure.”
“Have fun in fitness class.”
“Fun isn’t the goal. Not dying is.” I watch Tate walk away, waving
when he glances back one final time.
I don’t even feel one butterfly. My Tate Butterflies are dead. The question is, can they be revived?
He and I are so not on the same page anymore. I’m not even sure we’re in the same book. He’s in a fun, colorful manga. And I’m in some Oprah book of the month, full of death and sadness and so depressing you cheer when it’s over.
Five minutes later, I’ve changed into yoga pants, a t-shirt, and I’m ready to get this class over and get back to In Between. Unfortunately, the road back home is paved with burpees, push-ups, laps, and an instructor who looks like he does a little too much protein powder.
“All right, guys, let’s workout!” Mr. Jenkins is a PhD student, working on some higher-level degree that forces people to suffer through cardio and heavy lifting. I do not recommend. No thumbs up. Zero stars.
And why do colleges require a fitness class anyway? I get a full workout walking the campus, trying to get from one building to another with limited time. But not only do they require the credit, they make you pay for the punishment.
We meet in one of a handful of mini-gyms in the facility. It’s filled with rows of treadmills, stationary bikes, ellipticals, and a complicated assortment of weight machines that could easily substitute for torture devices.
My body goes on autopilot during the warmup. Mr. Jenkins’ voice is a distant, far-away noise that hardly registers as I bend and stretch, barely attempting to keep up with the class. My mind is filled with the loud noise of my countless problems, the thoughts honking and crashing for attention. I need a home for my mother’s remains. I need to figure out whether I want to work on my relationship with Tate. I desperately want to return Charlie Benson’s last call and hear his voice. But I shouldn’t want to hear his voice. I miss my bio mom. More like, I miss the mom she could’ve and should’ve been. I’m tired of fighting with Jemma. What if my grades are bad? I haven’t had the nerve to check them, and I think they might be cataclysmically awful. I’ve skipped a few classes, but I can’t keep track of which ones or how often. What will James and Millie say when they find out I’m failing and—”
“Hey.”
I turn at this one-word, sexy voice behind me. There I find an upperclassman so cute, I can’t look directly at him, as he’s the solar eclipse of the male species. I’ve seen him in my Intro to Fitness every week, but he’s like royalty, and I’m a peasant. Our worlds do not collide. Our people do not mingle.
I toss my hair and smile. I’d never cheat on Tate, but sometimes a girl likes to be noticed, okay? “Hi,” I say in a breathy whisper. He’s clearly checking out my legs. That’s right, hot dude. These legs are fabulous, contoured by five whole weeks of my low effort in a forced fitness class.
“You seem to have something on your calf.”
I laugh. “Sinewy tendons?”
“No.” He points toward my yoga pants. “Panties.”
“Excuse me?”
“Panties.”
With a jolt, my eyes drop to my legs, and there clinging for dear life on my cotton pants hangs a yellow thong.
“Oh, my gosh! It’s not mine! I mean, it is mine!” The stowaway panty snaps and crackles with static as I grab it, then madly wad it into a ball in my hand. “I don’t know how that got there, and I want to die, and I rarely even wear thongs, and they’re the most uncomfortable thing ever, and they must’ve gotten attached in the dryer and—”
“Gimme your best twelve laps!” Mr. Jenkins yells. “Go!”
My face fully enflamed, I run back to the dressing room and throw the yellow offenders in the trash. Goodbye, thong bikinis. Goodbye, any sense of confidence and humility.
After forty-five of the longest minutes of my life, I finish my last burpee. I don’t know where Hot Guy Who Identifies Unwelcome Panties is, but I can never make eye contact again.
“Stretch it out, people!” Mr. Jenkins hollers. “Give those muscles a break!”
I’ve got to get it together. I need to reclaim my brain and stop walking around here aimlessly like a zombie. Maybe there’s still time to get my grades up and not fail my first semester. And maybe when life calms down, I’ll have a more rational take on where I’m at with Tate.
Instead of stretching with a group of girls I sometimes mingle with, I mosey over to a lone bench near a row of stationary bikes. I prop a leg on the bench, reach for my ankles, and lean into the pose. Closing my eyes, I let the tired, sore muscles elongate, breathing deeply and blocking out the embarrassment that hangs over me like a storm cloud.
Maybe I need to eat better. And if I gave up my caffeine, that could possibly keep me more alert an on my toes. So, from now on, no more coffee. Or ice cream. Or five bowls of cereal in my dorm room.
The fog in my head is clearing out already.
Now I just have to focus on the biggest problem at hand—my mother’s ashes. They need a proper home, and I need to be relieved of this stress. My free-spirited mom would not want this.
Then again, I guess she should’ve specified where she wanted her remains to be scattered.
Giving attention to my other side, I prop my left foot on the bench, bend at the knee, and lean toward my toes.
Returning to my forced zen state, I close my eyes again, inhale deeply, then slowly exhale.
Just as the bench moves.
The bench that should be bolted to the floor.
It shimmies and shakes, and before I can reclaim my leg, the bench tips. My arms flap like a flailing eagle as I fight for balance. I’m going down!
Not ready to surrender to another TKO of humiliation, I grab the nearest object, a beast of a bicycle.
“Noooo!” The whole room shifts as the bike falls backward, taking me with it.
That bike lands on the bike beside it.
Which lands on the bike beside it.
Which sets off a chain reaction of ten bikes, each one louder than the last. A pedal strap flies into the air. A cushioned seat flings past my face and nearly takes out Mr. Jenkins, who’s running my way, a determined lifeguard for the gym equipment caught in my undertow.
I watch it all in horror, praying for the floor to open up and swallow me whole. For the ceiling to roll back so God can mercifully scoop me out of my miserable existence.
“Katie Parker Scott!” Mr. Jenkins bellows. “Step away from the equipment!”
Tears fill my eyes, and I obey.
Beside me, a girl in thick braids hesitantly approaches, no doubt afraid to stand too close to a natural disaster. “Are you okay?”
“No.” My nose aching in sympathy, I look at the mountain of bikes and debris, the chaos and destruction. All caused by me. “I don’t think I am okay.”
And the worst part is— I’m not sure I ever will be.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Well, how did it go?” James asks as Maxine and I return to the house Saturday afternoon.
I place my mom’s urn on the coffee table and collapse onto the couch. “No luck.”
“Katie drove us all over South Texas.” Maxine tosses her inflatable ring beside me and slowly eases herself onto it. “I thought my bootie donut might bring us good luck, but alas, no.”
We’ve driven around all day, stopping at significant spots within 50 miles, hoping inspiration would strike. The only thing that did strike was our need for pit stops for snacks.
“We did find a new burger place in Baytown,” Maxine says. “Onion rings so divine, they must’ve been fried in Heaven. I’d be blissfully content to have my ashes tossed about there.”
James cleans his glasses on his polo shirt. “Maxine, if you’d like to go inspect it again, I’ll pay for the bus fare.”
She rolls her blue eyes. “No, thanks. Not without my Katie. This poor girl has searched high and low all day to no avail. We went to Blue Ridge Lake, Silver Springs waterfalls, Jackson Creek, Katie’s old trailer park, two Jiffy Stop convenience stores, and a Walmart where Bobbie Ann met her favorite boyfriend.”
“And nothing?
” Millie brings in a tray laden with homemade cookies. This woman knows my love language.
“I thought we saw quite a few gorgeous spots for Bobbie Ann,” Maxine says, “but Katie did not approve.”
“None of the locations felt right.” I pull a tennis ball from Rocky’s mouth and give it a toss. “Well, the Walmart was a strong contender, but we were kicked out of there when Maxine got in a motorized cart race with an old man.”
“He was talking smack,” Maxine says. “I had to take him down.”
I glance at James and Millie. “She also took down an entire display of canned peas.”
“Now they’re even easier to reach.” Maxine winces as she resituates herself on the couch. “Say, since we’re all here together, now would be an opportune time for me to perform my new talent for Mrs. Silver Texas.”
James shoots me a look like, Oh, boy.
“Mother, you just got home. Maybe you should rest a while.”
“Nonsense. My gluteus maximus is loose as a goose and telling me it’s ready to shake.” Maxine digs into her leather purse and pulls out her phone. “Katie, clear that coffee table while I cue up the tunes.” She passes the phone off to Millie. “Crank up that volume! One! Two! And a one, two three!”
Maxine spends the next three minutes and seventeen seconds spinning, sliding, shaking, and jiving. I have to admit, I’m beyond impressed. Her act looks like something off a television dance contest, and she has moves that would make most college students jealous. I find my first smile of the day. James and Millie are wide-eyed with awe as well.
The routine is flawless.
Except for one thing.
Maxine’s not having fun. Though she grins like a pageant champ, her eyes are lifeless as those on the Friday night trout special at Geraldo’s Seafood downtown.
“Wonderful!” Millie claps her hands and hugs her mom. “That was incredible! Mom, you’ve worked so hard.”
“Great job, Maxine,” James says. “I don’t know how you learned that stuff so fast, but you aced it.”
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