I arrived at Honky Tonk early for my shift in my Dad’s pristine Ford Explorer. A bonus to having my parents in town. Another bonus was the fact that they were having a movie night sleepover with Waylay at Liza’s.
I was under orders to buy a car ASAP.
Between my poker winnings and the proceeds from the sale of my house, I found myself in a pretty solid financial position even with the impending purchase of a decent car. Then there was the quickie Knox had coaxed me into that afternoon when he came over to help me put together Waylay’s new desk.
I was feeling pretty damn good about life when I strolled into Honky Tonk. “Hello, ladies,” I said to Fi and Silver. “You’re looking gorgeous today.
“You’re early and in a good mood,” Fi noted, sliding the cash drawer into the register. “I hate that about you.”
Silver glanced my way as she flipped the stools off the bar. She paused.
“She’s got orgasm face. She’s not one of us.”
Crap. The last thing Knox or I needed was our co-workers gossiping about our incredibly satisfying sex life.
“Oh, come on,” I scoffed, hiding my face behind a curtain of hair as I tied my apron. “A girl can be in a good mood without having orgasms. What’s with the chocolate and heating pads?”
Next to the register was a plate of brownies wrapped with pink cellophane, a box of stick-on heating pads, and a bottle of Midol. “Knox’s monthly care package,” Silver said. “Who gave you the O face?”
“Care package for what?” I asked, ignoring the question.
“All our cycles synced up. Stasia’s too,” Fi explained. “Every month, the boss puts together a period survival kit and is nice to us for a day or two.”
“That’s really nice of him,” I said.
Fi slapped the bar. “OhmygodyouhadsexwithKnox!”
“What? Me? Knox?” I felt my face getting hot. “Why would you think that? Can I have a brownie?”
“She’s definitely deflecting,” Silver decided.
“Yeah, Nomi. Your poker face needs some serious work. This is so fucking exciting. You know he’s never shagged an employee before. Man, I knew there were sparks! Didn’t I tell you there were sparks?” Fi slapped Silver in the shoulder.
“Yeah. Sparks,” Silver agreed. “So are you guys a thing? Or was it a heat-of-the-moment, my-brother’s-just-been-shot kinda thing?”
“On a scale of Meh to My Vagina is Forever Ruined, how good was he?”
Fi asked.
This was not going the way I’d planned. My gaze slid to the kitchen doors and back to the expectant faces before me. News traveled fast in this town, and I did not want to feed the gossip.
“You guys, I really don’t want to talk about this.”
They stood there staring at me. Then they looked at each other and nodded.
“Okay, here’s how it’s gonna go,” Fi said. “You’re going to tell us everything, and in exchange, we won’t tell anyone anything.”
“Or else what?” I hedged.
Silver’s smile was wicked. “Or else we spend the whole shift wondering out loud who put that smile on your face in front of all the customers.”
“You’re evil.”
“We’re evil. But we can be bought,” Fi reminded me.
“YOUR PARENTS WALKED in on your one-night stand. Classic,” Silver said ten minutes later when I’d finished verbally vomiting all over them.
“And your vagina is officially ruined,” Fi added. “And we aren’t in a relationship. Unless you’re my parents or a caseworker weighing my stability as a guardian, in which case we’ve been swept away by an unexpected romance.”
“But you are having sex,” Silver confirmed.
“Temporarily,” I said with emphasis.
Silver raised a pierced eyebrow. Fi stopped gobbling down her brownie.
“Saying it out loud makes it sound stupid. Maybe we should finish getting ready to open?”
“Eh. I’m PMS-ing. I’d rather eat another brownie and talk about penis length and orgasm intensity,” Fi said.
I was saved from responding by my phone signaling a text.
Sloane: My blabbermouth niece told me something I think you should know.
Me: What? Is my side part out of style?
Sloane: Yes. Also she said the teacher’s been pretty rough on Way the last two days.
Me: What do you mean?
Sloane: Chloe said Mrs. Felch is being mean to Waylay. Yelling at her in front of the rest of the class. Making “weird” comments about her mom.
Chloe and Nina got in trouble for defending her.
Me: Thanks for letting me know.
Sloane: You’re going to go mama lion on an elementary school teacher, aren’t you?
I pocketed my phone. “I hate to do this to you guys, but I need to go to Waylay’s school.”
“Is Way in trouble?” Fi asked.
“No, but Mrs. Felch is about to be. Mind covering for me until I get back?”
Silver looked up from the heating pad she was taping to her stomach. “I’ll cover for you if you bring me back one of those pretzels with caramel dip from the place next to the school.”
Fi’s eyes lit up. “Ooooh! Bring two!”
“Better make it three,” Silver amended. “Max is coming in at four thirty and she’s on Day Two of the Red Tide.”
“Three pretzels with caramel dip. Got it,” I said, untying my apron and grabbing my purse. “You sure you don’t mind covering for me?”
Fi waved away my concern. “It’s always slow the first hour or two after opening. And Knox won’t be here with all us gals in the middle of Shark Week.”
“Shark Week?”
She pointed at the Midol and brownies.
“Oh, right. That Shark Week. Thank you for covering!” I blew them kisses and headed for the door.
The school was less than two blocks away, so I hoofed it. It gave me the time to work up a good head of steam. I was sick and tired of people thinking they could judge someone by their family’s behavior. I’d lived in the shadow of Tina’s misdeeds my entire life and I hated that Waylay was facing the same kind of problem.
She was just a kid. She should be having sleepovers, playing games, sneaking junk food. Not dealing with the fallout of her mother’s reputation.
Worse yet, she hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me she was having problems with her teacher. How could I fix a problem if I didn’t know it existed?
Knockemout Elementary School was a squat brick building in the middle of town. There was the standard wood-chipped playground to the right and the long drive out front where buses loaded and unloaded every day.
The school day had already wrapped up, but I hoped I could catch Mrs.
Felch in the building.
The front doors were all still propped open from the mass exodus of students, so I headed inside. It smelled like floor polish and disinfectant. It was only the first week of school, but the bulletin boards outside the sixth-grade classrooms were already full of artwork. Except for Room 303. The board was empty except for a calendar with a countdown on it and a piece of paper with the name Mrs. Felch.
I hadn’t met her at Back to School Night. She’d been out sick, and I’d spent most of the hour gently reminding parents and school staff that I wasn’t my sister. I kicked myself for not making more of an effort to meet her before leaving her in charge of my niece.
I spied a woman sitting behind the desk at the front of the classroom. Best guess put her in her early fifties. Her silver-streaked hair was pulled back in a bun so tight I bet she got headaches from it. She was dressed in head-to-toe shades of beige, and her lips were pursed in a thin line as she scrolled through something on her phone. She gave off the air of someone who was disappointed in just about everything life had to offer. I gave a cursory knock and walked into the room. “Mrs. Felch, you don’t know me, but—”
The woman looked up and bobbled her phone, eyes narrowing behind her glasses. “Don’t play games with me. I know who you are.”
Good lord. Hadn’t the dang grapevine caught up to the teaching staff yet?
“I’m not Tina. I’m Naomi Witt. My niece, Waylay, is in your class, and I’d like to talk to you about how you’ve been treating her.”
I’d never been good at confrontations. Hell, I’d squeezed my ass out of a church basement window to run away from a wedding rather than tell the groom I wasn’t going to marry him.
But in that moment, I felt a fire burning in my belly. Backing down wasn’t an option. Neither was retreat.
“How I’ve been treating her? I’ve been treating her the way she deserves to be treated,” Mrs. Felch snarled. The lines on her face carved deeper. “I treat her the way the daughter of a whore deserves to be treated.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
A movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I realized that I had a much bigger problem than a horrible sixth-grade teacher.
