from the front and only a few in from the aisle. As I settled in, I could tell that even my ample behind would be no match for a full three hours in that hard plastic seat.
“Hey, Mama.”
I craned my neck around to see the boy who had spoken, a thick-necked young man with Greek letters emblazoned across his chest, knee-length khaki shorts, and leather flip-flops. The sort of flip-flops that cost more than my best dress shoes. He wore a puka shell necklace, a backward ball cap, and sprawled in his chair, slumped down so far his butt about fell off the edge of his seat.
I hadn’t gone to college, but I knew his type. I’d wrangled boys like that when I worked at Erma’s Fry by Night Diner in high school, the rich kids from Dickerson who had more money than manners. I’d watched those boys grow into men with florid faces, sports cars, and inappropriate girlfriends. And I’d watched those men grow fat and sad with middle age, turning into pitiful caricatures of themselves. Basically, I’d watched the life cycle of this boy’s type, and I would bet he wouldn’t be smiling such a smug grin if he knew what was in store for him.
A half-dozen smirking boys formed a gangly knot around the boy who’d spoken. This particular breed of jerk tended to travel in packs.
“I haven’t seen you around campus,” he said, undeterred by my most thin-lipped glare of annoyance. “You new? Cuz maybe I could, uh, show you around.” He bobbled his eyebrows suggestively, and his posse sniggered.
The ringleader high-fived the kid next to him and laughed, but the sound had an ugly edge to it. Whether he ever pantsed a kid in gym class or not, this guy was a bully.
As a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, I’d learned that the best way to beat a bully is to ignore him. I swiveled back around, prepared to do just that, but my rebuff only prompted a round of catcalls from the peanut gallery.
I swung back around. “Sugar, I’m old enough to be your mama, so don’t think your cute will work on me.”
“Me-ow,” he said, swiping a playful claw through the air. “A real live cougar!” His backup bullies laughed way louder than his comment deserved.
I opened my mouth to put him in his place, but before I could utter a word, someone behind me came to my defense.
“Put it back in your pants, Bubba. She doesn’t have time for your bull crap.”
I turned around to thank my champion and found Ashley Henderson, the perky desk clerk from the Lady Shapers, a high-end all-girl fitness club in town. I’d done a little undercover work—emphasis on the “little” instead of the “work”—there the year before, and Ashley had inadvertently given me some very useful information. Given how transparent middle-aged women were to vivacious young girls like her, I couldn’t imagine she would remember me, but she surprised me.
“Hey, Miz Jones,” she said.
“Hey, Ashley. Thanks for that.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Bubba’s a jack-ass. You get used to him.”
Her words were friendly enough, to me if not to Bubba, but her shuttered expression and flat tone of voice did not invite girl talk. “Well, thanks anyway,” I said.
She nodded and turned to her notebook. I flipped open my own, and mindlessly jotted the date on the top of the page, and then I studied Ashley out of the corner of my eye.
When I’d seen her six months earlier, she’d been as sweet and bubbly as strawberry soda, her highlighted blond hair caught in a high ponytail and her tight athletic clothes showing off the compact curves of her muscular body.
She’d changed.
Like many Texans, she’d lost her sun-kissed glow during the winter months, but her skin had gone beyond pale to the flat, sallow color of cooked custard. She still wore her hair in a ponytail, but it listed to the side and strands escaped to create a nimbus around her head. The precious matching spandex-enriched cotton outfits she wore to the gym were gone; in their place, she sported a pair of real sweatpants, their original color faded to an indeterminate muddy hue, and an oversized pink sweatshirt with purple Greek letters appliquéd across the chest.
I wasn’t judging the girl. Heck, I wasn’t dressed much better, and she’d probably been out painting the town the night before. It just surprised me to see her looking so, well, ordinary.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Reggie announced