it going, Gurgevich?” Jake asked, sliding into the chair next to the English teacher. She was opening a takeout container that held something delectable and red meat-y.
“Is that Kobe beef?” Floyd asked, sniffing the air like a bloodhound.
“It is.”
“How do you rate Kobe beef delivery for lunch?” Floyd demanded.
Her shoulders lifted. “I have many admirers.” I wanted to be Mrs. Gurgevich when I grew up.
I took the empty seat between Jake and Haruko and dug into my meal. I quelled the reactive grumble when Amie Jo strutted into the lounge. She was wearing a pink wrap dress, nude heels, and a necklace the size of a hubcap.
“Hello, all! I come bearing cookies from fourth period,” she said airily.
She dropped a platter of exquisitely decorated sugar cookies on the table in front of Jake.
“Wow, these look like Pinterest,” I commented.
“My students take their lessons very seriously,” Amie Jo sniffed. I think she thought I was being sarcastic.
“I’m not kidding. They look great.”
Amie Jo gave me the side-eye, trying to decide if I was kidding or not. So I reached out and took a heart-shaped cookie with pink drizzled icing.
“Yep. Delicious,” I said, taking a bite.
“Well, I just wanted to remind everyone about my Open House this month. You don’t need to bring a thing. The caterers have it all covered,” she announced.
There was an excited buzz around the room, and Amie left, wiggling her bedazzled fingers in Jake’s direction.
“Open House?” I asked Jake.
“Every year, the Hostetters open up their estate to us commoners and throw one helluva party,” Floyd supplied. “You do not want to miss it.”
I definitely did want to. And planned to. Also, I probably wasn’t even invited.
“It’s over-the-top. The food is insane. There’s appetizers in one room, a dinner buffet in another.” Jake sounded like he was talking about backstage passes to AC/DC.
“And don’t forget the indoor and outdoor bars,” Haruko chimed in.
“I ate so many crab puffs last year,” Bill said, patting his stomach at the fond memory.
“Everyone goes?” I clarified.
“Oh, yeah. You don’t want to miss it,” Mrs. Gurgevich insisted. “They had a string quartet in the dining room one year and a steel drum band on the patio.”
“Remember the year Rich Rothermel got drunk and tackled the swan ice sculpture into the pool?”
“Who was it they found drunk in the master bathtub, fully clothed?”
“That would be Jake, four years ago,” Mrs. Gurgevich said, pointing a finger in his direction.
Jake shuddered. “Still can’t stand the taste of a Moscow mule.”
The teachers continued their reminiscences over the daytime talk show on the TV playing in the corner.
“Trust me, Mars. You want to go to this shindig,” Jake whispered in my ear.
I did kind of want to see the inside of the house. I mean, the Greek columns on the outside couldn’t be the only ridiculous display of wealth, right? “Am I even invited?”
“Everyone is invited. Part of the fun is all the feuds and arguments that break out.”
“Fun,” I quipped. I turned my attention back to my pot roast.
“So, Cicero, you ready for some rainy fall v-ball?” Floyd asked.
The morning classes had been able to go outside for another sweaty mess of field hockey and flag football. But the skies had opened up and were currently dumping buckets of cold rain.
“About that. How much say do we have over the curricula?” I asked.
“You guys are lucky,” Haruko piped up. “While the rest of us schmucks have to worry our butts off about standardized testing, you guys can do pretty much whatever the hell you want.”
“Is that true?” I asked Floyd.
He shrugged his burly lumberjack shoulders. “There’s always the presidential fitness bullshit. But other than that, we’re really only limited by the equipment required. You got something in mind?”
I looked at Jake and found him watching me with a mix of interest and affection. It made me feel like I’d just drunk a mug full of hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream.
“I might have an idea. Do we have any Ping-Pong tables?”
“We can check. They might be buried in the back of the supply room,” Floyd mused.
54
Marley
The kids looked at me like I was speaking Pennsylvania Dutch to them.
“So we’re not playing volleyball?” a curly-haired senior with an overbite asked.
“No volleyball.”
“And no Ping-Pong either?” a freckle-faced sophomore clarified.
“No Ping-Pong,” I confirmed. “Instead, we’re going to break into teams to design and perform Ping-Pong ball trick shots.”
They blinked at me, trying to figure out if this was some kind of elaborate gym teacher trap. At any second, they