heartbroken when my cousin Adeline married her husband.”
“It would have been so much fun to have lesbians in the family,” Max sighed.
“Definitely.” I had no idea what to say to anything. I wasn’t even sure why I’d come over.
“What’s up, Cicero?” Floyd waved. “Still have a job?”
“Hi, Marley,” Bill Beerman spoke up, his voice barely a squeak.
“Hi, guys. Oh, Mrs. Gurgevich. I didn’t recognize you.” Mrs. Gurgevich looked…ravishing? She was decked out in sparkle from her fancy caftan to the very large diamonds on her fingers. “Wow, those are some rings.”
They looked like hefty engagement rings. Four of them. I’d seen the woman every day of my junior year of high school and didn’t recall her wearing a single piece of jewelry.
Mrs. Gurgevich wiggled her fingers. “Let Ms. Cicero in, gentlemen,” she said, clearing a path through the testosterone.
“What’s going on?” I hissed at Jake as everyone peeled off to the right of the—I knew it—prom dress-worthy staircase.
“The teachers want the dirt on what went down with Hooper, and my uncle wants proof of monogamy so he can blab to his husband about it.”
“Why does it smell like Lysol in here?”
He skated a hand over the back of his head. “You probably don’t want to know.”
I heard a galloping coming from upstairs, and we both watched as a blond furball launched itself down the stairs.
“Homie!” Homer planted his front paws on my chest and shoved his cold nose into my face. “Hey, buddy! Wow. Are greetings like this why people have dogs?” I asked.
“Geez, I wouldn’t know. He just kind of grumbles at me and then pushes his food dish around when I come home,” Jake said, eyeing his dog.
“You have a nice place,” I said, glancing around the foyer as I gave Homer a good scruff. The trim work was dark, the hardwood original, and the ceilings high. There was a living room with a lot of glass and a lot of built-ins to one side of the staircase and what looked like a dining room turned poker den on the opposite side.
“You should’ve seen it ten minutes ago,” Floyd piped up from the dining room.
“Har har. Very funny. Are we playing or what?” Jake growled. “Come on in, and don’t mind the inquisition.”
I played, poorly. It had been a long time since my college poker days. And as in all other areas of my life, Lady Luck was not on my side. But it was fun to kick back and listen to the razzing. To hear Mrs. Gurgevich drop fascinating nuggets about a life that sounded nothing like that of a high school English teacher.
She knew Tony Bennett from her back-up singing days?
She had a lover in Greece who was twenty years her junior?
Jake sat next to me, his knee pressing into mine as he manspread in his chair. He didn’t look like he belonged to this house. Except for maybe the velvet Dogs Playing Poker art. That definitely was his style.
We played. We ate pretty great beef jerky. And I dodged questions like a skinny, spectacled seventh grader dodged balls on the playground.
Mrs. Gurgevich wanted to know if Lisabeth Hooper was finally someone else’s problem.
Floyd wanted to know if I was getting fired.
Bill had questions about Coach Vince blaming poor little innocent me for the red dye incident. I didn’t have answers for any of them. Next week would be early enough for me to face whatever legal trouble I may have stirred up.
And Uncle Max had 17,000 questions about what kind of life partner Jake could expect out of me.
It was awkward, amusing, and somehow even a little bit fun. Mrs. Gurgevich took me out with a full house, and one by one everyone else fell to the reigning poker queen until it was down to her and Jake, eyeing each other across the green felt and trash talking.
I was still having trouble believing that my high school English teacher who dressed in catalogue-ordered monochromatic polyester was a devilish, delightful, worldly woman who once dated a music star. We had it narrowed down to Neil Diamond, John Mellencamp—in his Cougar days—or Billy Ray Cyrus.
“I call,” Mrs. Gurgevich said. She sounded so blasé as if she hadn’t a care in the world or a worry over the seventy-five-dollar pot in front of her. “Full house.”
Her smile was feline, like a lion ready to rip her prey’s face off.
“Huh,” Jake said, looking down at her cards. “That looks like a winning hand to me.” He started laying his