up to Memphis. Mary Claire gets free lunch at school. I did, too. And it was fine—for high school. I made up for being poor as dirt by being reasonably well-put-together and doing really well in gymnastics and concert band. Oh, and dating Brandt Kessler, a doctor’s son. But college is different. Poor girls don’t rush, and on my campus, girls who don’t rush have a hard time getting noticed. After a lifetime on the outside, window-shopping, I want to be an insider here at Chattahoochee College. So when I graduate, I can start a life that doesn’t include a sewing table.
I place the last of my Mason jars in a little row on the edge of my desk and mentally tick off my regulars. My sorority regulars, that is.
Holly buys half an eighth a week, and so do Megan, Kelsey, Lora, Chole, Amber, Ricci, Katy Peterson, Hannah, Solena, and Lindsey. They all get charged $65 instead of my regular $70. Greek discount. Neda only buys a three-fourths of a gram, because she says when she smokes at the same time she’s Vyvancing, she gets a rash. I charge her $50, because geez, I’ve gotta make some money off her. And then I’ve got a bunch of quarter-ounce customers. I walk my fingers over these jars: Julie, Sarah, Molly, other Molly, Forrest, Anna Maria, Christy, Elizabeth, Joanna, and Jordan. These chicks are where I make some real money. I make them cough up $145 a jar for a quarter of an ounce. More, when the weed is really good.
This week, it’s pretty much my norm: some barely mid-grade diesels, purchased from Kennard, my old across-the-street neighbor down in Albany. Chattahoochee College sits right on the Alabama-Georgia line—about one hundred miles southwest of Atlanta, and one hundred miles northwest of my hometown of Albany, Georgia. Every Sunday afternoon, I drive an hour and a half home in my ancient, white Mazda Miata, and drive back up with several grocery bags full of my Grans’ cookies and brownies, plus a pound of bud concealed in patterned Tupperware.
I peek into the portable cake carrier on my closet floor and cringe.
Just like last week, I’m running through my stash too fast. I take the Ziploc freezer bag out of the cake carrier and sit it on the scales that stand on the carpet, in the nook under my desk. These are adjusted for the weight of the bag, and...
Shit. After I get rid of all my Mason jars tonight, and if I sell about a fourth a pound tomorrow at the bars, I’ll be running really low. And I still have to make it through the Friday frat parties, and there’s a home game this weekend, which means I could make a mint at Saturday tailgates. But I’ll almost definitely be out by the Saturday night post-game frat bashes.
It happened last week, and I used up all my emergency, just-incase-Kennard-dies-suddenly stash.
I guess I should be glad. I’m growing my client base. Instead, I feel anxious.
I pick up my phone and scroll to “K.C.,” but I don’t dial. K.C. is this sketchy guy I met at a bar last year. When I get really low, can I buy a few ounces from him, but I don’t like to. He’s not like... cop sketchy. He’s more the looks-only-at-my-boobs kind of sketchy. Let’s just say I don’t want to be alone with him in a broken elevator.
I rub my lipsticked lips together and decide I won’t call K.C. unless I get a surprise order tonight. At this point, almost all the girls in my sorority and our BFF sororities know I deal, and so do some of their boyfriends, so I’ve got about a dozen frat clients. I also deal to some people from my classes. Add that to a handful of townie adults, plus my yoga instructor and a few guys at the ten-minute oil change place downtown... and I’ve got a pretty big client list. For a one-girl operation.
I look once more at the digital clock on my desk, then grab my Kate Spade overnight bag—the one that looks like a big, straw purse—and dump its contents—a tube of toothpaste and some PJ pants—onto the floor. I grab the PJ pants and put them back in, because I just remembered these dumb jars always clank together. I add a sleeveless shirt and some running shorts to the bag, to keep the Mason jars from bumping each other as I move. Then I hustle out of