Page 33 of Hope and Other Lost Things

“Let go of what?”

“You could drive a woman to drink!” Keegan shouted, exaggeratedly finishing her wine.

“You’d drink with or without me,” Julia scoffed.

“Fine, when is the next non-date?” Keegan’s devilish smile forced Julia to sigh at her optimism.

“There will be no more non-dates. We’re focusing on the job at hand,” Julia said flatly.

Keegan leaned back into the couch and pulled her empty glass back to her lips, disappointed to see she reached the bottom. She stood, eyes still rolling.

“Job at hand?” Keegan repeated. “What are we? The mafia?”

Julia almost choked on the wine trickling down the back of her throat. “Maybe. You didn’t read the fine print of your contract very well, did you?”

“If you say so, boss,” she said sarcastically, her voice teetering on a Boston accent. “Refill?”

“If this is the topic of conversation, absolutely.” She held up her still partially full glass and Keegan took it to the kitchen.

“Has the board hinted at how they will be using this information?” Keegan asked, her voice traveling to the living room where Julia still sat.

“You know I can’t talk to you about that,” Julia answered, graciously taking her freshly filled glass of wine from Keegan’s grasp.

“You can’t even share just a bit?”

“Confidentiality states no.” Julia smiled to herself as Keegan eagerly piled shrimp onto a plate.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, putting her glass down. Keegan began to pull some shrimp onto a plate. “Is Brianne off the waitlist for school yet?”

“Not yet. They’re saying hopefully within a month or so. It’s so funny how we’ve waited a year for her to get into the district when the first three got right in!” Keegan stuffed her mouth full of food as she picked her wine back up. A chaser, you might call it.

“One article in Education Weekly and our numbers doubled overnight.”

“The internet is a scary place.” Keegan grimaced. “Oh, and so did the value of everyone’s home in the area! How much do you think yours would be worth now? You could sell it! Move closer to town?”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter.” Julia shook the thought right out of her head.

“Why doesn’t it?”

“Because this is where I belong,” Julia said, a painfully broken smile on her lips. “It’s home.” It wasn’t a big smile, not one where her teeth showed, but her mouth curled upward, nonetheless. She pushed the thought far away. “More shrimp?”

They sat around that table and ate until they waddled, drank until they swayed, and laughed until uncontrollable tears streamed down their face. Like every week, they shared stories about what students were gossiping about and which teachers were involved. They shouted at the television throughout the entire game, claiming that if they had a football, they’d run circles around those men even in heels and a pink tutu.

By the time they realized both bottles of wine were somehow missing, they were to the point of drowsiness as the sun set beyond the mountain of pine trees in the window. The weight of the week felt heavy as exhaustion seeped into their bones.

Slurring her words, Keegan leaned forward and said, “so, tell me exactly how you let Erin down.”

Julia groaned, “you really know how to beat a dead horse.” A hint of amusement tugged at the corners of her lips. Keegan giggled, her laughter amplified by the alcohol.

“I won’t drop it.” She swayed with her speech, flinging her legs haphazardly over the arm of the chair. “I will be a thorn in your side until you spill it all.”

“I know,” Julia sighed. “She took it fine. I said that night wouldn’t affect our work, and she said okay.”

“That’s it?” Keegan shouted in disbelief, drunk hands thrown up in astonishment.

“Yes, it’s that simple. See, no more non-dates.”

“That may have been what she said, but what did her body say?” Keegan shook her chest and almost fell over as she leaned more towards Julia.

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