Page 3 of Bringing Home the Bacon
“Voilà!” Kayleigh says when we reach the school supplies. “My dad always says that word. Isn’t it fun? Say it. Voilà!”
“Voilà! Yeah, that is fun. Okay great. Now I know where everything is. Thanks a million, sweetheart. Let’s bring you back to your mom.”
“But aren’t you gonna get some?” she asks.
“Some… what?”
Her little eyebrows smoosh together in confusion. “You said you were looking for paper and primary color washable markers.”
“Right,” I sigh. “I did.”
For the record, this isn’t the first or even the hundredth time I’ve been in a situation like this. When you’ve taught kindergarten for six years straight in the same small town, like I have, you know all the children. More to the frightening point, they know you. Which sounds lovely in theory, right? Well, consider this: it is impossible to live your life. You can’t get the slightest bit tipsy at the local bar without a parent seeing you and giving you a disapproving look. Virtually anyone you find attractive and consider pursuing romantically is inevitably related to one of your students, past or present. And, as today’s lesson has taught us, it’s almost guaranteed that if you need to purchase a product for any of the primal functions of your body—be it menstrual, sexual, or intestinal—an adorable child will catch you in the act and embarrass the hell out of you.
Early elementary teachers are put on this absurd pedestal of purity.
And as much as I love my job, I want to get off.
The pedestal, I mean! I want to “get off” the pedestal. I didn’t mean I want to “get off” in the other sense of the— whatever. This is clearly not the time or the place for such thoughts.
One look at Kayleigh’s proud face and I know the only way to put this encounter behind me is to actually make the purchase she expects me to make. With classes starting next week, the back-to-school shopping rush is behind us, and The Quick Lick’s shelf looks pretty bare. So I pick up the only heavy-ass jumbo pack of printer paper they have left and a four-pack of markers. Not exactly what I want to lug with me on a daytrip to New York City.
But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
With only ten minutes left until the bus departs, I return my adorable former student to her mom and run my purchases to the checkout. I’m not sure why, but I apologize to Ginny again as she scans my things.
“I didn’t mean to be so harsh before, Gin. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Collie. If I were about to lose my farm, I’d probably be acting like a biatch too.”
I take my things from her a bit rougher than necessary and place them directly in my backpack. “Please don’t call me Collie. Or biatch,” I say as I pay her. “And we’re not losing the farm.”
“That’s not what The Scuttlebutt says.” Ginny purses her lips and hands me my change.
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t listen to scuttlebutt if I were you,” I say, my smile as sweet as pie.
“No, The Scuttlebut.” She shoves a flier at me just as I’m turning to leave. “Read it! I’d like to hear what you think! We’re quickly becoming our town’s most reliable news source!” she shouts as I hustle toward the exit.
When I step into the blistering August sun, the fluorescent flier in my hand blares up at me so brightly I need to shield my eyes. “The Scuttlebutt” is emblazoned across the top in an old-timey font with the subtitle “Ginny Quick Gives You All the Dirt on Fork Lick.”
Dear god.
The town gossip has created her own official gossip magazine. And the entire front page is dedicated to “The Bedd Family Financial Drama.”
I can’t board that chartered bus fast enough.
Seriously.
Get me out of this freaking town.
Chapter 2
Bacon
“Places in five,” our stage manager April says as she breezes past me.
“Thank you, five,” I mumble. It’s an old habit from the one and only play I performed in as a teen. The intense stage fright I endured every night of that production ensured I never stepped foot on a stage again.
Until now.
