Prologue
MIA
August
Summer break is supposedto be a time for teachers to sit back, relax, disassociate a bit, and simply not think about work at all.
This is a task that I am currently failing at for two reasons.
The first is that I have been trying to approach the hot dude on the other side of the bar for approximately twenty-seven minutes.
The second is because Elias is currently telling the entire bar a really great and really fun work story about me.
So instead of sitting back, relaxing, and not thinking about school, I’m auditioning for the role of a human stress ball and having embarrassing school stories shoved down my throat.
“So one time, I was in the cafeteria grabbing a bean burrito?—”
“How the hell did you get a bean burrito?” I can’t help but cut in. “I get yelled at if I come within twenty feet of the kitchen.”
Elias’s bright green eyes look at me with disbelief, as if I’ve just announced a tsunami was hitting the Jersey Shore. “Ms. Barbara knows bean burritos are my favorite. She saves them for me when it’s bean burrito day.”
“Unbelievable,” I mutter.
He frowns at me. “Do you want me to save you one next time?”
“It would be nice, considering I’m the reason you have your job in the first place.”
My brother Leo chimes in. “I don’t want to hear about your depressing cafeteria lunches anymore?—”
“Fuck you, FAANG Overlord, most of us plebes don’t have sushi flown in from Tokyo or an in-house pastry chef in our work kitchens,” I snap at him.
“Although Ms. Barbara does make a mean beef patty,” Elias adds on.
“Finish your story, Elias!” a drop-dead gorgeous girl to Elias’s right giggles, poking him gently in the chest with a long and pointed nail.
Elias directs the full force of his grin at her, the slightly crooked one that forces the Dimple out. He tugs on the ends of her immaculately highlighted beach waves that are inexplicably crafted with a straightening iron, and she radiates Big Swooning Energy.
I gag.
“So I grab my burrito and pass by Meems here, when a fifth grader walks up to her?—”
I groan, taking another huge swig of beer.
“—and the fifth grader is all excited, and he’s like, ‘Ms. Roberts! Ms. Roberts!’ And Meems has her cute Excited Teacher face on and is like ‘Yes, whatever-his-name-was’—”
“It was Josue,” I grumble.
“What was that?” Elias says to me.
“His name was Josue,” I grumble again, at the same volume, not bothering to raise my voice. “I had him when he was in third grade. I should’ve known.”
He barks a laugh, really ramping up his story now. “So Mia goes, ‘Yes, Josue?’ And this kid is just super excited, and when kids have that energy, you just can’t help but match it, and you could tell in Meems’s face that she expected him to tell her he won the district science fair or something. But then Josue goes?—”
The corners of Elias’s mouth go white with the effort it takes not to burst out laughing. The bar hangs on his every word.
“—Ms. Roberts, if you pretend that you’re holding a salt shaker, you can taste the salt! Stick your tongue out and try it!” Elias’s mouth trembles. “And Mia…tries it.”
Leo and the others sitting around the bar crumple into a cacophony of shrieks and laughter. A beer spills. A hand smacks the bar repeatedly. I mash my palms into my face.
