He patted my knee in that absent, fatherly kind of way. “Sure you are.” It was the kind of parental enthusiasm applied to preschooler statements about becoming astronauts and rock stars.
The door burst open, and my mother exploded into the room. Where Ned was calm and contemplative, Jessica Cicero was an effusive ball of energy. She was excited over everything from the first snowfall of the year to front-load washers with windows. This unusual zest for life had served her well in her former career as a first-grade teacher.
“You are not going to believe this, Marley! Fate has intervened,” she announced grandly. The plastic bangles on her left wrist clanked against tan skin. She was pretty. And not just for her age. She had lovely blonde hair that she touched up every four weeks and kept cut short in a face-framing bob long enough to pull back into a stub of a ponytail. She had bright blue eyes that crinkled nicely in the corners because she was always laughing or smiling about something.
I’d spent my entire life wishing I could be either the all-American girl next door like Mom or the exotic beauty like my adopted older sister. Zinnia was born in Calcutta and had grown into someone who could have easily enjoyed a modeling career had she not been so busy winning grants for worthy causes and changing lives.
“Tell us more, my beautiful angel,” Ned said, rolling onto his belly and resting his chin in his hands.
I half wished I’d succeeded in the suffocation. Usually my parents’ undying affection for each other was like an anchor in the storm. It was something to depend on, something I could always hold up my relationships to like a measuring stick. None of my relationships ever actually measured up to the great love of Ned and Jessica Cicero. And today, that love just reminded me that I was single, jobless, and hopeless.
“Well, I just got off the phone with Lindsay Eccles. You remember her, don’t you, Marley? She worked in the front office of the elementary school when you were in sixth grade. Remember how she went back to school and got her principal’s certificate? I still say that surprise party was a mistake. We almost gave the poor woman a heart attack…”
This was typical of Mom’s stories. They took the scenic route with nary a shortcut and rarely a punchline.
Dad listened, enthralled. I tuned out.
Culpepper, Pennsylvania, took “small town” and made it microscopic. As much as I would have liked to pretend that I had no idea who Lindsay Eccles was, I was inundated with the unfairly high-definition memory of Mrs. Eccles holding back my hair while I enthusiastically vomited in the trash can behind the front desk in the school’s office during the flu outbreak of 1992.
“Anyway,” Mom said, taking a deep breath. It was the signal that she was coming to her point. “She told me that Miss Otterbach just turned in her resignation this morning! She and her girlfriend are getting married and moving to New Hampshire to be closer to their family.”
My mother paused and looked expectantly.
“Uh. Good for them?” South Central Pennsylvania had come a long way since I’d grown up here. It was no longer the talk of the town to be a lesbian school teacher. But I still didn’t know what Miss Otterbach becoming Mrs. Otterbach had to do with me.
“More like good for you! It turns out the high school is in desperate need for a phys. ed. teacher and girls soccer coach!”
My dad’s feet quit swinging behind him.
“I didn’t know Miss Otterbach was the soccer coach.”
“She wasn’t,” Mom said, glossing over whatever she was hiding with a bright smile. Dad cleared his throat. He was picking up what my mother was putting down while I was still miles behind them both.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“She offered you the job, silly!”
“Me?”
Mom nodded, her eyes bright. “Preseason starts in two days. School in two weeks. Aren’t you over-the-moon thrilled?”
My mom doled out equal enthusiasm for all things. For instance, Zinnia’s straight A+ report cards and my solid Bs—with the occasional C—both received top billing on the refrigerator and a standing ovation from my mother. It made me feel like a bit of a cheerleading charity case.
“I don’t have a teaching certificate,” I argued. “And I haven’t touched a soccer ball in over a decade.” High school had been the bane of my existence. I had not