“Uh huh, and where would you live if I did that?”
“Oh shit! Look at you Ms. Hots-For-Teacher!” The whirlwind that is Dani comes through the kitchen, swiping up her cup and waiting for an answer. She leans toward me with a devilish grin, and in a sing-song voice asks, “Is this for your new little friend, Coop? Jamie’s thing happened the other night, didn’t it? You did meet him, right?”
“What’s acoop?” My mother asks me as she sits down to read her morning stories. This woman loves her tabloids. “Did you get birds? I thought you played on computers all day?”
“Mama! My friend—Chase Cooper! The Hollywood hottie of the year? The cool as fuck guy that I hang out with?” Dani shoots back, looking at Mama like she’s crazy. “Oh my god, you know him! He’s in your papers almost every flippin’ day! The hot white boy!”
“I can’t keep up with your friends, Daniella. You have too many boys. Don’t swear.”
“And girls,” Dani remarks under her breath, and I try not to laugh.
Dani walks over and flips the pages of Mama’s paper until she lands on a picture of Chase. My breath catches seeing him in the dark sunglasses and baseball cap with his dog at his side. Clearly, this picture came from the paparazzi. When I glance up again, Dani and Mama are both staring at me with looks that say they know where my mind went. Shit.
“Mama, I don’t play on computers all day. And yes, Dani, he was there,” I answer as I grab an apple, attempting to make my escape. But Dani dashes ahead of me and blocks my path, putting her hands out against the door frame. “Get out of my way, Dani! I’m going to be late.”
“Not until I get answers! Did you talk to him?” She narrows her eyes, expecting something more. “Out with it! I haven’t seen you since and I want the deets!”
“Dani—” I stare harder at her and see the mischief dancing in her eyes. “What did you do?”
“Oh, nothing,” she hums, sipping her coffee. “Just, you know, working my magic!”
“Oh, sure. You get one couple together, and now you’re some enchanted matchmakingbruja? You didn’t even have anything to… wait, did you?”
“I may have suggested Jamie take his bestest buddy with him. And which school should they go to next? I also may have told them to ask you if they needed anything—like a place to store way too many toys that Chase brings because I gave him the wrong number of kids.”
“When does Xander come back so you can be too busy having sex to meddle in my life?”
“Ouch!”
“RENATE!”
“Oh, come on, mama!” I roll my eyes and push my glasses up my nose so I can glare at Dani. “You’re crazy and bored. That’s a dangerous combination. I’m going to work. Besides, he’s too famous for me.”
“Sayhito Marta for me!” she sings out as I get to the front door and stop long enough to glare at her. “Yeah. Marta’s in on it, too! You need to learn to trust me!”
* * *
In the middle of a particularly spicy daydream about a certain Hollywood hunk, a student interrupts me to tell me our remaining robot has finally died. I called in every favor I had to get those robots four years ago since the school won’t pay for them, and they’re too expensive for me to buy out of pocket.
When I check on the machine to see what I can do, I get an idea and challenge the class to get the thing working again. That should keep them busy and give me a little time to figure out a longer lasting solution—or to get lost in my own mind again.
My phone dings in my desk drawer, and I pull it out to check.
Marta
Your man is on TV. He’s looking fiiiiine.
My what?
Marta
CHASE!!
Not now, I need to work on a letter to the school board to replace a robot.
My department always struggles, and I’ve pulled all the strings I can to keep the school from shutting down the robotics program. The kids love it, and so do I. We’ve even had two students win scholarships back when we could enter the competitions. The school board loves to brag about our STEAM focused middle school and how it helps students, but they aren’t interested when we ask for more money to fund the programs.
Maybe I should daydream about getting a bonus this year. With that, I can afford a small drone or one of the basic programmable arms. Or I could sell some things at the swap meet like Dani always suggests. However, I don’t have a lot of things to spare. Keeping the roof over our head is hard enough.
