Rock Bottom Girl

by Lucy Score

She brightened, and I looked around for the cartoon deer and birds that should have flocked to her. “Great! Follow me!” Andrea’s office was a cramped but cozy space with two armchairs in front of a desk that held an ancient computer and a chrysanthemum in a pot painted by some toddler artist. She immediately earned my trust by kicking off her heels at the door and slipping her feet into comfy slippers. “Do you try to get to know all the new faculty?” I asked, unpacking my lunch—a chopped Niçoise salad with lemon vinaigrette. After Tuesday night’s frozen fish sticks, I’d begged my parents to let me take over the grocery shopping and meal prep. For dinner, we were having marinated chicken breasts that were currently cooking away in the Crock-Pot Mom had never used and a new green bean recipe I’d found while I should have been studying soccer drills. “I do,” she said, pulling a foil-wrapped sandwich from her lunch bag. “And your mom is one of my good friends.” I paused, mixing the hard-boiled egg and tuna into the lettuce. I smelled a setup. “And my mom asked you to talk to me,” I guessed. Andrea smiled, and I blinked when she didn’t burst into a song. “Maybe. She’s been concerned about you for quite some time.” “Why ever would that be? Because I showed up on her doorstep unemployed, single, and homeless?” I took a big bite of salad. It tasted bitter on my tongue. “Actually, she was worried before that.” “When I was gainfully employed and in a steady, monogamous relationship?...

Yup!