Letting Loose. Joanne Skerrett

      They groaned and rolled their eyes. “Ms. Wilson, you so mean,” one of them said.

      I didn’t answer. I’d heard it all before. Then the bell rang.

      Chapter 2

      There seemed to have been a blizzard since lunchtime. My little Beetle was completely submerged under what looked like a foot of snow; I couldn’t see the lime green paint. I considered the white mound and weighed it against my aching back. That same back I’d almost put out after a murderous spin class at 6:30 this morning would not hold up to all of this shoveling. I looked around the parking lot. Maybe there was some student I could pay…. But the few boys who I saw walking toward me had nothing but hate in their eyes. They must have gotten the memo: Ms. Wilson is not cool, and she is mean. I sighed.

      As I started brushing the snow off the top of the car, I saw that Miguel, Mira Gutierrez’s live-in boyfriend, had driven up and was cleaning off her car. Hmmm…Well, isn’t that nice. Five minutes later, Lashelle Thompson’s scary-looking boyfriend pulled up in a huge SUV, a Ford Expedition or something equally awful, thumping some bass-heavy music (Ludacris?), and started shoveling around her car. What the heck? I’m Amelia Wilson and I’m a loser who shovels out her own car, while my colleagues have their significant others do theirs.

      In a high school parking lot, full of cars belonging to students and teachers and God knows who else, I seemed to be the only woman shoveling. Could this be real? Was there some implicit genetic code, like a computer command, that I was not aware of that automatically prompts men to show up to aid women whenever there’s heavy snowfall? Or if I were one of those women who possessed such a thing as a boyfriend, would I have to call him and order him to my place of work for shoveling duty? Was that how it was done? And would I ever get to participate in this ritual? From the looks of things, it was highly unlikely. And that was especially sad for all the men out there because, according to Treyon, I would “take it ‘from the back.’” The memory of the Treyon debacle prompted me to stab my shovel into my back tire a little too forcefully. He’d gotten sent home for a week. And this time I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. As a matter of fact, I was hoping that he’d be buried in a snowbank. Well, not fatally.

      I have to get rid of this snow before my back breaks, I told myself. I was panting and huffing, and that really came as a disappointment. For a whole month—it was number one of my New Year’s resolutions—I’d been going to spin class three times a week. Granted, I could only make it through a half hour of the class. But I was trying! I shouldn’t be all out of breath because I was doing a little shoveling. I was actually sweating. Then panic hit. I remembered the news stories I’d read about people who’d had heart attacks while shoveling after snowstorms. Oh my God! I’d better slow my pace!

      I was so tired, but I had to keep going. I told myself: You’re taking one for the team—the big girls’ team. You’re a strong, independent, smart, single woman. You can shovel out your own darned car. You don’t need a man to do that.

      But then Lashelle’s boyfriend waved at me with an apologetic smile that said, Sorry you don’t have a big, strong man like me to do this for you. Then he went back to shoveling her spot. I felt exposed, cold, wet, and depressed. But I dug my shovel in, inches to go before I sleep.

      Thirty minutes later, Lashelle, Mira, and their men in waiting had all left and I was still shoveling when the tow truck rolled by.

      “Hey, sis, you need some help?” It was my brother, Gerard, who rarely did anything right, except for right now. Driving a truck with a snowplow was one of the many short-term jobs he’d managed to keep for the past two years since he’d gotten out of prison.

      “I’m almost done, Gerard. Where were you a half hour ago?” I held my aching side with one hand, the shovel with the other.

      “I just did a couple of driveways down Melville Park.” He showed me a roll of bills. At least he wouldn’t be asking me for any money for another week. “I’ll plow around you so you can pull out this space,” he said.

      I waited in the car as he cleared the snow around it. It felt nice and warm and toasty. Even the little daisy on my dashboard looked happy. My back was sore, but I would live. At least it was Friday. I’d have all of Saturday to recover. Oh, and this half hour of shoveling meant that I was off the hook tomorrow. No spin class. Yay!

      My cell phone rang just as I waved good-bye to Gerard. I popped it open and my heart vaulted over some invisible inner crossbar.

      “Amelia. How are you?”

      It was my bête noire. My one indiscretion in life that had cost me my cushy private school job, the respect of my students, and most of my self-esteem. I would also like to blame him for my weight gain, though admittedly I’ve always had a weight problem. But maybe if I’d never met him it would have already ceased to exist….

      “I’m doing just fine.”

      “Can I see you?”

      “No.”

      He sighed heavily, like he was expecting me to say something different. We’ve been having this same conversation for the past year!

      “I really hope you can…”

      “I really hope you can work on your marriage and leave me alone,” I said and hung up. I held my chest. Good girl. Good answer. Now breathe easy. I am not a loser. I deserve more than he could ever give me. But I had to hear it from somebody else.

      “Whitney,” I wailed to my best friend, “he called again.”

      “Jeez! Amelia, why don’t you use the block on your cell?”

      “I don’t know how!” This was true. I was no good with technology.

      “Whatever. If you really wanted ol’ dude to stop calling, you’d find out how.”

      “You never showed me!”

      “I didn’t show you how to screw him either, but you managed to learn all on your own.”

      “Thank you, Whitney. What are you up to?”

      “It’s snowing so I’m actually working late…. That lawyer guy is coming over later.”

      “What lawyer guy. Duncan?” Whitney’s dates were as interchangeable as pop stars and usually almost as pretty.

      “Yeah, Big D is what I like to call him.”

      Of course. Whitney had an endless supply of Big D’s in her life. “Well, have fun. I’m going home.”

      “Tell your roommates I said peace and love.”

      “Very funny.” I hung up. At least she’d taken my mind off bête noire briefly. Ugh. Good sex, bad times, bad memories. Not going back there.

      Chapter 3

      My roommates Kelly and James were back from another of their two-week “research” vacations. I could tell that before I even pulled into my parking space in front of our apartment. Their van, which I liked to call the peacemobile because of the assault of bumper stickers launched on every available space, was out front, and they had shoveled a space for me behind it. I loved those two, even though they were strange. Not that I had the right to be calling anyone strange.

      The apartment was a cluster of warmth and comfort. Yummmm…Kelly was making chili. I sniffed the air for meat. No. Kelly only made vegetarian chili, or no-guilt chili. When I make chili, there’s plenty of meat. And guilt.

      “Ames? That you?” Kelly called out from the kitchen. Like all the white girls I’ve come into contact with in my 27 years, Kelly found a way to shorten my name. My college roommate at Simmons, Wilhelmina Williams (yes, her parents did do that to her), called me Amy the first day we met and so did every professor and every other person I knew on campus over those three years. Even in graduate school and in the one year I flailed around in a doctorate program, I was called Ames, Amy, and Amester. I never objected.