Girl Meets Class Read online

  Praise for Karin Gillespie

  Books by Karin Gillespie

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  Copyright

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  About the Author

  Don’t Miss Karin Gillespie’s Bottom Dollar Series

  A DOLLAR SHORT

  DOLLAR DAZE

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  THE BREAKUP DOCTOR

  WAKE-UP CALL

  DOUBLE WHAMMY

  Praise for Karin Gillespie

  BET YOUR BOTTOM DOLLAR (#1)

  “In a first novel that is guaranteed to please Fannie Flagg and Bailey White fans, Gillespie introduces the Bottom Dollar Girls with a flair for timing and a cheeky southern turn of phrase…Brace for a wild ride chock-full of Southern wit and down-home advice from a clutch of quirky characters you will hope to see again soon.”

  – Booklist

  “Use your very last bottom dollar, if you have to. Just BUY THIS BOOK. You will laugh yourself sick and love every minute of it.”

  – Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queen

  “A winner of a first novel, filled with Southern-style zingers and funny folks.”

  – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “The characters are the kind of steel magnolias who would make Scarlett O’Hara envious.”

  – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  “Laugh out loud... this perfect summer read [will] find permanent beach-house residence.”

  – Richmond Times-Dispatch

  A DOLLAR SHORT (#2)

  “Those plain-speaking, cheeky Bottom Dollar gals (Bet Your Bottom Dollar) return with more rollicking adventures in Cayboo Creek, South Carolina…Never a dull moment…this fast-paced screamer of a romance begs a giggle, if not a guffaw.”

  – Booklist

  “Laugh-out-loud antics as...Gillespie continues her entertaining Bottom Dollar Girls series…Certain to please women’s fiction fans of all ages.”

  – Romantic Times (Top Pick)

  “As tart and delectable as lemon meringue pie...a pure delight.”

  – Jennifer Weiner, Author of Good in Bed and In Her Shoes

  “A fine romp of a book, well-written and thoroughly entertaining.”

  – The Winston-Salem Journal

  “A Dollar Short is meant to entertain, and it does. It takes talent to sustain this level of comic writing for over 300 pages. Gillespie keeps the ball in the air, spinning madly, until the end.”

  – The Boston Globe

  DOLLAR DAZE (#3)

  “Each character is lovingly crafted in Gillespie’s hilarious, heartwarming, and often irreverent look at senior living in small-town America. The third book in the Bottom Dollar Girls series (Bet Your Bottom Dollar; A Dollar Short) can also be enjoyed as a stand-alone.”

  – Booklist (starred review)

  “Hilarious and endearing...Gillespie’s humorous style will have readers hooting out loud, and her cheeky characters will have them coming back for more!”

  – Janean Nusz, The Road to Romance

  “Readers will be chuckling over crazy man-getting antics, sighing at the complexity of life, love and matrimony and maybe even shedding a tear over the heartbreak and tragedy. This novel is charismatic and replete with poignancy.”

  – Romantic Times

  Books by Karin Gillespie

  GIRL MEETS CLASS

  The Bottom Dollar Series

  BET YOUR BOTTOM DOLLAR (#1)

  A DOLLAR SHORT (#2)

  DOLLAR DAZE (#3)

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  Copyright

  GIRL MEETS CLASS

  Part of the Henery Press Chick Lit Collection

  First Edition

  Kindle edition | September 2015

  Henery Press

  www.henerypress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Copyright © 2015 by Karin Gillespie

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Related subjects include: book club recommendations, sisterhood, women’s fiction, women’s friendship, Southern humor, Southern living, romantic comedy, rom com, chick lit.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-941962-87-9

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To Julie Cannon.

  I miss you every day.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks so much to the superlative team at Henery Press. Particular thanks goes to Kendel Lynn, Art C. Molinares, Erin George, and Rachel Jackson who are always accessible, cheerful and kind.

  A great debt of gratitude is due to Anne Bohner, who is one of the loveliest people on the planet and who I can’t thank enough. Thanks also to my wonderful early readers: Magda Newland, Ed Gillespie, Jackie Miles and Jo Ann Appleton. Thanks also to the Converse MFA program.

  One

  The unspooling of my Tiffany and Wild Turkey lifestyle began with a trip to the Luckett County Jail. It was mid-July in Rose Hill, Georgia, and I was trapped in the backseat of a police car. The air inside was close and thick like sawmill gravy. Up front the radio crackled and hissed with static as the dispatcher announced the city’s Thursday night dark doings: a mugging, a domestic disturbance, and a pit bull fight.

  “Don’t you people have an armed robbery or a murder to go to?”

  No response from behind the mesh barrier. Might as well have been a mute mosquito.

  The law enforcement center loomed over the hill, a tombstone-colored tower leaking a sickly, yellow light. First time I laid eyes on the place I scared myself silly, imagining strip searches, filthy cells, and sadistic wardens. This time the sight barely made me flinch.

  Here we go again, I thought.

  We arrived, and the cops hustled me out of the car and into a processing room. It contained a haphazard collection of utilitarian desks and s
melled like dirty feet. A stout policewoman lumbered toward me. She had a gray front tooth and a sprig of hair creeping out of her nostril. I wasn’t her typical customer, and she was sizing me up.

  I tried to see myself through her eyes: A twenty-one-year-old blonde, blinking and stumbling in the harsh fluorescent lights, wearing a strapless pink party dress, gold gladiator sandals, and diamond drop earrings.

  Maybe she was imagining what kind of car I drove—a cherry-red Porsche Boxster convertible—or who my people were. Likely she’d heard of my family’s company and probably had a few cans of Cornelia’s Southern-Style lima beans or black-eyed peas collecting dust in her pantry. Most everyone in America did.

  I was photographed and fingerprinted. The cop confiscated my python clutch and peered at the contents, a lipstick in a plum shade called Promiscuous and a Platinum Visa in the name of Toni Lee Wells. If only I could give her that card and make my latest blunder go away.

  She glanced up from my clutch and gave me a look that could freeze vodka. It seemed to say, “I don’t care who you are, princess. Now you belong to me.”

  The cop gestured for me to follow her. We were headed in the opposite direction of the holding cells. For a brief panicky moment I wondered if she was taking me to some secret dark room where repeat offenders were taught a lesson with a rubber hose. Instead I was led to a dank narrow hallway with a stone bench. “Sit,” she said. “Someone’s on the way to pick you up.”

  I was relieved, naturally, but also curious. Who was coming? It’s not like I’d called anyone. After a few minutes my father approached, wearing a pair of wrinkled camouflage pants and a John Deere cap.

  Daddy hugged me with his meaty arms, wrapping me in his scent, oak chips mixed with perspiration. The embrace went on for more than a minute. It was as if I’d been released from a ten-year stay in a Turkish prison instead of a brief jaunt to jail.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  Outside bloated clouds scudded overhead; the sky seemed close enough to touch. A jacked-up, emerald-green Cadillac roared past us, its frame shimmying with the bass from a rap song. I climbed into the refuge of my daddy’s Land Rover. His yellow Lab, Beau, pounced on my lap and bathed my cheeks with warm, liver-snap scented saliva.

  “How’d you know I was here?”

  My daddy’s freckled scalp shone through his thinning red hair. “Sibbie Stevens saw you being put into the back of a police car outside Bistro 91. Public intoxication, Toni Lee? What did you do?”

  “Nothing. Just fell asleep. That’s not a crime.”

  Not unless you were operating heavy equipment, which I wasn’t. Just my iPhone a few minutes before I passed out.

  “Fell asleep where?”

  “In the bar. It was just a little catnap. Don’t know why they felt they had to call the law.”

  That wasn’t the whole story, but no need to share all the damning details. Before I hit the ground, I’d been singing along to a Katy Perry song on my phone, maybe a little too loudly and probably off-key. The usual bartender, Rita, was out sick and a snippy substitute was working in her place. The sub asked me to cut out the singing, and I tried to loosen her up by asking her to dance with me. Somehow I ended up knocking over a couple of highball glasses on the bar. Then I got dizzy and the next thing I remember was a cop pulling me up from the floor.

  It’d have never happened if Rita had been on duty. Whenever I got a little wobbly in my shoes, she always took good care of me. In exchange I made sure she went home with a nice fat tip tucked into her pocketbook.

  No more shots of Cuervo Gold, I thought. I’d only started drinking heavily a few months ago and was still learning the ins and outs of alcohol. Tequila was in a class by itself. No wonder they called it to-kill-ya.

  On the way home, my father’s silence was so loud he might as well have been yelling at me. I was grateful when his Land Rover sailed through the security checkpoint at the entrance of Country Club Hills. The car came to a stop in front of my condo, and he gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white.

  I broke the silence between us. “I don’t know what got into me tonight, but it was a one-time thing. It’ll never happen again.”

  By then I felt completely sober. A trip to jail was a guaranteed buzzkill.

  Daddy gave me a hard look. “One-time thing, huh?”

  I nodded vigorously.

  “That’s odd because according to one of the officers you’re practically a regular at the jail. Few more trips and they’ll be naming a cell after you.”

  “Two trips hardly makes me a—”

  “It’s not just that,” he continued. “You’ve been out of control for months. I’m still getting calls about that terrible thing you did to Baby Bowen at Lois Atkins’ funeral.”

  I’d never live that stunt down. Ten years from now people would probably still be talking about what I’d done to Baby Bowen at that funeral.

  “Maybe you ought to give that Dr. Lyons another try.”

  I wrinkled my nose. Dr. Lyons had white carpet in his office and made me take off my shoes before I was given permission to enter. During our visit, he kept squirting Purell into his hands. He seemed crazier than I could ever aspire to be.

  Daddy was scratching Beau’s ears, waiting for me to speak.

  “Forget Dr. Lyons.”

  He let out a heavy exhale of air.

  “I understand why you’re acting out like this. Anyone in your situation probably would, and I’m the first to sympathize. But here’s the thing—”

  “I’m tired. Can we talk about this another time?”

  “Toni Lee.”

  “It’s really late. You should get back to bed.” I patted his arm. That’s when I noticed a faded yellow bruise on his bicep.

  “What did you do to yourself this time?” My father was the most accident-prone man I’d ever met. He was forever running into doors or tripping on loose stones. If there was a banana peel within a ten-mile radius he’d find it and slip on it.

  “Don’t try to change the subject.”

  I kissed his cheek. “Goodnight, Daddy.”

  “This is serious.”

  I mussed his wispy hair and flounced out of the car.

  “Toni Lee!”

  I ignored him and sprinted to my condo, a replica of a three-story Italianate villa divided into six residences.

  Inside it was bright and noisy. As usual I’d left on every light, and the television blared with a commercial advertising a Chevy Truck Blow-Out sale. I hurried to the kitchen and popped open a bottle of Zin Your Face, a California Zinfandel. I chose wines with funny names; it made alcohol seem tame and friendly, like Hi-C with a kick. One glass, I thought. I surveyed the contents of my cupboards and chose a brandy snifter the size of a baby’s head.

  I filled the glass to the brim and moved to the living room, plunked down in front of the large-screen TV, and shoved Texas Chainsaw Massacre into the Blu-ray player. I was addicted to horror movies, the gorier the better. They helped put problems into their proper perspective. Yes, my life might have recently taken an unlucky turn, but at least I wasn’t being chased by a chainsaw-wielding maniac. In fact, if I was a shrink and one of my patients was having a meltdown, my advice would be to watch Evil Dead 2 and call me in the morning.

  The next day I cracked open one eye. The sharp pain behind my temple told me it was going to be another Goody’s Powder morning. I’d fallen asleep on the couch; the clock on my Blu-ray player said it was almost twelve. I’d have liked to stay asleep for a couple more hours but someone was banging on my back door.

  “Toni Lee! Are you in there?”

  I carefully got up from the couch so as to not disturb the delicate condition of my head. It felt like it was full of broken glass.

  The back door was cracked, and a h
and was fumbling with the chain. The door swung open, and my best friend Joelle burst inside. Her eyes narrowed into sharp green shards. I was in trouble. How did I mess up this time?

  “How much did you drink last night?” she said.

  The stripes of her dress looked like they were moving. She had a penchant for animal prints, and today she was passing herself off as a zebra.

  “Who says I was drinking?” I peeked into my ceramic coffee jar and found only a pile of crumbs.

  “You smell like you took a swan dive into a wine vat…And you forgot to pick me up from the oral surgeon this morning.”

  She glared at me. Joelle was just under five feet tall with long, frizzy hair the bright red color of Cheerwine.

  “Was that today?”

  “There I sat waiting. Lips blown up to the size of a raft. In so much pain I felt like cutting off my head. The nurse kept asking, ‘Are you sure someone’s coming to get you?’ ‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘Toni Lee might not be the most reliable girl but she would never let me down in my moment of greatest need.’”

  I had a good excuse for forgetting Joelle’s appointment but decided not to tell her about last night’s debauchery. Used to be I’d share everything with her. Lately I’d been doing a lot of editing.

  I tried to hang my head but it made me dizzy. “I’m so sorry. Don’t know how it slipped my mind but I’ll make it up to you.”

  “How so?” Joelle leaned against a granite island littered with a flotilla of empty Chinese food cartons.