I shook my head and let out a low sigh. “No, I shouldn’t have any money problems for a while. I saved most of my paychecks every month and I actually got a very good severance package from my job. So that won’t be an issue for quite some time. But as soon as Mary heard the news she dumped me and packed her bags. She left so quickly she didn’t even say goodbye.” I answered her, feeling even more gloomy at admitting how my love life was going just as bad as my career.
Leaning away from me Tori twisted in her seat to face me more directly. “That fucking bitch, I always thought she was some gold digging freeloader. You’re better without her David, I can tell you that for certain.” I wasn’t surprised by the venom in her words towards Mary. With the few women I did have somewhat long term relationships with, Tori had never had an issue with any of them. Mary was the exception, which had led me to spending less and less time with Tori recently.
Giving her a half-hearted shrug I took another sip of my beer. “Maybe, but right now I’d rather not talk too much about all that stuff. I want tonight to be a vacation from all the woes I created for myself. So while we wait for the pizza, why don’t you tell me what you’ve been up to lately?” I asked Tori, trying to shrug off my somber sadness with only partial success.
Tori narrowed her eyes at me, letting me know just how much she didn’t like me avoiding my issues instead of trying to confront them. “Fine, but you know you can always vent to me whenever you want.” She insisted as she took my hand and looked at me seriously. And in that moment I felt like out of all the choices I had made, the one that proved to best stand the test of time was maintaining my friendship with her.
Letting the somewhat tender moment hang in the air for a second, Tori then quickly removed all seriousness from her face and smiled with some mischievous intention. “But anyways I have so much to tell you. I got this new job and it has just been endlessly both so weird and so fun. Every time I think it can’t get more ridiculous, these girls just go and prove me wrong.” She rattled out with unbridled glee. And her joy was infectious, so I found myself eager to hear more about what she was talking about.
Letting go of my hand and leaning back Tori settled into what I called her ‘storyteller mode’. “So, I had just quit that job doing lifeguarding at that country club and was looking for something new when I found it at the strangest place. I was at my gym relaxing after a workout in the sauna, in one they reserve for clothing optional use. Which is by the way still too prudish since they don’t let it be coed. But anyways I was in there practicing some of my tantric poses when this lady walks in and stops me. I thought she was about to go off on some rant about me needing to cover up or something but it turns out she was so impressed by my flexibility she wanted to know if I wanted to be hired to help coach this team for her.” Tori had a habit of rambling a bit when she got overexcited, but many years of listening to her long winded streams of consciousness and monologues had given me the ability to focus and follow along with her narrative.
Nodding along as I took small sips of my beer I wondered quite where this was going. Tori had no lack of supremely interesting stories, but this she seemed to signal that this one was especially spectacular and truly out of the ordinary. Knowing that I probably couldn’t rush her I settled in to just listen. “And as much as I appreciated her compliment I was about to tell her that I wasn’t any sort of teacher, and that I didn’t know the first thing about coaching. But then she dropped her towel and revealed that she had the hottest body I had ever seen on someone her age. I mean she was a total smokeshow. That made me shut up long enough to listen to her pitch. It turned out she was part of some sort of athletic academy for the super rich, and I mean super rich. These people didn’t just have big houses and fancy cars. No, they have yachts with pools bigger than most houses and collect planes like some people collect stamps. So with that sort of money backing this job I couldn’t refuse to have at least an interview with this lady the next day.” Tori recounted this all and then paused, taking her first breath since starting.
I gave her a chuckle and crossed my arms, knowing decently well what she was about to say next, especially since she had focused on the attractiveness of the lady she had met. “So you went in for the interview and then had sex with the sexy older lady, right?” I asked, giving Tori a smirk. She had a nearly insatiable sexual appetite, something that might have been a problem for anyone but her. Tori also possessed the incredible and somewhat infuriating luck of being able to get nearly anyone into a bed with her with just the simplest of work.
Tori stuck her tongue out at me at my prediction, knowing how much I liked to poke fun at her for sleeping around so much. In truth I didn’t care too much about that though, and I was happy that my friend could find joy so easily. And thankfully she knew that as well, though we both still used the chances we got to tease each other. “No, I actually did the interview with her, got through the whole thing with both of us keeping all of our clothes on. I only slept with her the day after.” Tori proclaimed with some pride, as if waiting a whole day to get under the sheets with a potential boss was an accomplishment of great restraint and self-control.
I couldn’t help but laugh at this, which helped me forget some of my own sorrow. “So anyway, with the promised salary as well as the promise of working with that foxy cougar I did agree to become an assistant coach specializing in flexibility. And god what a whole circus this thing turned out to be. And oh, I never told you what kind of team it was. I won’t make you guess because you would never figure it out. But it’s cheerleading!” She exclaimed, and I nearly jumped in surprise.
That did truly shock me. Back in high school Tori had been the last type of person to join a cheerleader squad, and that part of her hadn’t changed since then. So it was quite crazy to hear that she had started to help coach one. This also brought me to another question. “So is this part of some school then?” I questioned her, leaning in closer as my curiosity grew. For multiple reasons I couldn’t imagine Tori being hired at basically any school, so this perplexed me.
Shaking her head, Tori let out a chuckle. “No, that’s the thing. This team is just about cheerleading in and of itself. They don’t go and dance for football games during timeouts or anything, but they do go across the country for all sorts of competitions. And they’ve won quite a few. Their training center has a whole hallway filled with trophies and awards. That’s part of the prestige of the place and the reason so many daughters of the ultra wealthy join.” Tori explained.
I had heard of competitive cheerleading being a sport, so once she explained that it made a bit more sense that this academy wasn’t associated with any school. “So when I first started I was one of like five assistant couches, and we all had our specialities to focus on. There is also the head coach, this Russian lady who barely speaks any English and really doesn’t want to learn anymore than she already does. She must have some sort of crazy good reputation because she gets to dictate her own working conditions exactly. She doesn’t show up until half an hour after practice has officially started and leaves exactly half an hour before it ends, leaving the work of getting the girls ready and warmed up as well as cooling them down and wrapping up practice for us assistant coaches.” Tori continued to say, her words only getting faster which made me guess we hadn’t even got to the most interesting part of her tale.