The Learning Curve

By R.M. Sorace

Nobody said teaching was easy, but no one ever mentioned that it could be deadly. When high school basketball coach John Plath is murdered, an unlikely quartet comes together solve the crime, and of course collect the reward money. This is Orange County and a girl’s gotta have shoes!

Katerina (Kat) Jones is a kindergarten teacher who can’t quite seem to wrap her mind around exactly how she ended up there. A Communications major with a promising internship at NBC, Kat can’t help but wonder where her life took a turn to pasting Dixie cups to paper plates in honor of Percy Pig and the letter P. She does love her job, well most of the time, but is this really where she is meant to be? Before she can spend too much time contemplating that, or the return of her rock star ex-boyfriend there’s a murder at the high school, and she’s trying out a new profession as a super sleuth and co-detective.

Felicity Horwitz is the wife of a police officer, mother of two rambunctious boys, caretaker of four dogs, three cats, and an iguana, and a kindergarten teacher to boot. Lately her life seems to be a whirlwind of sticky children, broken DVD players, and animal sheddings. She loves her life, but Felicity can’t help but feel (guiltily of course) that she would like a little more excitement...the kind that doesn’t involve finding forty ways to remove bubble gum from her hair or her child’s head from the stair railing. Then John Plath is murdered, and Felicity sees her opportunity for some action! She channels her inner crime stopper, but will have to keep it under wraps from her husband. This is his investigation after all!

Allison Campbell is the mother of twin boys and the wife of a philandering husband, not that she has fully admitted that to herself yet. After the twins start kindergarten and her husband takes a keen interest in PTA meetings and all night bake sales Allison decides it’s time to nix the closet eating and hit the gym in the hopes of restoring her butt and her marriage. But even fitting into her skinniest of skinny jeans doesn’t seem to be doing the trick. Before Allison can do one more jab upper cut, she finds herself drawn into the investigation of her husband’s high school friend John Plath, a cheating husband himself. What she uncovers could be the key to solving the murder and her husband’s wayward ways.

Mary Beth Mulligan is a student teacher at Lemon-Dill elementary and a recent transplant from the corn fields of Iowa. As a devout Catholic , Mary Beth’s world is turned upside down when she finds herself in the midst of an affair with the father of one of her students. While visions of brimstone and fire dance in her head, she is sucked into solving a totally different kind of sin...murder. Will the solving of one crime atone for the sins of the other? Mary Beth can only pray that’s true.

The Learning Curve is a funhouse of mystery and mayhem that will have readers guessing to the very end, and proves that the power of friendship and the perfect pumps really are a girl’s best friend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R.M. Sorace
• Release date: Feb 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310606342

Book preview

Prologue

How did I end up here? At what point did I decide that this was a good idea? Did I think this through? Why is there a post-it stuck to my ear? Did I actually make a conscious decision about this? Why is this glue stick stickier on the outside than on the inside? Is that snot? Was I talked into this? Bribed? Frick I hope so. Where did this platypus puppet come from? WTF was I thinking?

From her place on the floor Kat couldn't seem to keep the endless parade of questions from marching through her mind. How had this all happened? It was hard to keep her thoughts from swirling as her heart beat in an erratic rhythm inside her chest. She was finding it hard to breathe. The anxiety was mounting, and she couldn’t seem to find a way to quell it. She tried focusing her attention on the string of letter people hanging from the ceiling in an attempt to ward off a full blown panic attack, but their brightly colored jauntiness was making her nauseous. They seemed to be mocking her. She closed her eyes. The letter people were still there, seemingly painted to the inside of her eyelids. The one holding the letter I was front and center, taunting her. I, I, I it helps you say hi, I, I, I it makes your kite fly high. The song jangled through her mind. Was I high when I agreed to this job? She felt pricks of cold perspiration begin to bead on her forehead, and just as a fresh wave of fear and endless questions began cresting into her mind a small voice broke through the cloud of terror.

Miss Jones, why are you lying on the floor like that?

I think she’s dead.

Let’s poke her with a stick.

Children I am not dead, I am resting…on the floor…which means I’ll probably need to bathe in hand sanitizer.

Katarina (Kat) Jones was a teacher, more specifically a kindergarten teacher and she often found herself pondering exactly how she ended up in that profession. What path had she taken that landed her there? She had been a Communications major with an internship at NBC, and now she was helping a group of five year olds turn a paper plate and a Dixie cup into Percy the Pig in celebration of the letter P. How did that happen? Kat loved her job, really, well most of the time, but every now and then the topic needed to be given some thought, and she just had to wonder if this was really where she was supposed to be.

After many hours filled with reflective thinking and wine, she pretty much had the how part figured out. She had pieced together the following: California was in teacher crisis mode, they had just upped the pay, were recruiting like mad and working 9 months out of the year seemed really enticing especially after an interview with some entry level job where she had been informed that she would be working 6 days and 60 hours a week with no vacation time and would be paid under the poverty level. Oh, and she was in love and thought they would be together forever and was particularly pleased with how well being a teacher would work in with being a wife and mother. After all she would be working the same hours as her kids would be in school and then would be home just in time to whip up a healthy snack of ants on a log (peanut-butter in a celery stick with raisins on top), help them with their homework, and then get started on dinner just as her husband arrived home from his 9-5 job as a rock-star.

At 22 the plan seemed entirely plausible. Fast-forward five years and there she was 27 and single. As it turned out the rock star life wasn’t 9-5 or monogamous. Kat found herself working close to 90 hours a week, 7 days a week and had discovered that a teacher’s salary didn’t move with the cost of living. She also discovered the reason for having 3 months off was so that one could check themselves into a mental ward to work off the nervous breakdown accrued over the previous 9 months and be sharp as bent tack in time for the new school year. California was no longer in teacher crisis mode; they were in budget crisis mode and today she had been given a pink slip for the 3rd year in a row. Apparently the district was also celebrating the letter P today. And that was the part that always seemed to lead her to that ever-nagging question. Is this really where I’m supposed to be?

Felicity

Why did I even have children? Wondered Felicity as she lay watching Henrik eat a handful of dog hair off the floor. Nobody else has children. Well of course people have children I teach them. But I ripped practically in half for this? I really was always more of an animal person, she thought bemused and somewhat befuddled as she watched the scene in front of her 4 dogs, 3 cats, 2 toddlers and a popsicle. A hairy, sticky, stinky, noisy, mess. A mess, which from her perch on the couch Felicity had no desire to even begin to want to try to untangle. It was like watching some warped version of animal planet. Maybe they’ll eat each other and I’ll get my life back. And then as always came the guilt for having such non-motherly thoughts.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love the boys; it was just that lately Felicity had been wondering if she hadn’t jumped the gun on the whole motherhood thing. None of her other friends had kids yet, and their lives seemed so much more exciting, like they were really living life, taking it by the horns, instead of taking endless trips to the laundry room and grocery store. Kat for instance had a life that would put a soap opera to shame. She was getting to live the soap opera while I only get to watch it, sort of… Felicity thought as Hayden grabbed the furry lollipop from his brother and stuck it into the DVR. Shoot me now.

Allison

Allison loved Elan from the moment she met him. He was tall, dark, handsome, had an ass that could have been chiseled from stone, and he moved his body like no man she had ever known. He made her heart race and her thighs burn like hot lava and he was gayer than a Judy Garland impersonator in a fruit basket.

All rights lay-dies give me that 110%, move those hips, now say ahhahh. Lay-dies I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!! Don’t you want to burn off that cake you ate at midnight last night? I know you do, now say AhhAHh. That’s it now shimmy kick, shimmy kick, shimmy kick shake!

Amazing, absolutely amazing, the man was a mind reader. It was almost frightening the way that he could peer into his 3-sided mirror and deduce that Allison had indeed been up at midnight eating, not a cake, but an entire king size box of Milk Duds. Midnight seemed to be a time when she was increasingly up and eating, which meant she was increasingly gaining. Allison suspected this was a topic of conversation being held behind her ballooning backside. How is it that she never eats, yet seems to have puffed to twice her original size? Simple, she was a closet eater of course. And while Allison was not so dense as to believe that no one else realized it (seriously who goes from skinny jeans to needing elastic waist pants without eating?) she was in a slight bit of denial over the whole thing. Therefore she kept up the charade of not eating with the kinder kids crew and shoveling down any available edible item that didn’t move when no-one was looking. It was an art really.

She wasn’t sleeping much these days either, which didn’t help, and may have accounted for why she felt that at any moment she might pass out. She didn’t care though; even if it meant a massive heart attack on the 24Hour Fitness Cardio Kick-Up dance floor Allison was determined to kick-ball-change her way back into shape. It was a matter of life and death. Her marriage was dying and she was counting on Elan to save it.

Mary Beth

Oh dear God how did I end up in this mess? wondered Mary Beth. I was raised Catholic for Christssake – oh shit forgive me Lord for using thy name in vain and swearing. What the hell was I thinking about? Oh God damn it – oh forgive me…again for the name in vain thing. How could I be doing this? I have Catholic guilt. I can’t be doing this my guilt will eat me alive and then I’ll burn in a fiery hell for all eternity. Is hell a swear word – forgive me Lord if it is. I mean who does this? Not good Catholic girls. I’m a good Catholic girl really I am. Aren’t I? Why just the other day I noticed an old lady in distress and helped her across the street. Ok so it had ended up that she wasn’t really in distress and then mistook my help for a mugging and tried to simultaneously mace me and hit me with her cane, but I had tried hadn’t I? Maybe being maced by an octogenarian was my punishment or was my hair falling out my punishment? Oh God forgive me.

A loud grunt brought MaryBeth out of her thoughts.

Oh baby that was great! said Mr. X as he rolled off, Wasn’t that great.

What? said Mary Beth distracted by thoughts of hellfire and brimstone Ummm yes fantastic, best ever.

Mary Beth never could quite seem to figure how she had gone from helping this man’s son glue the letters of his name to a piece of construction paper to being a home wrecker. Where had her life come so…well…unglued?

Katarina (Kat)

 Katarina Italia Jones. Everyone had always thought her name sounded so exciting like she would be a professional spy or a hit woman or at the very least a member of the league of women mountain climbers. At a squeak below 5’4" she wasn’t exactly an imposing person size wise, but her dark auburn hair and copper flecked cinnamon brown eyes had always given her the illusion being somewhat exotic. People always seemed the tiniest bit disappointed to find out she was a kindergarten teacher and on some days she was a little disappointed too. Not that being a kindergarten teacher didn’t have its rewards; it was just that Kat had always thought she would be a hard hitting news journalist or a café shop owner in New Zealand. At any rate now wasn’t the time to get into thinking about any of that as there were several small crises erupting in room K-2 involving florescent pink puke, an empty fish tank which just 20minutes before housed a 3ft long boa constrictor, and a request by a five year old boy to have his shoe tied.

Kat knew that to an outsider the last bit might not actually seem like a crisis, but in her world a soggy shoelace definitely qualified. One of the best pieces of advice she had received during her student teaching was to avoid tying shoes at all costs. Kat’s mentor at the time had been a kindly old kindergarten teacher who encompassed all the traits of Mother Goose. It had shocked Kat that she would suggest such a thing, but her explanation was pure logic. Five-year old boys had not yet learned how to aim. Enough said. As always Kat dealt with it in a diplomatic manner.

Collin honey you know Miss Jones doesn’t tie shoes, go find a buddy who can.

Thank God, she thought for the thousandth time, for anal parents who had taught that skill before the start of the year. Again, she knew to an outsider it might seem heartless, but she had caught this age group eating sand numerous times and figured a little urine on the hands wasn’t going to hurt.

Hey Kat. How was the blind date last night? Felicity Suramongkol (recently married and changed toHorwitz), teaching partner, friend, and source of sanity. Even though her Filipino descent should have mandated that she be shorter than Kat’s half Italian half Polish background, she was in fact a full two inches taller than Kat. Her raven, black hair was smartly cut and no nonsense just like the woman whose head it adorned.

Ummm. Let me see he called me 20minutes before the date to let me know that we would be going to drinks first. That way if I wasn’t cute he wouldn’t have to drop a load on dinner. And then he proceeded to inform me that if I actually made it to dinner I should consider myself lucky. I was in such shock I didn’t have the where-for-all to tell him to f-off, and therefore at a little after 8 he appeared at my door. All five foot nothing of him looking like he hadn’t bathed in a month and having a striking similarity to a drunk tequila worm wearing a curly wig.

Kat, you think everyone looks like some sort of animal.

Ok fair enough, but really why a disheveled tequila worm with a bad perm?

So did you make it to dinner?

Yes. Lucky, lucky me. Mr. Tequila worm proceeded to actually make his way through a bottle of tequila and ended up passing out on the floor of Ole’ Joe’s. Although he was gentlemen enough to ask if I wanted to join him down there to play a game of hide the worm.

You mean snake.

No, I’m pretty sure I mean worm, but speaking of snakes Mr.Bandito has gone missing and incidentally so has little Soon-Yi. Hopefully those two things aren’t related. I should probably go look for her and him.

Good plan. I’ll go get snack started.

Soon-Yi, Soon-Yi honey where are you?

Miss Jones she’s in the bathroom.

She went into the bathroom a long time ago Alyssa. Where did she go when she came out?

She didn’t come out. She’s in the bathroom.

WHAT?!?! But that was an hour ago she had to have come out.

Nope. She’s in the bathroom. She’s stuck.

Stuck? What do you mean stuck? Why didn’t you come tell me?

I was playing haircut lady. Look I made Jenna’s hair pretty. But she says her mom’ll be mad so now were gluing it back on. See?

AHHHHHH! Mrs. Horwitz could you come here please? Girls stay here, don’t move, and slowly hand over the scissors and glue.

Soon Yi? Soon Yi honey, are you in here?

Yes sniff.

What seems to be the problem? Are you stuck? Is the door locked?

Sniff

Ok I’m coming in. Thank God for short bathroom stalls. Ok honey the door is unlocked what seems to be the trouble? Just pull the door and come out.

Pull?

Yes Soon Yi pull. Oh boy

I go like this push and it doesn’t work! I hate bathroom!

No, no sweetie that is pushing. You have to pull – like this.

Blank stare.

Dear God, Kat thought, maybe being pink slipped isn’t so bad after all.

~

Whenever Kat told people she taught Kindergarten she was met with shrill squeals about how cute and quaint her job was. She had always mused at that. Since when was going home with boogers on your shirt cute or quaint? It wasn't, and it wasn't worth the effort of pointing out. On the other hand she had to admit that there was never a dull moment. And on most days Kat really did love teaching kindergarten. In what other profession would you be able to go home and say that you spent the better part of an afternoon teaching someone the finer points of releasing themselves from a bathroom stall? Or where you get to spontaneously teach the food chain when you discover the boa constrictor in the hamster cage? Goodbye Mrs. Furrington. Not to mention it was the weekend and that put a nice shiny sheen on things. Kat dropped onto the couch in her living room just as the phone began to ring. She sighed looking at the caller ID. It was her mother.

Hello? Kat answered.

Hi honey guess what? I found you a man.

Oh crap mom not again?

What dear? Sounds like a good plan? Fabulous! God bless. Click

What?!? Mom? Mom! Frick! Honestly at this point Kat wanted to get married just to make the let-me-set-you-up-with-my-random-friend-brother-cousin-husband (yes it happened)-scuba instructor-2nd uncle-not so well intentioned hook-up barrage to stop. Kat wasn’t in any way desperate to get married…to the wrong person. Yet it seemed that everyone around her had gotten desperate for her. She thought as always, I’m 27 what do I have to be desperate about? Yes she wanted to get married, but she was far from willing to settle on just anyone.

Honestly at this point the only thing she desperately wanted to do was sleep. Other things topping her list were finding a way to stave off the five pounds that always seemed to creep on around this time of year and unearth a fabulous pair of shoes to use her newly acquired $10 DSW coupon on.

Kat stretched out along her couch and opened up her laptop. The set up her mother called about was bound to be bad, but it was the weekend and she was going to enjoy it no matter what. She was also going to enjoy the blue peep toes shoes with white polka dots and red piping she was about to purchase.

She was just about to enter her credit card information when her phone rang again. This time it was her friend Ami, a sixth grade teacher at Lemon Dill Elementary.

Hi, Kat answered on the third ring.

Hey Kat! Up for going to the basketball game tonight?

Ugh, I don’t know, said Kat thinking that a glass of wine and a bag of Pop’s chips sounded more appealing.

Oh come on, please! My brother is in town, and him a bunch of his guy friends are going. I don’t want to be the only girl at that sausage fest. Please!

Kat sighed, Fine, I’ll go, but I’m going to meet you guys there. I don’t know if I can handle staying the whole time.

Okay, fair enough! See you there at seven!

Pulling out her credit card to complete her online shoe purchase, Kat couldn’t seem to shake the nagging feeling of dread that was creeping in. She tried to write it off as the leftover remnants of the day’s events, but she couldn’t break free of the thought that heading to this game meant heading into impending doom.

*******************************************************

Forty-five minutes later when the ex-boyfriend who had caused Kat’s world to shatter on several occasions walked up with Ami’s brother she realized she really should have given that freakin little feeling more consideration.

She wanted to throw up, but she had on a new pair of All Saints boots, so she took the only other option she had, and did the only other thing she could do, she turned and walked away.

~

Kat was awoken far too early the next morning by the annoying rooster sound her phone seemed insistent on defaulting to despite Kat’s every effort to change it to something less intrusive. She fumbled for the phone and answered with a half hello half growl that came out as, Hrrrr.

Kat! Oh my gosh! shrilled Ami

Umm yeah nice job last night.

What? Oh yeah sorry I had no idea. Look that sucked, but I am actually not calling about that. Listen something big happened last night. John Plath was murdered.

What?!? Kat was upright now and fully alert, What do you mean murdered?

I mean stabbed and dead Kat, right in the middle of the second half of last night’s basketball game.

Are you kidding me?! shrieked Kat, Who did they arrest?

That’s just the thing Kat, there were 2,200 spectators there last night and no one saw a thing.

Kat sat staring at the phone. She couldn’t believe that John Plath was dead, murdered no less. Not that Kat knew John Plath, but she had heard the name before. Even though the elementary school she worked at was only a few blocks from the high school, it may as well have been the other side of the moon when it came to interaction among the staff. Still this was going to cause quite a stir throughout the district. She couldn’t wrap her mind around