FOOL'S GOLD, jess mariano [REWRITE]

2 - ANNABELLE HARTLEY MEETS HER MATCH

FOOL'S GOLD
CHAPTER TWO

ANNIE LOVED TUTORING. She loved learning, at least when it was a subject she enjoyed like history. She was good at all subjects, great in fact but history was the only one she could spend hours reading about. She had stacks of biographies and textbooks on The Cold War and Mary Queen of Scots and the Italian-German unification. She loved learning the stories of other people's lives.

She had become a master of all subjects but she enjoyed very few. One of the one's she despised with English. Each essay was like trudging a dead body through the desert. She hated it. She didn't connect with fictional reading and she despised analysing every word that Shakespeare wrote as if he intentionally used the word "thee" instead of "the". But none the less, she worked hard to master the craft and put herself through hours of torture to get that A. And now she had to teach it. Which was just as tedious.

Tracy Edgell was a fine student. She tried. That was the main thing. She had an average of C's and B's which wasn't bad at all but she only here because her parents forced her too and she made that apparent which she couldn't be bothered to do her work.

The two of them sat in Luke's diner, a very frequent spot for the majority of the Stars Hollow population. It was the only diner along the main street. There was one other diner in town, Jojo's burgers whose food was significantly worse and cheaper. No local every ventured there. They knew where the good food was.

Annie was an usual customer at Luke's. Her and Trin came her every Friday night for double cheeseburgers. Luke would kindly give them half off on every last Friday of the month. But when ever they needed a cup of coffee or a donut, the nipped in nearly four times a week.

Today, Annie brought Tracy to Luke's. Normally they would study at the library but Annie couldn't handle the thought of biting her tongue in a quiet library as she fought the urge for a cigarette. At Luke's she could at least distract herself with food. So as Tracy went over the many corrections that Annie had marked on her essay about The Merchant of Venice, Annie stuffed her face with nachos.

"Why would Antonio even agree to give up a pound of flesh? Can he not just gamble money like everyone else?" Tracy asked.

Annie nursed a forming headache. "I do not expect return / Of thrice three times the value of this bond "

"What?" Tracy asked and Annie held back a loud groan. She wondered if Tracy had read the play at all. She knew it was positively dull but it was sacrifice to be made for the grade. Annie knew that Tracy didn't care about English. She didn't even care about her grades. She had a habit of skimming texts and guessing the answer based on words that popped out but Annie told her that she needed to start paying attention if they were going to get anywhere. To be fair as long as Tracy needed tutored, Annie was going to keep earning money but how much money could pay for the slow insanity of having to repeat the same questions over and over again just to have Tracy snap.