Gabby Garcia's Ultimate Playbook #3

by Iva-Marie Palmer

  “I’m going to miss the way Gabby is always ready for anything, and how she gets as excited as I do about a new song or a challenge. A lot of people know how to come through for you when you’re down, but I sometimes think not as many know how to be up for you when you’re winning,” Katy read. “I haven’t had a partner like that ever.” She looked like she was going to cry. Then I almost started to cry.

  “I’m not gone yet,” I said, wiping my eyes. Or at all, I thought.

  “I know,” Katy said, as I stood up and gave her a hug. “You’re the best, GG.”

  “You, too, KH.”

  I once saw a TV show where an old man fakes his death so he can go to his own funeral to hear if people would say nice things about him. This was exactly like that and I didn’t even have to pretend to be dead!

  Johnny’s turn was next. He wasn’t a performer like Katy, and he looked kind of nervous getting up there. (He’d looked the same way practicing his speech for class president, but it was a great speech.) He straightened his tie and read from his clipboard. “I’m going to miss how Gabby always has a plan. She’s like math.”

  “Wait, what?” Diego said. “Math??”

  “That came out weird, but let me finish . . .” I smiled up at Johnny and he straightened his already-straight tie again.

  “In math, there’s one right answer, but you can think about a problem in a bunch of ways. Gabby does that, and she never seems worried about not finding the answer. She’s just full of different solutions. But I also like how she’s the opposite of math because she dives in to things that might not even have an answer. And, I like her red high-tops and how whenever I see her, it makes me smile.” He rushed that last part.

  Then Johnny turned as red as my high-tops and I did, too. I quickly gulped a Sour Patch Kid so that my face would do something besides blush.

  Diego stood up and didn’t read from anything.

  “I’m not going to miss Gabby,” he started.

  WHAT? I thought.

  “What?” Katy said.

  “You can’t miss someone who’s like a part of you. I figured that out when I was in Costa Rica. We’re best friends for life and so I can’t really get rid of her, even if I tried.”

  Everyone laughed. Even me.

  “But I will miss things about her. She’s funny and she’s not afraid to fall down or get things wrong. Even if when she does get things wrong, she usually thinks she’s right for a while before she admits it,” he said. That part was a little true. “She helped me learn to ride a bike by just being so good at it she made it look easy. I’m not looking forward to her being all the way in Seattle, that’s for sure. But I can’t ever think of her as GONE.”

  He came and hugged me and then Katy and Johnny joined in and by the time we started Sleepless in Seattle, I was teary-eyed, even if Johnny was holding my hand on the couch. I missed the first part of the movie while I tried to memorize everything everyone had said so that I could write it down now, at home. (You can’t really be sneaky with a playbook when your friends are watching your every move.)

  During Sleepless in Seattle—which didn’t make Seattle look as totally awful as it is and was kind of a sweet movie even if it was also about grown-ups falling in love a million years ago by hearing each other on the radio and really what kind of problems did they have if they never had to text each other?—my friends worked extra hard to point out what was wrong with the city. I sat in the dark, kind of grinning stupidly.

  THINGS MY FRIENDS SAID ABOUT SEATTLE DURING SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE

  Why would anyone make a landmark look like a needle? Was a tower too awesome? —Johnny

  If I were there, I’d sleep all the time. It looks like a snooze. —Katy

  Of course they have to meet at the Empire State Building. You can’t be romantic in a Space Needle. —Diego

  Well, maybe the people will be nice? —Katy

  You’ll probably make a ton of new friends right away. —Johnny

  You do love a good rainstorm. —Diego

  There were two reasons for my grin:

  My friends really cared about me. A lot.

  I was going to be able to make them all incredibly happy when I told them that I’d fixed everything!

  After hearing what my friends said—that I was a can-do person who always had a plan—I was so tempted to reveal the Stay in Peach Tree plays—especially the job application we’d sent for Dad—so they’d see I wasn’t letting them down. But I had to keep it quiet.

  It was better to surprise them, even if they seemed to know I could do it all along.

  Peach Tree: 1 (but with plays in motion)

  Seattle: 4

  (But really, how could Seattle possibly win when it is so clear that THIS is where I need to be??)

  THE FORFEIT

  Post-Day Analysis:

  September 27

  Forfeiting is when you realize you need to stop playing. It’s usually not for reasons you’re going to love.

  “Gabby, I need to talk to you” is how this play starts.

  It also starts with my skin getting cold and a weird sweat coating appearing on top of it. Sweating when you’re cold is a horrible sensation.

  I knew by the way my dad said my name that he had NEWS.

  But was it good news or bad news?

  “Okay, Dad,” I said brightly, trying to steer the news to the good side.

  “Let’s go outside.” He opened the patio door and brought his coffee cup with him. It was a mug I’d gotten him that had a smiley face on it and said “My Mug Looks Better When It’s Filled With Coffee.” (Get it?)

  He sat down and took a sip of coffee and looked out over the backyard. “It’s really nice out, isn’t it?” he said, exactly like a person in a coffee commercial. “The leaves are finally starting to turn, too. Look at your tree.”

  My tree was a sugar maple at the far edge of our backyard. When I was little I called it my tree because its trunk was curved in just enough that it fit me perfectly, like a hug. We had a pretty magnolia tree in our front yard but the maple in the back was my favorite.

  We both looked at it for a few seconds in a calm, peaceful way. I relaxed. I thought, the way this was all going, we had to be staying in Peach Tree. Maybe the Citizen of the Year Award and the job application didn’t even need to work, because I felt like Dad was about to say he’d decided he liked things the way they were. If it was a “we’re moving” chat, would he really be talking about the tree and the leaves, and sipping his coffee so slowly, like someone so happy to be RIGHT WHERE HE WAS?

  But even though I felt sure things were going to go my way, the waiting was driving me nuts!

  “So . . . what did you want to talk about?” I asked.

  “Well . . . ,” Dad started. He took another sip of his coffee. WHAT WAS HE DOING? THIS WAS TORTURE! THE LEAVES ON MY TREE WERE GOING TO ALL TURN COLOR AND FALL OFF IF HE DIDN’T SAY SOMETHING SOON! He cleared his throat and looked at me, then said, in the same very even tone: “I need to know what on earth you were thinking when you sent a job application to the Atlanta Herald in my name.”

  Was he happy about whatever on earth I’d been thinking . . . or not so happy? Usually with my dad, I can tell in an instant how he’s feeling. So can everyone. His eyes flash in a certain way when he’s glad and his mouth gets really stitched together when he’s upset. But today, his eyebrows were just raised. I didn’t know what that expression meant, except that he was curious.

  So I asked, “Did you get the job?”

  “No. There’s no job there,” he said. And NOW he pressed his lips together. He was NOT HAPPY. His mouth was angry and his eyes were sad.

  My stomach plunged down so fast it felt like my whole body was going to flatten itself.

  Then it got worse. My dad used THE TONE. He almost never uses THE TONE, but when he does, it means things really went wrong and he’s displeased. The last time I heard him use it was when our fridge broke out of nowhere and he called the warranty lin
e and they told him the warranty was no longer valid even though it was. The tone isn’t mean, so much as factual, but the facts he gives are never in the other person’s favor.

  Here were the facts he gave me: “There’s a job in Seattle. A job I was offered. A job the managing editor called me about today to ask if I really wasn’t interested in relocation. A friend of hers in Atlanta had also gotten an application, making it seem I’d rather be in Georgia. And guess what I said to that?”

  I looked down, wondering if now was a bad time to point out how long he’d had that mug I’d given him and how it sure seemed to be his favorite. “Did you say that you didn’t even apply to that job?” I asked softly.

  “You bet I did. And then what do you think I did?”

  “You wondered who applied to that job for you?”

  He nodded. And then he started a speech with my full name: Gabrielle.

  Playbook, did you even KNOW that’s my full name?

  NO. Or, maybe you do. But basically, no one calls me that. I’ve been called that only about eight times since I was born and always at serious moments. Not even IN-TROUBLE serious moments, but SERIOUS like talking to me about how my mom had died, or when Dad was going to marry Louie, or when I was going to have a baby brother.

  But now it was a serious and, I think, in-trouble moment.

  Dad started to talk about how hard it is to get great jobs at great newspapers and especially for sportswriters and he was very lucky that he hadn’t been counted out of the Seattle job instantly based on someone assuming that his heart wasn’t in it and . . . as he told me all of this, I realized something.

  I had made a play that had hurt my teammate.

  My numero uno teammate: my dad.

  It was worse than committing an error in a game, because an error, even if it screws up the score, isn’t something you TRIED TO DO. And this whole time, I’d been TRYING at the All-Pros Play. I’d WANTED to jinx the job.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to him, when he finally finished. And I really was. But saying sorry felt about as useful as a broken refrigerator.

  “I know,” Dad said. “And when they called me, I started to figure it out: you’d told Grandma my news, you took me to Casa de Mayo and spilled the beans, you and Peter . . . are you working together to try to keep us here?”

  I looked at the ground, then at my tree. “We are,” I said, but added, “But this was all me. Or all my idea. I just wanted to bring what you wanted in Seattle to Peach Tree.”

  Dad put his hands in the air, like whatever could make staying here possible was way out of his reach.

  “I’ve been freelance writing for years, Gabby,” he said. “And the dream was always that someday, when you kids were older, I could go back to work full-time, if I could find the right job, and if it was really worth it. We’ve always been a team, and then I find out that not only don’t you want to go, but you almost sabotaged the dream?”

  He was right, of course. The All-Pros Play wasn’t as much about Dad as it was about me. And Peter. But honestly, mostly me. Peter had signed up to help me, but I was the one who’d started all this.

  I was still staring at my tree as my eyes filled with tears. It had been there when it was just me and Dad. It had seen me and Dad when we were our saddest together and later when we were happier, playing catch in the yard. It had been there when I first got hit with a baseball in the exact arm that was now in the cast and I cried a little. I’d cried not because it hurt but because I didn’t understand why Dad had thrown it like that and Dad had almost cried because he’d made a bad throw, and he’d hugged me and when he said sorry he reminded me he was always on my team and would never do anything to hurt me, his numero uno teammate.

  But the Seattle idea HAD hurt me. As I wiped my eyes, I felt a little like he was to blame, too.

  “I just wish you had asked me what I thought,” I said. “This isn’t like your plans that never really happen, like how you daydream about opening a restaurant, or writing a novel. At first, it felt like something I could change, and then it kept feeling more real but like no one cared what I thought, or at least wanted to make sure I was okay about it. I still wouldn’t like it, but it wouldn’t seem so unfair.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” he said. “I forget sometimes because you’re so much like me that you’re not actually sharing my brain and I have to tell you things more clearly. This happened quickly, and I didn’t think about how to communicate it.”

  “So does that mean we’re definitely moving?”

  “I have a lot of smoothing over to do, with the Atlanta Herald and the Seattle Gazette,” he said. “I think I can work it out and tell them my kids are a little emotional right now. I’m the front-runner but I think the hiring committee might have some doubts. They need to hear from me that I really am serious about the job.”

  Was he saying that he was going to get the job in Seattle but might not now? Because of what we’d—what I’d—done? It was what I’d wanted: for Seattle not to work out. But not because my dad lost his shot at a dream job. And not because I’d ruined it for him. The point of the All-Pros Play had been to make Dad and Louie decide they wanted to stay here, NOT to take away the option of leaving. Even though he didn’t seem like he was going to punish me, it was worse to see my dad so sad because of me.

  It was even worse than the other thing: that the play was over, and I might have to face the facts that Seattle wasn’t going away, and the Garcias were probably going. My dad was the front-runner, and he really wanted the job.

  The only way Seattle wouldn’t happen was if I’d truly messed everything up. But there was no way I could call the play a success if it meant that I’d abandoned my team to make it work.

  Seattle: 4

  Peach Tree: 1

  Final

  THE ALL-PROS PLAN: A WRAP-UP

  September 27 (cont’d)

  When I told Peter what had happened, he didn’t make fun of me, or tease me, or say my idea had been stupid and I sure proved I was the silly big sister he’d always thought I was.

  It was way worse.

  He just looked . . . disappointed.

  “Oh, well, I guess that’s it, then,” he said. And he shrugged.

  His disappointment, I should add, seemed like it was IN ME.

  If he’d said something like, “Oh, well, what could we expect from someone who trips over hot dogs?” it would have been better.

  Because at least then things would have felt the same as before we started working together.

  Instead, it was like I lost two Peters—the annoying one and the new one, who was kind of a good brother. Probably even a great brother. And if I was going to lose my hometown, too, I really needed my brother.

  BEST NIGHT EVER (YEAH, RIGHT)

  Goal: Have a good time when I officially feel like a loser

  Action: Worry about my friends having a good time, instead of wallowing in my misery

  Post-Play Analysis:

  September 29

  The only thing worse than feeling sorry for yourself might be feeling like other people are feeling sorry for you.

  Now that my All-Pros Play has failed, I have to face facts: my friends totally feel sorry for me, and it’s totally warranted.

  And I know what they feel like. Sometimes experiencing someone else’s crushing defeat hits you way harder than handling your own.

  That sounds BONKERS, I know. And, okay, Playbook, when I started you, all my focus was on keeping my wins going, but I figured this one thing out: when you’re losing, you’re still kind of in control. Even when my win streak felt like it was slipping away back in the spring, or this summer when I thought Diego was bailing on our friendship, I could make new moves and try new strategies.

  When you’re still playing, losing doesn’t totally exist because you could be on your way to a win.

  Even when you do lose, you can at least wonder how you will fix it next time.

  But when someone else is losing, you feel hopeless.


  When a major league game is on TV, and a pitcher I love is on the mound and everything’s going wrong, and they have too many runners on base and things are crumbling, I get this awful feeling in my stomach for them, because I can’t do anything to fix it. I can only watch and hope and clench my teeth and cross my fingers and feel all sick for them. But I can’t get on the mound. (Though what a cool thing that might be, to just zap myself into a major league game.)

  I worry about that pitcher long after the coach has put in a reliever and even after the game’s over, because I know that—even if they’re used to it on some level—pitchers beat themselves up when they have a bad game.

  So, to my friends, my tragic probably-move to Seattle must feel like the saddest thing on earth. They’re working so hard to make me feel good but I know it’s because they think my life is going down the toilet.

  And, the way I feel today, I don’t totally disagree with them.

  Which leads me to: the Parks Department Mixer. Mixer as in a dance where you mix with other kids from the community.

  My friends want to go, and bring me, and make memories, and generally believe that their efforts are pulling me out of the toilet. Which is noble, because who wants to touch a toilet-water person?

  But I don’t really want to go. Why mix if I’ll just have to UNMIX if and when we move?

  They’re insistent, though.

  Katy just sent me a topple of texts (my word for a group of texts from the same person):

  I should go. Why make my friends feel worse for me, right?

  (Pause for mixer preparation and attendance)

  When Katy showed up with a curling iron, I plastered on a smile and sat on my bed while she curled and sprayed and chatted.

  “So, do you think I should do ‘Seize the Day’ and ‘Flip Your Lid’?” she was asking. Katy had been asked to sing two songs at the mixer during DJ breaks. “I mean, it’s not really a big deal, oh, never mind.” She was trying to downplay being excited about the performance. You know, like people do when their life is going great and yours is toilet-y. But I was excited for her, even if I wasn’t excited for me.