Playing With the Boys

by Nicole Leigh Shepherd

  Lucy shook her head. She didn’t want them going out of their way for her. Not after she’d screwed up so monumentally. “Oh no, that’s okay. I can just call my dad.”

  “Okay, well, we’ll see you tomorrow then,” Pickle said, giving Lucy a small wave. “Don’t feel bad about tonight. You know . . . it happens.”

  Lucy looked down at her shoes and nodded. “Thanks.”

  Pickle and Max took off toward the front of the school. Lucy stood on the sidewalk, her heart heavy. Here she had been this big talker about getting them into this big party, and she couldn’t even get a ride there. Now she felt like a big loser. She opened her cell phone and dialed.

  “Hey dad,” she said, “the game’s over. Could you come pick me up?”

  “I thought your friends were bringing you home. What happened?”

  “Dad!” she snapped. “I’ve lived here, what? Two-point-two seconds? I don’t have friends yet.”

  “Lucy?” her dad asked quietly, clearly surprised at her outburst. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. I’m sorry,” she sighed. And it was true. Thanks to her, absolutely nothing had happened.

  It was close to midnight when a tap, tap, tap noise woke Lucy up. At first she’d thought it was rain, but then she remembered that it hardly ever rained in Southern California, and when it did, she’d have to worry about her house getting caught in a mudslide and careening into the Pacific Ocean.

  She sat up, startled, and opened her phone, using the faint light it provided to make her way to the window.

  Tap, tap, tap . . . The noise continued sporadically. Her heart raced. Looking through the glass, she made out a dark figure down below. She was a nanosecond away from screaming for her dad, when her eyes adjusted to the dark. Benji was standing below her windowsill. She opened her window.

  “What’re you doing down there?” Lucy asked, almost laughing. “You just scared me half to death.”

  From below, Benji gave a wave. “I got your messages. I’m sorry I took off. The game, you know—”

  “No, no, it’s fine,” she assured him. “Are you okay?”

  “I didn’t feel much like a party,” he explained. “For obvious, you know, publicly humiliating reasons.”

  She shook her head. “It’s okay. I wasn’t really allowed to go anyway.”

  “Well, I just wanted to explain—I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t interested.” He added quickly, “You know, in hanging out with you.”

  “Oh no, I didn’t take it that way,” she reassured him. “I know you’re interested. I mean, not interested interested. But interested in hanging out.”

  “Right,” he said, “I’m interested in a lot of things, now that . . . you know . . . we’re friends.” Lucy smiled. She liked the sound of being friends.

  “How did you know which window was mine?” she asked.

  He pointed at the rainbow-colored wind chime hanging from a hook beside the sill.

  Lucy smiled. How sweet of Benji to notice that small detail. He playfully tossed another pebble up at the closed window on the other side of her bedroom. Suddenly there was a loud crack!

  Lucy’s eyes widened as a web-shaped fracture formed in the middle of her window. Her father was sure to have heard the noise. Lucy had no idea what he would do if he found a boy outside their house.

  “Oh my God!” she panicked. “Go! Run!”

  Benji took off at a full sprint. Lucy heard his car start and peel out of their driveway. She hopped back in bed, pulling the covers over her head. Within a minute, her bedroom door opened.

  “Luce?” her dad asked, concerned. “You okay, kid?”

  “Huh?” Lucy groaned, as if she’d been fast asleep.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I just . . . thought I’d heard something.”

  Lucy muttered something incoherent and rolled over, acting as out of it as she possibly could . . . until her dad shut the door. Then she pulled the covers off and crept back to the window, staring at the spot where Benji had been. Her face broke into a wide smile and she spent the rest of the night lying in bed, unable to sleep, just thinking of how fun it was to have a friend who would bother coming all the way over in the middle of the night just to make sure she was okay.

  She could at least say it to herself: It felt really, really cool.

  five

  Halfway through Saturday’s scrimmage, Lucy was seriously hurting. Getting little sleep was definitely taking its toll. Charlie cheered her on.

  “Come on, Luce,” she said encouragingly. “You got this. Stay on the ball.”

  Lucy pressed hard, knowing this was her last chance to make a good impression on Martie, who had become more serious as the week continued, knowing she had tough decisions to make.

  Lucy won the other team’s throw in and trapped the ball between her feet.

  “Nice,” Martie shouted from the sidelines. “Way to go to it, Luce.” Lucy could hear the faint sounds of praise but couldn’t let them distract her. She looked for a midfielder to receive her pass. Everyone was guarded.

  “Get open,” Lucy shouted, searching for a teammate. Her team had the dubious distinction of once again wearing the not-so-flattering, not-so-hygienic red pinnies. Hot.

  “Got me! Got me back,” Pickle yelled to Lucy from the center of the backfield. Lucy had the ball, and Charlie was fast approaching. Lucy tried to use her body to shield the ball from Charlie, who was relentless in pursuing it. She stole it before Lucy could pass it back to Pickle.

  “Stay on her, Luce,” Pickle shouted. As sweeper, Pickle was considered the coach of the defenders, constantly shouting out instructions, informing the backfield of what was happening. As Charlie played the ball down the line, Lucy cut across the angle toward the goal, trying to keep Charlie from having a clean shot.

  “Switch,” Carla shouted to Charlie. Carla and Charlie were both on the opposing team, and the two communicated quickly and effortlessly. They knew each other so well they could practically speak in code. In a clean, swift motion, Charlie drilled the ball to the other side of the field. Pickle jumped up for a header but wasn’t quite tall enough. The ball sailed over her. Carla stopped the ball with her knee and easily trapped it at her feet as Charlie made a beeline for the goal.

  “Step up, red,” Pickle shouted to her teammates, attempting to get Charlie offside, but Lucy barely heard. She was too distracted by her own frustration over the bad pass.

  Carla passed the ball to Charlie, who banged it into the corner of the net. Their team was up, three to one.

  “Lucy, you could have blocked that shot,” Martie scolded. “You gotta stay even with Pickle. That should have been offside.”

  Lucy looked down at the grass and nodded. The goal was all her fault. She knew she should never be behind the sweeper. A dumb move like that could mean the difference between winning and losing a game. It could even mean the difference in making it onto this team. Lucy took a deep breath, trying to regain her composure. Pickle ran up, giving her an encouraging slap on the back.

  “Keep your head in it, Luce,” she said, trying to psych her up. “You got this.”

  Lucy jogged to her position on the right side of Pickle and told herself the same thing. Come on, she thought to herself. You’ve got this.

  As the whistle blew, Lucy became more determined than ever to shake off the bad play and show Martie what she was capable of. She just had to. After everything she’d been through, she couldn’t fall apart under pressure now. She told herself to keep her head in it, that it was the last practice before the cut. She ran hard on the next fifty-fifty and won the ball.

  After tryouts and congratulatory hugs over simply surviving Hell Week, all the girls dispersed. Lucy was about to speed-dial her dad when Benji pulled up to the field. He smiled and waved from the driver’s seat.

  “You got plans?” he called out.

  Lucy shook her head no. Benji reached across and opened his passenger-side door.“Well, you do now. Get in.”

  With
in minutes, Benji and Lucy were winding up a canyon road.

  “Where’re we going?” Lucy asked.

  “It’s a surprise,” Benji said. “Wait—do you hate surprises?”

  Lucy considered. “Well, it depends. I don’t like to be, like, caught off guard . . . but I like surprises. Does that make sense?”

  “Not at all,” Benji said; then he laughed. “Or totally.” He turned up Green Day on the radio. Lucy relaxed against the headrest.

  “So what’s your deal?” he asked. “Actually, wait—don’t tell me. I have a knack for reading people.”

  “Reading people what?” she bantered. “Magazine articles? Newspapers?”

  He frowned at her playfully. “Let’s see,” he considered thoughtfully. “You’re a straight-A student. You have an older brother and sister. And your first concert ever was Britney Spears.”

  “You got one of those things right,” Lucy smiled. “I’m an only child. And I got a B last year . . .” She paused. “In sex ed.”

  Benji cracked up. “I don’t know which is more appalling. The B in sex ed or the Britney Spears concert.” He turned down the radio a bit. “Okay, your turn. You try reading me.”

  “Oh God.” Lucy blushed.“I don’t know. I can’t tell that much about people from first impressions.”

  “First?” Benji gasped. “This is at least our fourth or fifth, I’d say.”

  “I’m not that good at fifth impressions either,” Lucy admitted.

  “That’s fine,” Benji said, turning the car off the road. “Because we’re here.”

  Lucy looked around and realized they were high, high up in the Hollywood Hills. From their parking spot, they could see the entire city.

  “What is this?” Lucy asked, as they both got out of his car.

  “That is the Valley,” Benji explained. “It’s even more impressive at night. Have you heard of Mulholland Drive?”

  “Is that where we are?” Lucy giggled excitedly. “Oh wow. Annie would freak!”

  “Who’s Annie?” Benji asked.

  Lucy smiled, happy to tell her new friend about her old one. “Annie is my very best friend in the world. . . .”

  For the next two hours, Benji and Lucy sat on the hood of his car, telling each other stories about their families and friends and lives, as they looked down at the vast city below. Lucy chatted on, comfortable in a way she hadn’t been in a long while.

  She had been nervous, so nervous, about the move to L.A., but at that moment, at least for a little while, she thought that everything just might be okay.

  “Where have you been?” Lucy’s dad asked, panicked, as Lucy walked in the front door, a little after four in the afternoon. “Practice ended at noon!”

  Lucy was caught off guard. “Didn’t you get my message?” she asked. “I left you a voice mail saying I was with Benji.”

  “That’d be all well and good,” her dad responded, “if I had any idea who Benji was!”

  Whoops. Lucy realized she hadn’t really mentioned him. “He’s just a friend. From school.”

  Her dad folded his arms across his chest. “A boyfriend?”

  “No!” Lucy recoiled. “I mean, yes. He’s a boy. And he’s a friend. But he’s not a boyfriend!”

  “Because you’re not old enough to date,” he reminded her for the thousandth time. She tried to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Little did he know, she’d already kissed two and a half boys.

  “Fine, Dad,” she sighed.

  “And you have to be more responsible than this, Lucy,” he scolded her. “This isn’t Toledo.”

  Lucy looked at him as though he were crazy. Did he really think he had to remind her of that? “Yeah, Dad,” she said resignedly. “I know.”

  He laid down the law. “From now on, I need to know where you are and who you’re with at all times.”

  Lucy grabbed her soccer bag. “Fine. Then you better up my cell phone minutes, because when I make this team, I plan on going a lot of places.” Triumphant, she headed to her room to call Annie and tell her all about Benji and Mulholland Drive.

  Monday, at school, Lucy wondered if it were possible for “butterflies” to escalate from a nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach to a chronic condition resulting in her stomach actually turning inside out. Because that’s how she felt as she got out of her dad’s car and made her way into the school, into the gymnasium, and down the staircase toward the athletic offices. The pit in her stomach felt as wide and as deep as the Grand Canyon; her palms felt sweaty and her tongue felt as though it took up 90 percent of the space in her mouth—which made it hard to swallow. Could a person have an actual allergic reaction to the posting of the soccer list? Because it felt as though she were having one.

  As she walked down the hall, a swarm of girls huddled around the sheet of paper that would determine her athletic future. Some girls hugged, others cried, and in the center of it all was Pickle, frozen. With her hair in two little poof balls on her head, she looked particularly young and vulnerable as she stared at the list, wide-eyed. Suddenly, Carla embraced Pickle from behind, lifting her slight body off the ground and spinning her around. Pickle wrapped her arms around Carla’s neck and buried her head in her shoulder, tears streaming down her face.

  Lucy’s jaw dropped in disbelief. What? How on earth could Pickle not have made it? She’d worked so hard all summer—she’d been one of the strongest defenders, and she was the most positive, optimistic, encouraging player on the team. Honestly, without Pickle, Lucy wasn’t sure she even wanted to play soccer for Beachwood.

  She moved toward Pickle, stopping behind Carla and Charlie, who were huddled around her. Over their shoulders, she caught sight of the list. “Nicole Lawson” was the third name from the top. Pickle had, in fact, made it. Lucy turned back to Pickle and saw that she was smiling. Her tears were tears of joy.

  “Go Pickle,” Lucy said as she patted her new friend’s back.

  She returned to the list. But as she read through the names, her face fell.

  six

  She scanned the list again. Where was “Lucy Malone”?

  Surely, there had been a mistake. Martie had practically recruited her. She had convinced her to try out. She wouldn’t do that only to leave her off the list. On the bench was one thing, but not even on the team? Lucy read and reread the names. Hers was nowhere to be found.

  Suddenly, she felt a hand pat her shoulder. It was Charlie.

  “I’m sorry, Lucy,” she said softly. “I guess it just wasn’t your time.”

  Lucy’s eyes welled up. These were the times she wanted—no, needed—her mom. She blinked back tears.

  “Yeah,” she answered. “I guess not.”

  Pickle wrapped her arms around Lucy, her own tears now turning to sad ones. “I can’t believe it,” she whispered. “You should so be on this team.”

  Lucy shrugged. “Maybe next year, right?”

  Pickle smiled, instantly going into cheerleader mode. “Exactly. Next year. You’ll do it for sure!”

  Lucy tried to keep up a brave face.The truth was, without soccer, without this team, she couldn’t imagine making it to next year. As the girls around her celebrated and congratulated each other, Lucy felt lonelier and less a part of anything than she ever had in her entire life.