“How do you feel?”
Tina pursed her lips as we stopped at a light. “Relief that it’s out in the open, and that Todd is really happy,” she said. “But terrified that he’s going to let it slip that he opted out of senior-year calculus to take an extra art class.”
“Maybe they can meet him at the game,” I said.
“Thanks for that. Now I can worry about some St. Mark’s dickhead breaking my jaw instead of my mom asking Todd about his intentions.”
She put the car in gear without releasing the clutch all the way, and it made a grinding sound. I gawked at her. I’d never seen her make a driving mistake, even a small one. “Don’t worry about anything,” I said. “We’re going to be fine.” I half believed myself.
I skipped homeroom—after three days out, it didn’t seem to matter—and went straight to the athletic office. The nervous hitch in my step was different than it had been the night before at Wojo’s. Then, I’d been afraid of how the boys would act; today, I was more afraid of how I would. I didn’t want seeing Bobby again to alter my resolve.
My heart pounded in my chest so hard, it seemed to be powering me forward as I neared the door to the athletic office. The sounds of students in the hallway melted together into a pulsating drumbeat. I felt like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, which my dad took me to see when they brought it back in a theater. There was a part where Michael makes a promise to his family to kill a cop who allowed his dad to be shot, and he goes to a bathroom to find the gun he’ll need but he’s fumbling as a train rumbles by because even though he’s done big things before, he knows this is the most important, biggest thing he’s ever done. He knows that when he pulls the trigger and the cop dies, things will never be the same. That was me. And my pledge was to myself and my team. How Bobby saw me didn’t matter anymore. Or it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.
I marched into the office, where Bobby was alone, grading algebra quizzes. He looked up with the same drop-jawed expression he’d had when I caught him with Jacqueline. Before he could speak, I said, “We have a rematch against St. Mark’s. I’ll tell the team at practice today.”
His mouth closed and his eyes softened with concern. He was about to say something he thought was important. Some excuse, something that could smooth things over. But maybe he thought better of it, because he said, “Susan . . . we can find other games.”
“The season’s almost over. And I want this game. We play on November sixteenth.” I turned to go.
“Here, sit down.” Bobby gestured to the chair next to his desk. “I got a real chair, no bucket.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t come here to talk,” I said. “And I’m not asking permission. I’m the captain.”
He put down his red pen and turned his chair toward me. “And a good one. My favorite player, but don’t tell anyone else I said that.”
I didn’t know if he meant it or if he was just trying to patch things up, but hearing him say the words had none of its former effect on me. I’d never really known him, not like I knew Candace, or Tina, or even Joe. Knowing someone meant understanding their flaws as well as their strengths. Bobby, who I’d only known parts of—whose blank spots I’d filled in myself—was not one of those people.
“You’re too good for Jacqueline,” I said.
He gathered his papers into a neat pile, grabbing the red pen and a stack of blank worksheets from his desk. The bell for first period rang. “Not good enough to refuse her money,” he said, standing up. “Sometimes, we tell ourselves we have good reasons for doing the wrong thing.”
“I thought you were better than that,” I told him.
“All I can say is, I’m still learning, too,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. “That might not be what you want to hear, but just because I talk about ‘personal bests’ doesn’t mean I’ve hit mine.”
“Maybe it’s not about being your best all the time,” I said. “Maybe it’s about screwing up, and knowing that what matters about our mistakes is fixing them.”
He gave me a wry smile. “You might be right,” he said, not apologizing.
But then, did he really owe me an apology? He was just a man. Everything else I’d thought of him had been my own creation.
“I can stay out of your way for a while, let you lead the team,” he said. “But I hope you’ll want me to be your coach again.”
I let this settle. The notion that he wanted some role in my life was flattering, and I almost felt sorry for him as he stood there in his algebra teacher clothes. His collar was a little yellow. I wondered if it always had been, and I just hadn’t let myself notice.
“All I want is to kick a goal so hard past Ken’s face that it feels like a close shave of the beard he can’t grow,” I told him. “Whether you’re my coach or not.”
Together, we walked out into the hallway, now mostly empty except for a smattering of students late for class. “I’m your coach,” he said. “All the way.”
“Then it’s settled,” I told him.
We walked next to each other, without talking, to the end of the hall and turned separate ways when we reached the trophy case at the end.
“See you at practice,” Bobby said.
“Okay,” I said. Then added, “Coach.”
Some habits were hard to break.
Thirty-Four
Bobby and Tina might have been on board with the St. Mark’s rematch—or, first match, technically—but the team was taking some convincing. Even as we practiced longer, and were now allowed to use the football field at night when the boys were done with it, the school’s attention was going to winter sports, and whatever small amount of money the school had been funneling toward us was coming in a much narrower trickle. We had started the season with nearly twenty balls and now were down to ten serviceable ones. The temporary goals we had to use on the football field needed new nets, and some of Bobby’s beloved cones had been crushed to the point that they couldn’t be revived. One night, the grounds crew even turned off the field lights on us midpractice.
“Do you really think this is a good idea?” Dana asked me that night as we brought equipment back inside to the athletic office. “Playing an actual game against them?”
“We know it is,” I told her, trying to forget a few sloppy moments in practice when it felt like we’d gone back to the soccer know-nothings we’d been in September. “We just need to treat them like any other team.”
“We’ve only played one other team, though.” She was trying to knock out a dent in one of the remaining cones, and focusing on her task. She looked up and said, “I didn’t mean that to sound snotty.”
“It didn’t,” I said. She had a point, too. We’d played only one game in nearly three months. The team wasn’t forgetting how to play; we were tired, and having no one at the school seem to give a rat’s ass about us wasn’t exactly a morale booster. “We need something to cheer everyone up.”
“There’s the pep rally,” she said.
The pep rally for fall sports was the capper to the season. One last all-school assembly to give a hurrah to the fall athletes before the winter dance and the transition to winter sports. It was due to take place right before the winter dance, the day before our game.
“Perfect,” I said.
While Bobby had been calling most of the shots during practice, he’d also been deferring to me to talk to the team at the end of each one. Most days I didn’t know what to say, but after practice the next night, when he said, “Anything to add, Susan?” I was prepared.
“We should all wear our jerseys tomorrow for the pep rally,” I said. “We deserve some school support, and we’ve all been working hard, so let’s remind the student body that we’re here and we’re not going away.”
“Like, and go out in front of the whole school?” Franchesa said.
“Our game’s not even official,” Wendy said.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Marie said.
“Me too,” Tina seconded.
“Then it’s settled,” I said. “Let’s get ourselves some pep.”
The day of the pep rally, as seventh-period classes filed into the main gym, the girls met up near my locker so we could walk in as a team and take seats near the floor together. When we arrived, the boys’ football, tennis, and cross-country teams were taking up most of the lower bleachers, and the two girls’ teams that had been around longer—badminton and swimming—were positioned in the rows behind them. No space had been marked off for girls’ soccer. We were standing next to the gym doors, and when Bobby arrived with the rest of the coaches, he came right over to us. If we felt ignored as soccer players, Bobby certainly wasn’t as the soccer coach. Almost every set of female eyes in the gym turned toward him.
“I don’t know why we don’t have bleacher space,” Bobby said. “I’m sure it was just an oversight.”
The pep rally began with a few words from the principal, followed by a routine by the Powell Park cheerleaders that was more or less a repeat of what they’d done for the pre-homecoming pep rally, which had only been for the football team. Afterward, the coaches called their teams to the floor. The six guys on the tennis team and the twelve on cross-country drew only slightly more applause and whoops than the girls’ badminton and swim teams. When football’s Coach Stevens came to the floor, people stomped on the bleachers and called out “Thompson!” “Tenley!” and “Wallinski!”—the team’s senior captains. The enthusiasm was so high, I had to remind myself they were four and six on the season.
“There’s no way they’re putting us on after that,” I said, whipping my head around at Bobby. “They forgot us!”
“What the hell?” Marie said. “This is . . .”
“Bullshit,” Tina finished for her.
“I’ll fix it,” Bobby said. He strode to the center of the gym and whispered something to Coach Stevens, who shrugged and handed him the mic.
“Nice ass,” a girl’s voice called from somewhere high in the bleachers.
“I lost my G spot, can you help me find it?” someone else yelled from the other side.
Bobby ignored the catcalls and cleared his throat into the mic.
“Go back to the disco,” a guy hollered.
I almost felt bad for Bobby.
“I think you’ve missed a team,” Bobby said. “Your first Powell Park girls’ soccer team came together—”
Marie snickered at that. Dawn said, “Cut it, Quinn.”
“—We were still getting our bearings as the school year started, so you haven’t met the fine team we’ve put together. These girls have been working hard all season, and I think you should all give them some Powell Park pride.” Bobby then began calling each of our names.
As Dawn, Marie, Tina, and the rest of the girls jogged onto the gym floor to stand on either side of him, there wasn’t loud applause, but no one was booing us, either.
“And finally, team captain Susan Klintock,” he said, waving me out to join them. I jogged out and, not even thinking what I was doing, grabbed the mic from Bobby.
“Coach McMann didn’t mention it, but we’ve been working hard and we’ve got a game against the St. Mark’s boys’ team tomorrow afternoon,” I said, looking out into the sea of faces staring at us. “Five p.m., their field. I know how much Powell Park hates the St. Mark’s Knights, so I hope to see you all there.”
Invoking St. Mark’s actually drew some louder cheers. For us. “Kick their ass,” someone yelled. “St. Mark’s sucks!” came another bellow. “Hell, yeah!” someone else screamed. Maybe we had support. Or maybe everyone was glad the pep rally was nearly over.
As the crowd grew rowdier, the athletic director stepped in to take the mic from me. “That game’s not sanctioned,” he said to me in a gruff whisper.
“You can’t pretend to care now,” I said, thrusting the mic back at him as we left the gym floor. As the band began to play the school song, the team converged on me in the hallway, everyone in a frenzy.
“Did you seriously invite the whole damn school to our game?” Tina said, her expression one of fear and awe.
“I think I did,” I said.
“I don’t know—” Bobby started, but Marie cut him off.
“You’ve got balls!” she said.
“Who needs balls when you’ve got a giant vagina?” Franchesa said, then frowned. “That came out weird.”
The pep rally broke up, and the double doors on either side of us burst open. Students poured out and some of them said nice things, like “You guys are pretty badass!” “I’ll be there tomorrow!” and “Crush ’em!” The captain of the boys’ cross-country team, John Patel—we’d met once in the weight room—even stopped and said, “Good luck tomorrow. We’ll try to be there after our practice.” He extended his hand for me to shake. “Guys’ cross-country doesn’t exactly get much respect. I think it’s the lack of testosterone-fueled violence. So I know where you’re coming from.”
I gratefully took his hand. “Thanks,” I said. “We’ll be at your next meet, too.”
As he departed, the team stood in a circle, looking at each other, and the charge between us was palpable. But as people dispersed and the hallway grew more silent, it really sank in. I’d invited the whole school to watch us play.
“What do we do now?” Wendy said. “What if they all show up?” I couldn’t tell if she was excited about the prospect or dreading it.
“What if we lose?” Dana asked, as if this possibility only now crossed her mind. A loss, and my fear that we’d suffer one, had made sleeping hard for me.
“We give it our best,” I said, at the same time Bobby did. He gave me a faint smile and I returned it.
We split up, Bobby telling us all that he wanted us to rest that night before our game. Tina and I made our way toward my locker. We’d gotten in the habit of going to her house or mine to do homework before returning to school to practice, and I figured tonight we could just hang out.
I saw Candace at the end of the hall, closing her locker. She wasn’t with anyone, and a feeling of affection washed over me. Why had I been so horrible? Of course George really liked her. I’d known it all along—it was obvious even back on Lasagna Night. But fear of losing Candace for good when she found someone who liked her had made me treat George terribly.
“Candace,” I called. She glanced up from her book bag and started to lift her hand in a wave, then brought it down like she’d remembered she should be mad at me. I closed the distance and started to talk before she could walk away. “I’m so sorry,” I said, leaping into the apology with the same quickness I’d dismissed George. “You were right about everything. I suck at reality. I never commit to anything, and I was acting like you shouldn’t, either. But I think it’s great that you found someone who makes you happy, and you went for it.”
Candace was an easy crier, and she started to now. When she cried, her face contorted itself into a mask of agony. Once after we watched The Way We Were and she couldn’t stop crying, she’d caught her face in the mirror and had spent the rest of the night practicing crying prettier in case she ever had to sob in public. She was making no attempt to pretty-cry now, and tears streamed down her face, leaving trails of black mascara across her splotchy cheeks.
“But you were right, too,” Candace said. “I do ditch you for boys. I take you for granted. And you, too, Tina.”
I turned to see Tina behind me. “Well, we can all do better,” I said.
“I think we’re doing pretty good lately,” Tina said.
Squeezing Candace, I said, “And George is pretty nice, and his breath did get better, so good work.”
Candace smiled. “Yeah, it was touch-and-go there for a while, but it’s amazing how fast a guy will start using Listerine if you tell him it turns you on.”
“If Garbage Breath George can have a minty mouth, maybe we can beat St. Mark’s,” I said.
Tina nudged me with her elbow. “That’s gonna take a lot more than mouthwash, Suzie Q.”
Thirty-F
ive
The morning of the game, I woke up with a crick in my neck. I’d spent part of the night on the phone with Candace, bending my neck to hold the receiver between my ear and my shoulder. Despite the pain, I felt lighter, now that we knew everything about each other again.
Mom had heard from the female hiring manager—she’d left for her regular job early today so that she could take a train into the city later for the interview. I’d heard her rushing around but couldn’t force myself out of bed, where, in a half-sleep state, I was envisioning what I felt would be a win that evening.
I’d told her about the game, but I still wrote her a note to remind her, in case she forgot and came home from the interview and had time to get over to the field.
I packed my jersey and cleats and socks with solemnity, placing each item in my duffel bag carefully, like I was going off to war and the things I brought could mean a difference between life or death. In a way, they could. My entire life felt tied up in this game. Whereas before, I would have wanted to play well to prove something: to show my father that he’d been wrong to act like soccer was silly; to show Candace that I was good and make her regret quitting the team; to prove to all my classmates who made fun of the soccer team, as if we didn’t deserve their respect or even acknowledgment, that we were worth their attention. All my visions of victory included their amazed expressions, their admiration or awe. And they all included Bobby, as if my playing well could make anything possible between us.
My new vision was of me and my team, dirt-covered and tired but victorious. I was happy to imagine the awed faces of a crowd, but I didn’t care what that crowd thought. We were free from the judgment of an audience wondering if we should be playing soccer in the first place, if we were allowed, if it was good for us. It only mattered that we knew it was good.
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