I see the coach greeting some of the girls, shaking hands. So this must be it. The softball field where all my athletic dreams will come true. It’s not as scary as I expected. I’m relieved that softball seems to be the ugly stepsister sport at Spring Valley. No one will be around to see me make a fool of myself.
When Coach sees me, she raises her eyebrows. “Ella Kessler, you came. Good for you.”
“Hi.” I can barely look around. I feel like the shy girl at the school dance in the movies, who stands off to the side alone. The wallflower. Except there aren’t any walls out here.
Coach looks at her watch, then up toward campus.
“Sue Bee, will you take a jog up to the locker room and see if you can round up any more girls? They may not know that the field has been moved down here.”
Not dressed for sports, and looking slightly older than the rest of us, Sue Bee nods, tucks her clipboard under her armpit, and trots away. She’s too full of purpose to be anything but the team manager.
“Well, it’s three thirty,” Coach says. “Why don’t we start throwing around before warm-up and maybe more people will show.”
One of the girls calls out, “Anne Johansson decided to run track this year.”
“Okay.”
“And Melanie Norman isn’t trying out, either,” someone else shouts.
“Thanks for the info.” Coach sighs.
I wonder if any of these girls is Nate Fontineau’s sister.
After everyone’s paired up (and I don’t have a partner), I go over to Coach, who’s scribbling notes on a clipboard identical to Sue Bee’s.
“I don’t have a glove and—”
“Oh, right.” She smiles. “I think we’ve got a few spares in the bag over there.”
I follow her.
“Lefty or righty?”
“Lefty.”
“Ooooh, I’m not sure.…Here we go. Great. Here’s a nice worn-in one.” She tosses it to me. “Ever play first base?”
“No.”
“Well, let’s warm up that arm and see how you look.”
Everyone else is already throwing back and forth. This is the part you can’t read in a book. You just have to do it. I close my eyes and quickly run through the pictures in my mind of out-fielders throwing the ball. Heaving it to the infield. I open my eyes and take a deep breath.
Coach introduces me to Frannie Howard and Maureen Bartlett. Frannie is a big girl with freckles and bushy red hair. Maureen is slight with blond bangs. I repeat this in my head, Frannie red and Maureen bangs, so I won’t forget.
“So, you weren’t on the team last year,” Frannie says, but not in a mean way.
“No.”
Maureen throws to me first, and the ball comes straight for my throat. I’m so caught off guard by how fast it sails right at me, and not sure how to open my glove—pointing up or down—that I just dodge the ball altogether. Maureen yells, “Sorry!” and I run to retrieve it. I pick the ball up from the grass and realize it’s bigger than I expected and not soft at all. The stitches are rough against my fingers as I stuff it into my glove.
Coach saunters over from the bleachers. “That was a tough one to gauge,” she says, not just to me. She takes the ball from my hand. “Generally, all the balls below your waist, you’re down, like this.” She shows us with her glove, open with fingers pointing down. “If it’s above the waist, you’re this way.” She holds her glove up. If Frannie and Maureen already know these details, they don’t show it.
“Here, Ella. Throw it to me, nice and easy.” Coach tosses me the ball low, and I catch it, glove down, a little puff of dust coming off the leather. I feel grit on my teeth and lick my dry lips. She takes a few steps back. “Good. Now, right back at me.”
I tighten my fingers around the ball and my knuckles go white. She yells, “Loosen it up! Nice, round motion.”
Nice, round motion? What does that mean?
I throw it, hand by my ear, and it thuds to the ground.
She picks it up and trots over. Meanwhile, Frannie, Maureen, and the six or so other girls turn to watch.
Coach puts the ball in my hand, shows me how to grip it, then stands to the side and tells me to relax my arm. “Just go limp. I’ll teach you the exact motion of how to throw, and then you need to do it over and over until it’s smooth and natural.”
I can’t do this. Not in front of everyone.
But the next thing I know, she’s gently moving my hand all the way back like I’m swimming laps in a pool. The ball is higher than my head, my elbow aligned with my shoulder.
“Weight’s back on your left foot to start, since you’re a lefty. Good. When you make the throw, your arm will come up higher, like this, and your weight’s gonna shift to your right foot as your arm goes forward.”
By now, everyone is standing in a semicircle around me as she speaks. “A lot of the power should be coming from your body, your legs. It’s not about your arm as much as you think it is.” She’s talking to everyone now. They’re all listening. “You take a step and release that ball up here, not out there.”
We try it again. She adjusts my arm, my elbow, my wrist. She shows me how to take the step with my foot. And then I throw it—and it flies. The girls clap.
I can’t keep my face from smiling. I have power.
“Not bad,” Coach says. “Not bad at all.” She looks at the group of us and adds, “Now you know the secret of how to throw like a real girl. And don’t let anyone tell you that’s a bad thing. Got it?”
We nod our heads obediently and go back to throwing. A few other players straggle out to the field and start to throw, too. Coach and I toss a few more together, even though it takes me about five minutes to go through my motion.
When I rejoin Frannie and Maureen, they ask me what year I am and if I’ve ever played before. Frannie does most of the talking. She says she and “Mo” are also in tenth grade; I make a mental note of Maureen’s nickname and will remember to call myself a tenth grader from now on, since no one in Texas seems to use the word sophomore.
“Did you play last year?” I ask them.
“Yeah, but not in middle school,” Frannie answers.
I’m less self-conscious throwing when we talk, so when Mo says, “Are you new here?” I nod my head and tell them I just moved from Chicago.
Frannie stops. “Whoa. I love Chicago. They have great improv. I want to go to Northwestern and study theater after I graduate from this fine institution.”
I’m impressed. “That’s cool.”
“Yeah,” Frannie says, smiling at me and throwing the ball.
I’m starting to get the hang of this when a car drives up a few hundred feet from us, braking hard in the rough grass. Everyone turns to look. Three girls get out and stroll over. I hear Frannie and Mo groan when they see who it is. I can feel something about to happen.
“Who’s car is that?” Coach yells.
“Mine,” the girl in front yells back.
“Are you here to try out for softball?”
“That’s right. Are you the new coach?”
“I am.” They meet in the middle, not far from where I’m throwing. “Who are you?”
“I’m Joy,” the second girl says.
“I’m Gwen,” says the third.
But the driver, the one with the attitude dripping off her, doesn’t say anything. She squints at the coach and waits.
“What about you, what’s your name?”
“Sally Fontineau.”
You just had to know this would happen.
“Glad you could make it, Sally, but you can’t park on the field.”
“This is our field?” she says with great sarcasm.
“I know. It’s not perfect.”
“Our old field wasn’t so hot, either,” someone says.
“But at least we were next to the baseball team.” Everyone laughs.
Coach gives a tight-lipped smile. “The boys’ baseball team has expanded this year. They now have a varsity,
JV, and an A squad, so they needed our diamond and dugout because it’s right next to their existing field.” She looks around at us. “We’re here because…well, this was the biggest spot they had left. And won’t we be center stage?” She motions to all the open space.
But, of course, they found room for the football field.
Coach continues, “As for the construction going on next door, it’s my understanding that the board of trustees voted to sell off an unused portion of the school property to Peyton Plastics. And Peyton is building its new headquarters there.”
“Yeah, and they broke ground back on the first day of school,” someone adds.
We look up at the building’s apparent lack of progress.
Sally says, “It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know something’s afoot in Denmark.”
We all stand there waiting for what’s coming next. When no one says anything, Joy breaks the silence, “So, you’re Coach Lauer? I’m Joy. Again. I play second base.”
“Glad to have you here, Joy, but I’m not assigning positions today. Why don’t you grab a ball and start throwing with Gwen?”
“And I’m supposed to…?” Sally says.
“Move your car. There’s a student parking lot; I’m sure you’ve heard about it.”
“That’s like ten miles away.”
Coach doesn’t respond. She turns toward the rest of us and claps her hands. “Five more minutes of throwing, girls. Let’s warm up those arms.”
Sally finally makes it back—after we’ve warmed up, stretched out, introduced ourselves, and finished two drills: baserunning and fielding grounders.
The drills are fun and I blend in because everyone is making little mistakes or groaning about being rusty. I feel okay. It’s not so bad here in Texas.
Coach tells Sally (without any sarcasm or meanness) to go stretch on the sidelines, and then she sends Joy off to warm up Sally’s arm. When everyone’s finally together, I count nineteen girls, including me. Aside from Sally, they all seem pretty friendly.
Coach passes around water bottles and then ushers us to the bleachers. “I just want to see the basics today and tomorrow. I want to see you throw, catch, and hit. You don’t have to be perfect, but you have to want to play. You have to want to learn. And most important, I want you to remember that playing means being a part of this team.”
I may be mistaken, but it seems like Coach looks right at Sally when she says that.
“Practice runs from three thirty to five thirty. If you’re going to be late or can’t make it, you need to let me know beforehand. Also, no jewelry. No tank tops. No gum. Cleats are preferred, but if you don’t have any, I expect your sneakers to have laces. And for your own sake and for the sake of your feet, wear socks.”
She doesn’t look down at Sally’s shoes, but I do. Clean, white Keds, no laces, no socks.
The coach isn’t really being a hard ass. I mean, she’s new. She has to set ground rules. She needs to show us where she stands, like all the teachers do on their first day. If they don’t get control right away, they’ve lost us forever. And if you sass off like Sally Fontineau, then Coach is gonna give it right back. And you’re gonna look like the loser.
Maybe this is what I need to do, too—set my own ground rules. Not broadcast them, but just decide them for myself. I’m almost sixteen, I should have a handle on who I am by now—right?
I see how easy it could be to slip through high school and not have to say much, not have to put yourself out there. If you don’t play on a team or the chess club or write for the school paper, people might never have to notice you. But maybe that’s not a good thing. Maybe you really should put yourself—your doubtful, curious, hopeful, nervous-but-willing self—out there. To see what happens.
At the end of practice we run sprints. A bunch of construction workers showed up and are sitting high along the girders of the Peyton Plastics building, watching us and cheering. No one’s sure whether to laugh it off or not, but we’re too busy gasping for breath to do anything about it. Coach glances up and shakes her head. I figure she’ll take care of it. We walk off the field by five thirty. My first day of tryouts under my belt.
Frannie and Mo catch up to me as I’m walking back up the hill. Frannie wipes the sweat from her forehead. “My girlish figure doesn’t do well in this heat,” she says, and we laugh.
At the student parking lot, Mo asks, “Do you need a ride somewhere?” She jingles a set of keys. “I just got my license.”
“No, thanks. I’m good,” I say. “See you tomorrow.” I trudge to the locker room to change clothes slowly so everyone will be gone by the time I walk down to the lower school to meet my mom. It’s embarrassing, but it’s my life.
In the car we hardly talk, but I see my mother take me in. My flushed cheeks and hair sweaty against my head. My hands and knees dirty. She doesn’t say anything. She just drives, but she’s covering up something like a smile. Like she knows.
And I guess—for once—I don’t really mind.
On Tuesday we have a fire drill during Behavioral Science so I hardly even see Nate. I stare at him, though. I try not to, but I can’t help it. He smiles at me once, I think—no, actually, I’m not sure. And then I realize I’m just like all those other girls who worship him. When the siren finally stops and we’re allowed to return to class, Mr. Dominick tells us the wedding will be put off until tomorrow, and Nate’s out of the room before I get a chance to pick up my books and catch his eye.
Am I actually disappointed the mock wedding got postponed? Please. No.
Today at tryouts, things seem better. Sally and the coach are ignoring each other, which works for me. I’m throwing the ball with some quiet girl, hitting my target most of the time. I stretch out, groan like everyone else because we’re all sore from yesterday. During our first drill, I stand in line with Frannie and Mo as they talk about the old coach, who left to take a job in Austin, where her boyfriend lives.
I ask, “So, was she a good coach?”
“She was okay,” Mo says.
“But she was tentative,” Frannie adds. “Tentative doesn’t work with teenagers.”
Just then, I notice Dixon coming down to the field. She waves at me, and I look away as if I don’t see her, even though I just had P. E. about twenty minutes ago. I feel bad, but I don’t want anyone thinking I’m the coach’s pet. Dixon and Coach talk by the bleachers for a little while, laughing and gesturing, until Coach calls us in for another drill.
And then it happens.
As Dixon’s leaving, she yells, “Give ’em hell, Chicago!”
I look around at everyone else like I have no idea why that crazy coach would yell something like that. In totally different circumstances, I’d think it was really nice. But here, when you don’t want to stand out in any way and then someone announces your presence, then it’s not so nice.
Coach laughs. “She means well, Ella.”
That pretty much drives the nail in the coffin. Frannie and Mo already know I’m new, but they’re not the ones I’m worried about.
On cue, Sally Fontineau looks at me like I’m her new object of ridicule. “Why’d she call you that?”
I want to shrug my shoulders and pretend I have no idea. But I’d definitely get busted, so I say, “I’m from there.” My voice shakes. I could die.
“You’re new?” she says.
Duh, I want to shout, but of course I say nothing.
Coach jumps in. “Okay, news flash, it’s still practice here.” And on we go.
But something feels different. Like I’m being watched. I’m not sure I want to be noticed—not right now anyway. Not by her. It seems as though it should be up to me whether today I blend in with the scenery or star in the show. It’s obvious that with a person like Sally Fontineau, I don’t get to choose.
As I stumble around during the next drill, Kat Hunter, one of the older girls who’s easily the best player on the field, comes up from behind and pats me on the back. “Good job,” she says a
s she jogs by. For what, I’m not sure, but now she’s my hero, and any time I do anything halfway decent I glance around to see if she saw it.
At the end of practice, with the construction workers up on their perches looking down at us and cheering again, Coach thanks us for working so hard during tryouts. My mind races ahead to an immediate plan of defense. Do I lag behind and run the risk of becoming Sally’s target? Or do I whip off to the locker room, grab my clothes, and sneak out to the lower school?
Coach dismisses us and everyone walks toward the school in little groups. Everyone but me.
I decide to lag. Sally is far enough ahead that to come back and harass me might be too much of an effort. Plus, it looks like Frannie and Mo are waiting for me again.
“So, Chicago, how do you think you did?” Mo asks.
I wish she wouldn’t call me that. “I don’t know.”
Frannie laughs. “Everyone makes the team. A few’ll quit. A few’ll get hurt. You’ll probably be starting by the end of the season.”
“She is a new coach and she doesn’t have to pick everyone,” Mo says cautiously.
“Right, but she needs at least eighteen players to scrimmage,” Frannie says. “There’s no point in shooting yourself in the foot. She wouldn’t cut you anyway, Ella. You’re good.”
“Yeah,” Mo agrees.
I’m completely shocked by this and can’t think of anything else to say but, “I am?”
They both stare at me in disbelief.
“Yes, you are, slightly,” Frannie says.
“Really, don’t you know that?” Mo leans into me the way a friend does when she wants to make you feel better or trust what she’s saying.
At the top of the little hill between the library and the upper school, Sally stops with her posse, Gwen and Joy, and they look down at us. Or down in the general direction of the field. I almost stop in my tracks, but I have my two foot soldiers beside me so I keep going.
On the quad, a safe distance from Sally Fontineau, Frannie says, “Don’t be too worried about her.”
“Who?” I’m cool as a cucumber.
Frannie grins, but doesn’t say anything.
“We’ve known her forever,” Mo adds. “Everyone feels the wrath sometime.”
Throwing Like a Girl Page 3