Everyone laughs.
“I’m here, clinging to my desk,” she says. And we laugh again, though I’m not sure how Coach is taking it. “I’m trying to arrange a meeting with Mr. Elliot for some time today. It’s a problem with the Spring Valley softball coach.”
“Not the coach, the field,” Coach corrects quickly. “Our field is getting trashed by your company.”
The cute construction guy works his way to the front of the crowd. There’s a perfect opening for me to see Coach’s face when he says, “I can help with that. I’ll take care of it.”
She doesn’t flinch, not even when he smiles, not even when he takes off his hard hat and reveals this beautiful head of black curly hair.
“Look, that’s really sweet of you,” she says, “but I want to meet with the person in charge. Our athletic director has called every day this week and gotten no response from anyone. I want this Mr. Elliot to come down to our field and see the stuff I throw into our garbage every day.”
“I can arrange that.” He’s so calm.
“Today?”
“Yes. Today.”
Gloria jumps in. “He’ll come to the field in the next hour. You’ve got my word on it.”
“Okay, then. Thank you.” Coach turns, but we’re all watching the action so intently that she can’t budge, and her great exit is foiled by the very people who convinced her to come in the first place. She leans, bites her lip. “Ella, is that you? Could you get everything moving here?”
Someone shoves me toward the door, and I struggle to push it open. I’m yanking and whirling the little door handle. I can feel everyone’s impatience and embarrassment at my inability to open it.
“Just turn it to the right, honey,” Gloria calls. “And then pull it.”
Pull. Thanks. Got it.
Back on the field, we’re chatty and laughing but Coach is all biz. “Okay, let’s sit on the bleachers and have a quick talk about tomorrow, next week’s practices, and our first game, which is a week from today.”
We climb onto the bleachers.
“By the way, I think that protest went really well, Coach,” someone says.
“Yeah, especially with the cute guy in the trailer,” another adds.
“Right. Mr. I-can-take-care-of-that.”
“Okay, okay. Enough,” Coach says. “And no foolin’ around when Mr. Elliot comes by. I want this situation to get better, not worse.”
We calm down a little, and she starts to talk about creating a lineup tonight, scrimmaging tomorrow, and working through our strategies next week. I feel a little buzz of adrenaline when she mentions the first game. She has schedules for us to pick up at the end of practice and asks us please to make sure we let her know if we have any conflicts throughout the season. Just as she’s about to explain our first drill, some guy crosses onto the grass from the school driveway. He’s in jeans, no hard hat, and as he gets closer, I can see that he looks remarkably similar to the guy in the trailer. The whole team is watching, except Coach, who has her back to him.
Finally she says, “Hello, is anyone listening to me?”
Mo points. I’m pretty sure we all know he is the same guy from the trailer.
He seems to be frowning a little when Coach turns, like he’s not sure how she’s gonna react.
“Oh, what, Mr. Elliot couldn’t make it?”
“Not exactly.”
Coach stands there with her hands on her hips.
“I’m…Mr. Elliot. Mack, actually. Mack Elliot.” He extends his hand. “And I want to apologize for the trash problem—”
“You are Mr. Elliot? You’re the one in charge?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? You and Gloria were playing a little trick on me.”
“It wasn’t intentional. It kind of evolved.”
“Evolved?”
I hate how she keeps repeating everything he says.
“Please.” His voice sounds really sincere. “Accept my apology for that, too.”
Coach looks down. We’re so quiet that she has to glance back at us, to check if we’re still there.
Personally, I think it’s kind of romantic.
“Umm…” She laughs and shakes her head. “I’m not sure what to think,” she begins. “I’m a little humiliated in front of my team, that’s for sure. What does this mean about my field getting cleaned?” She looks up at him. “Was that a hoax, too?”
“No. You have my word. It’ll be taken care of.”
“Your word? Great. I’ll be holding my breath. And there’s another thing.” She points to the girder eight floors up. “Those guys.” About ten workers hoist their hard hats at us.
We start waving.
“Stop that,” Coach scolds.
“Don’t worry,” Mack says. “I’ll take care of that, too.”
“But…” Debra Lester, a tenth grader, stands up. “We like that we have fans,” she says.
“Yeah,” a couple of other voices chime in.
Coach is fed up. “Okay, cancel that,” she says with a sigh. “Just the trash.”
“No problem,” he says.
Sensing his departure, we start clapping. I don’t know who started it, probably Frannie, but he stops to turn and bow and then he grins so wickedly behind Coach’s back that we laugh and hoot and whistle until she holds up her clipboard to signal it’s time to get on with practice. After all, our fans are here watching.
That night, after dinner, I help with the dishes. My father fiddles with an old camera at the kitchen table while my mother stares at me suspiciously.
“What’s that look for?” I ask.
She smiles. “You haven’t done dishes since softball started. That’s all.”
“I would. But you told me since I had practice every day that I could go straight to my room for homework.”
She nods.
“By the way, I met this girl at school. She’s a year older and she has her license. Her name is Rocky.”
“Rocky?”
“She offered to drive me home after practice. She’s in charge of her sister and brothers. Rocky has to drive them, too.”
“She doesn’t mind adding you to the pack?” My mother glances at my father.
“She didn’t say it was a problem.”
“This girl’s doing this out of the goodness of her heart?” my father asks. “Out of left field, as it were?” He chuckles at his pun.
“Dad.” I glance at him impatiently. “She wants to talk about softball. She used to play, but there’s too much else going on at home now.”
There is some kind of over-my-shoulder secret nod of approval between my parents.
“Okay,” my mom says. Simple as that.
By lunch on Friday, Frannie, Mo, and I are unanimous that Coach and Mack Elliot would be a perfect couple, even though we know next to nothing about either of them.
“He’s just the right height,” Mo says.
“He’s got the best name, too. And that curly hair.” Frannie sighs.
“And good hands,” I add.
“Like yours when you were trying to open the trailer door,” Frannie says.
When I reenact my door-opening mishap for the third time, we laugh so hard we almost choke on our tuna melts.
“It was one of those where you can’t tell if it swings in or out,” I say in my defense, making them laugh more.
“What if she already has a boyfriend?” Mo interrupts earnestly.
“What if so what?” Frannie says. “He has charisma. You can tell.”
“She didn’t seem too happy about the practical joke,” I note.
“No,” Mo agrees, shaking her head.
“Come on, they’ll laugh about it one day. Y’all are such worry-warts,” Frannie says.
“Speaking of which, are you worried about the lineup Coach is working on?” I ask.
They look at me as if I’m crazy.
“Ella, it’s not gonna affect us,” Mo says.
My heart sinks. “You
mean because we won’t be starting?”
“You might be.” Mo always wants to say encouraging things.
“It’s only the first game, Ella,” Frannie says. “And we’re not exactly Rocky O’Haras.”
I look at her. “How do you know about her?”
“How do you?” she fires back.
“Well, I know she used to play.”
“Yeah, she used to play. She used to be the best player we ever had,” Frannie says.
“Then why isn’t she on the team anymore?”
Frannie and Mo exchange looks. I raise my eyebrows to alert them that I’m ready for the long story.
“It’s sort of because her mom died,” Mo says. “That was seventh grade. Her aunt helped her dad out, but then the aunt had her own family to take care of.”
“How’d she die?” I whisper.
“Cancer,” Mo whispers back. And then in her normal voice, “So, that year she came to school, but she didn’t play any sports. In eighth grade, though, she tried out and was so good they put her on varsity, which is unheard of, you know. And then again in ninth grade. But by the spring of tenth grade—that was last year—Rocky got her license, and that was the end of her softball career. The aunt went back to her life, and Rocky gave up her own.”
“Which was especially unfair because she has this older brother,” Frannie says, “who graduated last year.”
“Why doesn’t he help out?” I ask.
“Anthony is a phenomenal football player,” Frannie explains. “Spring Valley recruited him when he was in eighth grade. They got all the kids, the whole family, into the school on scholarships because of him. Nobody was going to ask him to quit football or rearrange his schedule.”
“So, how do you know about her?” Mo asks, and I must have a blank look on my face because she asks again.
“Oh, I met her over by the lower school.”
“You met Rocky?” As if she’s some sort of celebrity.
“She picks up her sister and brothers at the same time my mom picks me up. She told me she watches practice from the library while she waits to drive everybody home.”
“She watches practice from the libes?” Frannie asks.
“That’s kind of sad,” Mo says.
“What’s sad is her brother,” Frannie counters. “He’s the cutest guy. The best football player we’d had in years. College scouts came to see him play. And then he blew out his knee at homecoming. Supposedly a doctor told him he’d never play football again. So, he didn’t go to college. He got a job with Mr. O’Hara, who’s a security guard in some fancy hotel downtown. And that’s it. He still lives at home. He still doesn’t help out Rocky. Nothing. She’s stuck.”
I just sit there and try to take it in. I can’t finish my yogurt. I can’t even look at my chocolate chip cookie.
And then Rocky appears at our table. It’s shocking really. We’re stunned into silence.
“Hey,” she says to us, then to me, “Did you talk to your mom?”
“Yeah. She’s thrilled she doesn’t have to pick me up anymore.”
Rocky smiles. “Good. I’ll see you around five forty-five?”
“Sure.”
“Bye.” Rocky nods. Mo says, “She’s so nice.”
“Totally,” Frannie adds.
I’m excited and nervous about softball the whole day. During Behavioral Science someone tells Mr. Dominick that Nate is absent today, and I’d been so distracted by softball I hardly even noticed!
I realize that reading a lineup (with only nine players) and scrimmaging isn’t a huge deal, but it’s the first time I’ve ever played a real game, and I want to be good. I want to understand every position and where you’re supposed to be on the field. I want to be able to read a batter, which is something Coach mentioned yesterday, and people nodded their heads, and I had no idea what she was talking about. I need to remember to look that up online tonight.
Mostly, I want to hit the ball and get on base. I want to learn to slide. I want to cross home plate and have the whole team high-five me. And I want to throw like a girl. A real girl.
Coach reads two lineups. The good lineup is on the field, and Coach is barking instructions at them. They seem pumped and confident. The rest of us kick around in the dirt, waiting to hear what we’re supposed to do and gazing at the bats leaning against the fence.
“Okay,” Coach says when she finally comes over to us, the leftovers. “Y’all are up. Everyone will bat. And then we’ll put you out in the field for one rotation. To make things go a little faster, each batter gets three pitches. Kat’s catching; she’ll make the calls. If the three pitches are balls, then you walk. But if one’s good, you swing away. I’ll be coaching from first. We won’t work on signs or anything today. Just hit the ball.”
I swear she’s talking so fast I hardly understand anything she says. And worse than that, Sally Fontineau is also on the bad squad, or as Frannie has nicknamed us already, the Bod Squad.
I’m up third. LeaAnne LaRusso (a ninth grader) explains to me that it’s because I’m playing first base and we’re going in order of positions—pitcher, catcher, first—not ability.
“Thanks, LeaAnne,” I say, trying not to sound sarcastic.
Gwen Arden, Sally’s gal pal, is pitching. She’s pretty good actually, and after two foul tips, she strikes out Jenny Yin, and everyone on the field cheers.
This sucks.
LeaAnne catches for our team, so she’s up next. She’s pretty good. If Kat weren’t the best player on the team, LeaAnne might have a shot at starting catcher. But what do I know?
She swings at the first pitch. I’m watching her feet dig a place for themselves at the plate. She holds her right elbow up high, and even though her stance looks funny, she hits it over Virginia Dalmeyer’s head. It’s not a really hard hit, but it gets her to first. Virginia’s playing short but, according to Frannie, that was Rocky’s position and Virginia’s better at third.
Anyway, blah blah. I’m up next and everyone’s watching me. Why did I want to play this stupid sport? It’s supposedly a team sport, but really it’s one more opportunity for everyone to stare at the new girl from Chicago who has never played softball before. Totally humiliating.
I try to remember what LeaAnne did. Since I’m a lefty, I have to do everything opposite, but I manage to do it. I stand there trying to stare down Gwen, when LeaAnne yells, “Come on, Ella!”
It’s as if the sky opened up and the gods shoved a big old spike of adrenaline into my heart. I have to scowl on purpose so I don’t smile. I want to yell thank you to LeaAnne, but suddenly the first pitch goes flying past me and slams into Kat’s glove.
Kat rises from her squat and tosses the ball back to Gwen so effortlessly that I have to look at her. She grins through her catcher’s mask. “Nice and easy, Ella,” she says. “Don’t take your eye off that ball.”
Did she say something to me?
I do exactly what she says. I watch the ball as hard as I can: from Gwen’s glove to the swing of her arm—down, around, then forward again. The ball snaps out of her hand and comes at me fast, but it’s slower in my head. I see it. I think, It’s low, but I can hit it. I swing and smack. That felt so good. It goes right past Julie Meyers, who plays first base and doesn’t seem to want it as much as I do. She comes completely off the bag to try to chase it down while LeaAnne runs to second—safe—and I run through first, safe.
I did it! It wasn’t beautiful. It didn’t sound great, but I did it. I hit the ball and got on base.
How hard is that? Not very.
LeaAnne claps for me. Coach, standing beside me at first base, says, “Good job, Ella.”
Even the construction workers up on their perch cheer.
This is so fun. I LOVE SOFTBALL!
We go through our whole rotation and get two runs: LeaAnne the first, Mo the second. We’re very proud, jumping around and laughing. I don’t even care that Sally’s the only one not celebrating. It’s obvious she’s the one who d
oesn’t fit in. Even the starters tell us we did well.
In the field I play first base. Coach tells me where to stand and how to position myself when I’m waiting for a throw from third or short, left foot against the bag and right arm extended. The good lineup gets a lot of runs, though. Almost everyone gets on base, and the one fly ball that’s catchable is a pop-up that I drop.
There are so many ups and downs in sports.
At the end of practice, Coach runs us hard. She sits on the bleachers blowing her whistle, scribbling on her clipboard. I’m almost hating her right about now.
And then this truck, a small white flower-shop truck, parks right where Sally parked that first day. A guy in uniform gets out holding a bouquet of yellow roses. He walks toward the bleachers while we’re still supposed to be sprinting in shifts on the field. But because Coach is distracted by the delivery man, she forgets to blow the whistle for the next shift, so we stop to breathe and watch as the guy gives her the flowers. We’re gulping air when she pulls the little card out and reads it.
After she does, she looks up at the Peyton Plastics building, where all the construction workers have gotten to their feet, taken off their hard hats, and stepped back a few paces to let one of their own come through. It’s hard to see from here, but I’m pretty sure the guy that walks forward and takes a bow is Mack Elliot. And her reaction confirms it. She nods back and turns away so he can’t see her smile, as if he could from that far away.
“Okay, girls, go home. Have a nice weekend. Stay out of trouble,” she tells us.
Back in the locker room, Frannie and Mo invite me to a pep rally that’s later tonight.
“For…the football team?” I ask, confused.
“No, that would be every Friday during school hours in the fall,” Frannie says, pretending to be shocked by my lack of knowledge. “This is the tiny one they have for boys’ soccer. Once a spring. But it is in the football stadium, if that’s any consolation.”
In Chicago, boys’ and girls’ soccer is played in the fall, and there aren’t any pep rallies.
Throwing Like a Girl Page 6