Gracie

by Suzanne Weyn

  “If you’re going, go!” Jena said, nudging me with a small push. “Forget Kyle.”

  She was right. I’d come this far; I wasn’t going to let Kyle turn me around now.

  Kate Dorset and her cheerleader pals were nearby, sitting together in a group. Like Jena, they were never far from anywhere the guys were, the cute athletic ones, anyway.

  As we got close, Jena sat down by herself, preparing to watch. I didn’t see Peter, which made me even tenser. If I showed up wanting to play and nobody had invited me, I’d look like a real idiot. But then he stepped out from behind some guys, smiling. What a relief! “Gracie, you made it,” he greeted me cheerfully. “Come on.”

  Peter guided me to the circle of guys getting ready to choose teams. The area where they planned to play was half grass, half cracked, broken asphalt—not exactly ideal.

  They met my arrival with stony stares. Peter acted as if he didn’t notice. “Gracie is going to play,” he announced, as though they would think this was great news.

  Kyle was the first to sneer at me. “This is a joke.”

  Peter and I looked at him but said nothing. He saw in an instant that it was no joke. “If that’s what she wants. Peter, you take her,” Kyle ordered.

  Peter and a guy named Ronny were captains of one team. Kyle and Ben were captains of the other. With Peter as captain, at least I knew I’d get picked. That was the good news. The bad news was that Peter’s team was definitely made up of players who were not as strong as those on Kyle’s team.

  Kyle kicked off and the game began. At first, I hung back a bit, too timid to jump in. Then it hit me that I was playing exactly as Dad predicted I would play, like a girl. So when Curt from our side got the ball, I moved into position to receive it. But even though I was in a much better spot, Curt passed it to Craig.

  I stayed with the ball as we moved down the field with it, and eventually it came to me. This was my chance and I took it, running hard, determined to show them what I could do. Ben, the fullback from Kyle’s team, came at me. Even though I was going at full speed, somehow he outran me and knocked me off the ball.

  It wasn’t long before they scored the first goal.

  Begrudgingly, I saw what Dad had been getting at about the guys being stronger, heavier, and faster than me—even the new toned and super fit me. Playing soccer with my family hadn’t prepared me for this level of tough competitive play. But strategy, speed, and skill had to count for something. I had those things. Practice and experience also counted, and that’s what I didn’t have. These guys played all the time. If I wanted to be as good as they were, I couldn’t let them scare me off or I’d never get the practice.

  In the next round of play, I made it my business to be tougher. I managed to cut the ball out from under Kyle, knocking him off his feet.

  If Kyle didn’t like me before this, I’m sure he hated me now. Kate and the cheerleaders giggled as he tumbled over. Even his teammates laughed.

  I saw Kyle nod to Ben as he got to his feet. His angry glare said, Get her.

  Ben charged at me, pushing me off the ball. I wasn’t going to let him do it. I pushed back, hard, and got the ball back. He started hacking my ankles, cutting a gash with his cleats and knocking me backward to the ground as the ball disappeared up the field.

  Kyle looked down at me, laughing coldly. He thought he’d gotten me back good and I guess he had. In an instant, though, I was on my feet, pushing him. Furious, I walked away and off the lousy makeshift field.

  Peter ran after me. “Gracie, you can’t go.”

  “I can’t stay,” I shouted. After this, Kyle’s team would be all over me. They’d knock me down every chance they got.

  What a jerk I’d been to think I could really do this! What a moron!

  I stomped off the field, blind with anger and humiliation, not sure where I was going. Jena hurried behind me, but I was too beside myself to even speak. She stayed with me until I finally cooled down a little a few blocks from my house.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, breathless from keeping up.

  “You know what I want to do?” I asked. “I want to do something neither of us has ever done before, and I want to do it right now!”

  “Why?” Jena asked. She was usually up for anything, but I think I was scaring her a little. Actually, I was scaring me a little. If I didn’t get out of town that very minute, I felt that I would explode. I was sick of being Gracie Bowen, the girl who wanted to play soccer but couldn’t. I wanted to be someone completely new.

  It was late afternoon but still light when we got to the Jersey Shore in Mom’s station wagon. I was going to catch hell for sneaking it out of the garage, especially considering I didn’t have my license yet. I would definitely be in major trouble but, as with so much else, I didn’t care.

  What could happen? I wouldn’t be playing soccer, it seemed. I was already grounded. I was possibly looking at months of summer school. If I didn’t have some fun right then, I might not have another chance for a long time.

  The boardwalk smelled like salt air, and I could hear the surf crashing not too far off. I was looking at a pair of sunglasses in a shop window when I realized Jena wasn’t with me. I wasn’t too worried; she’d probably stopped to check out a cute guy somewhere.

  I saw her step out of a nearby shop with a strange look on her face, like she was pleased with herself but scared, too. “What?” I asked as she hurried toward me.

  Without answering, she grabbed my arm and pulled me into an alley between shops. She’d shoplifted two bikini tops and two bottoms, one for each of us. I was horrified, then excited, and then thrilled.

  We were walking on the wild side and tossing away the rulebook!

  We found a public bathroom and put on the suits. Then we lay out on the beach until the sun was low in the sky and our skin felt scorched.

  Farther up the beach at the clam bar, we spotted two cute guys. They were probably college kids down for spring break. We hung around nearby, smiling at them and flirting, until they finally invited us to sit down with them at the counter.

  They ordered us all some beer and fried clams, which meant they were over eighteen and could drink. They seemed to assume we were old enough, too, and we didn’t bother to tell them any differently.

  On the deck, a band of guys was playing country music. The cuter of the two guys, Rob, asked Jena to dance with him. Out on the dance area they put their arms around each other and swayed to the music, both appearing slightly unsteady.

  That left me alone with the guy named Adam. When Jena and Rob began kissing on the dance floor, it got sort of awkward sitting there watching them. Adam suggested we go for a walk along the beach. We walked for a while as the sun set. Adam kept asking me questions that I sensed were meant to help him find out whether I was over eighteen. I did my best not to give him a direct answer to any of them.

  I was feeling the effects of the beer, and I wanted to keep on being the wild girl I’d set out to be: the new, carefree, wild Gracie Bowen. I suggested that we could sit in the back of my car if he wanted. He knew what I was suggesting and agreed right away.

  It was nearly dark as we crawled into the backseat. He began kissing me, and I leaned back and let him. I wasn’t madly in love with him or even wildly attracted to him. I hardly knew him! I had just never made out with a guy in the backseat of a car, and I knew a lot of girls had. I wanted to be like them, the other girls, not like me.

  But my planned make-out session was abruptly interrupted by a glaring white light flooding the backseat.

  Looking around Adam’s shoulder, I saw Officer Sal staring down at me, aiming a flashlight in my face!

  And then I was squinting up into the light at Dad!

  Dad?

  Was I having some kind of nightmare?!

  Ten

  Dad didn’t go ballistic, as I’d expected. Instead, he seemed to want to talk. I didn’t. “You can stop pretending you care now,” I snarled at him, leaning against the passenger-side
door, staring out into the darkness. “Nobody’s watching!”

  Maybe it was the beer making me so bold. Maybe it just made me sick that he’d made such a big show of coming to find his bad runaway daughter when normally he couldn’t give me the time of day. What a hypocrite!

  “Gracie, what the hell did you think you were doing?” he asked.

  “Like you really want to have a conversation?” I shot back. If he did, it would have been the first time ever, at least with me.

  “I do,” he insisted.

  “Go ahead, talk,” I challenged him.

  He opened his mouth but no words came out. I knew he couldn’t do it—wouldn’t do it. How could he possibly talk to me? I was a girl, and now I was a bad girl. Why should he waste his breath talking to me?

  We drove in silence for the rest of the trip. He only spoke again to tell me that Jena’s parents had also come to take her home. When we came in the back door, Mom was waiting. “You’re okay?” she checked anxiously.

  “Fine,” I replied coolly.

  Johnny’s cleats and his hawk were on the kitchen table. They’d been looking around in my room! “You touched my stuff!” I accused angrily, grabbing the cage and heading up to my room.

  It had been a very long day and, what with the beer and all, I was asleep in two seconds.

  I felt as though I’d been asleep exactly ten minutes, though it had really been longer, when I was awakened by a wash of dawn light in my face. Dad had pulled open the drapes.

  Was he crazy!? I rolled to the edge of my bed to escape the light.

  “Don’t make me get ice water,” he said. Whatever he was up to, he meant business.

  We were waiting at Coach Colasanti’s office before he even got there. He wasn’t surprised to see me, but he was puzzled by Dad’s appearance. “Grace wants to play Varsity soccer,” Dad announced.

  I looked up at him, shocked. He hadn’t said a word the whole trip over. I figured he was going to tell the coach not to let me use the weight room anymore. This was the last thing I’d expected, especially after yesterday.

  Coach Colasanti unlocked his office and gestured for us to come in and sit down. He opened his container of coffee and took a sip before speaking. “That’s terrific, really great, but Columbia doesn’t have a girls’ team,” he replied.

  “That’s why she’s trying out for the boys’ team,” Dad came back at him.

  “No, I’m not,” I jumped in. My game at the old stadium had proved to me that I wasn’t nearly good enough. Dad held his hand up to me, telling me to stop talking and listen.

  “I can’t have a girl playing on a boys’ team,” the coach insisted.

  “There’s no law against it,” Dad said.

  “There’s no law for it,” Coach Colasanti countered. “She could get injured.”

  “So could any boy,” Dad pointed out.

  The coach sipped his coffee and took a moment to think about Dad’s words. Then he shook his head. “I’m not risking the success of my team for one girl. We have the team this year to win the whole thing—”

  “Grace could help you get there,” Dad interrupted him. “Have you seen her play?”

  My head snapped around as I looked at him in amazement. This was a first! Never before had he even hinted that he thought I was a good player!

  “We’re not asking for special treatment, just a tryout,” Dad continued.

  Coach Colasanti looked at me with doubt in his eyes.

  “She can either do it or she can’t,” Dad pressed.

  Coach Colasanti pushed back in his chair. “Anyway, it’s not my call. Take it up with the School Board.”

  Dad nodded and got up, thanking the coach for his time. I followed him out of the gym. When we were in the hall, I exploded: “What the hell was that about?”

  “You wanted to play, so let’s petition the Board,” he said.

  He’d forgotten one little detail. I had flunked history. There were a couple more weeks of school, but not enough time to reverse it. “Too little too late,” I reminded him as I turned to walk away.

  “You’ll do summer school in the morning and train in the afternoon,” he said. “We’ve got months until tryouts.”

  I just didn’t get him. Now he was all gung ho to train me? Why? “Where were you when I begged you?” I asked angrily. “Where have you been my whole life? Everything’s always been about Johnny, about your boys! You never loved me! Do you even know who I am?”

  We stared at each other. It was all out now. I’d said what I really felt—and he had no reply. I knew he wouldn’t, so I turned to walk away.

  “Gracie!” he shouted when I was nearly down the hall.

  He wanted me to do what he said, to stop being such a pain and do it his way. He always wanted everything his way. Well, not this time. “No!” I shouted back at him. “I’m not good enough!”

  “Do you think anyone gets good on their own?” he asked, coming toward me. So he had noticed that I was training myself. I hadn’t realized he paid even that much attention to what I did. “I coached Johnny,” he said.

  “Johnny was a natural,” I said bitterly, repeating what I’d heard him say a thousand times.

  “Johnny was a boy,” he said.

  I didn’t want to hear any more about how Johnny was a boy and I wasn’t. There was nothing more to say about it. I was right near the girls’ room, the one place Dad couldn’t follow me, so I bolted inside.

  Standing by the door, breathing hard from emotion, I listened while Dad kept talking to me from the other side. “I didn’t have anyone who cared,” he said. “No one took the damn time. Maybe I wouldn’t have screwed up my knee. Maybe I could’ve gone on with my game.”

  Tears came to my eyes. He’d never talked to me like this, never shared much of anything about his past. It had hurt me that he thought I was so unimportant. Now he was trying, though. He was trying.

  “Gracie, I honestly don’t know if you’re good enough,” he continued. “Let me help you.”

  Tears rolled down my cheeks. He stopped talking and waited. All I had wanted was a chance. I supposed he was only asking for a chance, too.

  But was it too late for both of us?

  Maybe so. It felt too late.

  Footsteps in the hallway told me he had given up waiting for me to come out. I heard the sound of the exit door as he pushed it open.

  Could I move from my spot? I didn’t know.

  And then I was out the door and running after him. I caught up on the cement path as he headed for his car. We walked the rest of the way side by side, not talking. I had to go to school, but I went as far as the car.

  If he was willing to take a chance on me, I’d give him the chance to do it.

  Eleven

  Dad and I started training hard. He got me up early and we worked until after dark.

  Dad was tough, but guess what? I was tougher. I was just a hair better, but there were times I left him panting, struggling to keep up with me. This shocked me and I think, from the look on his face, it took him by surprise, too.

  In a way, our daily training sessions became a battle of wills. Neither one of us wanted to admit that the training was torture. We both acted like it was a piece of cake; though I don’t know what kind of cake leaves you struggling to breathe and feeling like you might vomit at any moment.

  Mom, Mike, and Daniel thought we had lost our minds. “Delusional” is what Mike called us. It occurred to me that he might be right.

  One night, I heard Mom and Dad arguing. Since Johnny died, they fought more than they ever had before. It was almost as if they blamed each other for his death, though I don’t see how either of them could possibly have been to blame for such a stupid, tragic accident. My guess was that they felt that they had to blame someone. I knew because I’d felt the same way. My parents just turned that need to blame against each other.

  This conversation, though, was different. It was quiet and intense, as though the subject was so serious they cou
ldn’t risk any of us kids hearing. I was in the dining room, though, and I could hear them talking in the kitchen. Mom asked Dad why his paychecks weren’t showing up in their bank account.

  “I quit my job,” he told her.

  At first Mom didn’t say anything. She must have been as stunned as I was. Quit his job?

  “When?” she asked him after a moment.

  Dad didn’t answer.

  “Without discussing it?” Mom asked indignantly.

  “I couldn’t tell you,” Dad replied. I wondered if Dad felt the same way I did, if Johnny’s death had made him simply stop caring. Just as I couldn’t care about school, maybe he couldn’t bring himself to care about his job anymore. I understood that.

  “I need a break,” he insisted. “I’ll find something new.”

  “What are we going to live on?” Mom demanded.

  “Right now, I’m coaching Grace,” he replied firmly. “I’m not losing another kid.”

  The back door slammed shut as he went out into the yard, ending their conversation.

  I sat there thinking about what I’d heard. It was a lot to take in. I knew Mom was right to worry about how we’d live, but that wasn’t the main thing on my mind. The thing that really grabbed me was that Dad was putting my training before his job. He was going to give it everything he had—everything.

  It meant I couldn’t let him down, not even for a second. I promised myself, then and there, that I wouldn’t.

  So the training continued. Even though my brothers still thought we were “delusional,” they helped me repair the goal Dad had torn down on the day of Johnny’s funeral.

  Dad put together a weight room in the garage. He got a lot of the equipment from stuff he’d found during bulk pickup day, when people put out their big furniture and anything else big that they wanted the garbage trucks to take away. “It’s amazing what people throw away,” he commented as he dragged in a leg-press weight board.

  I figured part of not letting Dad down was to avoid summer school if at all humanly possible, and I wasn’t sure that it was. Summer school would eat up precious time that we needed to train if I was going to be ready for tryouts in September. With all my class cuts, the blank test, and the zero for cheating, my current grade was completely in the toilet. But Mr. Clark was a decent guy, and I had to give it a try.