by Suzanne Weyn
I tried to get past her but she blocked me with her arm, placing her hand up against the wall. “I’m never going to understand why soccer is so important to you,” she began. She seemed very uneasy, and I could see that this was hard for her. “But I’m sorry if I haven’t been the greatest friend lately. I want us to be friends again.”
I didn’t know what to do. Hug her? Tell her it was okay that she’d mocked me along with the cheerleaders? “Kate Dorset might not like it if you were friends with me,” I snapped, pushing past her.
“I’m not hanging out with Kate anymore,” she said as she left the bathroom.
After Dad paid the bill (with money Mom passed to him under the table), we returned to the soccer field for the last round of tryouts. Late summer light still hung in the sky. People had come home from work by then and packed the bleachers to watch. Were tryouts always this crowded, I wondered, or was I the reason so many of them had come out?
My entire family was there now. Dad had even gone home and gotten Granddad. From the sidelines of the field, I saw Jena climb past the cheerleaders, who sat together in a group, and go farther up the stands to sit with my family. She waved to me and I returned the wave. I didn’t feel angry at her anymore, not really. She had apologized and, after all, I had been the one who had suddenly become unavailable for our friendship because of my training. It was understandable that she’d been angry with me. I figured we were both to blame.
For this round of tryouts, we would play with the Varsity team. Everyone quieted down as the hopefuls walked onto the field along with the Varsity team. This would be, by far, the toughest part of the day.
Peter came out with the rest of the team. Neither one of us looked at the other.
Coach Colasanti divided us into teams and assigned our positions. When he blew the whistle, play began. It was only minutes before one of the players on the other side lost the ball and I was able to get hold of it. Almost immediately another player tried to get it away from me. He was a guy named Rodney who was also trying out. I knew him slightly from school. I had always thought he was a pretty good guy, but I didn’t know what to expect now.
He made several attempts to get the ball from me, but I kept getting around him. Then he side-tackled me hard, slipping my legs out from beneath me. I went down hard on my side as the play went on without me.
From my spot on the ground, I saw Dad jump to his feet. “Hey! What was that?” he shouted angrily.
Coach Colasanti blew his whistle to stop the play, and I saw Mom gently pull Dad back down to his seat.
Rodney offered me a hand up, but I didn’t take it. I couldn’t tell if he was sincere or part of some Kyle-orchestrated plot to get me. I wouldn’t put it past Kyle to turn even the other hopefuls against me. By offering his hand Rodney might just have been trying to cover up in front of the coach.
Coach Colasanti looked me in the eyes and then pointed to the loose ball, silently remarking on the fact that I had obviously failed to keep possession of it. He didn’t seem pleased.
Later, the coach had the players stand shoulder to shoulder, ready to go one-on-one. It was just my luck to be paired with Kyle, of all people. “Whoever gets the ball first is offense,” the coach said.
Kyle sneered at me. “Come and get it,” he taunted nastily.
“My pleasure,” I replied coldly, letting him know he wasn’t getting to me.
The coach tossed the ball out about ten yards and then blew his whistle. Kyle and I both charged, but I was faster and got there first. Kyle was right behind me and steamrolled into me with his shoulder, knocking me down yet again and landing right on top.
“Get off of her!” This time it was Mom shouting angrily from the bleachers and Dad who had to pull her back down.
“The pleasure’s mine,” Kyle snickered as he got up.
I’d hit the ground on my elbow and it throbbed painfully. Coach Colasanti was at my side as I peeled myself slowly from the ground. “You all right?” he asked.
“I was wondering the same about your whistle,” I grumbled, rubbing my arm. “Feel free to blow it at any time.” Couldn’t he see what was happening?
“You wanted to play with the boys,” he remarked unsympathetically. They were going after me, and he was letting them.
The next thing we did was to go three-on-three for a shooting drill. I was with Rodney and another kid trying out named Oliver. We wore yellow pinnies. Once again, I was against Kyle! With him were Joe and Curt, in red.
“Listen up,” Coach Colasanti said. “We’re down to eight. Two of you will make the team.”
I’d have to be better than six of these guys trying out, and it looked to me like they were all really good. I forced myself to put it out of my mind and concentrate on playing.
The coach tossed the ball and blew his whistle. I made up my mind to play as aggressively as I could. Curt was on me, in my face, all around. As I passed to Rodney, he whacked me in the shin with his cleats. “Sorry,” he sneered, not one bit sorry.
Ignoring this new pain in my leg, I sprinted forward to get away from Curt. Rodney was being hounded by another player named Ben, so he passed the ball to me.
This was my chance to show what I could do, so I charged the goal. Joe came after me but I managed to stay ahead. When Ben saw what was happening, he left Rodney and joined Joe in trying to get the ball from me.
At the top of the box I ripped a bending ball into the upper corner of the goal!
SCORE!
Eighteen
The crowd cheered. I saw Peter smiling and even Mr. Clark was applauding, although he probably should have been more impartial.
The cheerleaders sat quietly with shocked expressions on their faces. That was even better than if they’d been clapping. I’d left them completely speechless.
My family and Jena, of course, went wild. Dad and Mom were both on their feet. “That’s my girl!” Dad kept shouting over and over.
It felt so good!
Naturally, the Varsity team wasn’t thrilled about it. Kyle stepped in front of me and spit on the ground. He shot his teammates a meaningful look and they nodded almost imperceptibly. The whole thing was so quick and small that no one else even saw it; Coach Colasanti certainly hadn’t. But I saw, no doubt because I was meant to. They’d intended to scare me and they had succeeded.
Scared or not, I wasn’t about to give up.
“Split into pairs,” the coach instructed. “We’re going to end with headers.”
I was once again with Rodney. I’d decided that he was all right, not out to get me. Down the line, Peter was with another one of the kids trying out. Kyle was with a kid trying out named Mark.
Kyle suddenly turned to Rodney. “Mr. C. said to switch,” he told him. “Work with someone new.”
“I didn’t hear him say that,” Rodney objected.
“That’s because you’re a jerk,” Kyle snarled. “Now move.”
Rodney did as he was told and, though I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to go against the captain of the team, I really wished he had stood his ground, because now I was paired with Kyle. We were face-to-face. For such a good-looking guy, he sure seemed ugly to me. “Be gentle with me,” he said sarcastically.
“Go full-out for it,” the coach told us as he tossed the ball into the air. Kyle and I both went up for it. I was closer and stretched forward to really snap it. Suddenly, Kyle elbowed me in the nose full force!
Again, I was on the ground. This time I couldn’t get up. I was doubled over as blood gushed from my nose!
“Can’t take the pain, don’t play the game,” Kyle said with an obnoxious snicker.
Blowing his whistle, Coach Colasanti rushed to my side. My family and Jena were on their feet, their faces filled with alarm. Rodney and Peter tried to help me to my feet, but I brushed them away and climbed to standing on my own.
“Bowen, you’re out,” Coach Colasanti said, pointing to the sidelines.
“To hell with you,” I snapped a
t him, using my palm to stop the blood from streaming down my chin.
“What did she say?” the coach shouted indignantly.
“Good luck to all of you,” Peter covered for me gamely.
“That’s what I thought,” he said to Peter, pretending to believe him. “Get lost before my hearing comes back,” he told me gruffly.
Mom ran to the car for the first-aid kit. We stuffed gauze in my nostrils to stop the bleeding, and I held a cold pack on the bridge of my nose. Even though my nose hurt like crazy, she was pretty sure it wasn’t broken because I wasn’t getting black and blue under my eyes.
And then we waited, waited, and waited.
It felt like forever before Coach Colasanti posted the final list in the trophy room. But finally it went up.
My family and Jena hung back while I approached the bulletin board. Ahead of me, Rodney leaped in the air, hooting triumphantly. That meant there was only one other spot available.
And I didn’t get it.
My name wasn’t there.
I couldn’t even look at my family. They only had to see my expression to know I hadn’t made it. They had come to cheer for me but now there was nothing to say. I had let them down.
No, I hadn’t.
I deserved to be on the team. Coach Colasanti had let them practically beat me up, all the while knowing he didn’t intend to give me a fair chance.
Suddenly furious, I stormed past smirking Kyle and the rest of his idiot pals. Kate Dorset giggled as I passed.
“Grace!” Dad called after me, but I couldn’t stop for him. I burst into the coach’s office and found him doing paperwork. “I was good enough!” I shouted.
“That’s why your name is there,” he replied evenly.
What? “Where?” I asked, confused.
“Junior Varsity.”
Junior Varsity? I hadn’t even thought about Junior Varsity.
“If you’re going to be the first girl on my team, you’ve got to be better than good,” he said. “And you’ve got to act like you deserve to be there.”
“I do deserve to be there,” I insisted, and it felt good to say the words out loud.
He shook his head. “I hear it but I don’t see it.” He went back to his paperwork, letting me know that the discussion had ended.
“I offered your dad a part-time coaching job,” he told me when I was nearly out the door.
I knew that was good news, but it didn’t make me feel any better. Dad was in, but I wasn’t!
That night, Dad went right upstairs, showered, and came down again dressed in his uniform for work. Somehow, he’d gotten his old job back. “My supervisor called to tell me that he put my absence down as unpaid leave. I’m in the warehouse again and I have to work the late shift, but it’s a job.”
“And after work you get to coach,” I said coldly. “Glad it all worked out for you.”
It was so unfair! I went into the backyard, letting the door slam behind me. Pulling off my cleats, I tossed them into the darkness, never wanting to see them again. I’d won at every step except the one that counted, the last one.
Dad came out the back door into the yard. “You know, Gracie, I’m not crazy about working this shift, but sometimes you have to take what you’re offered and make the best of it,” he said.
“Not me,” I said firmly. “I’m quitting.”
Dad sighed deeply. “Johnny was a star but—”
I put my hand up abruptly to stop him. “I don’t want to hear about Johnny,” I snapped.
“He played more for me than for himself,” Dad pressed on anyway. “You’re different. You truly love the game. You play for yourself, and that gives you a drive and toughness that’s more important than size and speed.”
“That’s coaching crap,” I scoffed, turning away from him.
“Grace, quit if you want!” he cried, starting to get angry. “But quit because you’re not good enough! Quit because you’ll never be good enough! Don’t quit because you got your feelings hurt. You’ve got to dig deep and come out as strong and tough as anyone.”
“I did!” I cried.
“No!” he disagreed. “I know what you can do, but it’s not enough for me to believe in you. You’ve got to make them all believe in you!”
We stood there staring at each other. Then he turned and headed toward the house.
“How do I do that?” I yelled at his back, desperate to know the answer. I’d done everything I could think of. If there was something more, he had to tell me, because I had no idea what it could be.
He turned around to me. “You know what to do,” he said before going in.
My head fell forward in despair. I didn’t know.
My nose throbbed and ached all along both cheekbones. My cleat-scraped shins screamed with pain. My hip and arms were bruised and burning.
It occurred to me very slowly as I stood there with my head hung in defeat and my body aching that it was possible I had miscounted the steps.
Maybe I hadn’t failed at the last step because I hadn’t come to the last step yet. These tryouts were simply another step toward my dream, not the final one. And if that was really the case, then I hadn’t failed. I had succeeded in advancing to the next step, which was to play soccer on the boys’ Junior Varsity team.
Nineteen
Junior Varsity soccer was definitely the B team. Even the field was second-rate, bumpy and weedy compared to the perfectly manicured Varsity field.
When I arrived for our first practice, the freshmen and sophomores on the team stared at me as though I were a creature from outer space. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about them being much bigger than me. Without making any reference to me, Mr. Clark, who coached the team, simply blew his whistle for practice to begin.
I appreciated that he didn’t make a big fuss. And, deep down, I also enjoyed the way he kept smiling at me, as if he completely approved of my being on his team and was even proud of me. After facing down so much negative attention, it was a refreshing change.
Another refreshing change was not being mowed down by hostile, fire-breathing opponents bent on my destruction. The guys on the JV team were good players, but they weren’t as big and aggressive. Without Kyle in the lead, they weren’t overwhelmed with resentment at the mere thought of my presence.
After practice ended each day, I stayed on to practice kicking on my own. It had always been what I did best, so I figured I should play to my strength and become really excellent at it. It was the most direct route I could think of to become an invaluable player on the team. If I could be an outstanding player on JV, I could win a spot on the Varsity team.
It was often dark before I stopped firing balls at the goal. I stayed at school to practice because the field was bigger than my yard and the goalpost itself was exactly where it would be during a real game. I could blast balls into the goal from different spots on the field, too.
One night, someone pulled up to the parking lot and watched me practice from the car. Squinting over the glare of his headlights, I saw Coach Colasanti watching me from behind his steering wheel.
Ignoring him, I blasted a ball into the upper-right-hand corner. I knew he saw it. I was hoping he was regretting his decision not to let me play Varsity.
Another evening, just as the last of the light was dying out, Peter showed up carrying a white bag from a deli nearby. He stood on the sidelines, apparently wanting to talk to me. I just ignored him and kept practicing.
“Kyle didn’t want me on the team,” he called to me. “He wanted to practice with me to improve his game.”
I know how that feels, I thought bitterly. I was glad to hear that he’d gotten a taste of his own medicine, as the saying goes. Did he want me to feel sorry for him after he’d done the exact same thing to me? I kept kicking balls into the goal, pretending he wasn’t there.
I could feel Peter watching me. Finally I couldn’t resist taking a quick peek at him. The stricken expression on his face made me miss my kick. “Johnn
y…he left me, too,” he said in a voice choked with emotion. He brushed his eyes quickly. He was crying!
That stopped me altogether. I had been so wrapped up in my own grief that I’d never stopped to consider how Johnny’s death had affected Peter. But I should have. Johnny was his best friend.
He walked out between the goalposts. I shot one to him and he caught it. “Anyway,” he said. “I have a best friend again. And I’m going to stay here with her until she’s done.”
He handed me the white bag. There was a ham sandwich and a soda inside. He’d brought it for me.
I ate the sandwich there on the field and then went back to practicing. Peter took out a flashlight and a book. He sat on the sidelines reading while I practiced.
I couldn’t stay angry at him. He’d only wanted what I had wanted…to play Varsity soccer. And so what if he wanted to practice with me to improve his game? That had been why I wanted to practice with him.
Practicing felt a lot less lonely with Peter sitting there waiting. I was glad he came.
Once school was in full swing, there was more than just soccer in my life once again. I knew that I couldn’t stay on the team if I failed anything, so that was all the incentive I needed to keep my grades up. Besides, school seemed less dull than it had the year before. Somehow I had found my way back to caring about my classes again.
One afternoon I had some time after school before practice began. Instead of going home, I went to the library to study for my big chemistry test the next day. I was at a table with a thick textbook in front of me when I sensed that someone had taken a seat across from me and was staring a hole through the book. “Heard that’s a good book,” Coach Colasanti said.
I held up the cover to show him that it was my chemistry text. “Want to borrow it?” I joked dryly.
After that he got right to the point of his visit. “We drew Kingston as our first game. The whole town is coming out. I want you there.”