by Janet Walker
***
Grace did not speak as she led the way to the locker room. The fifteen females who followed her were also quiet. None had ever been in a losing situation with Miz Grace, and so none knew how to interpret her silence. The team entered the visitors’ room, a small and chilly box with cinderblock walls slathered with thick paint the color of pea soup. A radiator of the same color sat in a corner. It exuded no heat but was cold and silent. Against a wall, a lone bench was bolted to the linoleum floor. There was nothing else in the room. Grace walked to the bench and stood before it, arms folded, as the rest walked in. The starters quickly occupied positions around the room. Sandra Butler rocked from side to side restlessly, manicured hand on hip, curious eyes on Grace. Toni Christian held her arms close to her body and blew on her slender fingers to warm them. Pat Butler looked at no one in particular but seemed to be generally pissed off. Against one wall, Evelyn Dent slid tiredly to the cold floor and crouched like a tired grasshopper, an unflattering portrait of black knees and clothed crotch and soft thighs. Against another wall, Tracy Sullivan stood with her back and hips pressed against the cold bricks, hands wedged between her buttocks and the wall, head bowed. If anyone had seen her eyes, they would have realized she was trying hard not to cry.
The last one to enter the room was the assistant coach, Tabitha Ling, who gently closed the door. There was silence. All eyes—even Tracy’s, briefly—looked at Grace. Although they were fearful, the girls did not fail to note the woman’s appearance. They knew that for games, Miz Grace always dressed in an especially stylish manner, exceeding even her usual impressive adornment. Especially, it seemed to the vets, did she showcase for games against Haines. Some imagined she did it because she knew a large crowd turned out for the rivalry and so more eyes would be watching her; others thought vanity had little to do with it—that the extra grooming was Miz Grace’s way of reflecting how important a Beck-Haines win was to her. At any rate, the girls absorbed her appearance now and felt proud. Haines Coach Audrey Evans was herself a stylish dresser but paled in comparison to Miz Grace. While Evans wore, for the occasion, black spandex jeans and black turtleneck under a butterscotch blazer, with a gold herringbone necklace and tan dress boots, Grace sported a tailored, richly seamed, charcoal-gray pantsuit that included a draped, straight-cut, knee-length jacket and tucked burgundy blouse, a deeply rich burgundy shirtwaist with ruffled collar. Her heeled soft-leather boots perfectly matched the charcoal of her suit, while the soft-leather gloves on her hands matched the burgundy of her blouse. Because she stood with arms folded at this moment, the girls could see, beneath the cuff of one wrist, the silvery glint of the woman’s platinum Cartier watch—they had heard it cost thousands. Similarly, through the locks of brown-and-bronze soft tresses of her hair, they spotted the platinum teardrop earrings in her lobes. She looked, they thought, like the spoiled wife or daughter of a horse-owning rich man, not like a woman who worked for a living, but the look in her eyes reminded them that she was, indeed, a worker, a leader, their leader, for hers was a serious stare, one that sparked with intensity, and so they fearfully expected a rain of denunciation to fall upon their heads. They were therefore surprised when the voice that came forth from the woman was stern but calm.
“Dent…Pat…Toni…Sandra.” The woman pinned each player with a stare at the mention of the girl’s name. “Do I need to send you home?”
From three of the starters, brows lifted in polite surprise, but Pat Butler’s look was incredulous and openly displeased.
Grace frowned. “You got a problem, Butler?”
“It’s five of us on the floor, Miz Grace,” the co-captain pointed out.
“Exactly!” Grace declared, and now the voice carried anger. “So why are the four of you”—she jabbed a finger in their direction—“letting one of you”—the same finger at Tracy—“determine how you play?”
The starters, even Pat, looked guilt-stricken and contrite.
“What? Tracy’s having an off night and so that means suddenly you don’t remember anything I’ve taught you the past two years? You’re my seniors, she isn’t! You’re the ones with the experience! You’re the powerful ones of this team—the leaders! Tracy’s a rookie! Talented, yes! But something’s going on with her tonight and I’ll deal with that in a moment, Pat, but right now, you four”—quickly hit with a new thought, she pinned a quick look on the shortest girl in the room—“and Carver go back out there and do what I trained all of you to do! You got that?”
“Yes, ma’am!” they answered in unison.
Grace singled out her captains for confirmation.
“Dent?”
“Yeh ma’am,” assured Dent.
“Pat?”
“Ah’ight,” promised Pat, nodding. “I’m ready.”
“Good,” responded Grace.
Assistant Coach Tabitha timidly indicated the wipe-away board in her hands, the one Grace used to diagram plays during half-time. “Um, Grace? Are you going to need this?”
“Not this time,” Grace answered curtly and then softened enough to add, “But thank you, Tab.” She hardened again and to the players ordered, “Now get a drink from Ronnie and Monica, take a quick restroom break, and then line up in the hall. When everybody’s there, Dent, lead them out in drill formation. You starters do one revolution with the rest of the team, and then get your heads together. The rest of you, shoot out until I emerge. Not you, Sullivan. Keep your ass in here—I wanna talk to you. Let’s do this quickly, quietly, and gracefully, people.”
Grace stepped to the side as Ronnie and Monica placed the beverage cooler on the bench. The team members immediately crowded around the helpers, who began dispensing lime Gatorade into small paper cups. In moments, all twelve players had swigged their portion of the restorative drink and handed their cups to Ronnie. Eleven of the players, along with the helpers and assistant coach, exited the room. The last to leave was Tabitha, who gently closed the door behind her.
There was quiet in the visitors’ room.
Grace looked at Tracy, who had not moved from her place against the wall. The teen glanced shyly at the woman. Grace sat on the bench and patted the spot beside her. “Come here,” she ordered softly.
The girl obeyed and sat down beside her coach. The woman regarded the girl with tenderness before reaching out and drawing the teen into her arms.
Tracy hesitated with uncertainty; Miz Grace rarely initiated an embrace, especially one that held the girl at length, and for a moment Tracy wanted to pull away from the unfamiliar gesture. All night long she had been a dam on the verge of breaking, but she had not had opportunity to give in to the watery pressure. Now, pressed against the bosom of the woman she most admired in the world, the beautiful person who had turned Tracy’s life into a glamorous dreamscape, Tracy lost her battle with restraint. The watery pressure pushed out against the muscles in her temples and in her throat, and she knew it was coming, she couldn’t stop it, and so she let the water flow, her body shaking with the effluence. The sobbing lasted briefly, and soon the teen was wiping her eyes with the heels of her palms and sniffling, her torso spastic from the aftereffects of the outpouring. Grace released her. Tracy’s hands rested in her own lap. The tip of her nose was red and vestiges of tears glistened in her pretty brown eyes.
“It’s never easy to play against your home crowd,” Grace said, still speaking softly.
Tracy sniffled and nodded but kept her eyes downcast.
“You think they think you’re a traitor, but deep down they know better.” The coach’s voice was stronger now, with a hint of passion. “They know why you’re here, and they know it has nothing to do with a dislike for Haines. They’re only acting that way because it’s the role they’re supposed to play. It’s part of the fun of being at a game. The opposing team pretends to hate the best player on the other team. That just happens to be you. Take it as a compliment,” the woman said, smiling gently.
Tracy nodded and tried to smile in return, but the smile
was weak and her head remained bowed. “But I’m making us lose.”
“Didn’t you hear what I just told the others? When we win, Sullivan, it’s a team effort. And when we’re behind, same thing. I’ve got five players on that floor, not just you. I don’t expect you to carry it by yourself. That’s not your job. Okay?” Grace prompted.
“Okay,” the girl said softly, eyes still lowered
“And so are you ready to go back out there? With your brain and everything else you need?”
The girl smiled at the humor and said, “Yes, ma’am,” but she spoke glumly.
“That doesn’t sound very convincing,” the woman observed.
“I’m okay,” the girl said softly.
The coach was not fooled. “What is it?” she asked gently.
The girl shook her head “no” and said, “Nothing.”
“Sure, there is,” the woman said. “Something else is in your head tonight. What is it?”
The girl looked away in anguish, sighed once, gathered resolve, and glanced resignedly at her coach.
“There’s this girl…watching the game. Jinya Daggett. She friends with the girl who keep saying stuff to me on the floor.”
“Number Thirty-Two.”
Tracy nodded. “She said Jinya say she gonna get me after the game.”
“Why?”
“’Cause I lied on her and Number Thirty-Two”—Tracy sniffled—“and their friend. Told my aunt they beat me up that time when I missed tryouts.”
“They didn’t beat you?”
Tracy shook her head.
Grace stiffened. “Who did?”
Tracy looked compliant but was unable, for a moment, to answer.
“Tracy. Who beat you?”
The girl sighed. “My mama.”
Grace absorbed the news silently before speaking again.
“Why?”
“She always do that,” the girl replied. She hesitated before adding softly, “She been doing it all my life.”
Again, Grace was quiet, but the heat of anger brushed her skin.
“Does your aunt know?”
“Nope. My mama say she’ll kill Aun’ Madge if I tell her.”
“Don’t believe that,” the coach said. “People who hurt children always make threats, but they don’t mean them. It’s just a way to keep you quiet. They know that if they control your tongue, they control your life. But the fact that you just told me, Tracy, means you are no longer under your mother’s control. And she won’t be able to put her hands on you again.”
The teen bowed her head, doubtful. “You don’t know my mama, Miz Grace.”
The woman reached over and with a gloved hand gently lifted Tracy’s chin, forcing their eyes to meet. “I know me. And I will see to it that she never hurts you again. You understand?”
Tracy realized it was not only her coach speaking now but also her loving new friend Grace, and so the teen was assuaged and smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t think about it tonight. Okay? I’ll handle it on Monday.”
The girl nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” Doubt returned. “But—that girl. Number thirty-two? She say Jinya brought a gun tonight.”
“Then I’ll deal with that,” the administrator assured.
Tracy looked worried. “But she’s crazier than Mama. She just got out of prison.”
“Why was she in?” Grace asked.
Tracy grew thoughtful and did not hurry to begin speaking. When she did finally respond, her voice took on the soft, astonished tone of one relating a nightmare for the first time. “When I was in fifth grade…Jinya was in the seventh, but I think she was supposed to be in the eighth or ninth, or something. Anyway, she was always hanging in the halls…and this teacher didn’t like her. Miz Daniels. Nobody liked her, either, ’cause she was ugly and cursed all the time, and didn’t like kids. One day she called Jinya a dummy ’cause Jinya was always disrupting everybody’s class and getting kept back. Jinya called her a black ugly monkey and Miz Daniels called this man teacher and he brought Jinya in there and whupped her in front of our class. She said she was gonna come back and kill ’em.” Tracy hesitated, remembering. “The next day, everybody was coming in class and Jinya came to the door and said, ‘Black monkey bitch!’ and shot Miz Daniels in the eye. Right in front of us! Everybody started screaming and running out and… I couldn’t run. I was so scared I couldn’t get up. I just sat there. Miz Daniels was on the floor. Her face was in the blood, and it was spreading all over the floor. And you could see…pieces of her brain.” Tracy hesitated. “Jinya was in a corner, talking to herself and walking up and down and saying, ‘Told that bitch to leave me alone! Told her!’—something like that. When the police came she just went crazy. Started screaming at me—well, not at me, but kept saying something like, ‘Didn’t she make me do it, Tracy? Tell ’em she made me do it!’ Like she had lost her mind. And I was so scared I couldn’t say nothing. I just… First they said she went to the crazy hospital, but then somebody said they put her in YDC. But then she just got out of prison this summer, so I really don’t know where she been. I just know she used to beat me up before that. Her and Number Thirty-Two and this other girl.”
Tracy exhaled deeply and stopped speaking.
Grace placed a consoling hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Oh, Tracy,” she said softly. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
Tracy accepted the words with a nod.
“Poor baby,” Grace added. “No wonder you repeated the fifth grade,” she pondered. “And that’s why there is such a dramatic change in your transcript after grades one through four.”
Startled, the girl stared at the woman and soon her eyes filled.
“What, honey?” Grace asked with concern when she saw the fresh tears.
“My mama always said it was ’cause I was a dummy,” Tracy explained hoarsely, the admission crumbling into weeping.
“Oh, no,” Grace consoled and drew the girl to bosom. “You’re no dummy. You were traumatized. It’s a wonder you were able to continue with school at all.” Grace held the embrace for a few seconds more and then released the girl. “Did the school get you and your classmates counseling for that?”
“Nope,” the girl answered solemnly and then, mildly amused by the woman’s ignorance, added, “They don’t do things like that in the ghetto, Miz Grace.”
“But that’s a horrible thing for an adult to see, much less a child.” Grace placed her hands on Tracy’s shoulders and looked intently at the girl. “Tracy, you suffered mental abuse when you saw that shooting—that, on top of the abuse you were already receiving at home. But you kept going, baby! You didn’t drop out, and you should be proud of yourself for that. A dummy could not have done that. You hear me?”
Tracy nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Grace released the girl’s shoulders. The woman’s words bolstered the teen, causing a gentle upheaval in her self-perception. She grew peaceful and for a moment they were silent.
“Where is this girl sitting out there? The bully?”
“First row, on the Haines side. Got on Army boots.”
“Fair-skinned girl? Very boyish?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll have campus police check her out.”
Tracy nodded but was troubled. “Are you gonna say something to her? ’Cause I wouldn’t want her to shoot you.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” the coach assured. “You just get your head back in the game.”
Tracy nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” she promised.
They embraced deeply and then stood. Grace, struck with an idea, turned to her star player and leveled a burning stare at the youth. “Tracy, how do you feel that they put us in this room?”
The girl, puzzled by the question, shrugged a shoulder. “I dunno.”
“As returning champions of this tournament, we were supposed to have the heated locker room. It’s thirty-five degrees outside. Instead, tournament officials put us in here. Deliberately.”
“Why?”
“Because they think we deserve discomfort. Because we have a nice school. How do you feel about that?”
“I don’t like that.”
“You shouldn’t! It should make you angry, because they’re saying that just because we’re Beck, just because your parents—and your aunt—pay for you to attend school, we don’t deserve to be treated with the respect they have given every other school in this tournament. That even though we work harder, train harder, than anybody else in this league, we still don’t deserve to be treated with the courtesy they give everyone else. And we’re champions! Now, I’m insulted by that. And angry! What about you?”
The girl’s expression darkened with displeasure. “Me, too.”
“Then go out there and show them how angry rich girls play ball, because that’s what you are now, Tracy, an angry rich Beck girl, you hear me? You’re not Haines anymore, and Haines is showing you that. You’re Beck now, because that’s how they’re treating you, so give them what they want! Okay?”
“Yes, ma’am!”
“You know, at moments like this, I burn with the desire to get on the court myself. I wish I could. To get revenge for the disrespect!”
Grace saw it: Indignation finally sparked behind the girl’s eyes. The teen looked the woman in the eye and declared, “I’ll do it for you, Miz Grace.”
Grace smiled slightly, subtly; the manipulative speech had worked. “That’s my girl,” she said, briefly and tenderly cupping Tracy’s cheek. They exchanged warm smiles and then together walked out of the small cold visitors’ room.