by Paula Stokes
He clears his throat. “Sorry. I try not to sexually harass girls until I at least know their last names.”
“It’s Kelly,” I say. “Not that you should . . . I mean I’m sure you weren’t . . . I’m just not used to . . .” Stop talking, Maguire. “Look!” I almost shriek, pointing at the twenty-yard line. “It’s my ball.”
I head toward it, but Jordy beats me to the spot. He reaches down with his racquet, pins the ball against the side of his foot, and flips it up into the air. I reach out and catch it. “Seriously. I hope I didn’t offend you,” he says. “I’m not really a slick asshole. I just pretend to be one sometimes, for the media people. Occasionally, I forget to turn it off.” He’s still got half a smile on his face, but there’s a heaviness to his words.
“Why not just be the real you?”
“The real me doesn’t sell tennis racquets,” Jordy says. “Or grip tape or sports sunglasses. Apparently I need a brand to be successful. And sadly, everyone seems to like Slick Asshole Jordy better.”
I crack a smile. “Not everyone.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t really know me, do you?”
“True.”
“Yet,” he says as we make our way back down the grassy hill.
Something about that one innocent word makes me nervous.
We duck back into the tennis courts a couple of moments later, and Coach gives Jordy a long look. “I thought maybe you two weren’t coming back. Did she hit that ball into the next county?”
“She’s got quite an arm,” Jordy says.
We resume hitting on Court Two, where Jordy runs me from side to side and I return his power with a little added extra of my own. Each shot I make is harder than the one before. Vaguely, in my peripheral vision, I see the girls on the nearby courts pausing their games to watch us. Jordy hits a shallow ball, and my momentum brings me up to the net. He tries to lob over me but comes up short. I’m in perfect position for an overhead slam. I bring my racquet back and wait for the ball to fall, squinting hard to keep from losing it in the bright sunlight. Wait for it . . . wait for it . . .
Jordy has to guess which way I’m going. I see him lean to my left, so I aim right. I swing hard, transferring my weight forward as I make contact, but my aim is slightly off and the ball flies through the air right at Jordy’s body. He tries to get out of the way, but it’s coming at him too fast.
Oh no. He’s going to get hit, I think. Bad Luck Maguire strikes again.
But it’s even worse than I imagine. My overhead nails Jordy right between the legs.
CHAPTER 7
Watching Jordy get hit is like watching a bad slow-motion sequence in a movie. His skin goes pale. He flails backward a couple of steps. Freezes. Doubles over. His knees hit the ground first, and then the rest of him. He twists onto one side, his feet and legs inside the court, his upper body beyond the baseline. His face turns red.
“Oh my God. I am so sorry.” I stand awkwardly at the net, my racquet dangling from my hand as Coach Hoffman runs to Jordy’s side. Kimber is right behind him.
She kneels beside Jordy and looks back at me with undisguised loathing. “Did you just hit him in the . . . ? What is the matter with you?” Her dark eyes bore holes in my skin.
“I—I didn’t mean to,” I say.
Jordy groans. He pulls his knees up to his chest and curls into the fetal position. “That’s good to know,” he chokes out. “Like I said, Coach. She’s got quite an arm.”
The girls down on Court Five and Court Six are still playing, but everyone else has stopped to check out the commotion. A small crowd gathers around Jordy. Titters become giggles become full-blown laughter. One of the girls has her phone out recording the entire thing. This is totally the most humiliating moment of my life.
“Kimber. Go get Reyes,” Coach Hoffman says. He turns to Jordy. “Can you sit up?”
Jordy takes Coach’s hand and pulls himself into a seated position as Kimber stalks off to get the athletic trainer. His face starts to return to normal color. “Not Reyes,” he protests. “What is he going to do? Put an ice pack on my balls?”
Another wave of laughter moves through the rest of the girls. A couple turn in my direction. I look down at my racquet, adjusting one of my bright green strings so it’s evenly spaced with the one next to it. Maybe there’s a school activity even lower-impact than tennis. Knitting? Too many sharp needles. Yearbook club, maybe?
“Nice one,” Jade whispers from behind me. “Way to make yourself known on the first day of tryouts.”
“First and last day,” I hiss. “I’m never coming back.”
“Don’t be dramatic.” Her eyes dance with amusement. “He probably deserved it.”
Looking past her, I see the back door of the school swing open as Kimber disappears inside. I should have volunteered to go get the trainer. Then I could have sneaked out of the school, walked home, and begged my mom to homeschool me for the next two years.
I pick at another one of my racquet strings. Jordy coughs. I look up. He slowly gets to his feet.
“Go on, show’s over.” He makes shooing motions with his hands, and the girls clustered around him start to shuffle back to their own courts.
“Maybe go easy on him for the rest of practice,” Jade murmurs. “More for your own sake than his.” She waggles her painted fingernails at me and then turns back to her own court.
Jordy bounces up and down on the balls of his feet a couple of times. He gestures to me to head back to the baseline.
“We don’t have to keep playing,” I protest. “You should . . . take a break or something.”
“I’m fine,” Jordy says. “Let’s see your serve.”
Oh no. Just when I think things can’t possibly get any worse.
After Dr. Leed and I agreed that I should try out for tennis, my mom took me to the local neighborhood park to practice, but I didn’t have much luck serving. She didn’t either, so we ended up just rallying and not playing for points. My ground strokes came back quickly, but I have a feeling my serve is going to be a disaster.
And I’m right.
I slam four balls straight into the net before Jordy crosses his hands in a time-out signal. He runs up the center of the court and vaults over the net. “Forgot how to serve?”
“Something like that.”
“Your toss is kind of low and wide. Try throwing the ball up higher.”
I follow his advice and manage to land a serve in the box, but it’s painfully weak. A decent opponent would have cranked a winner right past me. “Crap,” I say.
“Better toss, though,” Jordy says. “Keep practicing.”
I try a few more serves and only manage to get one of them over. Then Coach comes down to watch me and I revert to my lower toss, the one where I can at least put some power behind my serves.
Too bad none of them go over the net.
Coach Hoffman looks back and forth from Jordy to me. “Your ground strokes are impressive, but they’re not much good if you can’t put a ball in play.”
I drop my eyes to the court. “I’ll work on it,” I mutter. Unfortunately, teaching yourself to serve is a lot harder than teaching yourself to hit forehands and backhands.
Coach nods, makes a note on his clipboard, and then shuffles back down to the far courts. I swallow back the lump that’s forming in my throat, bite my lip so no one will see it shaking.
“Hey.” Jordy looks hard at me. “What’s wrong?”
“My serve sucks.” I blink hard and then look down at the court again, my eyes tracing a minuscule crack in the even green surface. “I’m totally going to get cut.”
“Are you kidding me? You hit like a rocket launcher. You just have to tweak your form so you can get some serves over the net.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Don’t stress. I can help you.”
I lift my eyes. “Why would you do that?”
“Because it’s why I’m here.” He shakes his hair back from his face. “The re
st of your game is on point, and Hoffman needs good players. Plus you helped me with my shrink homework. I owe you one.”
“Not like you gave me much choice,” I say, thinking back to the ice-cream ambush.
“Yeah, like I said, I can be kind of an overbearing ass. For what it’s worth, though, you really did help.” Jordy claps me on the shoulder, the veins in his lean, muscular forearm standing out like highways on a map. “I have to take off, because I’ve got a meeting with my coach, but tomorrow I’m yours, if you want me.”
“Okay.” I give him a tentative smile. “Thanks. And sorry about . . . hitting you.”
He laughs. “I’ve endured worse injuries on the court.” Turning toward the school, he squints off into the distance. “Yikes. Here come Kimber and Reyes. Time to bail.”
He ducks through the gate and lopes off toward the school, cutting around the side of the track to avoid our athletic trainer. I watch him until he disappears, taking note of his long legs and hair that flops just slightly with each stride. At least he seems fully recovered; no permanent damage done.
Kimber and Reyes duck through the gate and out onto Court One. Coach Hoffman pulls Reyes a few feet away to tell him what happened. Both men start to laugh. I go back to arranging my racquet strings again.
“Check yourself, New Girl,” Kimber says.
I lift my head. “What?”
“I said check yourself.” Her jaw goes tight. “I saw the way you talked to him. The way you watched him run all the way to the building. Best to stop before you even start. Jordy is off-limits. To everyone. He is . . . singularly focused.” She shifts her body so that one foot is sideways in front of the other, almost like a ballet pose. “His whole life is tennis and studying.”
I decide not to point out that’s two things, not one. “I’m not—I mean, I wasn’t—” My words get all tangled up as Kimber crosses her arms and stares at me. “He just offered to help with my serve. I don’t even know him.”
“That’s right. You don’t,” she says. “Remember that.”
After practice, Jade catches up with me on the way to the locker room. “Okay. So first you rack the golden boy and then you talk back to Queen Kimber.” She pulls her phone out of the zippered compartment of her racquet bag. “You need to give me your number, because I think I might love you.”
I blush a little at the attention. “I wouldn’t say I talked back to her. I was trying to figure out what her deal is. She yelled at me just for looking at Jordy.”
“Yeah. Those two are tight.”
I realize she’s still waiting for my phone number. I rattle off my digits. “You said he doesn’t date. So they just hook up casually or something?”
“I don’t know. Apparently, they’ve known each other since elementary school. All I know is, she freaks out when he talks to other girls.”
I yank open the door to the locker room, my eyes roving across the furniture, floor, ceiling, and everywhere in between as Jade and I head down the main aisle. I stoop down to pick up a stray tennis ball that’s lying in front of the sinks. “Well, she needs to calm down because he just offered to help me with my game—that’s it.”
“Right.” Jade picks at her nail polish. “She’s probably a little threatened by you.”
I glance around, hoping no one heard her. Two girls from the softball team are standing at the mirror messing with their hair. They don’t seem to register our presence. Everyone else is either in the showers or already gone.
I lower my voice. “Why would anyone be threatened by me?”
“Because you showed up out of nowhere and you’re good.” Jade and I turn down the same row of lockers. “How’d you learn to hit like that?”
“Like what?” I drop my racquet bag on the ground and spin the combination for my lock.
“Like a homerun slugger?” She tugs the ponytail holder out of her hair, and it falls around her shoulders like a sheet of volcanic glass. Shiny. Smooth. Perfect.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to have hair like that after three hours of exercising. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have hair like that ever. “I don’t know. I played when I was little, but I don’t remember hitting that hard. Maybe I have a lot of repressed anger.”
“Well, whatever you have, it’s working for you. I bet Coach has you playing one of the top spots.”
“Doubtful. My serve is terrible. That’s why I was talking to Jordy. He said he’d work with me one-on-one.” I toss the tennis ball into my locker, grab my street clothes, and tuck them into my backpack. Almost without thinking, I knock three times on the wooden bench. “I think I’m going to shower at home.”
Jade tugs her dress over her shoulders and tosses it in her duffel bag. She smirks. “Did you just knock on wood? You nailed our resident tennis god in the junk and his response was to offer you private lessons. I don’t think you need any more luck. You are going to be the envy of half the school.” She blots the sweat from her arms and stomach with her towel.
“I don’t see what’s so great about him.” I slam the locker shut, trying not to stare at Jade’s half-naked body. She’s the exact opposite of me, long and lean. I can see the outline of her abs through her skin. I’m not fat, but I’ve got my mom’s curves. Even with regular jogging, the only muscles of mine that are remotely visible are my leg muscles. “Sure, he’s nice, and he’s cute in a manufactured kind of way, but he seems like just another guy, you know?”
“For most of the girls, I think it’s the fame thing. He gets interviewed in national magazines and invited to amazing parties. I heard he got to go to Serena Williams’s charity barbecue last month.”
“So everyone at this school is shallow, or what?”
“Not everyone. Just seventy percent or so.” Jade snickers. She wraps a towel around her body, grabs a caddy with soap and shampoo, and heads for the showers.
“Good to know.” I scoff. Then I call after her, “Hey, thanks for pairing up. I’m not very good at getting to know people.”
Jade turns back for a second, her dark eyes gleaming. “Something tells me you’re better than you think.”
CHAPTER 8
The next day, I go from being invisible to being that girl who everyone whispers about and sneaks glances at when they think she’s not looking.
I first notice it at lunch. I’m outside again, with my PBJ and my spy girl novel, in the same spot that was completely deserted yesterday. Today it seems like everyone needs to pop out of school and go for a short stroll, just far enough to pass me and then double back to the front doors. I tell myself I’m being paranoid—it happens—but after the third or fourth burst of unexplained giggles I pull my phone out of my purse. I check my hair, my teeth, and my outfit. There’s no obvious reason that people should be spontaneously exploding with laughter at the mere sight of me. It has to be because of what happened at tennis tryouts.
As I slip my phone back into my purse, my eyes fall on my luck notebook. I realize I forgot to write down what happened with Jordy. I turn to the section where I record all of the unlucky happenings and their outcomes and jot down a basic description.
Sept 9th. Tennis courts. While playing a practice point, I hit Jordy Wheeler with a tennis ball.
No need to be overly descriptive. It’s not like I’ll ever forget that moment.
“Hey,” a familiar voice says.
I look up to find Jordy standing over me. He’s wearing track pants and a T-shirt and his hair is damp like he just got out of the shower. Quickly, I shut the notebook.
“Luck notebook,” he reads from the cover.
I silently curse at my twelve-year-old self for being so literal. Did I really have to write that on the outside?
“Did I see my name in that?” His lips twitch.
“No.”
He kicks at the toe of my flip-flop with one of his giant feet. He’s wearing the latest Nike court shoes. They probably cost more than my racquet. “I think I did.”
“Well, you
think wrong. It’s a project for math class.” I slip the notebook back into my purse. “Question. Are random people laughing at you today?”
“I don’t know. I just got here.” Jordy sits down next to me. “I do school online. I only have to come to get my tests and quizzes proctored. Otherwise they think I’ll cheat.”
“Would you?”
He chuckles. “Possibly. I’m not really big on school.”
I watch a group of three girls exit the lobby and turn the opposite direction from me. “I’m probably just being paranoid.”
“Well, someone from the team uploaded a video of my awkward moment,” Jordy says. “They caught you standing at the net looking all cute and apologetic. It might be that.”
“Wonderful.” I barely register the fact he called me cute. “I thought all of those girls were your friends.”
“They are, but everyone loves embarrassing video footage, don’t they?” He looks down at his phone. “I’d better get going. See you later.”
I sit through the rest of my classes doing my best not to call attention to myself or make eye contact with anyone. If I don’t see them laughing at me then it’s not really happening, right? Except, of course, it is, and I can totally hear them.
Psych class is the worst. I’m one of the first people to arrive, as usual. I pull out my textbook and open to the section on Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments. It’s pretty interesting stuff, really—Asch and his team got people to give clearly wrong answers to basic matching puzzles by setting them up in a group of other people who worked for the experimenters and gave the wrong answer on purpose. The results bothered Asch—evidence of humanity’s willingness to go against what we believe is right in order not to look foolish.
But as more and more people saunter into the room and I hear whispers and giggles, I sort of understand how Asch’s participants must have felt. Confused. Embarrassed. Ganged up on. I sink farther and farther down in my chair.
Jade takes the seat next to me, seemingly oblivious. “How are things?”