by Alexis Nedd
BobTheeQ: But we have to wait for Muddy.
shineedancer: muddy’s always late
JHoops: leave muddy alone! I can wait
shineedancer: since we’re waiting . . . did the bday boy do the thing today
JHoops: shinee. ki. pls
ElementalP: oh ya did you talk to her?
JHoops: no and i shan’t
BobTheeQ: Why not, you’re a treasure.
ElementalP: just a little jewelry box of a person
JHoops: it’s been too long and it’s weird now. i don’t want to be weird
shineedancer: we believe in love, love’s not weird
ElementalP: we believe in YOU, you’re weird but we’re still on board
JHoops: she doesn’t even remember me, she looked right at me today and it was like -_-
JHoops: which is cool it’s cool i’ll live i got stuff to do
shineedancer: can i give you some feminine advice
ElementalP: can I give you more, different feminine advice
JHoops: do you guys want to coordinate before or
shineedancer: talk to her
ElementalP: TALK TO HER
BobTheeQ: Can’t argue with all caps ¯_(ツ)_/¯
ElementalP: You’ve been talking about her since you started this year
shineedancer: it was way before that
BobTheeQ: Remember the Knights of Darkness story. Love a story that starts with KOD.
shineedancer: it was a fight-cute
BobTheeQ: We just want you to be happy, Jacob.
JHoops: oh jacob is my father, call me jake
JHoops: and don’t bring KOD up again I’m trying to have a nice birthday
ElementalP: One day moratorium on KOD, aka mystery girl, aka one half of my OTP. Only cuz it’s your birthday
JHoops: where the hell is muddy i want my surprise
[LanguageBot:] language.
JHoops: sorry languagebot
[MUDD has logged into GLO Chat: Team Unity]
JHoops: thank god
MUDD: did jake talk to her
JHoops: oh come ON
MUDD: taking that as a no
shineedancer: lol you are correct sir
JHoops: HEY BOB WHAT’S MY PRESENT
BobTheeQ: Soooo
BobTheeQ: We all saw about the tournament.
ElementalP: I CRIED, DID WE RANK?
BobTheeQ: . . .
BobTheeQ: We ranked.
JHoops: omg
BobTheeQ: It was tight, we’re not as high on the main boards as some of the other teams but we got local preference.
shineedancer: praise be to gritty
ElementalP: Are THEY in
BobTheeQ: They’re in.
MUDD: holy shit
[LanguageBot: LANGUAGE!]
MUDD: sorry languagebot:(
ElementalP: REVENGE IS OURS
BobTheeQ: They’re seeded much higher than us for obvious reasons
MUDD: because they blew the wizzard execs
BobTheeQ: Because they’re Fury and they’re legends.
JHoops: we have the advantage though
MUDD: lol do we
JHoops: low profile means no one knows what to expect
BobTheeQ: Birthday Jake is right. Fury showboats. They stream, they have their YouTube channel. We can see them but they can’t see us. The new meta has everyone on edge so we have to crunch some numbers and sharpen up.
ElementalP: LEEEEROYYY
MUDD: don’t.
ElementalP: ok
BobTheeQ: I know we feel morally obligated to murder Fury.
JHoops: we really really do
BobTheeQ: But I’m keeping an eye on them. And their new member.
ElementalP: Do you know who he is? Did they recruit from the philly server?
BobTheeQ: Not that I can tell but I’m working on it. We need to focus on us though. And before I forget . . . we got merch.
JHoops: UNITY for the win!!!!
JHoops: omg was that my present
BobTheeQ: Yes my son.
MUDD: that’s not your son.
BobTheeQ: First up—shirts and badges. They got our logo and everything.
ElementalP: BLUE CROSS. BLACK SHIELD. CAN’T LOSE.
BobTheeQ: Packages are in the mail, feel free to wear them around, spread the word and look fly but make sure they’re clean for the first round.
MUDD: deputizing myself to bring the lint roller
BobTheeQ: Granted. Ok buddies and muddies. Time to get on voice chat.
shineedancer: oh you mean your old man analog chat fetish won’t work in-game? groundbreaking
BobTheeQ: I like having a pregame chat log. And you love playing with the bots I make for it. Anyway. We’re starting on the Lakeport map for practice tonight. Let’s rock and roll.
shineedancer: you sound like my dad
MUDD: hbd jake
[Team Unity is Queued for Battle]
CHAPTER THREE
Emilia, Thursday
MY CONSULTATION BINDER is, if I may say so myself, a thing of beauty. I’m talking table of contents, color coded, transcripts printed on extra-thick paper, and a fully signed list of teachers who have already agreed to write letters of recommendation for me. My mom made me promise to tell whichever college counselor I get that I plan on applying early admission so he or she has a better idea of what the numbers game will look like for me, because that was definitely something I was going to forget after putting all of this together for the past, oh, seven years.
I hope I get Mr. Grimes. He’s supposed to be the nice one. Also he’s new, so he hasn’t had two exhausting years of my mother hounding him about my college prospects, two years in which I’m sure he would grow to despise me as a spoiled overachiever whose parents will make his life a living hell unless I go straight to the Ivy League. Without that, there’s a chance he might like me. I actually love it when authority figures like me.
It helps that the guy going before me is Matt Pearson, one of Connor’s junior teammates on the varsity soccer team. He’s never been the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Don’t get me wrong; I like him a lot more than I like most of Connor’s hangers-on. Matt started out as kind of a prick, but the regulating mechanism of middle school reforged him into the kind of jock teddy bear who chooses kindness more often than not. I’m not sure if he does that because of some innate goodness or if he’s genuinely not smart enough to be mean. Either way, I don’t mind sitting with him at Connor’s lunch table.
Also, he plays GLO. I can’t actually connect with him on that front because showing a single iota of familiarity with the game would raise too many questions, but hearing him talk about it reminds me the gaming landscape is a normal place to be and not, as my parents assume, a Hieronymus Bosch painting full of deadbeats.
The door to the admissions suite opens up, and I look over to see Matt emerge with a short stack of papers in his hand and “I just saw a naked ghost” eyes.
“Whoa, dude, you okay? Did you get Grimes? Is he the worst? You can tell me if he sucks.”
Matt looks startled to see me sitting in the chair next to the door. He might have thought he was the last person in for advising since it’s almost time for the school day to end, but I had my reasons for booking my appointment this late.
“Hey, Emilia! Um, nah, I got Butler. She’s scary. Apparently, I’m really behind on this stuff? She gave me homework.”
“Homework from an advising session, that sucks.”
“I’m supposed to look up the schools on this list she gave me.” He waves the papers in his hand. I can’t get a good look at whatever he’s holding, but for Matt’s sake, I hope it’s a short list.
“Um, by the way,” Matt continues, “you know your mom’s in there, right?”
She is what? I specifically picked Thursday for my advisor meeting because I knew she had booster club before field hockey this afternoon. Come on, Matt, be wrong. You’re wrong so much; do it again, please. For me.
>
“Wait, are you sure? My mom? Mrs. Romero, Coach Romero, is in there right now?”
Matt looks back at the door like that’s going to help him clarify if the woman he saw in the office was in fact my own mother. “Pretty sure. She’s kinda hot, right?”
“You’re gross.”
“Everyone says it.”
“Everyone’s gross!”
Here lies another one of the downsides of having my mom be the field hockey coach at my school. Ever since she took over the job when I was in ninth grade, there’s always someone who thinks I need to know what they think about her. And what they think is that she’s a MILF. No, I didn’t develop any issues around that. Why would anyone ask me that? It’s just another way my mom dazzles the world with no effort and I have to live up to every day of my life.
“She’s with Grimes, so you probably got him, if that makes you feel any better. He looks cool.” Matt looks at the papers in his hand again. “Butler’s not cool.”
Poor baby. It’s not his fault his primary talents are kicking a ball and being sweet.
“You’re gonna be fine, Matt. I’m serious. There’s a website where you can compare your grades with target schools. I’ll text it to you tonight.”
“Thanks, Lia. Good luck in there.”
The admissions suite is one very big office chopped up with glass walls to create three clear boxes, like weird, little fish tanks that house frustrated adult mentor figures instead of blue tangs. When I walk in, I immediately see my mom in the tank on the left, chatting up a guy I assume is Mr. Grimes. On the desk in front of her is a black binder that is suspiciously identical to mine. If I had to guess, it’s also color coded and packed with fancy thick paper. She spots me before Grimes does and waves me in.
“Emilia! Come in, I want you to meet Louis Grimes.”
I should have expected this. Sure, it would have been nice to get a text or a call, but my mother’s strategy when it comes to my college process (and everything else in life) is to always stay two steps ahead of me.
“Mom! What are you doing here? I thought you had booster club.”
I know what she’s doing here. She knows what she’s doing here. The mice in the cafeteria kitchen know what she’s doing here.
“I bailed,” she says with a conspirator’s smile. “You know how those booster parents are. This is a much better use of our time.”
I learned a long time ago it’s a billion times easier to just give my mom what she wants. I could whine about taking too many AP classes, or I could shut up and take the tests. I could tell her I hate everything about field hockey, or I can practice for seven years straight and let her frame my varsity patches for the wall in her office. As long as she gets results, I’m free to handle the how. Mostly.
“That’s . . . great, Mom. Hi, Mr. Grimes. I’m guessing she’s already told you about my schools?”
Mr. Grimes doesn’t look like a “Mr. Grimes.” I was expecting a weird, tired-looking dude with a bald spot and dad glasses, but he’s young, with long brown hair pulled back in a man bun and a shiny beard that he clearly oils on the daily. I’m surprised the school lets him look as hip as he does. They probably wanted their new college advisor to look more accessible to the students, but he honestly looks like a drawing of White Jesus from a children’s illustrated Bible.
And Jesus said, let the little children manifest their latent anxiety disorders when they don’t get into NYU. Amen.
“Nice to meet you, Miss Romero.” He gestures to the chair next to my mom’s and—good lord—is he wearing a leather bracelet? “Your mom was just telling me about UPenn. Great school.”
Ah, she did beat me to it. I don’t think UPenn is a long shot, but if I had a choice I’d probably go to a different state for college. There’s only so much Pennsylvania a girl can take, and I’ve got a year and a half left in me, tops. My parents made it my number one choice on the strength of it being my dad’s alma mater.
“Right. UPenn.” I take the seat Grimes offers and smile up at my mom. I had hoped to get his opinion on what other schools he thought I might qualify for, but with her here, I can tell this entire conversation is going to be about green castles and free laundry. “Do you think it’s wor—”
“As I was saying, my husband is an alumnus, so we’re taking Emilia to visit with some of his old professors in the spring. Her grades are on par with the last five years’ accepted students list, her SATs are a little lower than their average, but we’re proactive in working on it.”
What’s it like, I wonder, to get a word in edgewise? I’ve given up on knowing. My SAT score is fine. I prep on the side when I can fit it in. Besides, for admissions it’s more useful to look at the median, not the average. See? I know how math works.
While I’m thinking about that particular layer of deception, Grimes is looking over the binder my mom brought. I have a sinking feeling he’s not going to get anywhere near mine, which is probably a good thing considering the colleges on my list aren’t something I’m ready to share with my mom.
“She’s a model student, that’s for sure. High grades, the right extracurriculars. I’d say she’s right on target for UPenn, but there’s obviously no promises.”
She is sitting right in front of you, but sure, talk to my mom instead of me. It’s only my future on the line here. Come on, Louis.
“Well, there’s my husband,” my mom repeats, as if Grimes missed the first time she name-dropped him, “and Emilia’s adding student government to her resume this year. She’s running for vice president with Penny Darwin.” She turns to smile at me, performing the proud mama act entirely for Grimes’s benefit. My mom is playing at something that I can’t put my finger on. She’s putting too much out there, acting overeager instead of exacting. I smile back at her. Better to play along.
“Oh, and she’s junior captain of the field hockey team. Emilia’s been playing since fifth grade,” Mom adds.
“Field hockey is perfect.” Grimes nods. “You know, my college roommate works in the athletics office at UPenn. He can get her on a preliminary recruitment list. If”—and for only the second time in this meeting, Grimes actually addresses me—“that’s something you would be interested in?”
“I—”
“Of course we’d be interested! Thank you so much, Louis.” My mom lowers her eyes and looks almost embarrassed to have brought it up. If Grimes believes this, he has an eggplant for a brain. “I was reluctant to reach out considering my conflict of interest; what do you think we should do going forward? Would your friend need a highlight reel or maybe want to organize a visit?”
There it is. My mom didn’t come to this meeting to impress Mr. Grimes or, god forbid, support me in my first advisor meeting. She’s here to talk Grimes in circles until he does what she can’t. It would look mega weird if the field hockey coach called up UPenn to advocate for her own daughter, but since parents aren’t supposed to be involved in advisor meetings, Grimes can bring me up with their coach without it looking nepotistic.
I’m mad at how smart she is sometimes. I mean I had to get it from somewhere, but still, damn.
“I’d be happy to ask him what other students have submitted. A reel would certainly give Emilia an edge. As for the other schools on this list, I’m sure we’ll have time to talk about them in our next meeting. I think you’ve laid wonderful groundwork for Emilia. I’d be surprised if she didn’t make an impression in early admissions.”
“That’s wonderful news,” my mom says, covering up my halfhearted attempt to ask about regular admission. With any luck, my mom will consider her job done after this meeting and not come to the next one, so I can actually ask Grimes the questions I have about college. I’ve lost this battle, though, so when Grimes stands up to shake my mom’s hand (and mine, which actually surprises me), I put on my happy face and let him usher both of us out. He seems like a nice guy, and by nice guy I mean an easy mark.
“So that was slick,” I say once the door to the advisors
’ suite is closed behind my mom and me. My mom couldn’t look more pleased with herself if she had just pulled off a diamond heist. “Wait, let me figure it out. You . . . trawled his Facebook and found out his old roommate works for UPenn?”
“It’s called strategy,” she answers. “I hope you learned something from that.”
Because I know nothing of strategy. I’m just the girl who stays up all night memorizing five-person battle formations and competition videos from rival GLO teams. Byunki has all of us looking over three of the teams we might run up against in the tournament. One of the teams I’m covering, Team Unity, doesn’t have any video online, though, so I only have to cover two. He told me not to worry about it; Unity doesn’t have a chance to make it into the finals.
But yeah, no, I’m dumb as hell. Never thought ahead a day in my life.
“Can I pick the soundtrack for my highlight reel? I’m thinking 100 gecs.”
“I have no idea what that is. Your father can edit the reel once we”—Mom reaches into her Trader Joe’s burlap tote bag and pulls out an expensive-looking DSLR that I’m sure is video capable and somehow written off as a business expense for my dad’s VPN company—“get enough footage from practices and games.”
“Oh, we’re starting now? Like now, now?”
“Romeros don’t lose, and we don’t waste time. We’ll check the light and see which side of the field you favor. And maybe record something today if you’re up to it.”
Fine, fine. This is all fine, as long as I’m free for the first round of the tournament this weekend. “Yeah, sure. I can bring it at practice today. I’ll check a little, score a little. Whatever you want.”
“That’s what I like to hear. Get dressed; I’m going to stop by the end of the booster meeting and meet you outside.”
All of the other girls on the team are finished getting ready by the time I hustle to the locker room, so I have a few minutes to cool off before I have to reenter the spotlight as Emilia Romero: person who cares about field hockey. I know that my mom sitting in on my first meeting with Grimes isn’t the end of the world, and I’ll probably have another opportunity to ask him about schools in New York and Chicago, but the fact that she was able to ambush me makes me feel stupid. If my mom were an enemy DPS in GLO and she pulled that kind of surprise in a match, Fury would roast me for days.