by Sally John
Alec squeezed her hand again. “I don’t particularly want to either, but I know it’s the right thing to do in this situation tonight.”
She leaned over and rested her forehead on his arm. “How’d you get to be so good?”
He laughed. “If you believe that, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.”
A short time later they entered the noisy gym where bleachers lined both sides. A pep band played. Dance and cheerleader squads ringed the floor, clapping to the music. Varsity teams warmed up at both ends of the court.
Anne spotted Drew. Taller than his dad already, he filled out his shiny blue and gold warm-up suit and from a distance looked like an older college player. His thick black hair and narrow face were Anne’s, but his cinnamon eyes were Alec’s. She smiled to herself. He was still her little boy, as evidenced that morning by him asking her to make pancakes.
The awkward moment came. Val was already sitting with the Viking fans, in the lower half of the bleachers, on the edge of the bunched group. Kevin was near the top, on the group’s other side. Anne’s throat constricted, and she felt a flush spread over her face.
Alec touched the small of her back as people wove around them. He spoke to the girls. “Mandy, you stick close to Amy.”
Amy, the big sister with plans of her own, wailed, “Dad!”
“Honey, if you leave the gym and go to the concession stand with your friends, bring Mandy to one of us first.”
Amy trudged off with a book-toting Mandy trailing behind.
“Anne, meet me at halftime at the concession stand?”
“Okay.”
Now Anne trudged off. For nearly 12 years they had sat side by side, watching their son play, delighting together in his successes, encouraging each other through his inevitable mistakes, sharing a deep contentment simply in his being. A product of their love.
She walked in front of the bleachers and then climbed to where her friend sat. “Val.”
“Hi, Anne. Saved you a seat.”
In reality, saving a seat hadn’t been necessary. The entire section to her right was vacant. Anne sat. “Thanks.”
Val’s eyes were red, but she smiled. “Where’s Alec?”
Anne tilted her head toward the back. “With Kevin. He says Jesus would sit with him.”
“Jesus would say go and sin no more.”
“Well, yeah, you’re right. I guess Alec feels he’s got to be close enough to say that at the right time. How was your day, sweetie?”
“Yesterday was unbearable. I decided to take off the rest of the week from work. Try to get centered or something.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“Celeste took me out to lunch, and then we tore apart my bedroom. I’m going to paint it.”
Anne nodded. “I can help on Thursday.”
“That’d be great.”
Joel Kingsley climbed the bleachers, heading toward them.
Anne said, “Val, I told Joel after practice tonight.”
“Good. Thanks.”
Joel reached them and sat sideways on the row below, looking back up at them. “Mrs. Massey, I’m so sorry about developments.”
Val bit her lip.
“I just want you to know that we’ll do all we can to keep a close eye on Jason. Don’t worry about a thing at school. Call me anytime if you need something. Have the secretary track me down if I’m not in the office.” He handed her a card. “And here’s my home number.”
“Thank you.”
A group of students stopped at the bottom of the bleachers and called up to Joel. He turned around to talk to them.
Anne studied the back of him. His royal blue shirt fit snugly over shoulders that—though nowhere near as broad as Alec’s—leaned toward a trimly defined muscularity. He had nice hair. Thick but very short. In the garish gym lights she spotted a few early gray hairs among the black. There was a solid presence about him, thoroughly masculine, thoroughly take-charge. It was probably what scared Britte.
Britte had always tried to fill her big brother’s shoes. She was athletically inclined and had thrown herself into competing against Brady’s reputation for being the best, especially when it came to basketball. Given that their opportunities differed, she had succeeded as well as any young woman could by combining her love of teaching, her brain for math, and her passion for the game. But somewhere along the way Britte had eliminated suitors, intimidating them beyond what any reasonable young man was willing to face.
Reasonable young man. Well, that left Joel out. He was about eight years older than Britte, and from what Anne had seen, not all that reasonable. Like a polite Marine assault, he had taken charge of Valley Oaks High School and, against the odds of parents and community and history, whipped it into better shape than it had seen in years. She doubted that anything intimidated him.
Which, under the right circumstances, might send Britte spinning. Hmm… Was there something to be done about promoting those circumstances?
The announcer began introducing the teams. All the Viking fans stood as their boys ran out.
Joel turned around. “Take care, ladies.” He climbed up the bleachers behind them. He wasn’t headed in Kevin’s direction, but Anne assumed he eventually would talk to the man, keep all the communication lines open.
From the corner of her eye, she glanced at her friend. Val’s tears flowed freely as her Jason ran out just ahead of Drew.
A nauseating hollowness began to spread from the pit of Anne’s stomach. She wanted to be brushing shoulders with Alec as they clapped for Drew, their junior starting a varsity game as forward.
Oh, why would she want to play Cupid to Britte and Joel? Why in the world had God even created love between a man and a woman? It was all so incredibly heartbreaking.
Britte considered the high school gym her home away from home. She calculated that by now she had spent almost one-half of her waking life in it.
Late Wednesday afternoon she was the lone occupant in this home away from home. The lights were low, the temperature cool. She sat on the top row of the bleachers, center court, on the side designated for home team fans. She stared at the lacquered hardwood floor with its impressive depiction of their mascot encircled in the middle: a Viking, his arms akimbo, wearing a gold helmet and flowing royal blue garments, gazing out over the helm of his boat.
She let her sight drift first toward the right, at the stage with its drawn blue curtains, at the unlit, black scoreboard high up the wall…then toward the left at the two sets of closed doors and another scoreboard. Alongside this one was a narrow announcement board with removable numbers and letters. At the moment it displayed the list of the jersey numbers and names of her girls… 10—Olson… 15—Taylor… 21—Hughes…
Britte forced herself to look straight ahead at the scorekeepers’ table and then, to the left, to the bottom row of the bleachers that served as the team bench. In less than two hours she would be there…with her girls.
She doubled over.
A gym door rattled open, echoing loudly across the empty gym.
“Deep breaths, Britte!” It was Ethan Parkhurst’s voice. Ethan was younger, just three years out of college, in his third year teaching English at Valley Oaks High.
Deep breaths? It took all of her energy to manage a single shallow one through the nausea.
The bleachers clanked and shook as he ran up them. She felt him plunk down beside her. “Deeper.”
“I—” She gulped. “I can’t!”
“Yes, you can.”
“Can’t.”
“Can.”
She jerked her head up, leaned back against the wall, and squeezed her arms over her midsection. The gym spun. She shut her eyes. “I’m going to throw up.”
“No, you’re not. You’ll be fine.”
She peered at him beneath half-closed lids. “I should go home.”
He shook his head. His longish dark brown hair was tied back in a short ponytail. His eyes, a striking color of
faded blue jeans, were laughing at her. “You’re not a quitter.”
“Yes, I am. I shouldn’t be a coach. I have no business being a coach. Why am I a coach?”
“You care about the girls. Cassie, Sunny, Whitney, Raine, Jordan, Janine…all of them, in a very personal way like no one else does.”
She let his words sink in. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
He sighed loudly. “You’re still pea green. Aren’t we finished yet?”
“It’s worse this year, Ethan,” she whispered, still in awe of the revelation that had struck her that afternoon in the middle of calculus. “It’s this winning-team business. Way, way too many expectations.”
“Your only expectation is threefold, the same as always: teach them something about basketball, about teamwork, about inner strength.”
She looked over at him. “You are good.”
“That’s why you pay me the big bucks.”
“One home-cooked dinner?”
“My fee just went up to two.”
“Outrageous.” The smile she felt inside refused to reach her mouth. She groaned and lowered her head to her lap.
The scenario was familiar. In her first year as head varsity coach, Ethan had been walking down a hall when she emerged from the rest room. He correctly guessed from her white, panic-stricken face that she had just lost her lunch. He suggested she sit in the gym and get her bearings. Since that day, he had sat beside her like this, before home games. About a third of the way through the season, the terror lessened and the need for therapy vanished.
He gave her braid a playful yank. “You look nice. New jacket?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Perfect Valley Oaks Viking blue, as always. What’s that called, that fuzzy material?”
“Boiled wool.” Her voice was muffled.
“Looks good with the long black skirt and white blouse.”
“Thanks.”
“Britte.”
She turned her head sideways and looked at him.
“I’ll be sitting right here, praying you through four quarters.”
She sat up. “I’m counting on that, Ethan.”
“God has you right where He wants you. He’s not going to let you down.”
She nodded.
The side door across the gym behind the bleachers burst open. A few girls entered, laughing and dribbling basketballs. The sophomores, Anne’s team, were in uniform, coming in to warm up. Soon, varsity players would begin arriving. They would sit in the second row as the younger girls played the first game of the evening. During the third quarter, she and her team would enter the locker room…and it would begin.
Ethan kneaded her shoulder. “Show time, Coach. Go get ’em.”
Joel stood at one end of the bleachers, near the student section. The gym wasn’t crowded, but the cheering group of boys raised enough ruckus to approach deafening at times. Across the gym Britte Olafsson crouched on the floor, surrounded by her team, talking pointedly to the inner circle of five during a time-out. It was the fourth quarter, two minutes to go, and the Vikings were up by six against the number-three-ranked Hawks.
If he were to rank coaches, he’d place Britte number one above the clown leading Hawk Valley. While that guy ranted and raved, Britte remained calm and controlled. From what he’d witnessed at her practices, he knew her girls were in top-notch physical condition. She pushed them as hard as any male coach would a group of boys. Now those girls were scarcely breathing hard compared to the huffing and puffing opponents. Mentally, it appeared she could rein in their focus with a word or two with her voice that easily carried across the court.
All right, he was surprised, if not somewhat impressed. They still ran and shot like girls, but it was a competitive happening, a positive for the school. Of course from a strictly financial point of view, forget it. The gym wasn’t half full. An entire season like this wouldn’t bring in enough revenue to pay for the referees, let alone coaches’ salaries, team uniforms, bus transportation, referees, and extra custodial services.
The boys were a different story altogether. They’d hosted a Thanksgiving week tournament, packing out the place every night they played. It was a town event, not a social outing for friends and families.
Naturally the politically incorrect reason for that difference was that one team was made up of guys, the other females. The politically correct reason was… Well, off the top of his head he couldn’t think of one.
He smiled to himself, remembering Britte’s dig at him yesterday. She knew as well as he did how to shoot a free throw and wasn’t about to let him get away before she had informed him of that fact.
He’d better keep all of his politically incorrect reasoning to himself. Come to think of it, he probably shouldn’t have laughed at her comment.
Now, as the team walked back out onto the floor, Joel cheered along with the students. The right thing to do was to be the example, and the example was always about teamwork. Always about semper fi. Semper fidelis. Always faithful.
Always.
Seven
Britte, in the school weight room with her back against the bench, raised the bar until her arms were completely extended. On a good day she could bench-press 130 pounds. This was a good day.
It was Friday. As she had driven to school, the early morning sky was star-studded, promising the appearance of a long-absent sun. Two nights ago her team had beat Hawk Valley, perennial nemesis of the Vikings. Wonderful athletic scents filled her nostrils, scents emanating from rubber mats, disinfectant on the machines, and a stack of unclaimed, used—very used—sweatshirts and jerseys. Christian rocktype music blasted from the weight room’s portable CD player, leading Britte in a private, albeit loud, session of worship as she worked out. To Britte, it was a taste of heaven.
“Miss O! Morning!”
She cried out and the 130 pounds above her head wobbled.
“Got it!” Hands grasped the bar alongside hers, instantly absorbing the load. Mr. Kingsley’s face came into focus above her. He stood behind her head. “Let go.”
“I can do it,” she grunted the words through clenched jaw.
“Fine. I’ll spot you. Ready?”
She blinked. Heart pounding erratically, she knew her concentration was gone. “Take it.” She let go.
He laid the bar on its rack and then walked over to the CD player to lower the volume. “Guess you didn’t hear me open the door.”
She pressed a towel to her face, trying to catch her breath.
“Sorry I startled you.”
She lowered the towel and saw him standing beside her, hand extended. She placed hers in it, and he pulled her to a sitting position. “I don’t get much company in here at 5:30.”
“Company. Is that what you would call a spotter?”
The “General” was reminding her that it was against the rules to lift alone. When students weren’t around, she did it all the time. “If you give me a detention, I’ll give you one.”
He smiled briefly. “Touché, Miss O. I don’t have a spotter either.”
“The kids would have a field day with this one.” She exhaled noisily. Her heartbeat was slowing to normal.
“No doubt about that. I can see the headline in the Viking Views, ‘Coach and Principal Break Rules.’” He went over to a mat and, hands on hips, began stretching. The man evidently knew his way around a workout. His white T-shirt revealed well-toned biceps and shoulders.
“What are you doing here anyway?” she asked.
His quick laugh resembled a shallow cough. “You do speak your mind.”
“So I’ve been told.” She remembered Anne’s caution to lighten her tone, an echo of her mother’s lifelong advice. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful.” She grinned. “Just outspoken.”
“I’d say you’ve met that goal with flying colors.” His warm-up pants rustled as he sat down on the mat and stretched out a leg. “Normally I work out at the Community Center. The school seems a more convenient place.”
&nbs
p; “The girls will be here at 6:30.”
“Yes, Miss O. I’m well aware of that.” There was amusement in his tone.
She bet he knew every detail of the schedule for the entire season.
“I’ll be out of here by 6:15.”
Britte slid from the bench and headed to the door. Music from the CD still played softly, but her little taste of heaven had soured. She would shower before the girls came in and gather papers to grade while she supervised their lifting. “Oh.” She turned back. “Mr. Kinglsey. About the varsity girls going to State.”
“State?” He was breathing deeply, rhythmically.
She bit back words on the tip of her tongue. This wasn’t the time to be outspoken. So what if they’d already had this conversation? He was new here. Routine business was still unfamiliar to him. “The state tournament in February. We always attend as a team. Not to play, of course, but to watch. The school board needs to approve the trip. It’s just a formality, but the request has to come from you at this month’s meeting.”
“Better write me a memo. Put it in my box.”
“Sure.” She flicked the volume control up and hurried out the door, closing it against words that threatened to fly off her tongue. Words that were most definitely not respectful.
Walking down the hall toward the locker room, she replayed scenes she had witnessed in recent months. The male coaches of the boys teams asked him detailed requests at lunch, at football pep assemblies, in the hallways, in the parking lot, in the midst of other people and conversations. They weren’t brushed off with “better write me a memo” replies.
True, the prejudice wasn’t what it was when she was in high school 12 years ago, but it was still there. For all his propriety, Mr. Kingsley couldn’t hide what he really thought. Girls sports weren’t worthy of his full attention. If she weren’t careful, she could someday easily call him on it.
Of course if she did, she’d be able to figure out the color of his eyes then because, without a doubt, at the moment of calling him on his attitude, she would be in his face.
Joel’s smile turned into a grimace as he bench-pressed. Britte Olafsson never would have made it in the Marine Corps with that attitude.