Tournaments, Cocoa & One Wrong Move

by Nancy N. Rue

  I had dragged the beanbag in from the Goodwill pile in the garage when I turned twelve and the Frenemy took up permanent residence in my being. I think my father had the “chair” in his bachelor pad before he and Mom were even married, and she thought she was going to get rid of it while he was out of town on business. I commandeered it as the perfect place to do battle with myself without making a sound.

  Since it was now impossible to throw myself into it and beat it with my fists, I stretched out on the bed instead—and felt like a stick with a heartbeat. There was nothing I could do to stop the Frenemy from surging right up my backbone with her guilt-producing quills.

  Great. Wonderful. Excellent. You landed wrong. You ripped out your knee. Your team’s going to bomb without you. And, as if that weren’t enough, you’re now costing your parents tens of thousands of dollars—which gives your brother all the proof he needs that you are what he’s always said you were: messed up.

  I struggled up to prop myself on my elbows. That last part I didn’t get—at all. Why did Aaron care so much about Mom and Dad’s money? He had his scholarship or fellowship or whatever it was that was completely paying for grad school. His fiancée was going to be a doctor, for Pete’s sake. If she made even half as much as Selena’s dad, they were going to live better than my parents in a couple of years.

  I let out a grunt as I sank back into the pillows. Maybe he was worried about his inheritance. Maybe he was thinking they’d die suddenly and he could live off what they left him and not have to work. Dude—Mom and Dad were only in their forties. If I didn’t know my brother better, I’d think he was planning to bump them off. That would be way too messy, and he didn’t like messes. That was why he didn’t like me.

  A tap on the door sent the Frenemy quills into a frenzy again. That would be Dad, coming to finish what he hadn’t gotten around to in the car.

  “Yes?” I said, trying to sound as if I were deep into a geometry theorem.

  “Cassidy, it’s me,” Gretchen said. “Can we talk?”

  I was so glad it wasn’t my father I actually smiled when I told her to come in. She slipped in and shut the door soundlessly behind her and did a quick visual inventory of my T-shirt quilt hanging off the end of my bed, my bulletin board bursting with photos and notes and certificates and all other things basketball, my open dresser drawers belching out all the clothes I’d rejected that morning because I couldn’t get them over my leg.

  “Have a seat,” I said, “if you can find one.”

  She chose the corner of my four-poster bed and hooked one arm around the pole. I suspected she was leaving the other one free in case she wanted to squeeze my arm. She was obviously going to be one of those touchy-feely doctors.

  “I guess you’re wondering where that whole thing with Aaron was coming from,” she said.

  “Where it usually comes from,” I said. “He thinks I’m ‘messed up.’”

  “Actually he doesn’t,” she said, voice lowered like we were planning a conspiracy. “He might not say it, but he’s proud of you.”

  “Whatever,” I said. This chick was going to be in our family for a long time. I didn’t want to start out by telling her she was a whack job if she believed that.

  Gretchen did the hair thing, and I watched the mass drop to her shoulders. “That business about the money just now—there’s more to it than you know.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Aaron and I want to buy a house—we’ve found one that’s perfect, in fact—and your parents were going to give us the money for the down payment as a wedding present.”

  The essential word there was obviously “were.” That was the second time today the past tense had sent knitting needles through my heart.

  “And now they’re not because of my medical bills,” I said.

  “That’s a possibility.” Gretchen spread a long-fingered hand on her chest. “Your dad says he doesn’t have all the data yet.”

  I could just hear him saying that. How many fathers would refer to their daughter’s crisis as ‘data’? If Gretchen thought this was making me feel better, she needed to consider a career change.

  I shrugged. “So what does Aaron want me to do? Even if I don’t have the surgery, I’m still going to have to do physical therapy—unless he expects me to tool around in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.”

  Gretchen leaned forward. Here came the hand onto my arm. “Aaron is still wallowing around in the problem. He does that. But meanwhile, I might have a solution. I think I can help you in a way that will get you and I both what we want— and get Aaron and your father off you.”

  I felt my eyes narrow. “What ‘way’?”

  She tightened the squeeze. “I have an idea, Cassidy. But we’re going to have to keep it strictly between us.”

  “You mean, keep it a secret from my father?” I laughed bitterly. “Like that’s going to happen.”

  “I get that,” she said. “But I can help you gain a little independence here.”

  I couldn’t help warming up to that. In fact, it was all I could do not to give her the nod right then. Except that I couldn’t imagine pulling off anything that didn’t have my father’s fingerprints all over it.

  “So what do you say?” Gretchen nodded as if I’d already agreed.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” I said.

  And then I did. All night long.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I was still “thinking about it” first period Monday morning.

  In theory I was listening to a lecture by Mr. Josephson about how he expected better from Junior Honors students than he’d gotten on the papers he was about to hand back. In reality I was going over what Gretchen had said, and wondering how I could possibly do anything my father wasn’t going to know about.

  Mom wasn’t really a problem. She was never home when I was during the week anyway, and when we did run into each other it was usually before school and before her second cup of coffee. Our conversations were like:

  “Hi, Cassie.”

  Mumble.

  “School okay?”

  Mumble, mumble.

  “Need anything?”

  “Unh-uh.”

  “Love you.”

  “Loveyoumore.”

  “Loved you first.”

  Sometimes that bugged the heck out of me. I mean, what were we saying? Whatever it was, did we even mean it?

  But since I wasn’t much of a morning person either, it was usually okay. I would choose those conversations over the ones I had with my father all day long.

  Which was exactly the point. I could barely think a thing without him being all over it. That was what was attractive about Gretchen’s insistence that her idea I didn’t know about yet had to be carried out in secret. I was all for anything that didn’t involve him. The man even knew when my period was due. Seriously. Still, just thinking about sneaking around stirred up the Frenemy. Even at that moment she was tying my stomach into a knot.

  “Miss Brewster …”

  I jerked my head up in time to see Mr. Josephson drop my essay on Longfellow on my desk. Face down. Not a good sign. I waited for his coffee-breath-and-Old-Spice aroma to fade down the aisle before I turned it over.

  A giant C.

  So much for an academic scholarship. I sure hoped that wasn’t Gretchen’s mysterious solution to my problem.

  Mr. Josephson had written something in the margin in blue. He always said he didn’t use red to grade our papers because it was demoralizing to get back a piece that looked like it was bleeding to death. I didn’t see what difference it made to be critiqued in blue. It just felt like you were being royally ripped apart.

  “If you put as much energy into this pursuit as you do into your other one,” he had written, “I might be putting an A on this composition.”

  I slid the paper into my binder and made a note to myself to throw it away later. I didn’t need another reminder that things were slipping away from me. My knee was doing a great job of that
already.

  “Copies of The Scarlet Letter are on the table,” Mr. Josephson said.

  He always sounded like he was disappointed and barely daring to hope that the next thing he tried with us was going to work. From what he’d told us about The Scarlet Letter, I wouldn’t put any money on it if I were him.

  He nodded his mop of steel-gray hair toward the front table where the paperbacks were stacked. “Sign out a copy and read chapter one. There’ll be a vocabulary test on it tomorrow.”

  “Where’s the word list?” Selena said.

  “There isn’t one, Miss Chen. Just know the meaning of every word in there and you’ll be fine. Get a book for Miss Brewster, would you, Miss Chen—and just hand it to her. We don’t need you slam-dunking.”

  Selena and I exchanged eye rolls. Like Mr. Josephson would know a slam dunk if somebody executed one into his file cabinet.

  Between the groaning and the semi-chaos of book sign-outs, I managed to sneak a look at my text messages. One was from Kara: We’re taking you to lunch.

  I let myself grin. That would get me through to fourth period, and if the rest of the morning went anything like the way it was starting, I was going to need that.

  The other one was from Gretchen: Call me if you want to meet today.

  I felt my grin fade. Every time I thought about it, I had to fight back the Frenemy with both hands. I wasn’t the sneaking-around type—not unless it involved faking out an opposing player on the court. Maybe if I thought of my dad that way …

  No chance. Why did I have to have an attorney for a father?

  *

  “We’re late,” Kara said. Whined. Her whine was even more ear-piercing than her squeal.

  Hilary glanced at her in the rearview mirror, even as she screamed her beater Nissan into the student parking lot. She looked forward in time to dodge a pile of dirty snow that had been scraped together by the plow. It was a good thing she didn’t play defense the way she drove or we wouldn’t have gotten within a hundred points of the county title.

  “We still have three minutes.”

  “It takes five to get Cassidy out of the car.” Kara snapped quickly to me. “Not that I mind. I’ll take a tardy for you, no problem.”

  “Then why are you freaking out?” M.J. said from the front seat.

  “Because it’s what she does,” I said. “You guys go ahead and get to class so you don’t get in trouble. I already have an excuse.”

  Hilary jerked the car into park and twisted to look at me. “You have P-W this period?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Forget about it. She’d make you get a pass if you were late to your own funeral.”

  That was true about Mrs. Petrocelli-Ward. In spite of the tattoo on her arm that she had designed herself and enough jewelry for thirty-seven people hanging around her neck, she was a stickler for stuff like being on time. I’d heard her say it about a thousand times since September: Just because you’re an artist doesn’t mean you can’t be responsible. I wasn’t an artist; I was just taking her class to fulfill my humanities requirement, since the music teachers were all extremely weird and the drama coach was known for having nervous breakdowns in the middle of class. Of course, when I found out that half the people in my fifth period art class were emo Goths and the other half were taggers, I questioned my choice.

  “I can get to the office myself,” I said. “Seriously, you guys go.”

  “You sure?” Kara whined.

  “Positive.”

  “We have thirty seconds,” M.J. said.

  Hilary was already waving to us from across the parking lot.

  “Vdmonos,” M.J. said to Kara.

  They lit out in pursuit of Hilary, and I followed, planting each crutch gingerly between icy puddles and plops of gray snow. I might as well have been traveling backward. Each tall, lanky figure disappearing inside the doors made me feel farther away.

  And then there was the long hall to the main office to navigate. People had tracked in snow and left it to melt into puddles I had to somehow maneuver around so I wouldn’t take a dive onto the tile and blow my other knee. By the time I got to the attendance counter, I had broken a sweat under my jacket and would have yanked my knitted cap off my head if I’d had an extra hand. My knee was also throbbing. On Dad’s pain scale I was up to about seven and a half. And because whenever things couldn’t seem to get worse lately they always did, there was a line at the counter, people complaining that the “road conditions” made them late from lunch. The attendance officer, whose name I didn’t know but whose face made me think it could be Winston Churchill, wasn’t buying any of that. With seven people in front of me, she nodded, jowls wiggling, for me to take a seat.

  There was only one vacant chair, and I wouldn’t have sat in it if I could have stood up another second. The kid in the one next to it was one of the taggers in my art class. I wasn’t into vandals.

  I tried slanting myself away from him, but my left crutch slipped and landed in his lap. I had to say, “Sorry.”

  He grunted.

  I assumed the conversation was over, but then he said, “What are you doin’ in here?”

  “Waiting for a table,” I said. “I heard the sushi’s really good.”

  At least I got some benefit from all my years of defending myself with Aaron. The kid—I thought his name might be Rafe—shut up.

  For about five seconds. Then he said, “No, for real—what are you doin’ in here? What’d you do?”

  “I’m here for the same reason everybody else is here,” I said. “I need a late pass.”

  He snickered. It might have been the single most demeaning sound I’d ever heard.

  “What?” I said.

  “Not me.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m not here for the same reason everybody else is.”

  “Great. I’m happy for you.”

  I inspected the line, but it didn’t seem to be moving. Mrs. Petrocelli-Ward was going to give me a detention whether I had a late pass or not at this point—if I ever actually made it to fifth period.

  “You want to know why I’m here?”

  I looked back at Rafe. He was leaning onto his knees, both arms dangling in the sleeves of a fleece-lined denim jacket. He was running a narrow paintbrush back and forth between his fingers, which were brown but not as dark as M.J.’s. I’d never really thought about it before, but he looked sort of Hispanic, but not totally. Cappuccino-colored skin. Thick, wavy dark hair, like something out of an old black-and-white film about juvenile delinquents. Wide forehead that hooded his dark eyes like a built-in disguise. His lips were surprisingly full, as if they belonged on a pouty female model, although I sure wasn’t going to point that out to him.

  “So do ya?” he said.

  “Do I what?”

  “Wanna know why I’m here?”

  “You stole that paintbrush from the art room?” I said.

  He let out a shhheeee sound obviously meant to make me feel like an idiot. I squinted at him.

  “Look, I don’t really care why you’re here, okay?”

  “I know why you’re here.”

  “Right—because I told you.”

  He shook his head. “You’re here because you fell on your—”

  “No profanity in here, Diego,” said the woman at the counter. I was impressed. He hadn’t even cussed yet.

  “Come here often?” I said.

  Rafe wiggled his eyebrows, which, on closer inspection, were even bushier than mine. “You wanna know why?”

  “No.”

  “We’re here for the same reason.”

  Porcupine quills went up my back, and they weren’t from the Frenemy. I squinted harder at Rafe until I almost couldn’t see him.

  “No,” I said. “You’re here because you’re a loser.”

  He didn’t so much as blink. He just looked at my knee and at my crutches and into my face.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Like I said—we’re here for the same reason.”<
br />
  A door opened and Mr. LaSalle, vice principal in charge of anything that could get you thrown out of school, jerked his buzz-cut head at Rafe.

  “Come on in, Mr. Diego,” he said.

  Rafe unfolded himself from the chair and moseyed over to the door, shoes swallowed by his pant legs.

  We are SO not here for the same reason, I wanted to call after him. But I didn’t need to. I knew I wasn’t in the loser category. Right?

  I glanced up at the Winston Churchill lookalike. She was absorbed in filling out a form like it was a police report. I slid my cell phone out of my jacket pocket and thumbed out a text to Gretchen.

  Where should I meet you?

  I didn’t think I was a loser. But there was no harm in making sure.

  *

  “Why did we have to come all the way out to Black Forest?” Kara said. “If Gretchen wanted coffee, why didn’t you guys just meet at Pike’s Perk?”

  I didn’t want to tell her that Gretchen chose an out-of-the-way place on purpose. And I hated that I didn’t want to tell her, because normally I wanted to tell her everything. Kara knew that I thought the bagger at Safeway was cute, and that I still slept with a nightlight on, and that I always diagrammed basketball strategies on the back of the bulletin during the Sunday sermon. This felt like I was keeping something from my own self.

  “She says it’s off Black Forest Street,” I said. “It’s supposed to look like something out of Bonanza on the outside. Make a right here.”

  Kara made the turn with her tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth like she did when she was concentrating. Coach was always telling her to keep it in or she’d bite it off if she got hit.

  A severed tongue probably wouldn’t keep you out of the postseason tournaments, though. I had to remember why I was doing this.

  “What’s Bonanza?” she said.

  “Don’t you ever watch TV Land?” I said. “It’s an old cowboy show.”

  “Then that must be it right there.”

  She swerved off the road and into a parking space in front of a porched building with a single table outside, braving the cold. The car behind us blew its horn and tore off.

  Kara squealed. “I forgot to signal!”