Tournaments, Cocoa & One Wrong Move

by Nancy N. Rue

  How much am I paying her?

  “You’d probably say, ‘Why don’t you get supper going and check the email. Then I think we’ll be done for the day.’ “

  I had no idea what a personal assistant was supposed to do, but that sounded good to me.

  “When she was leaving you would say thank you and see you tomorrow, but you wouldn’t fall all over her every single day and tell her she was amazing.”

  I might give her a Christmas bonus. My dad usually got one of those. But again, what was I supposed to be getting out of this?

  “It’s the same with you,” Yeshua told his follower-friends. “You work for God. Do the work you’ve been given to do at this time in your life, and do it the best you can—but don’t expect everybody to be telling you how wonderful you are for doing your job. It’s not all about you.”

  My throat was clogging. I didn’t even want everybody telling me I was a shoo-in for the WNBA anymore. I just wanted to be part of the team. Instead, I was spending my time eating lunch with the neediest child in the freshman class while people I once considered beneath me looked on and laughed. What did that have to do with faith? And what did it have to do with me knowing how to deal with the people I’d been thrown in with while I was trying to get my old life back?

  No answer, in my head or on the page. Just the sense that I was going to be stared at until I decided to read on.

  Yeshua and his follower-friends continued on their road trip to Jerusalem and crossed the border between Galilee and Samaria. It was sort of like entering enemy territory, because there was no love lost between Galileans and Samaritans.

  That I knew from the Good Samaritan story. Wait—was this about to tell me that I had to be one and pull Ruthie out of the gutter she lived in?

  Different Samaritan story,

  the book said.

  As Yeshua and his group entered the village limits, ten guys approached them, all suffering from leprosy. If you’ve ever seen pictures of lepers, you know their disease isn’t pretty, and it’s painful. People were terrified of it and wouldn’t come near a victim. Lepers were completely isolated—like it was somehow their own fault they’d been afflicted—so they didn’t even have the comfort of loved ones to ease their suffering.

  No Mother Teresa back then.

  Right. So these ten guys kept their distance from Yeshua and his friends, and they had to yell to say, “Yeshua—Master— have mercy on us!”

  I thought that was a little weird. “Have mercy on us”? Not, “Please get this nasty stuff out of our bodies and heal us”?

  Exactly. Yeshua gave them a long stare, and then he said, “Go to the priests. Let them look at you.”

  I thought they weren’t allowed to be near anybody.

  Right again. Those seemed like strange instructions, but the ten guys headed for the synagogue.

  I probably would have too. When you’re desperate, you’ll try anything, cling to any hope. Was that what I was doing?

  On the way, like before they even got to the priests, all ten of the lepers realized they’d been healed. Their skin was completely clean.

  Once again I whispered, “I wish.”

  One of them turned right around and literally ran back to Yeshua, who could probably hear him from a quarter mile away because he was yelling, “Thank you! Thank you, God!” And when he reached Yeshua he threw himself at his feet. He couldn’t find enough ways to express how grateful he was.

  I pulled my eyes from the page and stared at my knee. It wasn’t exactly a miracle healing—not after reconstructive surgery and exercises that made me want to pull my mother’s lips right off her face with my bare hands. But at least I could walk. Maybe I’d even play again in six months.

  And yet there was still the question: For whom?

  I went back to the page. There had to be an answer in here somewhere. How did these lepers, whose legs were probably falling off, get the miracle? Was there more?

  There was. Yeshua said, “Didn’t I heal ten people? Where are the other nine whose lives I just gave back to them?” Nobody seemed to know. Yeshua said, “Huh. No one could come back and give the credit and the praise to God except you. Interesting. You’re a Samaritan. You’re supposed to hate us Galileans, and yet here you are.”

  There was that guilt trip I said I didn’t want to go on.

  Then Yeshua said to the guy, who was still on his knees in front of him and showed no sign of moving, “Get up, my friend. Go on with your life. Your faith has not only healed you, it has saved you.”

  I tried to turn the page, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “That’s it?” I said—out loud, because there was no reason not to.

  It’s enough. For now.

  Yeah, enough to mess with my head even more. Being angry and frustrated and scared wasn’t plenty? Now I had to feel guilty too?

  That you can do something about.

  I closed my eyes. It was the voice again, in my head, and it was more urgent this time—like Coach humming instructions in my ear before I went back into the game. Only somehow not.

  “What?” I whispered back to it.

  Say thank you.

  Thank you?

  Say thank you.

  The questions elbowed their way in. I didn’t ask any of them, because the book was once again pressing into my lap. I stared at it, long and hard, and read through all it said—

  You don’t need more faith … only the smallest seed … understand your own journey … do the work … it’s not all about you. Be saved.

  I closed my eyes, and the words arranged themselves behind my lids. Like steps in a plan. Steps I had no idea how to follow. Except to say—

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  I didn’t expect anything to happen, and it didn’t. Not unless I counted the whispered voice saying, You’re welcome.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Okay, so maybe the RL book did have it going on—unlike.

  Ruthie’s fantasy novel, which I tried to read over the weekend to pass the time, and which I couldn’t follow because I didn’t have a fantasy brain. I was pretty sure RL was right, that I could get my life back, because I took one look at my physical therapist and knew God had sent him to heal me.

  Seriously. When Mom and I walked into the Sports Medical Center the next Friday and my therapist came into the little curtained cubicle to meet us, I could feel the Frenemy quills falling out of my spine.

  It helped that he was cute. No, “cute” didn’t work for a guy in his thirties. And not “striking” either. He was “attractive” in that buff, trim, toned kind of way. He wasn’t any taller than I was—a lot of men actually weren’t—and he didn’t look like an exercise snob or even a jock. He just looked like he did stuff and liked it.

  “I’m Ben Dillon,” he said, first to me. His hand was warm when I shook it, and he smothered both of ours in his other one as he connected with his eyes. Smoky eyes. Gray with some flecks of gold.

  I had to blink to keep from staring.

  “And you’re Cassidy.”

  “Oh, yeah.” I actually giggled. I saw Mom cover up a smile with her hand. Good start. Next thing I knew I’d be drooling.

  He smiled too, big and open. Not like “another one has a crush on me.” When he let go of my hand and turned to Mom, I checked him out from the back. His light brown hair was cut close to his head, but I could tell it was curly. And he had great shoulders. I forced myself not to look any further down than that.

  Besides, it wasn’t just his general fineness that made me sure he was the one who was going to get me back on the court—and everywhere else I needed to be. It was the way he listened to Mom and the way he asked her if she would mind letting us get to know each other without her there, without making it sound like “get out.” It was how he pulled a stool up next to the examining table I was sitting on and then put all his smoky-eyed attention on me. And it was right there in the first question he asked me:

  “So, where do you see yourself six mont
hs from now?”

  My mind stuttered for a second. Was he seriously asking me for the answer I’d been practicing for days? Could it actually be this perfect?

  “I’m going to be playing basketball again,” I said.

  “Good.”

  “No—not just good. Great. I’m going to come back stronger than I was before I got hurt.” I could feel my face coloring up. “I hope this doesn’t sound conceited, but I was one of the top players on my team, and I want to be even better when I go back out on the court.”

  Ben hooked his heels on the rungs of the stool and let his hands fall lazily between his knees. “You were the top player,” he said. “At least, that’s what I heard.”

  A small quill poked me. What else had he “heard”?

  “Is there more?” he said.

  I jerked.

  “Any other goals besides slam-dunkin’ your way to Old Dominion?”

  “Not Old Dominion. UT Knoxville.”

  “There you go. Anything else?”

  “You mean like the WNBA? The Olympic team?”

  He grinned. “That all goes without saying, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “What about personal goals?”

  “Those are my personal goals. Basketball’s my whole life.”

  Tears had crept into my voice. I blinked hard so they wouldn’t make it into my eyes. Ben just nodded and waited.

  “It’s not just about me, either,” I said. “My team needs me. We could win the state title next year. We are—were—good together. I’m going to get that back too.”

  I didn’t add that I had no idea how I was going to pull off that part, especially Kara, or that I knew he couldn’t help me there. I wasn’t even sure why I’d said it, except that his way just drew it out of me. So I said even more.

  “I would go through pain every single day if it meant I could be with them again. I miss them.”

  “That’s right, the season’s over, isn’t it? You don’t see them much now?”

  I just shook my head.

  Ben’s eyes drooped. “That can be the toughest part, not having the support. How ‘bout your folks? Your mom seems to be there for you.”

  “She is,” I said. “Don’t even ask about my dad.”

  He gave me a half grin. “Okay, not today. So, you mind if I ask you a couple more questions?”

  “Do I mind?” I said.

  “Yeah.” He shrugged. “You’re basically in control here. You get to decide how hard you work, which instructions you want to follow, how much you’re willing to tell me. Nobody can make you do anything.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He let his head drop back, and he laughed. It was a deep, gurgly sound that made me want to laugh too, and I probably would have if I hadn’t been trying so hard to keep up with all the things I hadn’t expected.

  “I’m serious as a heart attack, Boss. You call the shots. I’m just here to show you what they are.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Ask me anything you want.”

  He propped one ankle over the other knee. “Okay, first off, what’s your diet like?”

  “My diet? I’m not on one.”

  “Everybody has a diet. It’s just how you eat.”

  “Um … I don’t really have breakfast. My mom packs my lunch but it’s usually too much. We eat dinner. I’m just not that hungry.”

  Ben nodded. “Okay, well, you weigh one twenty, which for a girl who’s five foot ten is like eighty-five pounds for a girl who’s five foot two.”

  “Is that too much? I can cut back more—I’ll do whatever I have to.”

  “No, it’s not too much. It’s borderline malnourished. Did you lose weight on purpose?”

  “No—it was just from playing so much, I guess.”

  “You’re not playing right now, and you’re going to need your strength for what we’re going to be doing in here. I’ll give you a nutrition plan and you can work with that.”

  “I guess you could give it to my mom.”

  Ben swiveled the stool so he could look at me—because I was trying to get my eyes away from his. “You’re in charge, Boss. You might want to take control of your own eating.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “You up for another question?”

  “Sure.”

  “How fatigued were you before you got hurt?”

  “It was the fourth quarter,” I said slowly, “and we’d been playing really hard. I didn’t feel that tired but I was probably running on adrenaline.”

  “I’m not talking tired,” Ben said. “Fatigued—not just when you were playing or practicing, but in general. Did you have to drag yourself out of bed in the morning? Feel like you could’ve taken a nap anywhere, anytime?”

  “Well, yeah.” It had never occurred to me to call that anything other than being an athlete.

  “Did you stop having periods?”

  “You mean, like, am I … gestating?”

  Ben laughed. “No. They just stopped happening.”

  Although that was one thing I did not want to discuss with a member of the male gender, I nodded. It was hard to be embarrassed around him.

  “How long ago?”

  “Um, since December. Should I have told somebody?” Like, who was I going to tell? Coach Deetz?

  “We’re not going to do ‘should have.’” Ben’s eyes were serious. “But I will tell you what I think we’re dealing with, besides your knee. It’s called the female athlete triad.”

  “I haven’t ever heard of that.”

  “Unfortunately the people who need to know about it don’t. It’s becoming common in really hardcore girl jocks like yourself.”

  “Is it a disease?” I said. A weird picture of the ten lepers came into my mind.

  “No, it’s more like a syndrome of things.” Ben held up three fingers. “Underweight, menstruation stops, fatigue. All of which leads to bone loss like older women get when they go into menopause.” He nodded grimly. “It happens to the best female adolescent players, the ones with the passion and the heart, because you’re pushed beyond your limits. I think all of that was warning you before you got hurt—”

  “So it was my fault?”

  “No, no.” He pressed his hands on my table. “You had no way of knowing what was happening—and anyway, that just set you up for your injury. When you come down from a layup, you put about fourteen times your body weight on your feet, and when you landed off balance—”

  “Perturbation,” I said. “Which was my fault.”

  My voice had tears in it again.

  Ben put up both hands. “None of this was your fault. I’m not going to play the blame game, but if there’s any responsibility to be taken for it, it’s directed toward coaches and sports therapists for our failure to train girls how to run and cut and land—because you naturally do those things differently than boys do.” His grin came back. “Females jump funky and land worse, which is why girls tear their ACL eight times more often than boys do—and you can’t take the rap for that. It’s part of what I’m going to teach you once we get your range of motion back and get your muscles strong.”

  “You can do that?” I said. Pleaded.

  “You can do that.”

  I sat up straight on the table and squared my shoulders. “I totally can. I don’t care how much it hurts.”

  “Can I stop you there?” Ben’s eyes were solemn again. “I think you probably have a high pain threshold, and that’s great, but don’t endure pain because you think you have something to prove. We’re not out to show the world how tough you are.”

  “But I am,” I said. “I have to be …”

  “Have to be what? Invincible? Because nobody’s that. Strong? Yeah, I’ll go there with you. But there will be some things you can’t do the first twenty times you try them.”

  I didn’t agree with that, but I kept my mouth firmly closed.

  “Here’s the thing,” he went on. “We want to get you to stop thinking of p
ain and fatigue and depriving yourself of food as ‘normal’ for an athlete. True athletes are healthy and they’re balanced.” He stopped and rubbed the tops of his thighs. “So what do you say—you ready to get to work?”

  Somehow I felt like we’d done about a whole day’s work already, but I straightened my back again and said, “Well, ye-ah.”

  He hopped off the stool. “Then let’s do it.”

  Ben kept telling me stuff as he led me out to the open area where people in all kinds of braces and elastic bandages were twisting and wincing in what looked like medieval instruments of torture to me. So much for not showing how tough you were.

  “We’re going to start out working on your range of motion,” he said. “Doc Horton says your wound is basically healed, so now we can break down the scar tissue and get you back some muscle tone.”

  “How do we do that?” I said.

  He turned to me and gave me the biggest grin yet. “We work our tails off.”

  He wasn’t kidding.

  We did quad sets that made what Mom and I had done feel like lying on the beach. He didn’t settle for leg raises that only got my foot twelve inches off the table. That was for wimps, he said. Did I want to leave before I got it to eighteen inches?

  No way.

  When he did the moving-my-kneecap-around thing, I accused him of being a sadist.

  “You need to let me know when it’s too much,” he said.

  Like I was going to do that. Besides, he talked the entire time, which took my mind off of how hard it was. Not painful, just hard, like suicide sprints or those calf-killing runs Coach used to make us do up and down the bleachers. Ben’s talking also kept my mind away from the words “used to.”

  “The human knee is a wondrous thing,” he said as he rocked my patella from side to side. “It’s the most athletic part of your body, and the most vulnerable.”

  “Why would God make it that way?” I said.

  He gave me a quick glance and for a second I was afraid he might be an atheist or something.

  But he said, “I’m sure He has His reasons. He always does.”

  When we’d moved to dangling my legs over the side and immediately put Mom’s and my act to shame there, he said, “So—I always ask team players this because it fascinates me. Why is winning so important?”