by Nancy N. Rue
I laughed in spite of the “discomfort” in my knee bend. “See, I think that’s a weird question. I think the question should be, ‘Why doesn’t everybody want to win?’”
“Don’t they? Let’s change legs. Put the other foot behind the other ankle—there you go.”
“No. I’ve played with girls, like on club teams, who act like they don’t care if they win, and I don’t get that. Why would you want to put yourself out there without wanting to be the best?”
Ben put his hand out. “See if you can get your foot to here. Talk to me about that—about being the best.”
“I don’t know. Okay, I do. I don’t want people looking at me and saying, ‘She could be great if she’d try harder.’”
“I doubt anybody would ever say that about you.”
He hadn’t met my father. No. But they said a lot of other things. I swallowed hard.
“Too much?”
“No.”
“I’m serious now. You don’t want to be so sore after the first day that you can’t come back Tuesday.”
“Not tomorrow?”
He grinned. “You want to work on Saturday?”
“I want to work every day. I know I only get you two days a week, but couldn’t I still come in and work on my own?”
“You want to be here six days a week, you can do that. We open at six.”
“Then I’ll come in before school.”
He didn’t look that impressed, but he didn’t say no. He patted my shoulder and got me to my feet.
“Let’s do a little gait training—teach you how to walk on that knee again.”
That took all my concentration, and his. We didn’t talk about anything else until he got me back on the table and wrapped my knee in ice. Then it was like we’d never stopped talking.
“So let’s get back to the winning thing,” he said. “See, I’m more of a recreational athlete myself. Hiking, rock climbing, surfing when I get to the beach. I just do it for the fun of it, so I don’t totally get the concept of ‘winning’—not the way you do.”
“Okay,” I said. “What’s the opposite of ‘winner’?”
“I guess that would be ‘loser’?”
“Right. And I don’t want to think of myself as a loser. When I lose, it’s like I don’t even want to be in my own skin. I feel like a stranger to myself, and I’ve never been that good with strangers.”
I looked at him with what I was sure was the same surprise he had in his eyes. I hadn’t intended to say all that.
“So what you’re saying is that when you don’t win, you’re not you.”
“Well,” I said. “Yeah.”
How could that not make sense?
“Okay, Boss. I’m going to write down some exercises for you to do when you come in on your own. There will always be somebody around in case you need help.” Ben grinned for the first time in a while. “And it’s okay to ask for help. That doesn’t make you a loser. Actually—” He drew me in with his smoky eyes. “Nothing does.”
*
Mom was talking to another woman when I walked into the waiting room—what Ben called the “Hangout Area.” She broke into a smile when she saw me.
“No crutches?” she said.
“Nope.”
“I told you they were good here,” the other woman said.
Mom tucked her arm through mine as we went for the door.
“You know what this means,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Chocolate.”
There was a Pike’s Perk Coffee and Tea House across the street, and I insisted on walking over there—although I was totally ready to sit down at a table by the stone fireplace while Mom ordered us both Perk’s famous white hot chocolate. The place was packed with college students with laptops, who had crowded chairs around tables so they could complain and laugh and try to see who could be the most cynical. We’d done that on a high-school scale—Kara and Hilary and M.J. and me, and sometimes Selena—and we always tried to get one of the leather couches to do it. The Frenemy tried to get her quills into me, but I shook her away. I was going to have a team again. One thing at a time.
“You did want whipped cream, right?” Mom said. She put two frothy-looking cups on the table.
“Did you already talk to Ben?” I said.
“About.?”
“He says I have to gain weight. Well, I don’t have to. It’s up to me—that’s actually what he said.”
“Really. Tell me some more.”
I filled her in on everything, including the part about me being allowed to come in every day if I wanted to.
“I can take you and then get you to school,” she said. “That’ll still give me time to get to work.”
“Well, yeah, you don’t go in until five.”
“Actually, I’m changing my schedule,” she said. “I’m doing the noon show and the late news.”
“Why?” I said.
“Because we’re in this thing together.” She looked into her mug. “I know Ben says you’re in the driver’s seat, but you’re still going to need support. Is that okay with you?”
“Yeah, Mom. But I don’t expect you to mess up your career because of this.”
“It’s all about priorities, Cass,” she said.
She tucked her hair behind her ears, which I was figuring out meant she was about to say something I might not want to hear. I was seeing a lot of those ears these days.
“You saw that lady I was talking to over at the Center?”
I nodded.
“She said to me, ‘Well, at least your daughter’s rehabbing in the off-season,’ and I thought, you know what, there is no ‘offseason.’ If you weren’t hurt right now, you’d be practicing for All-State, and then there would be at least one summer skills camp, and then preseason conditioning before the whole thing started all over again.” She ran her fingers behind her ears even though her hair was already tightly tucked. “And I thought, ‘No one’s body can take that year round.’”
“They say you have to do that if you want to make it.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
I took a long sip out of my hot chocolate. She waited.
“Dad,” I said.
Mom leaned back and looked like she was staring at the model airplane that hung from the middle of the ceiling. I was fairly certain she wasn’t seeing it. It occurred to me as I watched her have a conversation with herself that nobody had stopped by our table and said, “Aren’t you the weather lady?” Maybe that was because she didn’t look like the polished-up meteorologist right now. She looked like somebody’s worried mother.
“Well,” she said, pulling her eyes back to me. “I really like Ben’s approach—letting you make decisions about your treatment. I’ll only intervene if I think you’re hurting yourself. Sound like a plan?”
“Yeah,” I said. I spooned off the whipped cream and looked at it before I closed my lips over it. I wondered if she realized that was probably the longest conversation the two of us had ever had.
*
I was glad it was Friday and I didn’t have to do homework, because I was so wiped out I went to bed without even checking in with RL. And for once I didn’t lie there thinking about Kara and Coach Deetz—or Rafe and Ruthie—until the Frenemy got a stranglehold on me. I whispered my nightly thank you and checked out about the same time my head connected with the pillow.
But I woke up with a jerk sometime later to the sound of voices from the other side of the wall. They were coming from my parents’ room, and they had an edge to them that cut right through the Sheetrock.
“What part of this seems like a good idea to you?” my father said.
“All of it,” Mom said.
I started to pull my slobbered-on pillow over my head. If they were arguing about her taking a pay cut or something, I didn’t want to hear about it. I didn’t need any more guilt.
“You honestly think she’s capable of making decisions about her body?” Dad gave a harsh laugh. “Why? Be
cause she’s made such good choices already?”
“It was an honest mistake—”
“Do you really believe that?”
I shoved the pillow aside and sat straight up.
“Yes, I believe that. Are you saying you don’t?”
“I did at first.”
There were sounds of shoes being dropped and hangers being scraped.
“What does that mean?” Mom said.
“She had to have some idea that what Gretchen gave her was steroids. She’s an athlete, Lisa—she hears the stories. I know Deetz has talked to them about that stuff—or maybe he hasn’t. I’m not that keen on him right now either.”
“What do you mean, ‘either’?”
I could imagine the cold look in my father’s eyes because I could hear it in his voice. “I thought she was exceptional. Now—”
“Now what?”
“I’ve taken a step back.”
“Yes. I’ve noticed. Have you even spoken to her this last week? Asked her how she’s doing?”
“I know how she’s doing. You’ve got that handled. Look, she’s holed up in her room by the time I get home.” The closet door banged. “Make up your mind, Lisa. Do you want me to leave her alone to ‘make her own decisions’ or treat her like she’s ‘special’ the way you’re doing?”
“I’m treating her like my daughter.”
“Well, your daughter refuses to listen to me—”
“You know what? It was listening to you that got her into this situation in the first place. I wouldn’t have blamed her for taking steroids if she had known what they were.”
The air went dead. I stared at the wall like I might be able to see through it if I tried hard enough. Although I didn’t have to see to know everything on my father’s face had come to a point.
“I love how you always bring this stuff up when I’m ready to go to bed,” he said. Snarled.
“When else do I see you, Trent? It’s like you’ve totally dropped out of our family life.”
“I haven’t ‘dropped out.’ I’m dealing with things.”
“How is that helping Cassidy?”
“Oh, now you want me to help her. A minute ago it was my help that messed her up to begin with. Look, I told you I’m dealing with it, so just—just back off.”
I wondered miserably if stomping out of the room and slamming the door was my mother’s way of backing off. When the footsteps paused outside my door, I squeezed my eyes shut and pretended to be asleep.
CHAPTER TEN
My parents’ fight definitely had the potential to collapse my plan to get everything back. Who wouldn’t be taken out at the knees by her father thinking she took steroids on purpose and saying she couldn’t be trusted to make decisions—and implying that because of her, he had things to ‘deal with’?
But I kept thinking about what Ben said. He was the professional, right? And I thought about my mom. Okay, so she was only now getting to know me, but at least she didn’t carry on like a Doberman pinscher while she was doing it.
And there was RL. I read the same pages over and over, because that was all it would let me see—and I had the part I needed memorized.
Get up, my friend. Go on with your life. Your faith has not only healed you, it has saved you.
It said I only needed faith the size of a spot in my poppy-seed dressing. I had that much, didn’t I? I went to church—at least I did before I got hurt. Kara and I used to go to youth group—except when we had practice or a game or a tournament or I was at camp. I prayed before games. I used to. And I tried to be a good Christian—you know, by trying to help people. Right?
And now I had the plan. I decided it was a God plan, and I was going for it with everything I used to put into basketball. As long as I could stay away from words like “used to” and “loser,” as long as I could hear Yeshua saying, “Get up, my friend,” I could keep the Frenemy from paralyzing me.
And it was happening. I worked out at the Center on Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday at six in the morning while Mom sat in the Hangout Area with her coffee and her laptop and her hair tucked behind her ears. My range of motion was improving by more than a degree a day. Ben was going to be impressed.
In school my plan to make straight A’s was gaining momentum, except in Mr. Josephson’s class, where the best I could get so far was a B+. Boz said I was doing good to get that, but I wasn’t settling. I’d do better somehow.
I had faith.
Although it shrank below poppy-seed size a couple of times. Like when I turned a corner in the hall and literally ran into Coach Deetz. We stood there with the word awkward echoing between us until he said, “How you doin’, Cassidy?” If he had called me Brewster, maybe I would have said something besides, “I’m fine.” I might have said, “Please forgive me?”
I didn’t. I had to wait until I was worth forgiving.
The other time was when I saw Kara and Hilary and M.J. in the cafeteria, picking greasy pepperoni from their pizza slices instead of being off campus in a cozy booth. They were whispering like they were in a world of their own. I missed being in it. I wanted to go to them and tell them to save me a place—that somehow I would be acceptable again.
Only I still didn’t know how I was going to forgive Kara … at least not enough to fill the hole that gaped between us.
But then Ruthie would appear at what was now obviously “our” table and start telling me the plot of some novel or the life story of her third cousin twice removed, and I’d have to pretend to listen to her while my heart broke.
Tuesday, though, I was psyched up for my session with Ben. I just had to get through fifth and sixth periods, and maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, since Rafe seemed to have disappeared. Actually, I heard Uma say something about him being suspended, but I tried not to ever actually hear Uma, so I didn’t know how long he was going to be out. I hoped it was a long sentence.
No such luck. When I walked into fifth period he was standing inside the door like a Walmart greeter.
“Roid!” he said. “Dude—somebody stole your crutches.”
“Was it you?” I said. “Is that why they put you under house arrest?”
“No, man, I was called as an expert witness.”
“Expert at what?”
He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Is that supposed to tell me something?” I said.
The bell rang. Maybe God was listening to me after all.
I settled in and half listened to P-W and half daydreamed about showing Ben how much progress I’d made. I snapped to full attention when I heard her say my name.
“—and Rafe Diego.”
“Hey, Roid—it’s you and me, babe.”
I stared—stupidly, I was sure—at Mrs. Petrocelli-Ward, who continued to pair up names while she handed out sheets of paper. I snatched up the one she put in front of me, and as I read it, my stomach tied itself into a square knot.
You and your partner, it said, will collaborate on a project in which you will visually represent a significant movement in art history. You may choose—
“Before we go over the instructions,” P-W said, “I want to make it clear that a piece of this magnitude is going to require time outside of class, so I will keep the art room open before school—”
I’ll be at the Center.
“During lunch—”
I’d rather eat with Ruthie.
“And after school.”
I’d rather be shot.
P-W stopped next to my table, bracelets clanging. “This project is worth fifty percent of your grade for this quarter.”
She must have heard my low groan above the jangling of her jewelry, because she said, “Art takes time. And we are not spray-painting hoodlums here, people. We are artists.”
“Man, that’s cold,” Rafe said.
He glared from under the hood of his forehead and slid down to his tailbone in his chair. He took my plan to make straight A’s down with him.
But there was no way I wa
s letting it happen. As soon as Mrs. Petrocelli-Ward finished going over the endless list of requirements and told us to get with our assigned partners, I practically leaped over three tables to get to her, bum knee and all.
Before I could even let out the words “Can I please talk to you?” she had a jangling hand up.
“I know what you’re going to ask me, Cassidy, and the answer is no. I put people together for a reason.”
“To torture us?” I said. I stuck up my own hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I really want to make an A in this class and I don’t see how that’s going to happen with—”
I swept my gaze over to Rafe, who was watching me under the hood. When I caught his eye, the brows wiggled.
Ugh.
“Can I please just work on my own?” I said. “I’ll do twice as much as you expect.”
P-W toyed with her necklace with paint-stained fingers. “Interesting,” she said. “My understanding was that you were a team player.”
Why didn’t she just slap me?
“I am if I have a team,” I said.
“I’ve given you one,” she said. “Go with it.”
I looked at Rafe again. He had his chair rocked back on two legs, wearing a smarmy smirk he could have borrowed from a mug shot.
If that was my “team,” I might as well forfeit the game.
*
But I couldn’t give up. There was even more at stake now, because it became obvious to me, as I pretended to study the instruction sheet for what was left of fifth period and then made my way to sixth, that Mrs. Petrocelli-Ward assumed what everybody else assumed about me. Why else would she set me up to fail?
I wasn’t having it. Time to supplement the plan.
The minute Rafe swaggered into Loser Hall, I was on him. I planted myself in the desk in front of his and turned sideways so I could look him straight in the eye.
“We have to do this project together,” I said. “Trust me, I tried to get out of it, but P-W won’t budge, so here’s the deal. We just do Cubism because it doesn’t take that much to draw a bunch of boxes. I’ll do all the background research. I don’t care if I have to do most of the work, but I’m not bombing on this project.”