The Football Girl

by Thatcher Heldring

  Aaron’s voice broke the silence. “Delivery time.”

  Dobie went first. “Can I take my hood off?” he asked.

  “Go for it,” Aaron answered.

  Next I heard footsteps moving away. Then came the sound of a doorbell. I picked up muffled conversation. It all seemed friendly. The door closed, and a few seconds later Dobie returned.

  We went a little farther.

  “Your turn, McCleary,” Aaron said. “Take the hood off.”

  It took me a moment as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. When I got my bearings, I realized we were in front of Tessa’s house. “What are we doing here?” I asked.

  “Making a delivery,” Aaron said with a smile.

  I glanced at Dobie. Again, he avoided eye contact. Nobody was laughing or rapping anymore.

  “Go ahead,” Ox said, pointing to the door.

  “What’s in the bag?” I asked.

  “That’s a surprise,” Aaron answered.

  “It’s nothing illegal,” Ox promised.

  Knowing it wasn’t illegal didn’t make me feel better. I could do the math. Aaron didn’t like Tessa. There was zero chance that whatever was in the bag was something she would want. But what choice did I have? I would never live it down if I wimped out now. My only option was to go through with it and explain the whole thing to Tessa later. She’d get it.

  So I rang her doorbell.

  Tessa answered. She was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. Oreo appeared at my feet and pawed my leg. “Hey,” Tessa said, sounding surprised. From her angle, there was no way she could see Aaron, Ox, and Dobie. “What are you doing here?”

  “I don’t know what’s in here,” I said. “But I have to give it to you. It’s kind of a dare.”

  “Oh-kay,” Tessa said, taking the bag. “Do you want me to open it now?”

  “I guess so,” I said quietly, feeling the dread rising from my core.

  Tessa opened the brown paper bag and reached inside. What she pulled out was the worst thing, besides maybe a human head, I could have imagined.

  Aaron Parker was evil.

  A cheerleading uniform. Green and white, with yellow trim. That was what was in the bag. I clenched it with a fury I had never known before. I was angry and humiliated, and even more than that, hurt.

  “Is this a joke?” I asked Caleb, trying not to let any tears leak from my eyes.

  He shook his head. “I had to,” he said.

  I ignored Caleb’s pitiful answer. “Is that what you see when you look at me?” I asked, shoving the skirt and top into his hands. “A cheerleader? Is that what you want—me jumping up and down on the sideline, waiting for you after the game? Because that’s not going to happen. That’s not who I am. And if you don’t get that by now, I don’t want to be your friend or your girlfriend or your anything.”

  “No,” he said. “That’s not it. I just—it’s a thing they made me do.”

  I had no idea who Caleb was talking about, and I didn’t care. He had walked up to my door with his own two feet and handed me that bag. Everything he did was all on him. “You know what, Caleb?” I said, before I slammed the door. “If you’re going to be a jerk, at least own it.”

  —

  I made up my mind right then that I was not going to lie down on my bed and cry myself to sleep. I was the football girl. And the football girl did not get sad. She got even. I cornered Mom and Dad in the kitchen.

  “Phones down,” I said. “We have to talk.”

  They laid down their phones. “What’s the matter?” Mom asked.

  “I want to go to that football camp,” I said. “I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  “That’s an exaggeration,” Dad said.

  “Tessa,” Mom asked, “what does be afraid mean?”

  “It was just talk,” I said. “I was sending a message. But now I mean it.”

  “What exactly is the message?” Dad asked.

  Did I really have to explain it? For two people running a political campaign, these two could be surprisingly dense. “The message is that I’m not afraid.”

  “And now you need to back it up,” Mom said.

  “Yes!” I answered gratefully. I handed her the permission form. “All you need to do is sign this.”

  Mom scanned the sheet of paper. “This is two weeks, every weekday, all day.”

  “I know.”

  “What about the campaign?” Dad asked.

  “I was thinking I could take a break,” I said. “You’ve got, like, a million volunteers. Please. It would make a great story. We could call Beth. It could help you.”

  Mom and Dad looked at each other. In that moment, I wondered whether they were my parents or two people trying to win an election. I knew I was right. This would be on the front page of the newspaper. And the truth was, I didn’t really care anymore if I was the football girl or just a girl playing football. I wanted to show everyone I could go through with it.

  “You understand my concerns,” Mom said.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You think it’s dangerous. You think I might not even play. Which is kind of a contradiction. But I’m okay with it. You think I’ll be a social outcast. You think if I do well in football camp, I’ll try out for the team and make it and it’ll take over my life and I’ll flunk all my classes because I’ll spend all my time studying my playbook, which I won’t need, since I won’t play anyway.”

  “Most of that is true,” Mom said. “But can I say one more thing?”

  “Okay.”

  “It doesn’t seem like very long ago that you were excited about cross-country. You received a medal. You and Marina and Lexie were ready to join the team together. I was very happy for you.”

  Mom stopped talking. I think it was a politician’s trick. She was daring me to agree with her or tell her she was wrong. But everything she had said was true. For a second, I traveled back in time and relived that afternoon. Part of me wished that was how it had gone. That I had finished the flag football season and called it quits. That I had caught the game-winning pass. Or that Caleb hadn’t made me believe I was legit, or that I’d kept my mouth shut during that first interview with Beth. I could have spent all summer running with Lexie and Marina and hung out with Caleb in my free time, instead of mixing everything up. Too bad that wasn’t the way it had played out. I had to take this one step further. Cross-country would always be there.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were happy for me?” I asked.

  “I don’t remember what I said,” Mom admitted.

  “You told me you were running for mayor.”

  Mom sighed and looked at the permission form. “I’m still not sure about this.”

  Dad reached across the table and gently took the paper. He picked up a pen and signed the form. “I am,” he said.

  “Alan,” Mom said, “we need to talk about this.”

  “Tessa has made her case,” Dad said. “I trust her. I think you do too.”

  After a long pause, Mom kissed me on the cheek. “Okay,” she said. Then she signed the form too.

  I stood on the Dooleys’ front porch trying to figure out my next move. There was no point knocking or texting. Tessa would ignore me. I looked down at the cheerleading uniform in my hands. It was the only thing I had. How could I have been so dumb? What had I thought her reaction was going to be? There had to be some way I could make Tessa see that I was sorry. More than sorry, that I was a fool for letting Aaron Parker do what he’d done. And I was a fool for having followed through with it. An idea hit me. It would be brutal. But it might work.

  Aaron, Ox, and Dobie must have left during my heated conversation with Tessa, because when I headed back to the street, it was empty. As I walked home, I tried to psych myself up. I would go through with it. I owed Tessa that.

  THURSDAY, JULY 14

  In the morning I came down to the kitchen wearing baggy sweatpants and a loose hoodie. Dad was sipping coffee and reading the paper. I
saw him watch me cross the room.

  “You all right, Caleb?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You look a little stiff. Did you pull something?”

  “I might have,” I said. “I played football with some of the guys from the baseball team the other day. I think I tweaked my hamstring. I’ll walk it off.”

  “You’re young,” Dad replied. “You’ll get over it.” He went back to the paper. I didn’t think he had any clue what I had on underneath my sweats.

  I ducked out the back door and jogged down to Boardman Park. It was nine-thirty. I knew that most days Tessa went running in the morning with Marina and Lexie. I was taking a chance.

  The park was still quiet. I walked across the dewy grass to the end of the trail the girls liked to run. I took off my pants and sweatshirt. And I waited.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what the people who came along thought when they saw me. They probably figured I was out of my mind. Then again, I was standing in the middle of the park in an outfit that only covered half my body, so I couldn’t really blame them. I actually got used to the stares. It was the breeze that bothered me. Also, parts of me were itching. I was about to give up when I saw three pairs of running shoes emerge from the woods.

  Tessa sprinted to the end of the trail, slowed up, and then stopped and put her hands on her knees. She was sweating and bright red. Marina saw me first. She put her hand over her mouth and leaned into Lexie, who turned around, hiding her head. Tessa finally lifted her eyes in my direction.

  I didn’t speak or move. Even when the light breeze blew the cheerleading skirt up, I was a statue. I had no idea what would happen next, but I knew there was no way Tessa could ignore me.

  “Oh my God, Caleb,” she said, sounding amused and angry at the same time. “What are you doing?”

  My next move was not planned. It just came to me. I rolled my arms one over the other in front of me, waved my hands, and then finished with a bow. “Spirit hands!” I said.

  “I think you mean spirit fingers,” Marina replied.

  “Spirit fingers,” I said back, waving my hands again.

  Lexie shook her head. “I can’t watch this. I am too embarrassed for everyone here.”

  Tessa walked toward me. She pointed to my clothes on the ground. “Please put those on. Now.”

  “No, not until I say this. I’m sorry. What I did was really stupid, and I really, really feel bad about it. I wasn’t thinking. When I look at you, the last thing I see is a cheerleader.”

  “Try again,” Lexie said.

  “I mean, if you wanted to be a cheerleader, great. But you should do what you want to do. If you want to play football, play football. Who cares what anyone thinks?”

  “What do you think?” Tessa asked.

  “You should do whatever you want,” I said. “And you should say you forgive me, because I will never do anything that dumb again for as long as you know me.”

  THURSDAY, JULY 14

  How was I supposed to stay mad at Caleb? Sure, he looked like a cheerleading werewolf. But he was the sorriest, and cutest, cheerleading werewolf ever.

  “I forgive you,” I said.

  SUNDAY, JULY 17

  On the afternoon before football camp, Tessa and I climbed to the ridge. We hadn’t been there since we’d had our picture taken—the one that had ended up in the paper.

  “I have to tell you something,” Tessa said when we reached the top. “I’m going to camp tomorrow. My parents signed the form. I didn’t want you to be surprised, even though I figured you already knew, and please do not try to talk me out of it.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Are you serious? I know nobody else on the team wants me there.”

  “Well, I do,” I said.

  “They’ll hate you.”

  “Maybe a few of them will. But Charlie says winning fixes everything. I wasn’t sure what that meant. Now I think I do.”

  “What do you think will happen?” Tessa asked.

  In all my conversations with Tessa, I had tried to be honest with her. Not just because I was a terrible liar. I wanted her to know that I thought she was a good football player. And I also wanted her to know that most guys would have a major problem with a girl on the team. Now I had to be honest with her one more time.

  “I think you’ll hate it,” I said. “It’s not like football in the park. We’re going to have gear on. The coaches will be yelling at us. People are going to hit you. We’ll be running, a lot. Actually, you might like that part. But except for that, I think you’re going to wish you were on a trail somewhere.”

  “If it’s so awful, why are you doing it?” Tessa asked.

  “Because I think I can be the next quarterback,” I said. “Not this year. Maybe not even next year, but eventually. And then all the work and all the suffering will be worth it. That’s what matters to me.”

  There was more to it. I wanted to be the next McCleary to play for Pilchuck High School. To be a star, just like my big brother, Charlie, who had followed in my dad’s footsteps. Who knew what would happen after that? Maybe I would help run the family business, and maybe I wouldn’t. But if I didn’t, I was certain now that my dad wouldn’t have the same reaction he’d had when Charlie had wanted to do his own thing, have his own career.

  Tessa was quiet. I wondered what mattered to her. Did she want to start on the varsity team like me? It wasn’t impossible. There were small receivers in the league. But they were obsessed with football—more than Tessa. I remembered guys Charlie had hung out with in high school. They geeked out on memorizing fades and slants and whip routes and figuring out how to beat bigger corners, and they could take a hit. They put in their time on special teams because they all thought they could play in college or in the pros. Being great was what mattered to them. I wasn’t sure it was the same for Tessa. But I knew she had made up her mind about this. And so had I. If it was important to her, it didn’t matter what the reason was. It was important to me too.

  “You do have one problem,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “You can’t show up tomorrow in running shoes and a T-shirt.”

  MONDAY, JULY 18

  I was jealous of Caleb. Not because he might get what he needed from football. But because he knew what he wanted. He had the next four years of his life planned out. Football camp was just a step on the way to a spot on the team, just like flag football had been a step toward camp. He wasn’t trying to just survive the first day or prove that he belonged. He had dreams.

  What was my dream? I was still trying to figure that out as Mom drove me to the high school. I’d be happy if I could figure out how to put on my shoulder pads the right way. What I really wanted was the chance to make one great play.

  When we got out of the car, I could see that there were already boys everywhere. Fifty, a hundred maybe, some in gym shorts, some in football pants, all in jerseys and shoulder pads. Most wore helmets, and if not, there was one at their feet. They stood in small groups, laughing and pushing each other around, or running simple two-on-one drills. I counted seven coaches marching in between the boys—clapping, shouting, and writing secret notes on clipboards. I was a small fish swimming into a shark tank. All by choice. Just to prove I could.

  I paused in the parking lot, waiting for Mom to ask me if I was sure. But she led the way, right up to the registration table.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  The man sitting behind the table was wearing sunglasses. He glanced up at Mom, then back to me. “Hi,” he said, like we might be there to ask for directions to some other camp.

  “I’d like to sign up,” I managed to say.

  “For football camp?” he asked.

  I nodded. “My name is Tessa Dooley.” I handed him the permission slip.

  “Oh, I know who you are,” he replied, taking my form. He studied it for a minute. “Is she with you too?” he asked.

  “She’s my mom.”

&n
bsp; The man looked up. “No. Her.” I followed his gaze and spotted Beth on the other side of the field. She was talking to one of the coaches.

  “What’s Beth doing here?” I asked Mom.

  “I didn’t call her.”

  “Then who did?”

  “She’s a reporter, Tessa. She’s writing a story. That’s her job.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Mom smiled. “You just go out there and do your best. And try to pretend the whole town isn’t watching.”

  “Is that what you do?”

  “Either that or I picture everyone naked.”

  My eyes swept across the field. “Gross.”

  Dobie, Nick, and I were playing catch near the bleachers when Tessa arrived. Some of the other guys were stretching. The coaches were in the middle of the field looking at clipboards. In a few minutes they were going to check us in.

  I caught a pass from Nick, pivoted, got my feet set, and rifled the ball to Dobie. There was a whap as it hit his hands.

  “Hey!” he said. “What’s with the heat?”

  “Sorry, dude,” I answered. “Just a little jacked I guess.”

  It was all happening. No more peewee games. No more flag football. No more two-hand touch. We were in the big leagues now. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I was going to get hit, bruised, and yelled at like a pig. But it was going to make me a man, the same way it had made Charlie a man and Dad a man. Plus, it was going to be fun. The uniforms. The lights. All we needed were cheerleaders.

  Nick was about to throw to Dobie. I saw him pause in the middle of his motion. He dropped his arm just as his eyes found Tessa walking toward the coaches.

  Dobie glared at me. “If you don’t go over there and tell her to go home, I will.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Why would you do that?” Dobie snarled. “Because if you don’t, those guys will make sure you never play football again, and you’ll take us down with you, and that’s not going to happen.”

  I looked over at Nick.