A Shot at Gold

by Nicole Pyland

  “I’ll call you that this weekend; say you’re my friend from school staying in the guest room. I invited you last minute or something. Maybe they’ll give you a chance. Then, I can tell them who you really are, and they’ll already like you.”

  “Does that mean you’re giving me a chance?” Elodie asked.

  “It means I think we should talk more before I decide what I want to do, and my parents think we’re up here having sex – which is weird – so I’d like to go down and introduce you as a friend. You can join the party tomorrow, and we can find time to talk.”

  “And you’ll decide whether or not you want to come back?”

  “Yeah,” Madison said.

  “I guess that’s the best I can do.”

  ◆◆◆

  “Mom, where’s Dad?” Madison asked.

  “In his office. Hello,” she said to Elodie.

  “Hey, honey,” her dad said as he walked into the living room. “And who is this?” he asked with a conspiratorial smile.

  “This is my–”

  “Elodie. I’m Elodie Booker,” Elodie interrupted. “I was Madison’s coach.”

  “Oh,” her father said, losing the smile instantly.

  Madison looked over at Elodie. She’d had an out. Madison was going to introduce the woman as her friend, Elizabeth. They hadn’t yet worked out a story to explain how they’d met, since Elodie didn’t exactly look like a college student, but she’d figured she could come up with something before the question came up. Elodie had just thrown her off her game.

  “I wanted to apologize to both of you for my behavior around the invitational. I’ve already apologized to Madison, but you both deserve one as well. I would make excuses, but there aren’t any. I didn’t show up to work. I let her down.” She looked over at Madison. “And I am truly sorry.”

  “I assumed you were…” Madison’s mom began. “You were on your bed. I–”

  “Mom, Elodie isn’t my girlfriend. We’re not dating. I’m not dating anyone. I know you and Dad want me to move on, but I have to do that in my own time, okay? It hasn’t even been all that long since Wiley.”

  “Okay, I’ll leave it alone,” her mom said. “You just looked close.”

  “We get along,” Madison said, shrugging. “We were talking about what happened. Elodie wants to be my coach again.”

  “She does, does she?” her father asked.

  “I brought a check to repay you what you’ve already paid me. I can’t accept it. I didn’t do the job I was hired to do. It’s in my bag in my car. I can get it for you.”

  “El…” Madison looked at her.

  “But you want to be rehired?” he asked.

  “Dad, it doesn’t matter what she wants. El and I are going to talk, and I’m going to figure out what I want.”

  “Are you joining us for Madison and Mark’s party?” her mother asked, changing the subject.

  “That’s the plan,” Madison answered for her. “She’s staying in the guest room next to mine if that’s okay.”

  “I got a hotel. I can–”

  “Nonsense.” Madison’s mother stood. “The sheets are clean. There are towels in the closet. Were you going to join us for the movie?”

  Elodie’s blue eyes met Madison’s, silently asking her to respond to that.

  “I was thinking about a night practice, actually,” Madison replied.

  CHAPTER 14

  “This is a football field,” Elodie stated.

  “It’s my old high school’s football field, to be exact. They’re not using it, so I figured we could.” Madison placed the target on the line of the end zone. “I still have the key to the supply closet.”

  “How?”

  “The archery range Wiley and I went to with her dad closes at six. Sometimes, we’d want to practice at night with the lights on the field. The PE teacher said it would be okay as long as we were careful and gave me a key. When I come home, I come here sometimes.”

  “I can’t believe they just let you shoot at night on the school’s football field. You were minors.”

  “I can be very persuasive,” Madison teased.

  “Oh, that I know,” Elodie replied. “So, you wanted to practice?”

  Madison picked her bow up off the grass and held it out to her.

  “No, I want you to practice.”

  Elodie took a step back and said, “Madison, I don’t–”

  “If you’re going to be my coach, you have to pick up a bow, El. You have to show me how it’s done. You can’t just tell me and expect me to master everything. It’s not just about me, though. I know you know that.”

  “You know I haven’t touched one of these since–”

  “What do you think is going to happen?” Madison asked, taking a step toward the woman and holding the bow at her side. “It’s an inanimate object. It doesn’t hold any power over you.” She paused and took another step. “You hold the power, Elodie. You’re the one gripping it, aiming it, calculating the wind speed and direction, and releasing the arrow when you say. This…” She held up the bow. “It’s nothing without someone to wield it. It’s string and metal and plastic. That’s all.”

  “I told myself the last time I’d shoot an arrow was for the gold medal after I lost Rod.”

  “And you think he’d be okay with that?” Madison asked. “I wouldn’t be. If I were your coach, and you had just won your first gold medal, I’d expect four more. It was only the beginning for you, El.”

  “It’s the beginning for you now, Madison.”

  “It is. But if you want to be a part of it, I have to believe that you can be there beside me. And right now, I don’t.” She shrugged. “I want to, Elodie, but I don’t. I have to be able to trust you.”

  “So, if I take that and shoot an arrow right now, you’ll suddenly trust me?”

  “No, I’m not that easy. But it’s a start.”

  Madison held out her bow again. Elodie stared at not only it but at Madison’s hand holding it so securely and confidently. Elodie took a deep breath. She thought about how much losing Rod had hurt, especially right after the biggest and proudest moment of her life. She also thought about how she had hated letting Madison down and how much she had hated letting herself down. She reached for the bow but didn’t take it. Her hand stilled in the air. Madison looked down at it and lowered the bow until it touched Elodie’s palm. Then, Elodie wrapped her hand around it.

  “It’s heavier than I remember,” she said after a moment.

  Madison passed Elodie an arrow and said, “Show me that release.”

  “I haven’t done it in years. I don’t–”

  “Yes, you do. Come on. We’re only a few meters away.” She moved behind Elodie, gripped the woman’s hips, and turned them until she was in the proper stance. “I’m right here,” she whispered into Elodie’s ear, and then she let go and backed up.

  Elodie was anxious because of the bow, but also because Madison’s breath had been hot on her ear. Her hands had been sure and steady, moving Elodie into place. Everything about Madison was confident and determined, and there was something so attractive about that. Elodie looked down at the bow in her hands and the arrow she now pressed against the string. She held up the bow, stared down at the target like she’d done a million times before, and lined up her shot. She took a breath, waited for just the right moment, and released.

  “A seven? My coach shoots a seven?” Madison teased from behind her.

  “Shut up,” Elodie said through her laughter. “I told you, I haven’t done this in a while.”

  “Obviously,” Madison joked again. “Maybe I should be your coach.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Elodie turned around and smiled at her, holding out the bow. “Show me.”

  Madison took it from her. She grabbed another arrow, lined up, and within a second, she fired an arrow, earning herself a ten.

  “There.” She passed the bow back to Elodie.

  Feeling the weight of the world lifted from her shoul
ders in a way she never thought possible, Elodie grabbed another arrow, took the bow from Madison, fired, and then lowered the bow to see where her arrow had landed. Then, she smirked.

  “There,” she said, repeating Madison’s word.

  “Perfect ten,” Madison replied. “Do it again.”

  “I thought I was the coach.”

  “Then, prove it,” Madison said, laughing.

  Elodie picked up one arrow after another, firing until the entire inner ten ring was filled with arrows.

  “Jesus, I was right,” Madison said. “I knew you were the one, Elodie Booker.”

  Elodie looked at her questioningly. Madison’s bright-green eyes had these hints of gold and yellow in them from the lights that were on around the field. Her smile was wide. She was happy. Elodie smiled back and realized that she, too, was happy. For the first time in a long time, Elodie was happy.

  ◆◆◆

  The following afternoon, Elodie was anxious. It wasn’t the twenty or so people she didn’t know in the backyard. It wasn’t even the evil eye Madison’s father gave her whenever she looked over. It was a different kind of anxiety, an almost welcomed one. She watched as Madison and Mark spoke with someone she hadn’t been introduced to. Madison smiled and laughed. Then, she pulled on her braid to move it over her shoulder and twirled the end in her fingers. She was bored. Elodie could tell that much even from where she was standing. She laughed to herself. Then, she watched as Madison’s green eyes met her own, went wide, and silently asked her to help.

  “Can I borrow you for a minute?” Elodie asked her when she approached a second later.

  “Yes,” Madison replied. “Sorry. I’ll talk to you later.”

  She put her hand in Elodie’s, and Elodie wondered if that was intentional because Madison was trying to show her friends and family she’d moved on, or if she’d just wanted to hold Elodie’s hand.

  “Everything okay?” Elodie asked when they were far enough away.

  “That’s my dad’s executive assistant. She has six cats.” She looked at Elodie. “Six,” she repeated.

  “That seems excessive.”

  “She raised four kids. I guess she became an empty nester or something,” Madison replied.

  Elodie looked down. Their hands were still linked. She made no attempt to let go, and neither did Madison.

  “Four kids and six cats? What does her husband think about that?”

  “According to my dad, he left when the last kid went to college.” She sighed and sat down in a white folding chair sitting along the fence, disconnecting their hands in the process. “I feel bad for her. She’s all alone now.”

  Elodie sat in the empty chair next to her.

  “She has the cats,” she joked.

  “But, no one else.” Madison looked at her. “I needed to escape that conversation. She was talking to me about her upcoming time off. She’s taking an RV around the country for a month and bringing all the cats with her. She’s no spring chicken, but she’s not dead, either. It just doesn’t seem like–”

  “The kind of life you’d want for yourself?” Elodie questioned.

  “Not even a little bit,” Madison replied.

  “What do you want?”

  “I already told you.”

  “You told me what you wanted with your girlfriend when you were seventeen. You’re twenty-three now.”

  “And single,” Madison stated.

  “A lot has happened since then.”

  “I know,” Madison sighed. “I guess I want the same things, though. Gold medal and, someday, a wife and kids.”

  “Good goals,” Elodie replied.

  “What are yours?” Madison asked her.

  “My what?”

  “El, you are exhausting sometimes.” She chuckled.

  Then, Madison’s head went to Elodie’s shoulder, and her hand moved to Elodie’s knee. Was it just her, or had Madison been a lot more on the touchy-feely side recently? Had she just not noticed before? Had it always been this way?

  “Why am I exhausting?” she asked, not moving.

  “Because you know what I’m asking you, and you try to dodge the question with another question.”

  “Are you asking what my goals are?”

  “See? Exhausting,” Madison said, laughing.

  “I don’t really know.” Elodie lowered her head, which allowed her to breathe in the scent of Madison’s shampoo.

  “Come on, El.” She squeezed Elodie’s thigh. “Try.”

  “What’s the point?”

  Madison lifted her head and looked at her. There was a moment where neither of them said anything, and Elodie watched Madison look down at her lips. Elodie did the same, watching Madison lick hers. What the hell was happening? They hadn’t ever done that before. She knew she never would have missed that.

  “Hey, Mad? Dad wants to do the cake soon,” Madison’s sister, Monica, said as she walked up to them. “Also, I just took this.” The woman held out her phone, showing them both a picture she had, apparently, taken of Madison’s head on Elodie’s shoulder and her hand on Elodie’s knee. Madison had been laughing in that moment. “Are you two really just master and student? You could have fooled me.”

  “Monica, why are you and Mark the worst?” Madison asked. “Like, the actual worst.” She stood up, disconnecting from Elodie’s body.

  “Hey, I’m just calling it like I see it.”

  “Well, I see it as you being annoying. Come on. Let’s do this stupid cake thing so that these people can eat and go.”

  “You used to love these parties,” Monica said.

  “I’m not a kid anymore, Monica.”

  Elodie watched the sisters, who looked a lot alike, walk over to where Madison’s parents were standing. Elodie remained sitting in her chair, not knowing if she should join the rest of the party or remain on the outside looking in.

  “Hey,” Madison said, turning back to her. “Are you coming?”

  “I didn’t know–”

  “I need all the support I can get. I think my dad got those stupid trick candles,” she said and winked at Elodie.

  Elodie stood and smiled. She walked with Madison and Monica to the gift table, which now had a giant sheet cake with white icing and a happy birthday message on top of it. Mark stood on Madison’s left. Madison’s parents and Monica were on Mark’s other side. That left Madison’s right side open. Elodie stood, leaving about three feet of space between them.

  When Madison looked at her after the chorus of Happy Birthday had begun, it was the first time Elodie really noticed it. Madison had been right; she was no kid. Her lips were full and looked soft. They were pale like her. Those freckles were cute, and so was Madison’s nose. Her eyes were intense, as always. When Elodie looked down, she saw the full breasts covered by Madison’s light-green sundress. Her legs looked strong. Her feet were in sandals with a slight heel, accentuating her calves. Madison Fletcher was sexy as hell.

  Madison reached for Elodie’s hand, tugging her in closer. Madison’s dad stared at Elodie. Elodie shrugged in response, and he looked back to his children. Elodie let go of Madison’s hand. Madison looked over at her, confused, but she didn’t move to reconnect them. Elodie watched as Mark and Madison blew out their candles. Everyone applauded, including Elodie. Then, the candles reignited, Madison’s father cackled with glee, and Mark blew them out, again and again, laughing each time. Madison stood back from it all and appeared contemplative. Elodie moved into her.

  “She’d be proud of you,” she whispered into Madison’s ear.

  “How did you know?”

  “She’s never going to be twenty-three,” Elodie said softly.

  “No, she’s not,” Madison said.

  “But you are. And you’re living your dream, Madison. That’s what you do to honor her.”

  “Part of it,” Madison said.

  “Part of your dream?”

  Madison turned to her and said, “Only the archery part. I still haven’t…”
<
br />   “Mad, do you want to cut the first piece?” Mark asked.

  Madison turned to him and said, “You do it.”

  Elodie took Madison’s hand and squeezed it.

  CHAPTER 15

  “You seem weird,” Madison said.

  “I do?”

  “Yes. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. I guess I’m a little tired. I don’t go to backyard barbeques often.”

  “It’s not that.” Madison squinted her eyes at Elodie. Then, they went wide. “You want to be shooting right now.”

  “It’s after ten.”

  “You were like this earlier. I could tell. You were bouncing on your feet.” She pointed at Elodie’s legs. “You missed it.”

  “I thought we were going to bed,” Elodie said.

  That sentence caused Madison’s stomach to flip. They were going to bed. She knew that wasn’t what Elodie meant, but it sounded nice. She had been with Wiles when they were in high school. Outside of a few times when Madison’s parents were away for the weekend, they never really had a chance to go to bed together, wake up alone, and spend the morning like a couple in adulthood might.

  “You said you wanted to finish the episode.” Madison pointed at the TV in the living room.

  “I did, but I’m exhausted.” Elodie laid her head back against the sofa. “Besides, your dad said he had to make a few calls, but that he was coming back out to watch his favorite late show. I don’t really want to be here when he gets back.”

  “He’ll get over it,” Madison said, turning toward Elodie and placing her own elbow on the back of the sofa, resting her head in her hand. “It’s not like you have anything to worry about. If I want you to be my coach, he’ll pay you.”

  “It’s not about the money,” Elodie said seriously. “You know that, right?”

  “What is it about?”

  “Mad, do you guys want to go out with Lexie and me?” Mark asked as he walked into the room with his phone to his ear. “She said she’d love to see you.”

  “Who’s Lexie?” Elodie whispered to her.

  “This girl he knows from high school. We were friends back in the day.” Madison leaned in closer. “They hook up sometimes when they’re both in town.”