by Laura Shovan
Bryan folds his arms across his chest. I know he’s annoyed, but I want to talk about his crush about as much as he wants to talk about my wrestling problems.
“The silent treatment’s not working,” he says. “Why don’t you cut her a break? She’s Evan’s sister. Evan’s like your big hero wrestler brother. If you’re nice to his sister, he’ll make you his official sidekick.”
“Ha ha.” I don’t want to think about what Evan will say when he finds out I’m not speaking to Mickey.
“Maybe she’s nice. She must have a sense of humor to put up with you.”
I shake my head and we both go back to eating. Two rows over, Nick and Darren turn to look at me. The whole jock table bursts into laughter. Bryan’s too busy gawking at Marisa to notice.
No matter what Nick thinks, my problem’s not only that I’m stuck wrestling a girl. Mickey’s new to travel. Partnering with a newbie stinks. How am I going to get better unless she’s pushing me to work hard and improve?
All my anger at Coach Billy, all the hard words I should have said to Spence push their way into my throat. “You don’t understand,” I tell Bryan. “It’s a sports thing.” I’m being a jerk, but I can’t stop myself. “I’ll ask my wrestling friends. Your advice is useless.”
Bryan blinks at me from behind his glasses. “Then don’t ask me next time.” He stands, grabs his trash, and walks out of the cafeteria.
All my good feelings about this season, my plans for making it to States, disappeared when Mickey Delgado walked into our wrestling room. It’s her fault Nick Spence is laughing at me. It’s her fault I argued with Bryan. I wish she’d just give up and quit already. But so far, no matter what I throw at her in practice, Mickey keeps coming back.
Once a month, if no one has a wrestling tournament, my family goes to church together, and then we make a big Sunday dinner. Kenna thinks this is bizarre, because divorced parents are supposed to hate each other. But my mom and dad are friends. After all, they’ve known each other since they were in high school. Besides, before she died, my grandmother made them promise they’d continue our Sunday tradition.
“Why change a good thing? We’re still a family,” Nonna used to say. She also used to say my parents are proof that opposites attract. Where Mom is soft and plushy, Dad is prickly and hard, from his scruffy beard to his lean muscles. Ever since the divorce, Dad’s been obsessed with sports. He’s not the only one. A couple of years ago, Sports Illustrated called our part of Maryland “Sportstown USA.” It feels like every kid in my school plays soccer, lacrosse, or football. In summer, they all swim. Wrestling hasn’t caught on like that yet.
My dad has done CrossFit, has trained for mud runs, and is addicted to watching American Ninja Warrior. At first, Mom thought he was doing it to “impress girls.” Yuck. But neither of them has dated anyone for more than a few months. It’s hard not to wish they’d get back together.
Now that they’re just friends, Mom and Dad get along. Except when Dad pulls one of his stunts, like getting matching tattoos with Evan when he turned sixteen. When Mom saw Delgado inked in huge letters across Evan’s shoulders, she went ballistic. Cody can’t wait for his sixteenth birthday, when he’ll be old enough to get his shoulders tattooed. He only needs one parent to sign the forms. Mom is furious, but we don’t talk about tattoos, or anything else my parents disagree about, not at Sunday dinner.
Dad leans against the stove as I stir the cheese mixture for Mom’s stuffed shells. “I’ve been reading the wrestling forums online,” he says. “A lot of people think you should be allowed to wrestle for any team in the league.”
Mom snorts. “Tell that to the Spences.”
“John Spence thinks it’s his job to maintain certain traditions,” Dad says.
“But what do you think, Dad?” I ask.
He crosses his arms, looking at Mom, not me. “Girls can wrestle in rec league, sure. But there’s a lot of talent on the travel level. The competition is tough.”
“I’m tough,” I say. I can’t believe Dad agrees with Coach Spence.
Cody and Evan squeeze into the kitchen, hoping to swipe meatballs from the sauce pot.
“The Spences have a point,” Evan says.
“Thanks a lot.” I pretend to flick ricotta cheese at him.
Evan crunches a carrot stick at me. It’s as orange as his hair. “I’m on your side, sis. But what are you going to do when you get to high school? St. Matt’s is coed, but they are not ready for girls to compete with guys. Especially not in wrestling.”
Cody’s mouth is filled with a stolen meatball. Mom whacks him on the arm with a wooden spoon. “You’ll ruin your appetite.”
He swallows, grinning. “Coach Spence is a dinosaur,” he says. “Wrestling is changing and he doesn’t want to see it. When I was an Eagle, I wrestled girls at tournaments. Not a lot, but there were some.”
Soon everyone is talking over each other. Don’t they get it? There is only one female wrestler in this house. Me.
We sit down for dinner. Dad puts a stuffed shell and two turkey meatballs on my plate, then covers everything with homemade sauce. It smells amazing. But when I open my mouth to take a bite, words pour out.
“Why is it okay to keep me off the Eagles just because I’m a girl?” My brothers stare at me, but I keep going. “When kids of different races wrestle each other, nobody cares. And wrestlers with disabilities, like that boy at my camp. Everyone cheers for them. Why am I ‘that weird girl who wants to wrestle against boys’?”
Mom puts her napkin down. Dad pushes food around his plate. Cody’s the only one nodding in agreement.
“There was a girl in my weight class last year,” he says. “She was so fast, I never had time to think, ‘Uh-oh. I’m wrestling a girl. Better be careful not to touch…certain areas.’ ”
Oh, no. I know Cody’s trying to help, but his story just took a wrong turn. He blushes bright red. Evan struggles to keep a straight face.
Mom only makes it worse when she says, “There’s nothing wrong with the word breasts. The meatballs on your plate are ground turkey breast.”
Cody nearly chokes.
“I was trying to talk about something serious,” I say. I look to my father for help. “Dad, please.”
“What? I thought this was the evening’s entertainment,” he says.
He puts an elbow on the table, arm up. Cody shrugs at me, puts his elbow down too, and grabs Dad’s hand. Evan cheers on their arm-wrestling match.
“You’re a pack of animals,” Mom says.
I try to catch Cody’s attention, tell him to cut it out, but he’s too busy trying to wrench Dad’s arm out of its socket. I push my plate away.
It’s the Delgado Brother Effect. Laugh first, think never.
I want to talk to my family about the Gladiators, whether I should stick with a team that doesn’t want me around and put all my effort into wrestling when I don’t have Kenna to share it with. But I can’t risk talking to my parents. If I heard right in the kitchen, Dad’s still not sure I have the skill to wrestle travel with boys. If my family doesn’t take me seriously, how am I going to make it through this season?
It’s my turn to wash up, but Evan grabs a dish towel and leans against the counter. When I hand him the giant salad bowl, he pretends to drop it.
Evan can be a pain. Half the time, he jokes around, doing stupid stuff to make me laugh. As I wash plates, I wonder if something’s going to upset him. I never know when Evan’s mood will turn dark, when he’s going to start picking a fight with Mom and stomp out of the house without saying good-bye.
Evan hated going to the school where Mom works. He said it was bad enough having Mom monitor his homework and screen time at home, but when she started showing up in his study halls and lunch periods at St. Matt’s, that was when the arguments got bad.
On the day he moved o
ut, Evan told Mom, “I can’t breathe around you.” He told me, “A man needs to live with his father.” Whatever that means.
My shoulders slump, as if I’ve been washing dishes for hours. “None of the boys on the Gladiators talk to me,” I tell Evan. “It’s too hard without Kenna.”
“Did you tell Mom and Dad?”
I look at my brother. He has Dad’s red hair, but we share Mom’s square face and cleft chin. Somehow, the features that look so plain on me make Evan handsome. It’s not fair.
“Didn’t you see what happened at dinner?” I ask him. “The second I tried to talk about it, everyone started laughing and arguing. Besides, if I complain about wrestling, Dad will tell me to suck it up. And Mom? She’ll be on the phone with Coach, telling him to make the team apologize to me.”
Evan puts his hands up in surrender. We’re quiet for a minute, working side by side at the sink.
“Have you ever wrestled a girl?” I ask.
“Couple of times.”
“Was it weird?”
Evan pushes his hair out of his eyes without thinking about it. How come he’s so good at being himself, when I’m totally awkward?
He says, “The first time was at a high school tournament. When I saw a girl’s name on my bracket, I figured I had an easy win.”
I nod. I’ve heard boys say that about me and Kenna plenty of times. “She kicked your butt, didn’t she?”
“Pinned me in the second period. I took it easy on her. That was my mistake, and she made me pay for it. You ever do that when a guy underestimates you?”
“No mercy.” I put my hand out for a fist bump. If kids look at me in that I’m-better-than-you way, just because they’re boys, it’s over before they know what hit them. Usually a cement mixer—my favorite move—is what hit them.
Evan shoves me. “Way to be, Mighty Mite.”
When Evan’s easy to be around like this, I can forget how bad things were between him and Mom last spring. Our house is calmer since he moved in with Dad, and it gives Evan what my history teacher calls perspective. He understands things that Mom, Dad, and Cody don’t see. Evan knows I’m upset about the Eagles. He knows I need to talk.
“You’re a Delgado,” he says. “Start winning matches and the guys on the team will warm up to you.”
When he says “guys on the team,” Lev’s face flashes in my mind. That’s right! Evan doesn’t know about Lev. I whap him with the dish towel. “Guess who my partner is?”
“Stone Cold Steve Austin?” he jokes.
“I’m talking about real wrestling.” I smile big enough to show my braces, because I’ve got the goods on Evan.
“Hit me.”
“Lev Sofer. Your girlfriend’s brother.” I draw out the word girlfriend with extra attitude.
Evan’s eyebrows just about leap off his face. “Don’t tell Mom, Mickey,” he says. “If she finds out, she’ll pester me until I bring Dalia over to meet her. She’ll ask me stuff, like what we’re wearing to prom.” He scrubs his forehead. “Mom and I are just starting to get along better. You can’t tell her.”
“Fine.” I feel bad for Evan, and he’s right about Mom, but I still get to tease him. What are little sisters for? “What’ll you give me? Chores for a month? Money?”
“Better than that. I’ll talk to Lev. He’s my buddy.”
I cross my arms over my chest.
“Trust me,” he says.
“I do.”
* * *
That night, Mom comes to my room and sits on the edge of my bed. “Dad and I were talking about you.”
I don’t answer.
Mom picks up Spike, the plushy hedgehog I’ve had since I was a baby. She strokes Spike’s fake fur. I hear all the things she’s not telling me, that Dad’s not convinced I can make it on a travel team. That Mom is all for girl power but doesn’t want me to get hurt.
“It would be easier if you still had Kenna,” Mom says. “I felt safer when it was the two of you.”
Tell me about it. I prop up on my elbow. “What does Dad say?”
More than anything, I want Dad to be on my side. I want him to get it, that I’m all in for wrestling, just like Evan and Cody.
Mom sighs. “He says Delgados aren’t quitters. And that he’s proud of you.”
“Then I’m sticking with it.”
We only have a few more practices before the Eagles’ big Thanksgiving tournament. It’s the first wrestling event of the season, my first chance to show Nick Spence I’m ready to win. I push myself at practice. When Coach tells us to jog, I run. When he says, “Twenty squat-jacks!” I do an extra five.
Mickey tries to keep up with me. She’s not bad for a noob, no matter what Josh says. He’s still mad at Coach for splitting us up. Josh grumbles about his new partner, a pudgy fifth grader named Milo.
“Milo’s strong, but he’s so slow, it’s like wrestling a bag of mashed potatoes,” Josh says. He glances at Mickey, who’s sitting by herself near the parents, snapping headgear over her braids. “At least she’s halfway decent.”
Isaiah nods. “She’d wipe the floor with him.”
I lean down to tie my shoes so Josh and Isaiah won’t see me blushing. Not because I like Mickey or anything gross like that. I’m embarrassed because, even though we’re partners and Mickey’s good for a first-year Gladiator, I still haven’t spoken to her much since the first practice. How would I even start being nice to her now?
“Coach should stick all the new kids together,” Isaiah says.
Josh sighs and stands up. “Uncle wants us to teach the noobs ‘The Gladiator Way’ or some garbage. If we show them how things are done around here, maybe we’ll get our old partners back.”
“The sooner the better,” Isaiah says. “I’m sick of you two complaining.”
We jog around the mats to warm up. Coach Billy blasts music to keep our energy pumping.
By the time I get home from practice, it’s nine o’clock. I’m glad Mom made me do my homework right after school. Even though it’s quiet in the kitchen while I eat my bowl of cereal, my head echoes with the music and noise of the practice room.
“Headache,” I tell Abba. My headaches are worse this season. The kitchen light is too bright. I close my eyes.
My father is my favorite person on the planet, but if I had to choose a second, it’s my Gran’s wife, my other Gran. I call her O.G. for short. She’s chill and fun and rides go-karts with me at the beach every summer.
O.G. is so calm and fun to be around, it’s hard to believe she helped raise my mom. Mom is always rushing from one emergency to the next. Sometimes the emergency is real, like when her best friend had breast cancer and Mom organized meals for her kids. And sometimes it’s just that no one in the house has clean underwear. But Mom acts as if everything needs her full attention Right Now. It’s worse since she went back to school.
Abba’s not like that. He is calm. He’s got black hair with silver streaks and rosy cheeks like a little kid. Abba’s father is from Israel. They lived there for a while, when Abba was my age.
Abba’s parents, my Saaba and Safta, retired to Israel. We see Gran and O.G. pretty often, but I’ve only ever been to visit Israel twice. I don’t remember much. Palm trees, desert, blue doors in Jerusalem. Every few years, Saaba and Safta come to Maryland and stay for a few weeks. It’s easier for them to come here, because of our sports.
I wonder if having a parent from another country is what makes Abba different. When I ask him a question, it’s like time slows down. Abba stops what he’s doing and settles in to listen.
Now he’s looking at me in the bright kitchen light. “Of course you have a headache, Lev, sitting in all that sweat.” He kisses my wet hair, which I still haven’t cut short for competition. “I’ll take care of the dishes. Go shower.” He pushes me up the stairs. “When you’re
done, Dalia wants to talk to you.”
“She does?” My sister never wants to talk to me.
Abba shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
I find Dalia sitting on her bed, phone in one hand, homework spread around her. Grover is snoring on the floor. Dalia’s bare toes dangle above his furry back.
“Abba said you want to talk to me.”
I haven’t been in her room in a long time. Dalia has a new University of Maryland Field Hockey poster on her wall. She’s determined to go to UMD after high school. Her closet door is open. I see clear plastic boxes marked COLLEGE. I guess Dalia is as excited about leaving home as I am that she’s going.
Mom and Abba keep telling her that no matter how good she is at field hockey, sports scholarships are hard to get. She knows her best shot at money for college is good grades. So she’s always working. Whether it’s sports or school, Dalia has to be the best. One thing I like about wrestling? It’s something my sister would never do. Something she’ll never be able to beat me at.
“I hear you’re wrestling with Evan’s sister. Mikayla, right?” Dalia asks.
Is that her real name? It makes Mickey sound like one of the lip-gloss-wearing, giggling girls in my homeroom.
I nod.
“He says she’s a good wrestler.”
“She’s okay.”
“Is she better than you?”
“No.” Bryan would call my laugh a scoff.
I lean down to pet Grover’s ears. He rolls over for a belly rub, so I sit on the floor next to him.
Dalia raises one thin eyebrow at me. “Evan wants you to be nice to her.”
“What do you mean?” As if I didn’t know.
“It’s not easy for her. Her best friend quit. Evan said they’ve been training partners for years. Mikayla’s never been the only girl on her team before.”
I shrug. “Her problem.”
Dalia nudges my shoulder with a bare foot. Her face is all bones and angles, especially when her dark hair is pulled back with athletic tape. She undoes her braid, combing it out with her fingers. “Evan says he’d hate to see her quit wrestling.”