“Halloween, I guess.”
“Good choice. A classic that’s widely believed to have created the entire slasher movie genre.”
“What an achievement.”
We watched, ate popcorn and Milk Duds, and sipped our caffeine-free sodas. It was really pleasant, except that every time Dad reached for popcorn, he gestured to the writing on the side and asked, “Enjoying the show?”
Like the eighth time he did that, I finally said, “Dad, it’s not that funny. It’s actually not funny at all.”
“Eh, I’m amusing myself,” he said, and grabbed another handful of popcorn. “Real butter, you know. Can’t get that at the movie theater. None of that ‘topping’ stuff here. Isn’t it weird how they ask you that? ‘Would you like topping?’ What is that stuff, anyway?”
“I don’t know, Dad. Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Of course. Unless it’s about what’s in movie theater topping.”
“Agh, Dad, nobody but you even cares about that.”
“Okay. So what is it?”
“Why did you—I mean, if you were planning this big insomnia party, why exactly did you pick these movies?” As soon as I said it, I realized I’d made a mistake, because Dad might admit to some teenage crush on Jamie Lee Curtis, which I didn’t want to hear about, or worse yet, he’d find some way to start talking about Mom—the dead one—and he’d get weepy.
He surprised me, though. “Because,” he said, “these movies, despite the knife-wielding maniacs, are fundamentally upbeat and positive.”
“Dad, what could you possibly be talking about?”
“Look, here’s a girl, a very tall girl, by the way, one who was a sex symbol to millions”—he was getting dangerously close to admitting a crush, but he swerved away at the last minute—“a girl who is beset by problems that would crush most people. That do crush, or more accurately slice and dice, most people. She’s pulled out of her normal life and forced to be strong in order to survive. And she has the strength not just to endure, but to prevail. That’s what these movies are fundamentally about, kid. They’re about finding strength you didn’t know you had. You know what I mean?”
“Honestly, Dad, I kind of tuned out about halfway through that speech.”
Dad laughed and said, “Okay, I’ll shut up. This is the best part anyway.”
We watched as Jamie Lee Curtis shoved a coat hanger right into the masked killer’s eye, and sometime later, I woke up covered in popcorn with Dominic watching The Fairly OddParents on the TV.
5
I sat bolt upright. “Oh my God! What time is it?” I yelled.
Dominic looked at me like I was incredibly dumb. “Fairly OddParents comes on at seven-thirty,” he said. “And it’s almost over, so I guess it’s almost eight.”
“I’m going to be late! Why didn’t anybody wake me up?” I bellowed to the rest of the house.
Mom came running into the room. “Will you please stop yelling,” she whispered. “Conrad’s still asleep, and you know what he’s like when he gets woken up this early.”
“But my game!” I said.
“Amanda. Your game starts in five hours. I think you’ll make it in plenty of time.”
“But we’re supposed to be at school two hours before the game so we can get the bus and get to the field—”
“Sweetie, school is two blocks from here. If you decided to crawl there, you’d still be two hours early. Now just relax. Come and have some breakfast.”
“There’s no way I can eat. I’m totally nauseous.”
“Too bad,” Mom said. “More brioche French toast for me.”
Dominic and I followed her into the kitchen. She’d done that special occasion thing where she went to the bakery and got the sugar brioche loaf I loved—it was all eggy and sweet to begin with, and then she’d coat it in her vanilla French toast eggy goo and fry it up with almonds on the outside. It was too delicious for words. And Dominic was too much of a goofball to appreciate it.
“Ew,” he said. “Not that gross stuff! I want Golden Grahams.”
I looked at Mom, wondering if she was going to give him the smack upside the head he so richly deserved. Sadly, she didn’t. She never did. “Why don’t you go turn off the television, and then you can pour yourself a bowl of Golden Grahams,” she said through a smile that was clenched a little too tightly to be real.
“Can’t believe I have to pour my own cereal. Miss Special Soccer Star gets whatever she wants, but . . .” He kept talking, but he’d gone to the living room to sulk about how Mom wasn’t waiting on his ungrateful self, so we couldn’t hear him anymore.
“Okay, let’s have some breakfast, shall we?” Mom said.
I was still feeling a little groggy, and I looked over at the stainless steel carafe of coffee that Dad had set up to brew on a timer. Dad was nowhere to be seen—maybe he’d stayed up for the second half of the double feature.
“You think I could have some of that?” I asked, gesturing at the coffeepot.
“Oh God, I knew this day would come. Your dad will be so proud of you.” Dad was a total coffee fiend, and he was the only one in the house who could stand the stuff, so we all teased him about it.
Except that right now it smelled really good, and I thought it might help with the grogginess. “Do you want to wake him up and hear a lecture about the proper ratio of cream and sugar, or are you going to live dangerously and mix a cup up without instructions?” Mom asked.
“I guess I’ll go for it,” I said. I poured about two-thirds of a mug full of coffee, then topped it up with half-and-half and stirred in a packet of Splenda.
I took a tentative sip. It was sweet and creamy and bitter and awful. I started laughing. “Now I know why Dad likes this.”
“Why?” Mom said. “It’s still a mystery to me.”
“Because it’s like life,” I said, smiling and taking another sip. Mom looked at me like I was nuts, but I knew when I told Dad he would totally get it.
Of course, Dad was going to be all over me to talk about my feelings, which was going to be incredibly annoying, whereas Mom just made me a delicious breakfast and ate it with me without asking anything about how I felt.
“Hey, we’re invited to the Williamses’ house after the game,” Mom said. “I said that was fine. I hope it’s okay.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Weird that Shakina didn’t mention it to me.”
“I don’t think she knew. You know, sometimes we parents actually think and act independently of our children.”
“Really? Why?”
Mom laughed. “Reminds us of our lost youth, I guess.”
We ate the rest of our delicious breakfast, and sure enough, Dad showed up, and the first thing he asked was “So, how are you feeling today? Feeling good about the game?”
Mom swatted him. “If she wanted to talk about it, she’d be talking about it. Don’t be annoying.”
I mouthed “Thank you” to Mom, and then said, “Hey, Dad, guess what I had to drink this morning? Cup of coffee!”
Dad’s face lit up like I’d just told him I won a Nobel Prize or something. “How’d you like it?” he asked.
“I like it. It’s like life.”
Sure enough, he smiled and nodded. “It certainly is, my dear,” he said, “it certainly is.”
“You’re both nuts,” Mom said. I cleaned up the dishes with Mom, and then, before Dad could annoy me by asking about my feelings again, I ran up to my room to call Shakina so I could talk about my feelings.
“I’m totally freaking out,” I said.
“I know. Me too. I hardly slept at all.”
“Me neither. But I’m strangely hyper. But maybe that has something to do with the coffee.”
“Oh, great—caffeine again. I guess we can look forward to some screaming then,” she said.
“Probably.” And then, “It’s gonna be okay, right?” I nearly whispered. “I mean, whatever happens, it’s going to be okay.”
“It’s alread
y okay,” Shakina said. I took a minute to digest that.
“That’s deep.”
“Namaste, bitch.”
“Namaste, bitch. See you later.”
“Okay.”
Mom knocked on my door. She had a yoga mat under her arm. “Hey, I’m going to hour of power over at the Charlesborough Yoga Studio. You wanna come, or do you have a full schedule of fretting and barking at your brothers?”
“Well, when you put it that way, okay.”
So Mom and I went to hour of power, but it didn’t help much. For one thing, it’s usually only at the hour mark that I can turn my brain off, so I didn’t get that nice sensation of not thinking. But even if it had been a ninety-minute class, I don’t think I would have been able to do it. Not today.
We went home and I showered, which was probably stupid since I was going to go get all sweaty again, but whatever.
“You want a ride to the bus?” Dad said when I got downstairs. I struggled to remember that he was trying to be nice and not just treating me like a little kid who couldn’t walk two blocks by herself, so I said, “No thanks. I think a little fresh air will be good for me.”
“Okay,” Dad said. “We’ll see you there, sweetie. You’re awesome.” He gave me a big hug, and then Mom came over and gave me a big hug and Dominic gave me a big hug, and even Conrad, who had just gotten out of bed, shuffled over and punched me on the arm. “Kick some ass,” he said.
“I’ll do what I can.”
6
The game was in some suburb about forty-five minutes away. As we rode the bus in silence, I remembered how much fun it had been to ride to watch the varsity regional game, and how I’d imagined how tense the varsity bus was. Well, we were varsity now, and even though Geezer was sitting quietly in her assistant coach role and not screaming at anybody, it was quiet and tense and no fun. I couldn’t help feeling like we were being led to our doom. All I could think about was the air full of balls I couldn’t stop, the humiliation I would feel when I got scored on in the state championship.
I hadn’t told anybody this, but I felt like anything but a shutout would be a failure for me. If we were going to have a chance to win the game, I had to keep the ball out of the goal. Duh, but what I meant was, if you thought about it, this team, probably the best, or anyway second best in the state, was not going to give us a lot of scoring opportunities. We’d probably be very lucky to get two goals against them. So the only way we could win was if I was perfect.
And if I wasn’t perfect—well, I guess that would make me the goat. This was all I could think, even though Beasley was saying something about visualizing a good performance while we sat there.
When we got off the bus, it was a little cold, and the sky was gray. “Nice day for a soccer game!” Beasley said, but her enthusiasm wasn’t contagious. We walked onto the field, and we all looked around in awe. We were used to playing on like “Field F” or “Field 3-B” or something like that, but here we were on a field in the middle of a football stadium.
That was weird enough, but as we ran drills and started warming up, actual people started filling up the stands. Over on the other end of the field, we saw that the other team—Oldham High—had brought their marching band. Their marching band. For some reason, that was more intimidating than the fact that they were older and better than us.
We were used to a handful of parents in the three rows of metal bleachers, or sometimes in folding chairs on the edge of a field that had no bleachers. But now there were rows and rows of bleachers, and they were filling up with humans. And a lot of those humans seemed to be wearing the Oldham High black and orange.
The Oldham girls looked happy and relaxed as they stretched out and shot on goal and ran across the field. I guess they thought this game was a coronation.
And for us, or for me anyway, it felt like an execution. Like all those fans in their black and orange were there to cheer on our demise.
The Oldham High marching band started playing, and their fans started cheering, and this might have completely demoralized us if it weren’t for the two buses that pulled up outside the stadium. Suddenly there was a lot more blue and white in the stands. Marcia’s parents unfurled a #7 ROCKS! GO CHARLESBOROUGH! banner, and I saw Mom, Dad, Conrad, and Dominic pull out a sheet they had painted to look like a brick wall with #17! GO AMANDA! graffiti written on it. It made me smile. I tried to think of myself as a brick wall, stopping every shot, but there was this little nagging demon of doubt that kept telling me I was going to let them down.
And then the cheerleaders got there. Now, I have to admit, I am as snobby as any other girl jock about cheerleading and whether it’s a real sport, and you can add that to Dad’s outrage about how sexist the whole thing is (they actually bake cookies for the football team! Like it’s 1956 or something!), but I really liked hearing them yelling encouragement. Of course it wasn’t enough to drown out the Oldham High marching band, but at least we had some noise on our side.
Beasley called us over and didn’t have to quiet us down, because we were silent as we contemplated facing our doom. “I just have one simple message for you,” Beasley said. “This is a soccer game. There are cheerleaders here, and more fans than you’re used to, but nothing on the field is different from what you saw sixteen times this season. As much as you can, I want you to tune out what’s happening outside the lines and remember that this is just a soccer game. And you know how to play a soccer game, and you know how to win a soccer game. Nothing has changed. You girls are awesome—you’re the best team I’ve ever coached, and I know that sounds like a cheesy thing that every coach says to every team, but it’s actually true. There is nothing—nothing at all—that will make me more proud of you than I am right now. So go out there and play your game.”
We tried to cheer, but it sounded weak. I’m not sure if that’s because we were too nervous to cheer properly or if we were just used to being the loudest thing on the field when there were only twelve spectators.
We put our hands in a circle and did the “One! Two! Three! Pumas!” chant, and that time we were a little louder, but still not up to our usual standard.
“Amanda,” Beasley said, “take the coin toss.”
I lost the coin toss, which couldn’t have been a good omen for the rest of the game, and Oldham took the ball. I ran back into the goal, adjusted my gloves, and tried to shut my brain off. It wouldn’t freaking shut up, though. I looked into the stands and saw my family, and, a few rows back, Lena and her family. Wow. I wasn’t expecting that one.
It took me a minute to let it sink in. Was she here being punished? Were her parents rubbing her nose in it? Was she going to gloat when we lost? Was she going to be mean to me? And how must it feel to have your dad come only to the one game you can’t play in?
I tried to shake it off, to stop thinking about Lena. This wasn’t about Lena and me, it was about soccer. Except it was also about Lena and me, because we were always about soccer and soccer was about us. And now she was here to watch me play my worst game ever.
I looked at the other people in blue and white in the stands, the banners, and everything, trying to think about the hundreds of people who were here to cheer us on (including Angus, who apparently was a big soccer fan) instead of the one who was here to rejoice in our defeat. I guess it should have made me feel better, but as I saw the banners and the blue and white and the cheerleaders, the only thing in my mind was “You’re going to let them all down.”
Finally the ref blew her whistle, and Oldham brought the ball up. I guess our whole team was feeling like I felt—intimidated, terrified, and sort of sluggish—because Oldham sliced through our entire team with ease, and this girl came streaking up the wing, and all I could think of was Lena. I marked her and hoped she was going to try to fool me by going to her left foot like Lena usually did. I could see it in her feet—she was gearing up to shoot with her left, and I knew exactly where it was going. No problem.
Except that Marcia came out of n
owhere with a brilliant slide tackle and sent the ball across the end line before I could get out of the goal to grab it. Corner kick.
I hate these set plays so much more than somebody breaking away and shooting on me because they are unpredictable. A lot of teams mess up the kick, and since I’m so much taller than most of the other players, I can usually grab the ball in the air and punt it away, but I couldn’t expect this team to mess it up, and if I don’t grab the ball, I can never be completely sure of what’s going to happen to it with all those people in front of my goal.
They set up, we set up, and everybody started moving around. My heart was pounding, but I took a deep breath and suddenly saw the field clearly. They had a tall girl right in the middle, and as the ball came shooting in front of the goal, I just knew she was going to leap up and head it at me. And I knew I was going to catch it.
And that’s what would have happened, except that she must have been a little jittery or something, because she jumped early and completely missed the ball. I was still expecting it to come off her head and so was totally flabbergasted when another girl about half the size of the one who’d missed the header unleashed a bicycle kick and sent the ball screaming straight into the top right corner of the goal.
The game was less than one minute old.
Their crowd went crazy, their orange and black bobbing in the stands, and the marching band played some kind of exciting victory song, and the Oldham girls had these smug smiles on their faces.
I was aware of this, but I didn’t really take it in. Because I was flooded with a really weird feeling: relief. The worst thing that could possibly happen, the thing I had been lying awake worrying about, the thing I had tried and failed to put out of my mind all morning had happened: I’d gotten scored on in the state championship.
Shutout Page 12