And now I felt light enough to float out of the goal. I didn’t have to worry about what might happen if they scored on me because it had already happened. And now that I didn’t have to worry, I felt great. My shutout was over almost before it started, but now I had nothing to lose. I had no lead to protect, no more what-ifs clouding my mind.
I took a deep breath and felt my body connecting to my spirit for the first time since yoga class on Thursday night. I looked at my teammates and realized they weren’t feeling the surge of relief I was feeling. Their shoulders were slumped, and they were jogging slowly back to their positions looking like we’d already lost 10 to 1.
Whatever was going on with the rest of the team, I was fired up. I decided I had to try and share some of it, so I came running out of the goal and yelled, “Shakina!”
The Oldham players looked at me like they thought I was one of those goalies who blames their teammates whenever they get scored on. They didn’t know me at all. Shakina turned around and gave me a quizzical look.
“You tell those girls they’d better enjoy it, ’cause that’s the last one they’re getting off of me!” Shakina’s face broke into this big grin, and she went running up to the front to deliver my message.
I looked around at everybody else. Some of them were smiling, but a lot of them didn’t look convinced. “Hey!” I yelled. “Pumas! This is our last game together! Let’s have some fun out here!”
I clapped and cheered as Shakina brought the ball up. It got stolen almost immediately, and bicycle kick girl came screaming up the right side of the field. She beat the defenders, but she was obviously so in love with her footwork that she wasn’t looking for her teammates charging up the field, and, to give us proper credit, her teammates had some trouble finding a good angle for a pass.
Bicycle kick girl looked up and gave me a smug smile as she prepared to shoot. I saw the ball coming and thought for a fraction of a second that it would be really easy to punch the ball back and hit her right in the face. But as good as that would have felt, it would have put the ball back in play, and that would be bad for our team. So I caught it. I could hear our cheerleaders, and I heard a couple of my teammates yell and say, “Great save!”
Somebody—some ancient goddess of sports or something—had taken control of my mouth, because as scared and awkward and ugly as I’d felt at the beginning of the game, I was on fire with confidence and competitive spirit, and apparently that meant I had to talk trash.
“You call that a shot, Pelé?” I yelled at the bicycle kick girl. She wasn’t smiling anymore. “You’re gonna have to do better than that!” I punted the ball up the field and added, “Come back! I’ll beat you all day long!”
I ran back into the goal pumping my fists, and I looked around at my teammates. They were running faster and smiling more. Maybe we were having fun after all.
I wish I could say we shocked them so much that we ran down and scored easily, but the fact was, this team was better than us. Pretty much the whole first half was played on our side of the field, but I didn’t mind. I knew nothing was getting past me. Girls who’d been timid all season were charging the ball, cutting off the angle, and slide-tackling. They did their best to protect me, but the other team kept on coming.
And I kept on stopping them. Five shots on goal, five saves. After the fifth one, I could see the frustration building on the faces of the Oldham players. “Can’t anybody on your team shoot?” I called out to them as I punted save number five up the line to Shakina.
The ref blew the whistle, and we ran over to the sideline. The Oldham girls were grinding their teeth and looking really angry. They had known exactly how this game was going to go: the lowly JV team was going to lie down and die while they rolled over us, laughing and joking the whole way. But we didn’t get the memo.
As we ran over to Beasley, who was beaming, it started to rain. “Yeah!” I screamed out. “Let’s get muddy!”
A few other girls took up the cheer, and pretty soon we were jumping up and down on the sideline screaming, “Mud! Mud! Mud!”
Beasley finally quieted us down and we could hear, over the crowd noise and the marching band, the sound of the Oldham High coach yelling his lungs out at his team.
“Well,” Beasley said, “I was going to tell you girls to keep up the good work and have fun out there, but you’re clearly all over that. You’re playing a fantastic game. Keep it up.”
The rain started falling harder. Our fans were chanting “Let’s go, Pumas!” The time till we got back on the field seemed like it was crawling. When the ref finally blew her whistle, we went running out cheering.
Oldham looked tired and beaten down, which was the opposite of how I felt. And as fun as the first half had been, the second half was the most fun I’d ever had playing soccer. Marcia slide-tackled again, and this time she kept sliding for about ten feet and got up laughing with half of her uniform completely brown with mud.
“That’s what I’m talking about, girls!” I yelled. “Let’s get dirty!”
And we did. I had three more saves, two of which had me diving in the mud and covering myself in it. After the third one, I got up smiling, and spat a mouthful onto the field. “I love the taste of mud!” I yelled. “It tastes like victory!”
This cracked everyone up, and I punted the ball way up the field to Denise, who ran by her tired, wet, demoralized defender and passed to Shakina on the wing, who tapped it in past the napping goalie.
Tie game! We were screaming, but then the ref was giving the ball to the goalie. Apparently Shakina had been offsides. No goal. I couldn’t see it too well from my position, but it sure didn’t look like offsides to me.
I guess it didn’t look offsides to Geezer standing on the sideline at midfield either, because she started screaming at the ref that she didn’t have the sense God gave a blind mule, which must have been some kind of Texas saying or something, and how much was Oldham paying her to make bullshit calls like that. I guess that was what got her the red card.
Geezer exited the stadium, and I heard Conrad trying to start the chant of “Bullllllshit!” but he only got it out three times before Mom silenced him.
We hadn’t scored, but we had scared the hell out of the Oldham team. They spent the rest of the game playing timid, defensive soccer, so concerned with holding their one-goal lead that they’d given up trying to add to it. Girls were falling down in the mud, and I guess Oldham didn’t want to risk losing the ball, so they held back and passed a lot, and their midfielders and defenders just killed time by booting it up the line and out of bounds instead of bringing it back to our half of the field.
I didn’t get one more save because they didn’t take any more shots. We actually got two more shots, but they were from really far away and like ten feet wide, so that hardly even counted.
Finally the ref blew her whistle signaling the end of the game, and a weird thing happened. We threw our hands up and yelled and ran around the field like crazy while the Oldham girls trudged toward their sideline and waited joylessly to get their trophy.
“Beasley! Beasley! Beasley!” we chanted, and Beasley ran onto the field and belly flopped into the mud, sliding about fifteen feet. We picked her up, and we were all there smiling and laughing and covered in mud with the cold rain pouring down on us, and it was probably the best moment of my whole life.
7
After a few minutes of yelling we calmed down, and Beasley said, “Listen. Both teams played their hearts out today, so I want you to give them a sincere ‘congratulations.’ They’re state champs and they deserve it.”
We nodded and marched up the field, telling Oldham that they’d had a good game. They were a little less enthusiastic than we were on delivering the post-game compliments. It looked like they hadn’t quite realized they were state champs yet.
We lined up and stood in the rain while the commissioner of interscholastic something-or-other, some fat guy whose golf umbrella barely kept the rain off his gut, came ou
t and gave Oldham a big trophy. They took it and headed off to their locker room, finally looking a little bit happy.
Once the ceremony was over, the field filled up with people from the stands, and my family came running toward me. I got big hugs from Mom, Dad, Dominic, and Conrad.
“That was just amazing,” Dad said. “That was the best soccer game I’ve ever seen.”
“You were awesome!” Dominic said. “Brick wall!”
“Yeah, I think it was the banner that did it,” I said, ruffling his hair.
“Great game,” Conrad said, already embarrassed that he’d hugged me.
“Thanks.”
“It really was spectacular. We’re so proud of you,” Mom said. “Now go get a shower and some dry clothes on before we head over to Shakina’s house.”
“Okay,” I said, and as I started toward the locker room, Angus elbowed his way through the crowd until he reached me.
“Hey, Amanda,” he said.
“Hi!” I answered.
“Great game.”
“Thank you,” I said. I looked over and saw Dad staring at me, giving me the thumbs-up. I wanted very badly to give him the finger, but I thought Mom might see and get mad.
“So, now that soccer’s over, I was thinking maybe you and me could grab a cup of coffee after school next week,” he stammered. His face was purple again. It was kind of cute.
“Sounds good,” I answered. “I like coffee.” What a stupid thing to say. I fought off the urge to slap my own forehead.
“Cool,” he mumbled, and disappeared into the crowd.
Suddenly Shakina appeared next to me. “Did that kid just ask you out?”
“No! He just asked if I wanted to . . . uh, hang out sometime. At a coffee shop.”
“So he asked you to go somewhere with him. Alone.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“I think that means he asked you out.”
“No it doesn’t! Maybe. I don’t know. I mean, look at me—I’m like the mud monster from Planet Gigantor. He just wants to be friends!”
Shakina looked at me like I was the dumbest girl on earth. “Manda, I don’t know a lot about boys, but I do know that there is no such thing as a boy who just wants to be friends.”
“What if he’s gay?”
“Okay. Maybe if he’s gay. You think that kid is gay?”
“Well, he asked me to hang out, so he pretty much has to be, doesn’t he? I mean, if he was straight, he probably would have asked you and the twins out.” Or Lena, I thought.
Shakina slapped the back of my head. “You just played the best game of soccer anybody here has ever seen. Time to put that low self-esteem crap to bed.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Yeah, okay.”
“Good then.”
Right then Shakina’s mom yelled at her. “Shakina! You get your butt changed right now. We have to go!”
She smiled. “Mom’s freaking out about having you guys over. She thinks you’re gonna inspect the house with white gloves, so we’ve got to rush home and do some last-minute dusting under the furniture or something.”
“No wonder she and my mom get along so well. I’ll see you soon,” I said. “And by the way, that offsides call was bullshit.”
“Yeah, it was. We’ll get ’em next year,” Shakina said before turning and heading toward the locker room, her mom yelling at her to hurry up the whole way.
I was about to go to the locker room myself, but then Lena was there in front of me. She was the only varsity member who had shown up, at least as far as I could see. I thought about how embarrassed and disappointed she must feel, and how hard it must have been for her to come out here today knowing she wasn’t playing. But then, who ever said that doing the right thing was easy?
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
“That was an amazing game,” she said. “You were great.”
“Thank you,” I answered. “And thanks for coming. I appreciate it.”
We stood there kind of staring at each other for a minute while the rain pelted our heads. I wondered what I should say next. Nothing I had said for the last month and a half had been the right thing, so why would now be any different? “Well . . .” I started, and trailed off.
“I’m sorry,” she said, suddenly staring at the tops of her shoes. “I’m sorry . . . I’m just sorry for everything.”
What could I say to that? It’s okay? It wasn’t okay. I’m sorry too? I didn’t do anything wrong. I tried to imagine what Dad would tell me to say, and this is what came out of my mouth: “I forgive you.”
I couldn’t believe how good it felt to say those words. It was like anger at Lena and hurt at how she’d treated me was a song that had been playing in the background of my life, and when I forgave her, it turned off. It had been playing for so long that I’d forgotten about it, but the silence when it stopped sounded better than anything else in the world.
She threw her arms around me and started to cry. “I’m such an idiot. You know, me and Duncan broke up, and I’ve made a mess of everything.”
I hugged her back and said, “I’m sorry.” And I was. I didn’t think she had it all coming to her because I couldn’t say for sure that I wouldn’t have done exactly the same thing in her shoes. I hoped I wasn’t the kind of person who would do that to a friend, but then I’d never had the experience of suddenly becoming popular.
Lena pulled away, embarrassed. “Do you . . . do you want to hang out later? I’m grounded, but I’m sure Mom would be thrilled if you came over. She’s done nothing since the suspension but rag on me about what horrible choices I’ve been making, like I didn’t already know that.”
“Well, we’re going to Shakina’s house,” I said, and Lena’s face fell. “But how about tomorrow?”
She smiled. “That sounds good. Call me.”
“I will,” I promised. I had put her number in my new phone just in case, but it was more out of superstition than hope. I felt like it would be bad luck for me to ditch her from my phone contacts even though I wondered at the time if I’d ever call her again.
I didn’t know if Shakina and Lena would like each other. I hoped they would, but even if they didn’t, I probably had room in my life for two friends. Well, maybe three, depending on what exactly Angus was going to be to me.
You really can drive yourself crazy playing the what-if game. What if I’d taken Lena’s number out of my phone? What if I had made varsity? What if Conrad and Lena had gone out during the summer? What if Duncan hadn’t liked Lena? What if they hadn’t broken up? I can’t even really say that my life would be better if none of the stuff that happened this fall had ever happened—I probably wouldn’t have become friends with Shakina, I wouldn’t have had Beasley encouraging me to take yoga, so my heels wouldn’t have gotten any better, and I might not have gotten to play in the best game of my whole life. Well, at least until I got to be the goalie on the World Cup champion U.S. national team.
For that matter, what if my birth mom had lived? I would probably never have met Mom. I might have met Conrad, but he’d probably just be some kid at school I saw in the hall. And Dominic would never have existed. Some days that doesn’t seem like it would be so bad, but I really do love the little turd, and it’s hard to imagine life without him. It seems like every single day, stuff is happening that can never un-happen, stuff that changes your life before you’ve even realized it.
You can think about all the other worlds where all these things didn’t happen, or happened differently, or whatever, but why bother? You can imagine those worlds, but you can’t live in them. You have to live in the real world, the world where stuff can’t un-happen.
Right now that feels like a pretty good place to be.
Acknowledgments
The idea for this novel crystallized during a walk with Lori Lobenstine of femalesneakerfiend.com and her dog, Herschel. Lori also provided valuable early encouragement. Thanks to both of them!
Kate Kuhn Galle and Julie Fo
ster Gneuss helped vet this book for female athlete realism since I have no experience playing on a girls’ soccer team. Any errors in verisimilitude are of course my fault and not theirs.
Doug Stewart provided his usual awesome levels of support, enthusiasm, assistance, and friendship.
I really appreciate Janine O’Malley’s careful attention to every word. This is a better book because she worked on it with me.
Last, but certainly not least, my family, Suzanne, Casey, Rowen, and Kylie were both inspiring and supportive as always. I am lucky to have them all.
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