by Nick Lake
I nodded. “Surviving. Just about.”
“Good,” she said. “That’s really good. Let’s talk. Not here though.”
“Okay,” I said.
(We didn’t. We didn’t get a chance.)
Anyway, then the announcer, who was standing in the middle of the gym with a corded microphone, the track running in an oval around him, said it was time for the second period.
The skaters set off, the blockers first, Julie and the Kittens’ jammer behind. Some stuff happened. It’s not like I was registering every detail for later transcription. The score stayed pretty even. Julie scored some. The other blocker too. She was called Patricia Pornwell, I remember that because it was kind of a book name, and I liked that.
Even a sports illiterate like me could see that the time was running down. There were eight minutes of play left, and that’s when stuff got kind of exciting.
74–75 to the Kittens.
Julie was trying desperately to get past the pack. The Kittens’ blockers were all mixed up with the Bees, and then one of her team reached behind her and caught Julie’s hand, linked up with another girl, and kind of pivoted and slingshotted Julie past them all.
Slingshot?
Slingshooted?
Who knows.
Instantly, I was on my feet, screaming.
“She scores!” shouted the announcer. “75–75!”
Julie looked right over at us as she cruised past, and she fired a salute off the side of her forehead at us. It was like the coolest thing ever.
“**** YEAH!” screamed Paris. “**** YEAH!”
Now it got kind of rough. The blockers were jostling one another, pushing. Not violent but close. It was messy. The red jammer got past the pack and scored for the other team.
“No,” said Paris. “No no no.”
Then Julie came flying up behind, putting on speed. She closed on the pack. Her hair was in two ponytails sticking out from her helmet, and they were flying behind her like pennants.
It happened suddenly—one of the Kittens went down. I think she caught her skate on another girl’s, and she wiped out on the hard floor of the gym. She spun for what was probably a fraction of a second but felt like forever, all of us in slow motion now.
Julie was maybe four feet away when the girl fell. She couldn’t turn. She couldn’t stop.
Julie—
—jumped, right up in the air, and she kind of hugged her knees to her chest, literally five feet off the ground, and then she touched down on the other side and just kept skating.
The girl on the floor did a thumbs-up to show she was okay, and the skaters slowed so that she could get up. A medic-type guy went over, but she shook her head and went back onto the track.
“Holy cow!” said the guy on the loudspeaker, when they were all skating again. “We see stride jumps in this competition but a full jump—wow! Mega Joules back in play here, and she’s gaining and—”
I don’t even know what he said after that, because there were Bees supporters around us and they were going pretty much crazy. The noise was getting louder and louder. Actually the other team’s supporters were going wild too. It was hard not to get swept up in it, even if at the back of my mind I was counting down time for another reason, glancing over at you again and again, thinking about later. About how we would be alone together when you drove me home.
I wondered what might happen when we got out of the pickup. When we stood in the warm night air, outside the house.
Then you caught me looking, and I turned away embarrassed.
I looked up at the board.
Two minutes to go. Still 75–75.
“What happens if they tie?” I asked.
“I don’t know actually,” you said.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” said the announcer. “We haven’t had a tie in the Eastern league before, but it might just happen tonight. If so, we’ll go into extra time. Oh, oh! Patricia Pornwell almost past there, but edged out by a human chain of Bees. Still a tie, everyone!”
“There you go,” you said. “Extra time.”
“Sport sucks,” I said. It was too tense for me. “Couldn’t they just have a tie and everyone be friends?”
“Shut up,” said Paris.
It may have been two minutes, but it felt like more. It was intense. Both of the jammers were pushing and pushing, trying to get past the group. But they couldn’t. The Bees did this thing where four of them linked arms and made like a diamond, trapping the Kittens’ jammer inside. It didn’t seem fair to me, but you said it was legal.
It didn’t help though. Julie couldn’t get past the Kittens either—she was trying, but every time there’d be a girl in a red uniform there, blocking her with a hip, or dropping onto the track just in front of her, preventing her from overtaking.
On the scoreboard, the time was ticking down.
Sixty seconds.
Thirty seconds.
The diamond was still in place, and the Kittens’ jammer was powerless. But it was no good because their blockers were in a chain and there was no way for Julie to dodge past them.
Fifteen seconds.
The pack was skating down the hall on the far side from us, toward the turn after the straight, and there was still no way past, and there was still no way past, and—
Eight seconds.
And—
Five seconds.
And then they came to the turn, the pack right on the inside of it, and Julie was there, suddenly, going faster than I had seen before, really powering up behind the blockers and then she leaned into the corner, leaned much too far into the corner and she kind of dived and I thought she was going to fall—
No.
She jumped, again, only this time with one leg and then the other, so that she kind of leaped past the blockers by cutting across the sharpest part of the turn in the air—without her skates ever touching down outside the track—and came down again just past them, just past the most acute angle of the turn, and we were on our feet before I even really knew what was happening.
“The Bees WIN!” the announcer screamed. “Mega Joules jumps the apex and wins the final for the Bees! 76–75! Unbelievable!”
After the end of play it was actually kind of anticlimactic. The crowd—at least the Bees’ supporters anyway—kept cheering for a while, and that was fun, being caught up in that.
In the middle of the gym the announcer got both teams together. He had the mike in one hand and a framed certificate in the other. “The Oakwood Miss-Spelling Bees!” he said. “Winners of the New Jersey Eastern League!”
Applause.
He handed over the certificate to Julie. She smiled.
And that’s when Paris slung her bag over her shoulder and vaulted over the bench in front of us, her bag knocking the head of a girl with red hair who turned and said, “Hey!”
Paris turned at the safety barrier. “Come on,” she said. “Boost me.”
“Wh—” I started, but you were already on your feet and jumping down beside her. I guess boys are just better at obeying commands without thinking about them at all.
You cupped your hands and crouched; Paris got one foot on them and you powered her up. Everything was happening very fast, and I wasn’t really processing any of it because I had two conflicting thoughts in my mind:
— He’s helping, that’s so sweet, he doesn’t know what she’s doing or why she’s doing it, I don’t even know, but he jumped right up to help her over the fence, like a knight in shining armor.
And:
— He’s helping, that’s so awful, he doesn’t know what she’s doing or why she’s doing it, but he jumped right down and he put his hands out, and they’re touching oh God I’m so jealous her foot was in his hand and her hand was on his shoulder, just for a moment, and THIS MEANS HE LIKES HER DOESN’T IT? He’s only here for her, he’s a knight in shining armor, but he’s a knight in shining armor for her.
It made me feel sick, that feeling, that envy, seeing your
bodies touch, just for that moment.
And, yes, I know this is repetitive, I know it’s just like when I thought you were into Jane from the library, and I apologize for that. But the thing is that minds are repetitive. They tend to get into fixed patterns.
This is something I know better than most.
Anyway. Those two thoughts were warring in my mind, but it was so much faster than I am conveying it here. It all happened in an instant.
Paris pivoted over the top of the fence, using the momentum you had provided with surprising grace, at first anyway. Then … then it kind of went wrong, her leading foot was over but her back one caught, and she flipped suddenly, scary-fast, like someone being hit by a bull, and for a frozen instant she was upside down on the other side of the fence.
Then she hit the ground, sprawling, her head and shoulders taking the impact, and rolled.
“****,” you shouted. “Are you okay?”
Paris stood, awkwardly. She shook herself like a dog. Then she put her arms up in a V, like an Olympic gymnast, like, “TA DA!”
She turned and hurried over to where the two teams were gathered, though it was obvious she was limping.
“What’s she doing?” you asked.
“I have no idea,” I said.
You frowned. I must have sounded angry. Because of the touching. Because of you giving her that boost, and how obviously you would be more into her than me.
And then Paris was pushing a big silver trophy into Julie’s hands and there was a flurry of movement and suddenly the Bees lifted Julie up into the air and the crowd went wild.
Click. Kodak moment.
“Um,” you said, over the noise of celebration. “What was that?”
“I’ll explain later,” I said.
But I didn’t.
I mean, I didn’t explain later. I really wanted to, I really wanted some time alone with you, I had been looking forward to that all evening, thinking about the ride home and how we would stand in the yard together, under the night sky …
But sometimes life thwarts our plans. Often, in fact.
First off, we were hanging out with Paris and Julie and the team in the parking lot and then you offered them a ride and the whole way to their apartment the pickup was just filled with them, with their excitement and happiness, and Paris was so loud.
“My girl got her trophy!” she was shouting. “My girl is a champion!”
“It was a team effort,” said Julie, but I could hear the bright joy in her voice, and it made me twist inside.
“She is the champion, my friends … ,” Paris started singing. You glanced over at me and raised your eyebrows. Paris did not have a beautiful singing voice. I just wanted her to be quiet, but she was Paris. She was never quiet. I mean, what are you going to do? You can’t ask the sun to stop shining.
So she sang the whole song, only she didn’t know most of the words, not that it stopped her.
Then we dropped them off, and Paris and Julie went up, Paris still shouting stuff, mostly impossible to make out now, and Julie was holding the trophy aloft that Paris had given her, and finally they went into the apartment building and you turned to me. And then I found out that sometimes your own feelings can thwart stuff for you; you don’t even need life to do it.
“Wow,” you said.
“Uh-huh,” I said. I must have sounded cold.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Absolutely not.”
“But you’re pissed with me. Is it because I offered them a ride?”
“No.”
You sighed. “O … kay … So nothing is wrong?”
“No.”
But of course I was speaking in monosyllables and it was pretty obvious I was not happy, and in the end you just raised your hands and said, “Fine. Let’s just go home.”
That made it sound like our home was together, like we were a couple or something, which just made me feel even worse, thinking of you rushing to help Paris, of how stupid I had been, thinking that any of this had anything to do with me. I knew that was a thing boys did—get to the beautiful one through her plain friend.
I figured that was what you were doing.
I know better now. I know you were helping Paris because you liked me, and I liked Paris, and so automatically you liked Paris. At least I assume so; just as likely you just saw that she needed help and you didn’t even think about it. I’m the one who thinks about stuff too much, I’m aware of that.
Anyway, that’s why I was frosty to you in the pickup, okay?
Eventually you gave up on me and a little part inside me died, and you started the engine and drove back toward the house. After a while, watching the streetlights go past, I started to think maybe I had been an idiot. Maybe I had read something into nothing. I opened my mouth to say sorry—
—and we passed Dad’s car, a few blocks from the house, driving home.
****.
“Hit the gas,” I said. That was another opportunity wasted to spend time with you, to talk to you alone, because you sped up to beat him and we got home like two minutes before him so I didn’t even say good night to you, just ran into the house while you lay down in the pickup so he wouldn’t see you. And we made it. We got away with it.
So that’s why I’ve told you the story of the game, which you know anyway, what with being there and all.
One: because I was mean to you afterward and you didn’t deserve it and I’m sorry. Two: because you saw what happened at the game, with Paris and Julie, but you didn’t understand.
You see, you were on the phone at the pier when Julie was talking about never winning anything. You probably just thought it was Paris being crazy, as usual.
But you get it now, right? You get what I’m telling you about her?
You could call her crazy. If that was the way you saw the world. Or you could call her someone who would go to the trouble of having a trophy made, specially, and then crash a sporting event just to give it to her friend.
That’s the Paris I want the world to remember. That’s the Paris I want you to remember.
“Can you wash up?” said Dad. We had just finished eating—pizza from the restaurant for the third night in a row.
“Sure,” I said.
“I’ll be in the study.”
“Sure.” I was not varying my vocabulary much. I was thinking about you, and how even if you did like me, which I wasn’t at all sure about, but still, even if you did, I had messed it all up now.
He left his plate and went to the bug room. He was still pissed with me, even though he didn’t see me get back from the roller derby, luckily. I didn’t blame him, really. At least he hadn’t shouted for a while. Of course that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Dad’s anger, it surfaces unexpectedly, I’ve told you already. Like spray from a whale’s blowhole. Stillness …
then …
whoosh.
So I was just waiting for him to blow over some tiny inconsequential thing. Like the dishes not being cleaned properly—so as a result I scrubbed them for ages before putting them in the rack to dry, trying to give him no excuses.
I stopped at the door to the study, on the way up to my room. Dad was hunched over the computer, typing. On the forum, I guessed. Dad was always on the forum, when he wasn’t actually feeding the bugs or breeding them or whatever he did with them.
On the forum he was BEETLEJUICE3. It was like a lame superhero identity. I mean, in real life, he was an ex-soldier with a failing restaurant and a sick daughter. But there on the forum he was a PRO-LEVEL BUGGER. He had seventeen hundred posts or something and two thousand comments. People would ask him questions, post comments with lots of animated emojis about how awesome he was—I’d seen him answering them lots of times. He was like a legend on that site.
No wonder he didn’t want to deal with real things. Like me.
“’Night, Dad,” I said.
He turned. “
’Night.”
“Watcha doing?”
“Posting some pics of my new giant pills.”
“Pills?”
“Millis. They roll into balls. Like a pill bug, you know?” He went back to the screen, typing with one finger, slowly.
“Okay, well, see you tomorrow.”
He grunted and I went up the stairs. I lay on my bed, all my clothes still on. I stared at the ceiling for a long time. Then I grabbed my phone and texted Paris.
U there? xxx
I waited for, like, half an hour, but she didn’t text back. I turned on the radio, and Katy Perry blasted out into the room.
“Turn that ******* **** down!”
That was Dad, shouting up from the study.
I sighed and turned it down. I got up onto my knees on the bed and looked out the window—but I couldn’t see you and Shane on your deck chairs, and there was no light spilling from your apartment.
My phone buzzed. I picked it up.
Going out. Client. C U tmw?
I thought of Dad, banning me from seeing her. But he’d be at work from eleven in the morning …
Yeah. Wld have to be daytime tho.
The answer popped right up.
That’s cool. Maston Theater? Matinee of Toy Story.
Toy Story? I replied.
Hey don’t diss Pixar.
OK. What time?
1.
OK. Night, Paris.
Night, Cass.
I put the phone down. I lay down again and reached for the Haruki Murakami book on my nightstand.
“No,” said the voice.
“Oh hi,” I said. “Nice to hear from you. And thank you for waiting till after six p.m. to—”