My Eyes Are Up Here

by Laura Zimmermann

  The problem is the gold part in the back of my uniform—where Glinda the Good Witch’s dress shows through the maroon mesh. Our libero (and if you don’t know volleyball, just know that there’s one player who has a different color shirt, like the goalkeeper in soccer) wears gold, and the rules say, basically, that everybody else’s jersey can only have a weensy bit of gold on it or the ref might get confused about who is who.

  If this ref can’t tell the difference between Kate Wood, whose libero jersey is so perfectly golden it looks like she stole it from a pirate chest, and my hodgepodge of leftover fabric scraps, we’ve got bigger problems than uniforms. But Coach You’re-Thirsty-When-I-Say-You’re-Thirsty is going to have a tantrum if I try to play in this shirt.

  I glance up from the rule book and see that my teammates are all trying to figure out what’s wrong. On the bleachers, my dad is half standing. He doesn’t know what’s going on either, but you can see him debating whether he should come to help, because he’s my dad, or leave me alone, because I’m not a child. I turn away, because if he thinks I can’t handle it, he will come, and that will make it worse. I don’t need anybody else looking at me.

  “I need you to go put Timms’s jersey on.”

  I shake my head.

  “She won’t mind. You’ll trade back when varsity starts.”

  “I can’t,” I manage. “It won’t fit.”

  “Timms is a pretty big girl. I think it will work.”

  I squeeze my eyes and shake my head. I already know it won’t. My jersey was the same size as Jessa’s before Ms. K-B altered it. Even if I could get it over my chest, I wouldn’t be able to move. I wish I’d taken sign language instead of Spanish because if I try to talk, no sound is going to come out anyway.

  “Kid, I know this guy is just busting balls because he can, but he’s not going to back down. He’s a grade A whatnot. Please, Greer. We need you.” It is probably the first time she’s ever called me Greer instead of Walsh, and I can see that she knows she’s asking a lot, so I head toward the locker room to try. She sends Jessa down after me. I don’t look at the bleachers, where there are hundreds of eyes watching me go. Why did you all have to come to this game?

  If I can’t play, Coach will start Kaia Beaumont, which is pretty much the same as sending a tiny, blindfolded kitten wearing roller skates into the game. Not only will we lose, Kaia will probably die.

  Jessa releases a long string of swears about the guy, but understands that sports come with meaningless technicalities and has whipped off her shirt before we’re down the stairs. She stands there in her sports bra, sides bulging over her shorts, holding out a shirt that’s already got pit stains despite the fact that varsity hasn’t even warmed up.

  I swallow my usual self-consciousness and peel off my jersey. She’s the only person on the planet who has seen me in this bra. Maybe her jersey will have stretched out from all her dives, digs, jumps, and stretches. Maybe it will show me some mercy, because nobody else up there is going to.

  I get my head through the hole and my arms in the sleeves, but the jersey basically stalls in the middle of my breasts. The fabric rolls and bunches at the limit of its stretchiness. It’s pulled so tight the maroon dye fades to pink. I empty all the air from my lungs. Maybe I can play taking only tiny breaths. I inch it down. Jessa works on the back, yanking so hard she almost pulls me over. We get the shirt over the main hump(s), but it will not come down far enough to meet the waist of my shorts.

  I stand in front of the mirror, looking like I’ve borrowed a top from one of Quin’s American Girl dolls. I am humiliated and the only other person who’s even seen me yet is Jessa. Virtually everyone else I know and a whole lot of people I don’t are waiting for me to walk back through that door. I blink hard. I. Can. Not. Go. Out. There.

  Jessa bites her lip. “Um, can you move?”

  I raise one arm, slowly. I raise the other one, and all our progress pulling the shirt down is undone. It pulls right back up. Even from here, I can hear the crowd in the gym.

  “What are you doing down here?” Maggie is suddenly behind me in the mirror. I’ve got Jessa’s jersey squeezing down the top halves of my breasts, while the bottoms squeeze out over my bare belly like an upside-down push-up bra. Maggie’s eyes bug out like a cartoon.

  Here’s the weird thing: Instead of being horrified that Maggie is seeing me like this, I laugh. What else can I do? And when I laugh, Mags and Jess know that it’s okay if they do, too. And they do. We all do. Hard. So much that I have to sit down on the bench and Maggie has tears running down her face. So much that Jessa can barely catch her breath between hyena gasps.

  “Oh god, Greer, get out of that thing before it strangles you.” Maggie is giggling. She and Jessa each take an edge and roll the jersey off me. I’m back to square half-naked. Two of us are sitting there without shirts on, and for once I’m not trying to cover up everything I can.

  “That’s a sports bra?” Somehow Max must have scraped up every last bit of sports-related DNA before Maggie was even conceived.

  “The finest money can buy.”

  “Jeez. Now what do we do?” says Jessa.

  “I can’t wear yours. I don’t think they’re going to let me play.”

  “What are you talking about? They can’t do that. You’ve been rehearsing for months.”

  Jess is about to correct her, but I interrupt, “She knows. She does that on purpose.” I explain about the uniform and the nasty coach from the other team.

  “Jessa, run up and get that binder,” Maggie says. Jessa is half out the door when Mags stops her. “You want to put on a shirt first?”

  When Jessa comes back with the binder, she tells us that Coach offered the other guy all her time-outs for five more minutes.

  “I don’t know what good five minutes is going to do,” I say.

  Maggie is running her finger down the uniform rules page. Every line or two, she picks up my jersey and turns it over in her hands.

  “It’s just this gold part,” she says finally.

  “Too bad she didn’t make it maroon like the rest of it,” says Jessa.

  “Too bad Glinda the Good Witch had to be so flashy.”

  Maggie says, “Let’s just take out that part.”

  “We can’t. The mesh is see-through. That’s why she put the gold part in there in the first place,” I explain.

  “There’s nothing in the rules about see-through,” says Maggie, offering up the binder.

  “There has to be,” I argue, but scanning the bullet points, it seems it’s all about color. Nothing about nakedness.

  “If we cut out that gold part, it’s all maroon.”

  “But it wouldn’t be all maroon. It would be maroon and me.” I glare at both of them. They are not understanding why this is a problem.

  “It’s just the back,” Maggie says.

  “Yeah, but everybody could see.”

  “See what?”

  “The Stabilizer.”

  “The what?”

  “My bra.”

  “No offense, Greer, but I think people probably figure you’re wearing a bra anyway.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want anybody to see it.” Only I don’t say “it.” I mean to say “it” but what comes out is “me.” I say, “I don’t want anybody to see me.”

  Jessa and Maggie look at each other. This time it’s Jessa who speaks.

  “Sorry, Walsh. You can’t play the game just inside your own head.”

  Maggie’s mouth drops open, and she points at Jessa. “I LOVE HER!” To Jess she says, “I tell her that exact same thing.”

  Jess goes on. “I mean, what are you going to do? Just hide down here? We need you.”

  She’s got to know by now that this is a kind of suicide mission for me, that it is possibly the hardest thing she could ask me to do, but she’s asking anyway.
That’s not what gets me, though. It’s that phrase. Why does everybody think I’m hiding?

  Is that what this is? The big sweatshirt, the slouching, the crossing my arms in front of myself every time I stand up to present in class? The not talking to any boy about anything but math? The letting Jackson think I don’t care if he trips into a canal in his wooden shoes and drowns?

  Oh my god. Of course it is.

  What has happened to me? What happened to the kid who wanted to show off her day-of-the-week undies so people would know she could read?

  I want to be as proud as I was that day, every day. That confident. That sure. That comfortable. That whole.

  “You can’t control what people think, Greer.” Maggie pulls the loose binder out of my hair and ties it up again, tighter. “Sometimes I just settle for making them afraid of me.” She’s joking, but not joking. This is how Maggie faces the world. She is fierce.

  “Yeah. Screw them!” Jess adds. “People are like volleyballs. Sometimes you just gotta let ’em bounce.”

  And these might be the sweetest three little words anyone’s ever said to me.

  Let ’em bounce.

  This is how Jessa faces the world. She lets ’em bounce.

  I grab Maggie and Jessa at once and hug them hard, even though I’m shirtless and laughing. They start laughing, too, because it’s hard not to laugh when someone is squeezing really big boobs into you and laughing for no apparent reason. It’s comedy gold.

  This is what I want on my tombstone: I WAS FIERCE. I WAS PROUD. I LET ’EM BOUNCE. Maybe not my tombstone. Maybe my senior yearbook quote. Or a T-shirt.

  Yeah. A T-shirt. Size L, no X.

  I find scissors in Kate’s locker with all her taping supplies, hold my breath, and cut. I hand Maggie the flap of gold lining. The back of my uniform is now holey enough you could read a book through it.

  But the State High School Athletic Commission does not say you can’t have a peekaboo jersey; just that it needs to be the right color. Frankenjersey is now legal.

  I slip it on. It feels the same, only breezier.

  I am most at home in a baggy sweatshirt or a parka from the big and tall men’s section of a department store or a circus tent. I got used to wearing that jersey because I had to, and I convinced myself that I could blend in with the team. But today one man made sure I would not blend in. He made sure that every one of those people crowded impatiently in the bleachers would be paying attention when and if number 18 came back to the court. They might as well have turned a spotlight on me.

  I turn in front of the mirror so I can see over my shoulder. Everything from my neck to my shorts, including a four-inch band of military-grade spandex, is easily visible through the back. I flinch a little bit but I remind myself that no other athlete cares if anyone sees the straps of her sports bra.

  I just called myself an athlete. Oh hell, Ironwood. It is on.

  “Ready?” says Jess.

  She pushes open the locker room door just as Coach is coaxing Kaia Beaumont off the bench. No one seems happier to see me than Kaia. She points to me and practically squeals.

  As she heads back to the bleachers, Maggie says, “That bra looks like something a Navy Seal would wear. Is it bulletproof?”

  Every head in the gym watches as I walk to my side of the court. My family, my friends, my teachers, my math class, people who love me, people who don’t. People I will see every school day for the next two years. People from the other school who will only know me from this one moment. Skinny people and short people and pimply people and people with great hair. Heavy people and bony people and sexy people and weird people. Ones that hate themselves and ones that love themselves. Kind or crazy or confused. None of them is perfect. None of them are “regular shaped,” if that is even a thing.

  Or maybe all of them are. And somehow I am in the middle of them, out in the very wide open. Not hiding anymore, Jackson.

  Coach Reinhold yells, “Brandi Flippin’ Chastain!”

  Nella stands up on the bench, and because she does, everyone around her does, too. “WOOOOOO-HOOOOOO! THAT’S MY HAIRCUT TWIN!” They stamp their feet like a drumroll and it feels like the roof is going to come down.

  The Ironwood coach is flipping out, ready to explode. I can’t imagine what his players are thinking or our players or my parents or anyone else for that matter, and I realize that it doesn’t matter.

  I am here to play.

  Yeah, Maggie. It’s bulletproof.

  I quiet the noise inside my head, the noise of all those people, and feel their energy instead. I feel it in my body. I feel it in my bones. I feel it in the faintest flutter deep in my belly, like a tiny wing emerging from the rubble. The last thing I hear before the ref’s start whistle is her small, clear voice saying, “Game on, motherfuckers.”

  CHAPTER 66

  The same phone-playing sub is already at Ms. Tanner’s desk. Written in chalk behind her is FRIDAY: CONTINUED REVIEW FOR SUMMATIVE EXAM. QUIET GROUP WORK OR INDIVIDUAL STUDY.

  Kurtis and Omar have already moved my desk into an island with theirs. Kurtis is bookmarking pages and Omar’s making a master sheet of formulas to memorize.

  “So, Greer, are you going to the formal this weekend?” Kurtis says, pressing the book open to the summary page at the end of the first unit.

  “Yeah, she’s going with the new guy. Right?” Omar interjects.

  “Um, not anymore.” They both look at me like I said I had to put my dog to sleep. Omar actually sighs.

  “I’m sorry. I would go with you but I have to go to a quinceañera. It was planned before the formal.”

  “Thanks, Omar. I’m all right.” He squinches up his forehead like he does when he’s trying to figure out a sinusoidal regression. I wonder if he’s thinking about how to get out of the quince.

  “I’m actually her chambelan,” he says to himself. He looks up at us. “Like the escort? For my cousin? It’s kind of an honor. I really have to go.”

  “Oh, Omar. She’s lucky to have you.” He still looks pained, like he’s letting me down, and I decide I better change the subject before Omar disgraces his family by trying to help me out. “How ’bout you, Kurtis?”

  Kurtis is instantly embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Greer, I already have a date.”

  “No! I didn’t mean with me, I was just wondering—wait. You have a date?”

  “Of course. My girlfriend.”

  “You have a girlfriend?”

  “Yeah. Paige Polasky? She’s a junior?”

  “I know who Paige is. She’s cute.” I try not to sound surprised. “I didn’t realize you two were together.”

  “Well, Greer, you only ever talk about math.”

  The bell rings and the sub says, “Get to work, guys.” Omar and Kurtis start debating which of the review questions are most important. This whole year, while I was thinking they were those nerdy math boys who didn’t know anything about girls, they were thinking I was that nerdy math girl who didn’t know anything about boys. (And it seems that they were right.)

  It doesn’t take long before the band of losers around Kyle Tuck is snorting and giggling. This morning I found a striped waffle-weave Henley that I’d retired. It’s not tight, but it’s not as big as anything I’ve worn in a while, especially the winter coat I had on in class yesterday. In other words, it fits. In other words, my boobs are having a coming-out party. I even considered wearing the plaid Perk Up! bra and panties set today, except that as cute as it is, that bra is less supportive than a piece of Scotch tape, so I stuck with my usual on top and just wore the unders.

  Kyle fake-coughs “Hooters!” into his hand, and the boys erupt.

  The sub looks up and says “Quiet, please,” in their general direction.

  My instinct is to bend my shoulders and slide down my chair, take a hall pass and get my jacket out of my locker. Instea
d, I squeeze my hands tight and feel a sharp pain where my pinky jammed going for a hit last night.

  It was the best we’ve ever played. Everybody was on their game. And that coach who didn’t like my uniform ended up getting himself thrown out (and I hope mauled by his own players on the bus back home). What happened was, when Coach finally rotated Kaia in, it was like they all smelled blood. They hit everything they could at her, and the girl could not make a block. She was desperate for Reinhold to take her out again, but Coach just said, “You got this, Beaumont. Stay with it.” Finally, this giant girl from Ironwood smoked the ball like a missile, the kind of shot we’d call “kill or be killed.”

  And somehow Kaia blocked it. She jumped up, a perfect mirror of the hitter, hands and forearms shooting high, and the thing tipped back to their side. We all went crazy. Kaia was standing there with her mouth open like she’d just burped a cloud of sparkly rainbow-colored fireflies. The other team hit it right back over the net, and we missed it because we were too busy high-fiving Kaia. Jessa ran in from the sidelines and lifted her up.

  Somehow, this sent Ironcoach completely over the edge. He stood right on the sideline and screamed, “What are you doing? Why are you cheering? You lost the point! Don’t you dummies even know you lost the point?”

  Nasrah, who is usually very polite, walked right up to him, eye to receding hairline, and said, “Actually, I think you lost the point.” Everyone who heard it went crazy, and everyone who didn’t assumed she’d said something awesome and went crazy, too. The guy’s head burst into a ball of fire and he said some things my grandmother would call “uncharitable,” and that’s when the referee told him he could either take a seat on the bleachers and be quiet, or forfeit the match. He chose Door Number Three, which was to storm out of the gym.

  After the game, a player from Ironwood found me to talk about the Stabilizer. She told me they had just added colored versions and pulled back the neck of her shirt to show me her purple straps. She had been thinking about surgery but wasn’t sure yet. Her mom wanted her to wait until after her first year of college, in case she felt differently, but that would be waiting two more years and she’d been this big since seventh grade. We traded numbers and she said she’d let me know if she decided to do it.