I was last place on the final lap of the relay, though I’d cut it close. But it irritates me because I’ve never been last place. Ever. Second and third? Yes. But not last.
I chug down water from the green paper cup. When I lower it, and look over my shoulder, I notice Christa laughing with Melanie and Katie. How can she laugh when she’s the reason our team lost?
Melanie turns her head and looks at me. She murmurs something to Christa, and then walks my way with a smug smile on her face. “I thought you were the fastest on the east coast, Lakes.” Melanie picks up a green cup and fills it with water from the cooler. Christa and Katie stand behind her, looking at me.
“That was a relay,” I inform her. “It was up to the whole team to win. Not just one person.” I cut my eyes at Christa.
“But…you came in last place as the final runner for your team.” Melanie’s head tilts, as if she’s really confused by what happened.
I glance at Christa who is smirking. I want so badly to say that we lost because of Christa’s slow ass, but I don’t. Instead I say, “I did come in last place, Melanie. But you know what? It won’t ever happen again. Trust me.”
I turn away from her, and I hear her break out in a girly laugh. “She’s so full of herself,” Melanie tries to say lowly. “I don’t even get why she came to this school.” I almost stop—almost—but I stay grounded and keep walking, making my way to Kendall and Janine who are stretching on the grass.
I sit and stretch with them, listening to them talk about different flavored teas at Starbucks.
Someone approaches, the grass rustling beneath their feet, and I look up. It’s Coach Foster. Her first name is Anna. I haven’t really spoken to her much since coming here. I always thought the name Anna doesn’t suit her. She’s a beefy woman, with thick calf muscles and large biceps. Her hair is short and blond and her lips are thin and dry. She’s always chewing gum.
“What kind of finish was that, Lakes?” she asks, her hands on her hips, and I want to think that she’s teasing, that she’s not serious, but her face is stern. She’s not smiling. Not teasing.
“It was a relay, Coach Foster. The way I finish totally depends on the way the race is performed with the starters.”
“No. When you finish, you finish strong. You’re supposed to be the fastest girl on the east coast? Isn’t that what the news articles and all that mumbo-jumbo say?” She lets out a dry laugh and then her smile rapidly fades and she chomps hard on her gum. “I don’t want to see weak finishes from someone who everyone seems to brag about. You didn’t come here to be lazy or slow. You finish strong, or you don’t run at all.”
She looks me over before walking away and I watch her go, my jaw slack. I’m so confused by what just happened. I don’t know if it was in my head, but there was a look in her eye as she looked me over, like she was repulsed by me,
I put my focus on Kendall and Janine, who are watching Coach Foster walk away one moment, and then looking at me the next. “What. The hell. Was that?” Janine says, still stunned.
“Yo, fuck her!” Kendall snaps. “Why would she say that shit to you? She didn’t say anything to Christa’s turtle-ass!”
I wave it off and drop my head, ignoring the burning in my eyes. “It’s whatever.” I’m used to tough coaching. Not only that, but I’m used to being under-estimated, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting.
Coach Foster clearly doesn’t like that I was deemed “the fastest female runner on the east coast” by local papers. It’s not like I asked to be called that. I didn’t ask for any of this. I just run because I love it and I just so happen to be good at it.
“It’s not whatever. I don’t like the way she talked to you. Straight disrespect,” Kendall goes on, her brows strewn together. “We should tell Hamilton. That was a bitchy thing for her to say.”
I reach for the bottom of my shoe to stretch my leg and exhale. When I look up, I spot Coach Torres standing not too far away.
His eyebrows are narrowed, jaw clenched. His eyes seem much darker right now, despite the bright stadium lights. I realize he’s not staring at me though.
He’s staring at Coach Foster.
Coach Hamilton takes us to the locker room after practice and tells us to pick a locker and then fill out the form with our locker number. She advises us to bring our own lock, refusing to be responsible for anyone’s stolen items.
Kendall, Janine, and I take three lockers at the end of the locker hall. After I read the number, I make my way to the clipboard on the bench to fill it out with my name and locker number. I turn when I’m done and bump right into someone’s chest.
“Jesus, Lakes. You should really watch where you’re going.” Melanie folds her arms and because she’s about an inch or so taller than me, she looks down at me. “I hear Foster isn’t too pleased about your performance today. You should really work on that. You definitely don’t want to lose that street cred. Isn’t that what you’re all about?”
“Move, Melanie,” I mutter, pushing past her. I need to go home. I don’t know why everyone suddenly thinks I suck because of a relay race. It isn’t my fault our team lost.
We have practice again tomorrow, but we’re not doing another relay. We’re focusing on what we’re good at and I can’t wait for it so I can show Foster and Melanie what I’m really made of.
Kendall and Janine are in line to fill out the form. I decide to go to the restroom before grabbing my things and waiting for them on the track.
Making my way down the hall, I follow the signs to the restrooms until I see a door with the women’s sign above it.
I head for it and start to push on the wooden door, but then I hear someone whisper-hissing.
Hesitant, I keep going down the hall and past the bathroom as the voices grow louder. I pop my head around the corner and spot two familiar people. Torres and Foster.
“She’s going to make a mockery of this team!” Foster snaps. “If she’s the best she needs to act like the best! I won’t stand for any excuses from her! Hamilton never should have picked her up anyway!”
“Well Hamilton did pick her up, you ignorant bitch, so deal with it! If I see you talk to her or any of the girls on the team like that again, I swear I’ll tell Hamilton and the college dean all about it. I won’t stand around while you flaunt your blatant racism.”
Oh, my God. Wait. Are they talking about me?
“She was a bad pick. I don’t care what the news or other coaches say about her. She doesn’t fit in at Bennett University. We have a reputation to uphold. She throws it off and everybody knows it, they just aren’t saying it. Think about some of our team donors. They’ll take one look at her and may not ever donate again.”
“No, I think what you’re trying to say is because she’s black, that she doesn’t fit in at Bennett University. Same as when you said that a coach like me doesn’t belong at Bennett University. Let me tell you something, Anna,” Torres growls as he steps closer to her, pointing a finger at her face. “Shit is changing. The world is evolving. You want to be filled with hate and be mad that people with skin like Lakes are actually talented, then you do that, but it won’t be around me. I’ve held my tongue before for your sake, but what you did today was out of line and I won’t let it happen again, not on my watch. People like you…you make me fucking sick and I’m not putting up with it.” Footsteps start up in my direction. I gasp and rush back to the restroom, pushing the door open, slipping inside, and then leaning against it. “Leave Lakes alone or I promise I’ll have your ass fired for discrimination,” I hear Torres call out, and then I hear his footsteps moving past the restroom.
I work hard to swallow, looking around the restroom with four stalls made of white walls and white tiles. I go into one of the stalls and lock it, and that’s when I realize my hands and legs are shaking. My throat feels thick with unshed tears.
I quickly finish in the restroom, wash my hands, and go back to the locker rooms. The locker room is empty, so I grab my bag and th
en take the hall that leads to the field. I spot the team walking toward the exit of the track, Kendall, and Janine at the front of the crowd.
I start to catch up to them, but I come to an immediate stop. Something inside of me whispers to wait—to take a moment and breathe.
I look around the track, then the paint on the football field. My emotions are running high, my limbs tighter. I glance to my right. The team has left. It’s just me, and something about that both terrifies and exhilarates me.
It’s just me on this track, standing beneath the beaming stadium lights. That relay race really got to me, and now hearing how Foster really feels about me is just too much.
I think right now I need to do the one thing I was born to do. The one thing that has always cleared my mind of all the bullshit I’ve faced.
I drop my gym bag and walk to one of the white lines, pressing the tips of my fingers to the red rubber track. I lower to a lunge, the tip of my left shoe grounded into the track. My head tilts down as I get into proper formation. I count down from three in my own head.
3…2…1…
And then I take off.
The wind is instant and my speed invigorates me. I’ve made up my mind to do one quick lap around the track. One lap that frees my mind for now and clears up the emotion. One lap to better help me understand what the hell I’ve just put myself into.
My heart is beating faster, faster. My feet pound on the track. Faster, faster. I’m close to the finish line. I finish strong. Not because Foster said I had a weak finish with the relay, but because I always finish strong. I’m known for finishing strong, so Foster can fuck off.
I zoom past the line and have to take control of my legs again as I slow down to a steady trot. I huff a laugh as I lace my fingers together and press the palms of my connected hands on the top of my head.
I toss my head back, relishing in my own victory, drawing in deep breaths. I’ve still got it. Fuck what Foster thinks.
“And I guess that’s why they call you the fastest female runner on the east coast.”
I gasp, dropping my hands, and spinning around. Torres is standing by the bench, his hands in the pockets of his track pants.
“What the hell? How long have you been standing there?” I ask, still panting.
“Came from my office just as you were getting ready to take off. You’ve got pretty good formation. Your legs shouldn’t be so spread apart when you get into your runners’ stance though.”
“Nothing is wrong with my legs,” I counter.
“I didn’t say anything was wrong with them. I said they shouldn’t be spread so far apart.”
I pant softly as he walks onto the track. “Go home, Lakes. You’ll have plenty of time for running tomorrow.”
I shift on my feet. I want to bring up what I heard between him and Foster in the hallway, but I was never meant to hear that conversation. I don’t want him to think eavesdropping is a habit of mine. Then again, I do want to thank him. But perhaps this isn’t the time.
I make my way to my gym bag on the ground, slinging it over my shoulder. “See you tomorrow, Coach.” I turn and head for the exit, but I don’t get too far.
“Power,” I hear him say.
I turn to look at him. “What?”
“I said you need to exert more power.” He steps forward. “When you take off, you take off slow, but fortunately for you, you catch speed quick, which helps you in winning. Your take off would be much faster and easier if you put more of your power into your thighs instead of your feet.”
“Funny. My dad always told me to keep the balance between my feet and my thighs.”
“You’ll test it out eventually. We’ll work on it. For now, go home.”
He turns on the heels of his shoes to go back to wherever he came from. I watch him go, then I head for the exit, but not without looking back.
TEN
When I get to the apartment, Kendall is sprawled out on the sofa, her head hanging over one arm of it, and her leg dangling over the other.
I close the door quietly and walk to my room, dropping my bag in the corner and sighing. I take pajamas out and go to the bathroom for a shower.
When I’m done, I take my phone out of my bag and call Mama. It’s a little after eight and I know she’s just finished her shift at the shoe store. Mama does book-keeping by day and works part-time at a shoe store, which comes in handy when I need new running shoes.
“Hi, baby,” Mama coos, and her voice is warm and soothing, and I’ve missed it so, so much. Her voice is home. I haven’t talked to her in two days. Each time I missed her calls or forgot to call her back because I was either sleeping or hanging out with Kendall and Janine.
“Hey, Mama. How is everything?”
“Oh, everything is everything, honey. I’m making some potato soup for Mrs. Goldbury. She’s come down with something.”
“Oh, that sucks. Tell her I said hello when you see her and that I hope she feels better.” Mrs. Goldbury is our neighbor. She looked after me a lot after Daddy passed and Mama had to pick up two jobs.
“I will. So, did you have that relay today? That was today, right? Didn’t you tell me about that a couple days ago?”
“It was today, and it sucked. I had the slowest girl on the team in my group and it cost us the race.” I hesitate before saying, “One of the coaches tried to blame the loss on me.”
“What?” she demands. “Who?”
“I don’t think you’ve met her, but it’s Coach Foster. I don’t know, Mama. I get the feeling she doesn’t like me.” Tears well in my eyes as I remember her hissing the words, “She doesn’t fit in at Bennett University.”
“Why do you say that?”
I explain everything to Mama, from the way Coach Foster talked to me on the field after the relay race, and I even tell her everything I heard in the hallway between her and Torres.
“That stupid witch!” Mama is pissed. I can tell. As she was cooking, I could hear her stirring something in a pot, cutting something on the cutting board, and moving things around, but as I got deeper into my story, the noises stopped, and I knew I had all her attention. “I’m glad the other coach confronted her about that! Who is she to say that you don’t deserve to be there? She sounds like an ignorant bitch! Afraid that you will tarnish the pure, white image of the team? Ridiculous! I’m coming up there to talk to the head coach about this immediately.”
“No, Mama, please. Don’t do that,” I plead. The last thing I want is this escalating and Mama loves to escalate everything. Daddy was the one who could calm her down and make her think things through. “Seriously, it’s fine. It’s over. I told you what Torres said, so I’m not alone. I’ll just keep my distance from her and hope she does the same.”
“I don’t like that, Amby. It shouldn’t be like that on a team, especially not with one of your coaches. Are the other coaches like that? The head coach and the goofy-looking man who scouted you?” The goofy looking one being Coach Mills.
“Not at all. I like them…and it’s not just that coach acting this way.”
“What do you mean?”
I pause, debating whether I should add fuel to the fire. But I tell Mama everything, and honestly, I need to vent right now. “Some of my teammates give me weird looks too, like I don’t belong on the team.”
Mama groans. “Lord. I can’t deal with this. See, your father? He’d know how to deal with this. He would go straight to that school, get down to the bottom of it, and make everyone respect you by the end of it.”
“Yeah.” And Daddy would too. Daddy couldn’t stand being disrespected. I said I’m used to getting stares because I am. I got a lot of stares, since I competed in private track leagues that costed a lot of money. It was very rare to have any kids of color on the leagues.
Daddy never had to pay because he was a coach, but the looks shot at him I can remember very well. The kids in the private leagues were predominantly white, of course. They had parents who drove Range Rovers and Mercedes
Benz’s. The mothers had blond, and brunette hair, never a tendril out of place. Some of them wore business suits. Some of them dressed up just for the hell of it. There were some good eggs, don’t get me wrong, but there were the few who gawked and glared at me, or side-eyed me like I was some kind of lost, brown animal.
A lot of them made remarks about my hair, which is natural and wild. I like it that way. Janine said it was billowy, and that’s a good way to describe it. I have “big” hair, which apparently isn’t all that acceptable in today’s society.
In fact, for some reason hair like mine is so unacceptable for some that there is an act that was passed in several states as a law called the CROWN Act, to protect people with hair like mine so we can wear our hair the natural way in schools, work places, and even in public. Don’t know much about it? Look it up.
Anyway, the person who gave me a speech about the gawking and the staring was Daddy.
“There will be a lot of people in this world who will see you differently, Amber. They won’t see you as their equal. They’ll only think of you as beneath them, but that’s why you practice, and you train well, so that you can prove you are just as worthy to be on the track as they are.”
My eyes are hot and prickly again. I change the subject. “So, my psychology teacher is nice,” I tell her, and it’s enough. Mama takes the bait and transitions into the topic of my classes, then she asks me if I’m getting enough to eat. She also mentions packing up a care package for me for the end of the month so that I don’t run out of food to eat at the apartment.
“I’ll come up there sometime this weekend and we can go food shopping. I don’t want you eating out too much, Amby. You have a kitchen you can cook in. You have to stick with good, healthy eating with all that running. I’ll bring up pots and pans too.”
“Okay, Mama.”
“Okay, well, I love you, and let me know if that mess with the coach happens again. I’ll be at that school so quick she won’t even see me coming.”
Coach Me Page 5