Gimme Everything You Got - Iva-Marie Palmer Page 0,81

Joe now that we knew what we were was even nicer than it had been before.

Joe stopped in front of my house and shut off the radio. “I’m helping my dad paint a house next weekend, but we’ll pick up lessons soon. We can work on some footwork stuff or even face off a bit,” he said.

“Sounds good,” I said. It was a good plan, just what I wanted, but I still felt off.

“Don’t worry, champ, you didn’t blow your only chance.” He glanced in my direction and gave me a small smile.

“But I’m still sorry I blew the first one,” I said. I turned to get out of the car, but I felt a hand on my arm, and turned back toward him. He was leaning toward me, looking at me. An unbidden thought flew through my mind—how stunned Joe would be if I kissed him—but it was gone just as quickly.

“Stop being sorry,” he said.

At school on Monday, I had more than one moment of thinking it would be better not to go to practice at all. I couldn’t imagine what kind of speech Bobby would give us, and I also worried that, with the weekend to think about it, he’d decided to cut us all loose for so blatantly breaking the rules of his contract. Or just for being jerks.

When practice rolled around, Tina and I were the first two to arrive, and everyone else came soon thereafter. We all seemed a bit sheepish around each other, like we’d spent Saturday revealing our deepest secrets or grossest habits and now, in the daylight, were embarrassed to be around one another.

“It’s so cold out, isn’t it?” Marie broke the ice. She looked at me like I might be mad at her, because the party had been her idea.

“Yeah, I think I feel my leg hair growing,” I said with a laugh, freeing her of blame. She smirked.

“My nips are going to slice through my shirt,” Joanie said, looking down at her Happy Days T-shirt. “Poor Fonzie.”

“Maybe we should warm up?” I suggested. “Till Bobby gets here?”

Tina said, “Good idea. Maybe stretches first? Since it’s cold?”

“Can someone show me that calf stretch again?” Arlene asked.

We stretched and then did side runs, where you more or less galloped sideways. As we cut through the brisk air, Joanie called, “So much cold air just went up my cooch, my fallopians have icicles on them.”

“I think I just queefed a snow cone,” Lisa said.

We were holding our sides laughing when we finished. Bobby still hadn’t shown, however. “Should we do laps?” I suggested, and everyone agreed. No one wanted to admit that he might not be coming. We were on our third trip around the park, all of us anxiously looking toward the curb where Bobby usually parked to see if he’d arrived yet, when his Datsun pulled up.

“I knew he wasn’t ditching us,” Dana said.

“You said ‘He’s ditching us’ literally two minutes ago,” Tina said.

Bobby got the equipment from his trunk and was trying for a stern expression as he approached us, but I noticed the slightest flicker of pleasure at seeing us taking initiative. When we’d run a few more laps, he blew his whistle for us to come in, and without bringing up Saturday at all, he got us started on passing drills.

I worried Bobby was quieter than usual, maybe regretting coming back, but once I had a ball between my feet, I felt content. For the first time since Mom told me to think about what I wanted, I felt an inkling of what that might actually be. From now on, I would focus on soccer. No more drinking. No more parties. No more obsessing over Bobby. Soccer was enough.

When I got a chance to dribble swiftly toward the goal, I switched feet to pass the ball to Tina with my left instead of my right foot, and I executed the move better than I had in weeks of bumbling it. I was good at this.

We all were better than we’d been when we’d started the season, of course, but I knew in that moment that we were also truly good. If Bobby had shown up today expecting us to prove that—even sober—we weren’t worth his coaching, we were defying his expectations.

When Bobby called an end to the drills and told us to get ready to scrimmage, I thought of what Joe had said, how I’d have another chance. I wanted a real game, but a scrimmage was