Abby Wambach are pinned to her bedroom walls. Her mother paints a net to act as the headboard of her bed. Maggie is in love with David Beckham. From the most confident ventricles of her heart, she pictures getting a full ride to college. Thinking ahead, past boys and prom and rumors, to the large stadiums where people would come just to see the girls play. She is at that precipice, possessing, still, the dreams of a child, but now able to press them up against the potential of an adult.
Homecoming night of freshman year, Maggie and some friends sneak alcohol into the game in soda bottles, and afterward they go to the house of a kid whose parents are out of town, where they drink some more. They get the drunk munchies and drive out to Perkins, which looks like a soup kitchen. It’s wan and the customers have red faces and the waitresses have cigarette coughs but when you’re young and buzzed it’s good for a late-night snack. When you’re young you can do almost anything and it won’t be sad.
There’s a train that chugs in the distance. Maggie is animated, thinking of future train rides, one-way tickets out of Fargo, into careers and sleek apartments in glassy cities. Her whole life stretches out before her, a path of imprecise but multiple directions. She could be an astronaut, a rap star, an accountant. She could be happy.
Hoy asks you about other people in your English class, plus your main circle of friends. You name Melani and Sammy and Tessa and Liz and Snokla.
Snokla, he says, like she’s a frozen dessert. Is that a girl?
That is a girl, you say.
And that’s the one you think her last name is Solomon?
The way that Hoy says this is condescending. Then Aaron speaks, for the first time. Here the man who put his mouth all over you and then one day not only stopped that, but stopped acknowledging your existence, speaks to you for the first time in six years.
That’s wrong, he says, shaking his head. He means Solomon, the last name, is wrong. The way he says it and shakes his head, you know he’s right. It’s more than intelligence. He’s the sort of man who will never contract an STD, no matter how many filthy women he sleeps with. At a state fair he will not leave without multiple cheap stuffed animals. His arms will be pink and blue with victory.
Hoy says, And that’s the one you think her last name is Solomon?
Apparently it’s not, you say. Your face gets hot. Once, you loved him, but he is still and has always been an authority figure. Once he said he’d manscaped for you and you felt so dumb because you had no idea what that meant.
I don’t understand, says Hoy.
I’m saying clearly your client says it’s not her last name, so—
When you’re angry and cornered, you turn catty. Hoy says, Okay, you guys don’t need to engage in that. Just answer my questions.
Later you will ask why nobody thought it was strange that Hoy was acting more like a friend putting the brakes on a fighting couple than a lawyer defending an innocent man.
But it’s not Hoy who’s crazy, it’s you. You are a crazy girl. You want money, is what people think, and for this man to pay for something he didn’t do. You are crazy and broken, along with your car and your mental health. As always, the bastards win. Aaron is still bigger than you. This causes not pain but something cancerous, something that whines deep within you, that only wants its mother. You shrug your shoulders.
Then I don’t know, you say.
Maggie remembers that a girl named Tabitha was in the freshman English class. She remembers because Mr. Knodel divulged during the course of a class that he’d had testicular cancer. It’s funny and nice and only mildly creepy when teachers share intimate facts about themselves. It makes them less teachery. You can relate better to teachers who walk the earth with you, who catch colds and want things they can’t afford and don’t always feel attractive.
So Tabitha asks Mr. Knodel if that meant he had only one testicle. In fact, she didn’t say it this politely. She said, So, does that mean you only have one ball?
Mr. Knodel was less than pleased. Sternly he said, We can talk about it after school.
Maggie felt bad for Mr. Knodel because she knew Tabitha had embarrassed him. What a