a scrunchie. It had taken me twenty minutes and half a bottle of Aqua Net to smooth the lumps out of my own hair. “When I’m an adult, I’m never getting out of bed before ten,” she announced.
“Aren’t you just a little excited?” I asked. “New year? New start?” Every year, the idea of the first day of school ignited a hard, bright hope in me.
“Please,” Vicky scoffed. “Nothing is new. It’s the same old assholes doing the same old assholey things. Nothing will get better until we get out of here.”
Praying she was wrong, I climbed the hill to the practice field with her. The red brick prison of the high school building was to the left of the field and parking lot. The entire summer was behind me, and this—the patchy green grass of the soccer field and the glossy, industrial, chemical-scented linoleumed halls—were my foreseeable future.
I couldn’t suppress the shudder that rolled up my spine.
“It’s not that bad,” I said, mostly trying to convince myself. “We’re sophomores. This year we get driver’s licenses and hopefully boobs.”
“I’m going to take that license and my future boobs, and when I graduate, I’m going to drive out of this hell hole with both middle fingers flying out the car window.”
I laughed. “How will you steer?”
“With my knee,” Vicky decided.
“And where will you go?”
“Anywhere but here,” she said. “And I’ll have a cool job that gives me lots of money and lets me set my own hours. I’ll have a stable full of men at my beck and call.”
Linking my arm through hers, I thanked my lucky stars for Vicky Kerblanski.
The girls were slowly migrating toward the small set of steel bleachers at the closest end of the field. The coaches, Coach Norman and Coach Clancy, were wearing their standard uniform of seventies-style short shorts and too-tight polo shirts that emphasized their beer bellies. Coach Norman was barrel-shaped and grizzled. He smoked like a four-alarm fire. Clancy was short and mostly skinny with a Hitleresque mustache. Together they coached the varsity and junior varsity girls soccer teams. And by coached, I mean they yelled a lot and took smoke breaks.
But this season would be different. I’d practiced. Hell, I’d even run a couple of miles over the summer. I was also an inch taller than last year, and I hoped it was all leg.
None of the older girls had noticed me yet, and I breathed a sigh of relief. It was probably a bit much to expect them to part their circle and welcome the new bangless, hairless-toed me.
Vicky and I dumped our bags on the ground and sat to pull on our cleats.
“Cute socks,” Vicky said, nodding at my green striped knee socks covering my shin guards.
They’d been an impulse buy at an athletic store. I hadn’t seen anyone cool wearing them, but the emerald green had beckoned me.
I kept my gaze down and focused on my fellow JV teammates.
But I heard the whispers start. I hoped, prayed, bargained with a higher power that they were whispering about someone else.
Hazarding a look, I glanced up. A couple of the varsity girls were clumped in a tight circle snickering. And they were looking directly at me.
My dreams, my plans for this season, withered up and died.
“She’s so weird,” one of them said, not bothering to whisper. “Like, stop trying already.”
“Look at her looking at us with those pathetic puppy dog eyes. ‘Please like me.’”
They erupted in laughter as part of my soul disintegrated.
“I can see the summer didn’t bring you bitches new personalities.” Vicky snapped her gum and tied her right shoe with some violence.
My desire to be liked and accepted was equal to Vicky’s desire to call assholes assholes. I admired her tremendously for it.
“JV loser says what?” Steffi Lynn asked, batting her mascaraed lashes. Steffi Lyn was a tall, skinny senior and the proud owner of C cups. She was also a terrible person. Her younger sister, Amie Jo, was in my class. As for personality? Let’s just say the apple didn’t fall far from the other apple. They were both mean as rattlesnakes, taking great pleasure in causing other people pain. Even the teachers were afraid of them. Rumor had it Steffi Lynn had gotten a long-term substitute fired because she didn’t like the perfume she wore.
In a few years, she would probably make several husbands very miserable.
It was downhill from there. I tripped over an orange cone halfway through a footwork drill, and they laughed like I’d