have made for him, his jaw clenched, eyes narrowed, and waits.
But once the door slides closed behind the caterer, Coach opens his mouth as if he’s going to begin his speech, only to glance down and exhale in frustration without saying a word, like he’s changed his mind about what it is he wants to say.
This happens a few times.
Each false start sharpens the girls’ focus on him. They stand patient, ready and waiting, which only seems to annoy Coach more.
He begins to pace.
“You have no clue the shit my friends give me about coaching this team. Guys I used to play with? They can’t believe I care this much about a bunch of high school girls.” He shakes his head, like he can’t believe it either. “Why I keep passing up coaching jobs—seriously good jobs—in order to stick around here. And it’s like …”
Coach trails off, the thought slipping away. He falls backward against the deck railing, exasperated.
Something fizzes inside Luci. She’s never been talked to like this by a grown-up. But is that what Coach is? A grown-up? The distinction feels so totally wrong—practically a betrayal—even though she’d never thought twice about lumping every adult into the same category.
“Let’s be real, though. Their lame insults are being made at your expense. Same for the whispers around West Essex about how I’m supposedly too tough on you girls. That I push too hard.”
His hand moves up to the tiny wildcat embroidered on his polo shirt and presses against his heart. And despite it being physically impossible, Luci feels the warmth building there.
“It’s not just that most people don’t see what I do in you girls,” he says bitterly. “It’s that they’ve never even thought to look.” He stares at them, unblinking. “And that should scare you girls shitless.”
Coach lowers his hand. Luci is so startled by the phantom ache that appears in her own chest, it takes her several seconds to recover. And with it, also, a clarity. Every lingering question she may have, about Coach, the team, these girls, their intensity, has suddenly been answered.
Just like that, Luci gets it. Understands everything.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Coach seems to concede a fight within himself. He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and removes a bulky paper square.
His speech.
Luci watches him smooth out the creases against his thigh. He’s written it by hand, front side and back, on pages and pages of notebook paper. So many pages that Luci’s surprised he got a staple through the left corner. While she can’t make out a word of his penmanship, she finds ample evidence of passion for what he’s written in every scribble and cross-out.
It’s a beautiful mess.
The girls standing directly in front of Luci find each other’s hands and squeeze. Luci follows their cue and braces herself.
Coach scans the first page, as if to familiarize himself with what he’s written, and then flips to the second. “I started working on this the night before tryouts began,” he tells them, an impromptu preamble. “I figured I’d spend an hour tops sketching out a few rough ideas. But once I got going on it, I couldn’t stop. I stayed up until sunrise and wrote it straight through, start to finish.” He glances up at them briefly. “Clearly I had a lot to say.”
He looks over the third page, then the fourth. Something he’s written on the fifth page prompts Coach to roll his eyes. Luci feels herself blush in earnest solidarity. When Coach finally does start giving his speech, she hopes he won’t edit himself on the fly. She wants to hear every word.
After that, he flips through another page or two more, giving each a disinterested glance, then jumps forward to the last. And Luci’s suddenly not sure if he’s going to read his speech at all.
But then, Coach clears his throat and, tracing a sentence near the bottom with his finger, recites what Luci intuits as the very last line.
“?‘Remember, so long as we stick to our core values, the Wildcats can reclaim what we’ve lost and become a stronger team in the process.’?”
His voice sounds like he’s pleading with them, but Luci detects not a drop of resistance in her teammates. Everyone seems pitched slightly forward.
“When I initially wrote that last line, I was referring to last season. And despite how our team ceased to function on any level for the last three games, despite how many chances there’d been for each of you to step