wasn’t how I wanted tonight to go, Mel. In case you were wondering.” He puts his head back in his hands and stares at the ground. “I can’t believe I lit my speech on fire. I spent so much time on that stupid fucking thing.”
“I’m sure it was really great. I mean . . . the last sentence was very powerful.” She resists the urge to rub his arm. Even though that’s exactly what she’d do for a friend. “But you did what you had to do. And it got the team’s attention.”
He plucks some grass that’s sprouted between two pavers and tosses it aside. “The Wildcats came pretty damn close to having a new coach this season. I think some of the girls were hoping for that.”
Mel shakes her head, emphatic. “There would have been mutiny. We would have set our sticks on fire and marched to the AD’s office.”
Coach sits up. The beginnings of a smile lift the corners of his mouth, and though it doesn’t stick, Mel’s anything but discouraged. She’s got this.
“Whoever they hired would have given a very different pep talk tonight, I’m sure. Given you girls permission to buy into some bullshit. That last season was a fluke. That it was just plain old bad luck. Factors beyond your control. Blah, blah, blah.”
Coach extends his legs straight out and arches his back in a stretch. His polo lifts and exposes a still-tan, flat stomach. Mel glances off to the side, at whatever.
“Yes, your speech was hard to hear.” Mel sweeps her hair away from her face. “But we know you wouldn’t have said those things if they weren’t true.”
“Except no one’s listening.” He shakes his head. “You girls can ignore me all you want, but the fact remains that when the Wildcats show up to play, we win. When they don’t, we lose. It’s as true as it was on my first day coaching at West Essex, as it was at the state championship. And you’d better believe it will be true tomorrow, when we get our asses handed to us again by Oak Knolls.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
He looks at her pointedly. “It is, Mel. Trust me. The cracks you girls think you’re so cleverly hiding are on full display. And if I can see them, you’d better believe other teams will too. They’ll dig in any place they can get a foothold. They will work our individual fault lines until they split our team apart.”
He stands up and walks away without even a glance back at her.
It is so much harder to have a conversation with him in person, with all his passion and longing and worry focused directly on her, not filtered through a screen.
But is Coach right? Yes, they each have their issues. And, hiding their insecurities from one another does affect the team. Their focus.
Yet, for every failing that Mel could point to from last season, the girls have worked their asses off over the summer to come back strong. Look at Ali, rock solid after goalie camp. Look at Kearson, so eager to right her wrongs. And, God, look at Phoebe. Phoebe put herself in a bad situation, made some really stupid choices. But she certainly suffered the consequences for it. She’s more determined than anyone.
And Mel? She hasn’t thought of Gordy once tonight.
This is Coach, Mel reminds herself. This is what he does. He pushes them like no one else, doing what is necessary to get the girls where they need to be to win. He knows the difference between being good and being the best. They’ve all learned that good is not good enough for them. Coach has taught them to want more.
These girls already have it in them. Mel knows they’re going to rebound. Come together and take back what’s theirs. In fact, though she’s put so much effort into her varsity jersey ceremony tonight, Mel would gladly fast-forward to tomorrow’s scrimmage, that moment when they’ll take the field.
He’s halfway to his car when Mel remembers why she came running outside here in the first place.
“Coach, wait!”
“I don’t know what else you want me say, Mel. I’ve done everything I can think of to get this team back on track before tomorrow.” He fishes his keys out of his pocket and presses a button on the fob. The Escalade beeps, the lights flash, and the ignition turns on. “And you’ve made sure everyone’s had at least one cupcake. So … there’s that.”
Mel stops short and