they pull up to West Essex’s field. Twelve hours ago they were here trying out. Twelve hours from now, they’ll be here playing Oak Knolls. The girls speed in to the empty lot, hanging out the windows, parking wherever they want.
Luci feels an urgency to see what Coach texted and respond if needed. But of course, she needs to be secretive. Otherwise, she’ll be caught with her phone, Mel will take it away (not to mention expose her for lying), and she’d fail Coach’s test. Phoebe said there wouldn’t be one, but that’s what this is. A test of her commitment to Coach and to the Wildcats.
Her teammates walk ahead of her. Mel and Phoebe are pulling stuff out of Mel’s trunk. Luci crouches down between two other parked cars. She pretends to tie her shoe but pulls out her phone instead.
Yes, she is betraying her teammates. But it is with Coach’s instructions. That has to count for something, right?
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27
12:12 A.M.
COACH: Where are you girls?
LUCI: We just got to the high school field. Sorry I didn’t answer right away. I was afraid someone would see me.
COACH: No prob. I’ll make this quick.
COACH: Like I told you, I planned a surprise team building exercise. No one knows but you.
COACH: When the girls are trying to figure out what to do with my instructions, I want you to say that we had a conversation tonight about my college days and all the crazy stunts we used to do, and that maybe you girls should do something like that.
LUCI:
LUCI:
LUCI:
COACH:
COACH: I promise this will eventually make sense.
LUCI: Anything else?
COACH: Just keep in touch. You’re my eyes and my ears tonight. Okay?
LUCI: I won’t let you down!
COACH: I know you won’t.
COACH:
COACH: Btw, I’ve heard this night is usually super fucking boring. You can thank me later for making it fun.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27
12:15 A.M.
PHOEBE
The Wildcats home field is lit with stars and fireflies and moonlight. Phoebe—field hockey stick over her shoulder, the shopping bags pulled from Mel’s trunk bunched at the curve of the upturned blade—pauses at the break in the chain-link fence to take in the beauty with a deep and satisfied breath. It sucks that they never play night games because it’s fucking magical out here. Teammates brush past as they step onto the field. It’s a gentle current that Phoebe eventually relents to.
She lowers her stick like the arm at a railroad crossing, twists the staff so the blade points toward the turf. The bags slide off one by one to the ground. Phoebe takes a knee—her uninjured one, now reflexively favored—and rifles through their contents for the sacks of candy. Phoebe then sets to tearing each one open with her teeth and pouring their sugary contents—Hershey’s Kisses, Twizzlers, Dum Dums, Airheads, Smarties, Tootsie Rolls—into the cavernous 2 pi?ata.
Phoebe senses someone coming up on her right side, the awareness of what might be in her periphery sharpened on this very field. She turns and watches Kearson walk past, careful to maintain a deferential distance, her arms wrapped around herself as if she could somehow be freezing on this sticky summer night.
Another player might blame Kearson for basically leaving her no choice but to get back out on the field for the championship game before she was technically cleared to play. Not Phoebe. And as Phoebe informed her mother this afternoon, she really doesn’t begrudge Kearson her spot on this year’s team either. Kearson clearly worked hard to improve her game in the off-season and she’s gotten a lot better.
But these benevolent feels are deep down inside her, in some dark, damp nook where it’s hard for good things to take root. To be honest, Phoebe doesn’t know for sure that she’s having them at all. They might be ghosts of her former self, haunting her. She used to be the kind of teammate who gave her all for the good of the team. Except how can she play like that this season, when she has so much on the line?
And so what if Kearson feels uneasy around her? So what if she feels like Phoebe’s ACL tear is her fault? That works to Phoebe’s advantage. Doesn’t she deserve an advantage, a leg up, after everything she’s sacrificed?
Phoebe bites the inside of her cheek. Hard.
“Yo, Kearson!” When Kearson looks up, Phoebe tosses her a foil-wrapped Kiss. “You look like you could use a little sugar.”
Kearson catches it one-handed. “Thanks, Phoebe.”
There. Phoebe lets out a cleansing breath and returns to the task at