hair blowing, high on endorphins. Bare-faced. Some of the girls hold hands, pull one another along. They know love. This is love. Better than with any guy because this is forever.
They dive into their cars, too many girls for too few seats, chests heaving, hearts racing.
Exhilaration.
They already know they will never forget tonight. And it’s only just getting started.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27
1:41 A.M.
MEL
Mel doesn’t know exactly where Ali is leading them but she happily follows her taillights as their six-car caravan makes its way across Oak Knolls. The bulldog, which the girls are calling Buddy, is sitting on Phoebe’s lap in shotgun, front paws up on the open window frame, head out of the window, wind lifting his jowls. Pleased as the rest of the girls are to be on this joyride.
Mel is feeling so Wildcat. All of them are. The buzz between the girls is tangible. It’s always been a joke, how their periods inevitably sync up at some point during a season. Pity which unlucky team would face them at their reddest. The same witchy magic is at play right now. A strength and confidence that comes from twenty girls in lockstep with one another.
Mel knows she will never have this again. Next year she’ll be wearing different team colors. Singing different songs. She’ll play hard, of course, the way Coach taught her, the only way she knows. She’ll give her all to Truman. But Mel will be a Wildcat until the day she dies.
They drive circles around the perimeter of Oak Knolls High School, then park with their headlights aimed at a huge bulldog mural painted on an exterior wall. Mel sets the camera timer and leans her phone against her windshield. The girls pose in front of the mural, their backs to the camera to obscure their faces, and give it a middle finger salute. The only one looking at the camera is Buddy, who sits obediently at their feet, a toothy, pink-tongue doggy smile.
The first attempt comes out perfect. One and done.
Mel tries a couple of filters, looking for the best one to brighten up the dark. Any other year? The varsity jersey ceremony would be over, and girls would be in bed. But Mel feels wide-awake. Only with this feeling, new, alert, does she see how she let herself sleepwalk for so long, how there can be so much range within a beating heart. One pace keeps you alive, one pace when you’re living.
This is Coach. This is why there’s no other team like the Wildcats. His methods might be a bit unconventional, but damn it, he gets results. She might have been a little angry with him at first. She wanted so badly for him to trust that she could bring her team together. But he’s proved, yet again, why he’s the best, why he makes them the best. She can’t wait to show him what he inspired the girls to do tonight.
Mel pastes the picture inside a text and then types the first fight song stanza below it.
We are the Wildcats, the navy blue and white,
We are the Wildcats, always ready for a fight!
As soon as she sends it, Mel imagines herself soaring with the text through the clear night sky, arriving with it in Coach’s bedroom. The ding wakes him from a deep sleep. He lifts his head off the pillow, his blond hair adorably dented, shirtless, annoyed, squinting at the glow of the screen. And then, boom, there’s that crooked grin he rewards her with every so often, when Mel pulls off something crazy on the field.
More than once he’s told Mel that watching her play is the closest he comes to feeling the way he did when he still could. More than once he’s told her how much of himself he sees in her. At long last, Mel feels like she’s living up to that again.
Phoebe lifts the bulldog off the ground and into her arms. “I wish we didn’t have to bring Buddy back home just yet. He’s having a good time with us.”
“He’s like our good luck charm,” Mel agrees. “Our drooling guardian angel.”
“Yeah, let’s keep him for a little while longer,” Ali says, rubbing Buddy’s ears. “I’ll drop him off later.”
“Speaking of later, we should figure out what we want to do for the next stanza,” Mel says. A car drives by slow on the road and the girls turn and silently watch it pass. “But, um, maybe not here?”
Phoebe says, “Ooh! Let’s go to Gordy’s and