you think I’ll be mad?
COACH:
MEL: I just don’t want to ruin the surprise.
COACH: Is that right?
MEL:
Mel leans against her car, tips her head back to the sky, and exhales quietly.
Gordy was a rebound Mel never wanted. But she did bounce back, thank goodness.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27
2:19 A.M.
COACH: Hey.
COACH: Luci?
COACH: You there?
LUCI: Hey. I’m here. Sorry.
COACH: I saw the bulldog pic. Can’t believe you girls pulled that off.
LUCI:
COACH: This team owes you a huge thank-you.
COACH: Is everyone being nice to you?
LUCI: OMG yes
LUCI: These girls are the best
LUCI:
COACH: I’m glad they’re keeping their jealousy in check.
LUCI: LOL no one is jealous of me!
COACH: I wouldn’t be too sure.
COACH: Mel took credit for tonight.
LUCI: Well … she is our captain! I just said the one thing you told me to.
COACH: Where are you?
LUCI: We just stopped by a party.
COACH:
LUCI:
COACH: Wait seriously?
COACH: WTF
COACH: You brought the dog back though right?
LUCI: Ummm … not yet.
LUCI: We’re regrouping here and planning the second verse of the fight song.
LUCI: I’m sorry.
LUCI: I hope you’re not mad.
COACH: Whose party?
LUCI: I think his name is Gordy?
COACH: Huh.
COACH: Interesting.
COACH: That’s Mel’s boyfriend, you know.
LUCI: Really?
COACH: I never would have imagined she’d date someone so … dorky.
LUCI: She must like him. I bet she could have her pick of guys at school.
COACH: That’s going to be you this year.
LUCI: Yeah right.
COACH: Believe me. The guys at WE get obsessed with the girls on my team.
COACH: Prettiest girls in school.
LUCI: Awww
COACH: I bet even Grace gets a boyfriend this year.
COACH:
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27
2:23 A.M.
LUCI
Luci clicks off her phone. She only has a little battery left. Honestly, she wouldn’t mind if it died. Did Coach seriously not realize that every time he texts her, Luci must find some way to peel herself off from her group unnoticed to answer him?
She’d spent the last mile of the car ride from Oak Knolls to the party with her phone pressed into her stomach, trying to deaden his urgent buzzes so the girls sitting on either side of her in Mel’s back seat wouldn’t notice. The longer Luci waited to respond, the more frequently he’d text.
As soon as they pulled up to Gordy’s party, Luci started looking for a potential hiding spot. She noticed a small space between the garage and the bushes of the neighboring house, closed off by two large trash cans—one for garbage, one for recycling. Luci hung back as her teammates entered the party. Then, when the coast was clear, she squeezed between the trash cans and shimmied sideways along the skinny corridor. The thorns of the bushes clawed at her bare legs, but she wanted to make sure she was far enough back that if someone came to throw something out, they wouldn’t see her.
While her eyes adjust back to darkness, Luci hears a sound. Footsteps. And a laugh. She watches a boy lead a girl away from the party and into the darkness.
Luci did what Coach asked. She got the night started. Can’t he text Mel directly from now on?
Hopefully she’s not going to get her team in trouble for having told Coach they’re at a party. That part of the conversation was a little weird, Coach telling her about Mel’s boyfriend. And when he made the joke about Grace’s hair. It wasn’t mean. More like the way Luci’s older guy cousins teased her. There’s a closeness in those kinds of relationships, a sense of trust, that makes it okay.
His methods are a little strange. Or are they? The other girls have played under Coach for years. They know him way better, and they don’t seem to be fazed by it. In fact, the opposite is true.
Luci remembers one moment during tryouts. She reached her stick out to stop a perfect pass lobbed to her by Kearson, but the ball was quickly stripped from her by Grace. Coach shouted, “Quit reaching and get your feet around the fucking ball, Luci!”
Luci chased it down the field, apologizing to Kearson—who pretended not to hear her—and also to every other girl in earshot. Every time Luci screwed up, she would sheepishly do this. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, spewing out of her. And the other girls would ignore her. Or so she thought.
Coach blew his whistle with all the air in his lungs, stopping play, and grabbed Luci by the arm, halting her as if it were a leash.
Luci’s heart just about stopped. A teacher had never laid hands on her before, not even accidentally. She wanted to melt into the turf. Maybe it would