you think the ‘We’ means, like, ‘we’? As in ‘us’ collectively?”
Ali holds her arm out like a seat belt across Phoebe. “Or! Do you think it means ‘WE,’ as in the initials for West Essex?”
“I don’t know if I’m the right person to ask. I mean, what do I know?”
Phoebe claps her hands. “That’s exactly why we’re asking you! Because you haven’t been indoctrinated yet. So what’s your feeling?”
“Yeah, what’s your vibe!”
“I guess it could go either way? Anyway, Mel wants everyone outside.”
“Is that where she is?” Phoebe looks over one shoulder, then the other. “I thought she was talking to Gordy.”
“Wait,” Ali says. “Do you mean ‘talking’?”—air quotes—“or actually talking?”
Phoebe puts her arm around Luci and teases, “I guess it could go either way.”
The girls get up, and Phoebe pats the bulldog lightly on the rump. He snorts and lifts his head, gazes dreamily at her. She snaps her fingers, coaxing him off the recliner, and heads for the door.
“Gordy! We’re taking off!”
Phoebe hurries ahead to say goodbye to a guy moving through the room with a trash bag, cleaning up. Luci thinks he’s cute. Hair buzzed short like a little kid in summer, bristly like the fur on the bulldog. Coach had called Gordy dorky. Probably because of his thick black eyeglasses. But Luci thinks they make Gordy look thoughtful. Smart.
As Luci passes, she overhears a snippet of his and Phoebe’s conversation.
Phoebe bites her finger, thinking. “Look. She’s just stressed. It’s been … a night. After tomorrow’s scrimmage, she’ll—”
“She told me not to come.”
“Wait, seriously?”
“I think Coach was even texting her as we were talking. She was trying to play it off.”
“Well, hold on. He’s just checking in on us tonight. It’s not that weird.”
“It is weird. It is.”
Luci feels a hand on her back, gently nudging her along. “Don’t worry,” Ali says, leaning down to whisper in Luci’s ear. “She’ll catch up.”
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27
2:38 A.M.
KEARSON
Kearson and Grace walk out of the party and across the front lawn, stepping apart momentarily to allow for the bulldog peeing in the grass. As they come back together, Grace playfully knocks into her and nudges her chin across the street.
“Is it weird seeing your mom’s face all over town?”
Across the street, a house is for sale, and one of her mother’s real estate signs is near the curb, perfectly positioned so her coiffed portrait is illuminated by a streetlight.
Kearson laughs. “Yes. It’s like she’s stalking me.”
It’s a good thing Kearson’s mother can’t see her tonight. The athletic director would have a full voice mail of her complaints when school starts back up on Monday. Anything Kearson might say to contextualize what she and the girls are up to would be dismissed prejudicially. West Essex field hockey is forever tainted for her mother.
Her mother didn’t make it to any of her JV games last season, and so, when Coach gave Kearson the tap, she didn’t expect the fact that she was playing varsity to make any difference. Besides open houses taking up the weekends, private showings and closings on the weeknights, sports weren’t her mother’s thing. Still, Kearson was excited to share the incredible news. Her calls went straight to her mother’s voice mail, so eventually she just left one. Kearson could hear how high-pitched her voice sounded, reverberating off the bathroom walls as she explained how the opportunity to replace the injured Phoebe and play alongside the top talent of the Wildcats was a dream come true.
When Kearson walked through the door after her first varsity game, her mother was waiting with a special dinner for them, rainbows of take-out sushi to celebrate, which she had plated in the shape of a W.
“Gah! My varsity girl!” Her mother had gone to West Essex herself, but there hadn’t been much in the way of sports for the girls back then, besides cheerleading, to which Mrs. Wagner was abjectly opposed. “I’m so proud of you!”
Kearson immediately started sobbing. Her mother, totally blindsided by this emotional bait and switch, pushed back from the table and rushed over to comfort Kearson, soy sauce splashing out of the little bowls.
“Kears, what happened?” Her mother looked her over frantically, as if Kearson had just walked out from the wreckage of a car crash. Which wasn’t that far off.
“I played so horribly, Mom!”
“What? No! How can that be?”
Kearson didn’t expect it to make sense to her mother because, though she never made it to games, her daughter was a JV starter. She couldn’t name Kearson’s position but she