Part 12 (1/2)

”I don't think so,” I say. ”She's a rule-keeper.”

”Is that so?” Beth wriggles up and stares at me, eyes like silver-rimmed globes, an insect, or alien. ”That hasn't been my experience of her.”

I look at her.

”She may have the clipboard and the whistle,” Beth says, ”but I have something too.”

”We're not saying anything,” I say, my voice going faster. ”We said we wouldn't.”

”Are we a 'we' again?” she says, sinking back down onto the bench. ”And I didn't promise anything.”

”If you were going to say something,” I say, ”you would've.”

”You know that's not how to play. That's not how to win.”

”You don't understand,” I say. ”The two of them. It's not like you think.”

”Yeah,” she says, looking at me, nail-hard. ”You know better? You've seen into her knotted soul?”

”There's things you don't know,” I say. ”About him, about them.”

”Things I don't know, huh?” she says, something less than a taunt, more urgent. ”Illuminate. Like what? Like what, Addy?”

But I don't tell. I don't want to give her anything. I see something now. She's building a war chest.

The next night, Coach has everyone over for a party for Emily, whose fall has put her on the DL for six weeks, maybe more.

No one can even imagine six weeks. It's a lifetime.

It's too cold to be outside, but after the wine swells in all of us, we're even taking off our jackets, lounging lovely across the deck, watching the sky grow dark. Emily gets prime seat, high-kicking her boot brace for all to see, her eyes stoned on percocet. The happiest girl in the world, for tonight.

I decide to banish Beth's hex from my head. She fell because she's been living on puffed air and hydroxy.... She fell because she's been living on puffed air and hydroxy....

Coach maps out our Sat.u.r.day stunts on napkins spread across the gla.s.s-top patio table. We huddle around eagerly, following Coach's sharpie as it plots our fates.

”We have three weeks until the final game against the Celts,” Coach says. ”We s.h.i.+ne there, we have a qualifying tape to submit, we go to Regionals next year.”

We are all beaming.

No one asks about Beth until Tacy, Beth's former flunky, our little stone-drunk Benedict Arnold, bleats, ”And who needs Ca.s.sidy? We don't need the haters. We're going to Regionals with or without the haters.”

We're all a little nervous, but Coach smiles lightly, looping her bracelet around her wrist. I smile to see it's my hamsa bracelet, its eye flas.h.i.+ng in the porch light.

”Ca.s.sidy'll be back,” she says. ”Or not. But she won't be our Flyer again.”

She looks down at her squiggled hieroglyphics.

”She's not the straw that stirs the drink,” she says.

Eyeing the Flyer spot on the diagram, I watch her pen skim right and left, a big black X right in the center.

It's not until very late that we're jarred by Matt French's car door slamming from the driveway and, the same instant, Coach's deck chair shakes to life.

Dad's home, that's what it's like, and everyone jumps. We all scurry to the kitchen, start stacking plates and shaking wine gla.s.ses empty over our mouths, and I'm helping RiRi hide the empties behind the evergreen shrubs. The bottles clanging loudly. Matt French must know. He must hear everything. that's what it's like, and everyone jumps. We all scurry to the kitchen, start stacking plates and shaking wine gla.s.ses empty over our mouths, and I'm helping RiRi hide the empties behind the evergreen shrubs. The bottles clanging loudly. Matt French must know. He must hear everything.

We're swooping around the kitchen island, loading the dishwasher and chomping on our organic ginger gum, and Coach is talking to him in the other room, asking him, her speech so slow and careful, about his day.

Through the swinging cafe doors, he looks very tired and he's talking but I can't quite make out the words.

He reaches out to touch her arm just at the moment she turns to hand him the mail.

I think how exhausted he must be, how maybe if he were my husband, even though he's not handsome at all, maybe I'd want to sit him down and rub his shoulders, and maybe get one of those lemony men's lotions, and rub his shoulders and his hands. And maybe that'd be nice, even if he's not good-looking and his forehead is way too high and he has little wiry hairs in his ears and I never think about him like that, really.

But he's tired after his long day and he comes home and there we are, bansheeing all over his house, all cranked high and slipping-free braids and ponytails, and Coach talks to him and it's like how she talks to the other teachers at school, holding their mottled coffee mugs and making the smallest talk ever.

His shoulders tucking in wearily, I see him flinching at all the clamorous girl energy radiating from the kitchen.

”Colette,” I think he says, ”I was calling all day. I called all day.”

I'm not sure, but I think I hear him say something about Caitlin, about the day care center phoning him, asking where she was.

Coach's hand is over her mouth and she is staring at her feet in a way I recognize from myself, the nights when my dad still waited up, demanded to know things.

Suddenly, there's a loud crash from the back deck, like gla.s.ses falling.

”Coach!” someone hollers from outside. ”We're sorry. We're really sorry.”

13

”Everybody give the chicken a warm welcome,” Coach says, giving a gentle shove to the latest recruit, a JV cheerleader getting her shot at the show. A hammer-headed girl with a body like a tuning fork. No one will mind her landing headfirst on the spring floor. She'll just chicken a warm welcome,” Coach says, giving a gentle shove to the latest recruit, a JV cheerleader getting her shot at the show. A hammer-headed girl with a body like a tuning fork. No one will mind her landing headfirst on the spring floor. She'll just ting. ting.

”She's on me,” Mindy surmises, curling her neck side to side. ”I turn her out.”

Mindy knows she can lift the shavetail rafters-high, a girl like that, not more than ninety pounds soaking wet, and she even looks wet, a dew on her that's probably flop sweat.

”Not before she pays her dues,” RiRi says, arms folded. ”We all fly her first.”