Part 34 (1/2)

I see the ice blue hatchback in the parking lot, and pull in next to it.

The gym backdoor is propped open with a rubber-banded wedge of dry erasers, like we do when we want a place to drink Malibu before a party. And now some of us use it to practice weekends, off-hours, or we have since Coach drove our bodies to perfection, elevated our squad into sublimity.

I hear her first, her wheezy grunts and the soft push of pumas on airy mats.

Cheek still puffed from Thursday's fall, she's running tumbles. Throwing roundoff back handsprings, one after another. She should have a spotter because her technique, as ever, is p.u.s.s.y-weak.

”Stop throwing head,” I shout. ”Arms against your ears.”

She stutters to a stop, nearly cras.h.i.+ng into the padded wall at the far end.

”Fire, form, control, perfection,” I count off, like Coach always did.

”Who cares,” moans Tacy, breathlessly. ”I'm ground-bound anyway. With Beth back, my life is practically over.”

She slides down the wall and collapses onto the floor, pulling cotton wisps from her glossed mouth. G.o.d love Tacy, full makeup on a Sunday morning, by herself, in the school gym.

”It's only one game,” I say, even as I know it's the Big Game, the Biggest Ever, and who cares about cheering spring baseball?

”Besides,” I add, ”how long do you really think Beth can possibly last as captain?”

”I don't know,” Tacy says, now picking cotton from under her grape-lacquered fingernails. ”I think she might be captain forever.”

”Why would you think that?”

”Because of what's happening,” she says. ”Coach French was the only one who could ever stop her. And now Coach is gone.”

”She's not gone, she just-”

”She's not coming back. Face it, Addy, it's all over for Coach.” She looks at me, that swollen face of hers, lapin-jowled. ”Which sucks because Coach was the only one who ever saw it in me. My potential, potential, my my promise. promise.”

”Slaus, the only reason Coach put you up there is because you're ninety-four pounds and you're Beth's pigeon,” I say, wanting to wring her little-girl neck. ”If you care so G.o.dd.a.m.ned much about Coach, why do you keep helping Beth?”

She looks startled but too dumb to be startled enough.

”I'm not helping Beth. Not anymore.”

”But you were.”

She takes a deep breath.

”Well, you don't know what's happened, Addy. Coach maybe did something really bad,” she says, shaking her head. ”It's Beth's fault, sort of. But that's no excuse. My dad says we're an excuse society now.”

”Tacy,” I say, my voice grinding, ”tell me what you mean. Tell me what you know.”

I press my foot against her bendy-straw leg, press it hard.

She looks at me, rabbit scared, and I know I need to slather some honey but keep that foot pressed too. That's what she loves. Both those things at once.

”Tacy, I'm the only one who can help you now,” I say. ”I'm the only one who can help.”

Her tears come and I fight off the urge to slap those swollen dewlaps of hers. I fight it off because she's about to give me gold, and she doesn't even know it. She thinks her gossip, her petty grievances are significant, but they are tiny pinholes. The things around them, though, the fabric of Beth's lies and fictions, they are the gold.

”Coach was sleeping with the Sarge,” she says, eyes saucering up at me. ”And she loved him. And then Coach found out. About Beth. About Sarge and Beth.”

I'm leaning against the padded gym wall and Tacy's still on the floor, legs tucked tight, looking up at me, and talking, talking, talking.

She isn't what you think, and neither was he. That's what Beth said. That's what Beth said. He was just a guy, like all of them. He was just a guy, like all of them.

But Will, Will and Beth? I just can't make my head believe it.

”This was right when he first started coming to the school,” she says. I'm relieved for that. Before Coach, before all that. Lost, wandering, wondering Will. ”And they had that bet, her and RiRi. She wanted to beat RiRi. She said RiRi was all t.i.ts and eyeliner and she would eat her heart whole.

”So one day after school she was waiting by his truck for him. You know how he'd park in the back, behind the school lot, on Ness Street?”

I used to walk Coach there. Coach, whose face would flush at the sight of his SUV shadowed under the oak tree, its leathery leaves hovering, the shadows of them across her face as she turned to look at me, to say, Here he is, Addy, here is my man. Here he is, Addy, here is my man.

”My job was to wait by the tree with my phone,” Tacy is saying, ”so I could take a picture to prove she'd done it.”

I don't know what's coming, but I feel a churning in my gut.

”So she's out there, waiting for him in her miniskirt,” Tacy says, her fingers carelessly grazing my ankle as I stand above her. ”Well, Beth, she's a hot b.i.t.c.h, and Sarge was a guy, right?”

He's a guy, right.

”But he couldn't go through with it,” she sighs, resting her fingers on my ankle bone. ”Just kid stuff. And I only got one half-decent shot, but you couldn't see much.”

I don't say anything.

”But here was the thing,” Tacy says, shaking one of her fingers. ”Beth never did show it to RiRi. Maybe she knew it wouldn't be good enough to win the bet. Finally I asked her about it and she had me text it to her. She said she was saving it. She just kept it on her phone. She loved to flash it at me.”

This seems like Beth and I wonder why she never flashed it at me. But I guess I know. Once we found out about Coach and Will, she couldn't be sure where I'd stand. She couldn't be sure I'd play for her side. She was right.

”Then all of a sudden she tells me something happened to her phone,” Tacy says, ”and she lost the picture and she needed me to send it again.”

The memory comes to me: Coach torpedoing Beth's twizzler-red phone down the toilet.

”So I say, tell me what you need it for first,” Tacy says, looking up at me, her smile coming and going as she tries to read me, read how I'm taking this, and if I want to play with her, to relish all this just a little.

”So she had had to tell me,” she, rocking in her seat, so eager to recount it, to relive the moment. ”And that's when she said she was going to use it so Coach would stop giving her such a hard time.” to tell me,” she, rocking in her seat, so eager to recount it, to relive the moment. ”And that's when she said she was going to use it so Coach would stop giving her such a hard time.”

I rest my back against the wall, not looking down at Tacy, sliding away from her, her hot breath on my legs.

”So that's when she told me about Coach and Will,” she says. ”She had to.”

I look down at her, that lapin face squinting with conspiratorial pleasure, and I say nothing.

”So, after three years of hustling for that queen b.i.t.c.h, now I had something Beth wanted,” Tacy says, her voice sharpening in a way that's almost impressive. ”Beth had lost the goods. She didn't even e-mail the picture to herself or save it on her computer. She thinks she's so G.o.dd.a.m.ned smart. How smart is that? But it was me. me. I saved the picture. And now she needed something from me.” I saved the picture. And now she needed something from me.”