Page 2 of Ready to Score

She turned to Coleman. “Can we have a later meeting about this, Mr. Coleman?”

He sighed with all the world-weariness of a man who’d been dealing with teachers for the better part of two decades. “Yes, Ms. Dunn.”

“I’ll get back to papers, then.”

Jade turned on her heel, making a show of ignoring Ms. Lim, hoping she would flit off somewhere so Jade could continue to pretend she didn’t exist.

She was not so lucky.

“Bye, Ms. Dunn.” Lim’s voice was saccharine. “If you need me to help you write up a better proposal for your own board, just let me know. I know that kind of creativity might not be your strong suit.”

Jade’s eye twitched again. And if anyone asked, it was the wind that slammed her classroom door shut in their faces, not her own hand.

1

A year ago, Jade’s best friend, Miriam, had won the lottery. Miri had a heart on her the size of an old magnolia tree, and she’d been incredibly generous with her closest friends, gifting them lifesaving amounts of money. Jade spent months trying to kiss Miri’s feet after, with every red cent sitting in her bank account untouched. Her best friend damn near had to kick her in the face to get her back right. But once she did, it was game time. Jade broke some off for her folks and made sure that Social Security and her teacher’s pension weren’t the only things she had to live on in retirement. The rest had been put into the school. Anonymous donations that helped buy new desks and repair two of the broken ovens in the cafeteria. They’d even finally managed to get a laptop for every enrolled student and then some. Somehow, even when she was the one providing the healthy funding, she still couldn’t manage to find the funds for her own SMART board. Go figure.

Surprisingly, she hadn’t even made sure most of the donated money went to the football team either. She was of the mind that the kids worked better when they were a little scrappy. Besides, from an economics standpoint, most of the teams they played weren’t much better off than her kids. She wanted Greenbelt to win—always—but it didn’t seem right to try to make that happen by throwing moneytheir competitors didn’t have on the field. So her kids got refreshed uniforms, new cleats and pads and helmets, better snacks for during practice than they’d ever had, and fresh turf on the field. This also meant that team parents wouldn’t have to scrounge and scrimp to make sure their kids were able to make it to away games and tournaments.

Less-stressed parents meant less-stressed kids, which turned into players with more focus.

This was exactly why, on July 6, the first day of summer training camp, Jade stood with the brim of her cap pulled down low and her hands on her hips, looking every bit like her daddy as she surveyed the field.

Junior varsity tryouts for the upcoming school year wouldn’t happen for another month, but the boys would be doing one-a-days until then.

It was hotter than usual for July in South Carolina. The Fourth had brought rain, and while the grass was no longer wet, there was plenty of moisture in the air. The only thing on their side was the overcast sky, taking some of the heat off. This meant that at least not all their time had to be spent in the weight room today.

Duncan Landry, the head coach, was a big, tall white man who’d come up playing ball in Louisiana. He’d spent four years at Louisiana State as a defensive back and somehow wound up coaching football in some nothing town in the Carolinas. In the fifteen years he’d been at Greenbelt Senior High, he’d led their team to six state championships. Unfortunately, it had also been six years since their last big win. And no matter how much red the old man still had in his cheeks—or how much fire in his belly—Jade knew he was nearing the end of his tenure.

She could justfeelit. The same way she felt like hers was about to begin.

And it didn’t matter that she was basically fifth in the line of succession. She’d been delusional in going after the job she had now, so she might as well let it carry her through to the end.

Landry had the boys running offense-versus-defense flag football drills. No tackles, pads off to try to keep the heat at bay, with water breaks every five minutes. She and Coach Carr, a stout, middle-aged Black man who kept a Bluetooth glued to his right ear at all times, watched their boys with shrewd eyes.

She squinted under her cap, scribbling in her notepad every time she spotted a weakness or an area for improvement. The boys were a bit slow, but that was to be expected during their first day back. And there was spottiness in their movement together, a kind of uncertainty in how they were supposed to work with their teammates.

The drill ended in a stalemate, no scores. But the boys were sweaty and hyped and energized. They could work with that.Shecould work with that.

After the boys were gone and the coaches were left to straighten out the field, Landry gathered all five coaches in a circle on the forty-yard line.

“We had a good first day.” His Cajun accent was as thick as if he’d never left the Boot. “The boys looked good out there. They hustled hard. We got plenty of work to do, but I think we can get them all the way this year.”

The Greenbelt Gators had braved a rough last few years as a team. First, a revolving assistant coaching lineup, then a string of losses that had seemed to render all their previous title wins obsolete in the eyes of their town. Just the year before, a few of Greenbelt’s richest—and the other sponsors who helped make sure their largely low-income players were outfitted in fresh cleats and jerseys each season—had taken it upon themselves to call for Landry’s removal as head coach. Jade hadn’t been in the meeting that Landry had calledto address the matter. But when all was said and done, that talk had been shut down entirely.

Now, though, there were new rumors flying around, ones that made Jade almost ashamed of how much they lit a fire under her ass. If the hushed words around town were to be believed, Landry was thinking about retiring. She could hardly believe it, to be honest. The man had been head coach when she was in high school in 2007. And he was just as spry as ever. The only things she could see that had changed since were the graying hair at his temples and his bad knees, which kept him from squatting when he talked to the players. Maybe he was just tired of all the early mornings and late nights. All the overzealous parents and teenage drama. If retirement were on the horizon for him, that left the door perfectly ajar for her.

She could see it all so clearly. Herself, looking out over the field with her hands on her hips, knowing that this team was hers to lead. Knowing that the championships she would bring them would show everyone that she belonged here.

Landry cleared his throat loudly, shaking Jade from her fantasies. He took his cap off and rubbed his hand over the short, grayed fuzz on top of his head before slipping it back on. “Well, shit… I’m sure y’all have been around here clucking like hens, wondering if I’m really leaving or not, so I’ll just give you an answer… Yes, I am.”

Jade could practically feel the air around them get sucked into the chests of five people all at once, each one of them heaving like they were trying to capture the bulk of it. Her own chest suddenly felt like it was full of fire as her mind raced.

This was it.

This was actually fucking it.

“Nobody knows yet but us, and I’d like to keep it that way for now. You know how the rest of the guys like to meddle,” he said, referring to the other head athletics coaches at Greenbelt Senior High. “Principal Coleman has given me the power to choose who’ll take over for me when I’m gone.” He pointed a shaky finger around the circle. “The regular season’s over in October. That’s when I’m leaving, so that’s when I’ll make the decision.”

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