Page 67 of Lovely War
Jess sighs. She stands up, takes her time re-tucking her T-shirt, and crosses the room.
“Did you get it?” Taylor asks when she returns.
Jess taps on her phone. “Relax, I—oops, it didn’t record.”
“What?” Taylor screeches. A vein bulges on her forehead. She wraps her own ponytail around her fist tightly. “Were you distracted by Maura staring at you? Because she’s being extremely unprofessional and she treated you terribly.”
Interesting.I scan the crowd for Maura, the assistant cheerleading coach and Jess’s ex.
“Easy. I’m messing with you.” Jess flashes her phone screen at her. “I got it. I wish you could’ve seen your face.” She shakes her head. “Your freckles are ridiculous when your face turns red.”
Taylor’s mouth opens and closes.
Veryinteresting.
I check the time. The broadcast should start any minute. Taylor buries herself in her laptop while Jess scrolls throughInstagram. I spot Cassie, seated at a table with the other coaches’ wives and their kids. Williams’s wife is next to her, taking a photo of him with their sons. Surprisingly, she is an absolute delight, friendly to everyone and so perky she’s practically carbonated.
“This is hilarious,” Jess says, forcing me to stop leaning sideways in an attempt to catch a glimpse of Williams smiling for the photo. “There’s a whole thread of comments on our last video asking who the hot guy with the wild hair is on the bench.”
“What?” I snap a little too loudly. Ben is sitting next to Eric, talking and making animated gestures toward his tablet. In New York he gave up his Work Hair for good and started wearing it unstyled, the way I like it, even during games. I thought it was cute, that he listened to what I said. But now I’ve sicced the horny people of the Internet on him? The price may be too steep. “Let me see that.”
Jess leans away from me, still reading. “ ‘Sex on a stick,’ one of them says!”
“We should delete those comments.” I turn to Taylor for help. “That’s not appropriate. Think of the children.”
The clock on the projector screen hits zero, cutting off all conversation. A hush descends on the crowd.
The South region is announced first, and our name isn’t called. The East region is up next.
“The number four seed in the East region is the Ardwyn Tigers. And they’ll be facing off against the thirteen-seed Monmouth Hawks, champions of the Colonial Athletic Association.”
I knew it was coming, but it still delivers an electric shiver all the way down my spine.
The congregation rises, possessed by one spirit. People cheer, pom-poms shimmy, more balloons drop from the heavens. Coach Thomas stands off to the side, letting the athletes savor the spotlight. All he does is nod once. In the words of JJ Jones: “That dude is so chill he’ll give you brain freeze.”
The players have thirty minutes to celebrate, and then they’ll be whisked off to learn about their opponent. I make my way through the crowd with my camera. I catch JGE squeezing his mother, lifting her off the ground as her feet wiggle. When he puts her down, he reaches out to me for a fist bump. Gallimore and Andreatti hit one of the big blue balloons back and forth like a volleyball, arms swooping and wrists flicking. When they spot me, they bat it at me and shout my name in unison. Quincy makes the rounds, high-fiving all the little kids, meeting the looks of wonder on their upturned faces with a joyful grin from above. And when he stops in front of me, he wraps his arms around me in a big hug.
When I film, they’re supposed to pretend I’m not here. I’m going to have to do a lot of editing.
Meanwhile, Ben hunches over his tablet, shutting out the world. I don’t have to see his screen to know what he’s doing. He probably pulled up Monmouth’s stats the second the announcer uttered their name, trying to see how much of their code he can crack before everybody sits down in the film room.
I’m multitasking, one eye on the camera and the chaos, the other on the rest of the bracket still being populated on the big screen. There’s one other name I’m waiting to hear. Waiting to see it filled in on one of the sixty-four lines, waiting to find out how far it is from Ardwyn’s, how long and how much it would take for the two to meet.
Finally it comes: “The number one seed in the West? The Rattlers of Arizona Tech.” I whip my head around. The West. The opposite side of the bracket. The only way we’ll play Maynard’s team is if we both make the finals. It’s only then I notice the tension in my shoulders, which are somewhere up near my ears. My body relaxes like one of those encapsulated toys that unfurls when you drop it in water.
I lower the camera. I have what I need. Ben looks at me with an indecipherable expression, and I smile at him. I squeeze through the masses to the back of the room, but the pretzel tray is already empty. Damn.
On the way back I run into Verona and Lufton, in the middle of a debate about the competence of the selection committee, and they pause to ask my opinion. Then Eric grabs Quincy and me so Cassie can take a photo of us together. Eric wants to send it to Mom.
“Why do you look weird? Are you sick?” Eric squints at his phone, looking at the photo.
I have no idea what he’s talking about. Maybe my hair is flat? When I lean over to look, my first impression is that it’s my head on someone else’s body. “Oh.” I laugh. “I never wear blue. It’s not my color.”
A hand touches my waist. “You always look good,” Ben says in my ear. He pulls me in for a quick hug, the kind nobody will question tonight unless they’re already suspicious. Cassie clocks it but doesn’t say a word.
“For me?” Eric asks, pointing at Ben’s hand.
He’s holding a soft pretzel. “Absolutely not,” he says, and hands it to me.
