The Football Girl Read online

  While Dobie and Nick went at it, Tessa and I agreed to go to the Pilchuck Market for drinks. I was walking on air as we made our way out of Boardman Park.

  I was proud of myself for joining the pickup game. Maybe even prouder than I had been of winning the Pilchuck Scramble. Caleb had been so nice to me the entire time. And, wow, what an arm. The boy could throw. I wondered how he thought I had played.

  “So what does it feel like to get hit like that?” I asked.

  “It wakes you up.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle,” Caleb replied.

  “Nothing I can’t handle, bro,” I imitated, teasing him.

  “First of all,” Caleb said as we waited at an intersection for the walk sign, “that’s not what I sound like. And when do I ever say bro?”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll stop.”

  We crossed Verlot Street and went into the store. I picked up a water bottle and a protein bar while Caleb got peanut butter M&M’s. We found a table and sat down. Tell me I played well, I begged silently. Tell me I played well.

  “Oh, hey, I almost forgot,” Caleb said.

  Yes? I thought, ready to be showered with compliments.

  But Caleb wasn’t picking up on my vibe. “You were going to tell me about the race,” he said.

  “Right, the race. It’s not really a big deal or anything. My friends and I received medals in the trail run. For our group winning first place in our age bracket.”

  “Cool. Can I see the medal?”

  I reached down to show Caleb the shiny gold circle I’d hung around my neck. It took me less than a second to realize I had left it lying in the grass in the middle of the field in Boardman Park.

  “Oh no,” I said, patting myself frantically up and down as if the medal might magically appear. “I didn’t. I didn’t.” I looked over at Caleb. “I did. I lost my medal. I took it off before the game and I left it there.”

  I pictured my poor medal lying alone in the rain (even though it wasn’t raining), and it made me sad. Then I imagined Lexie and Marina at home with their medals and it made me even sadder. They’d be so disappointed in me—the irresponsible one who couldn’t even keep track of a medal.

  “Let’s go look for it,” Caleb said.

  “I can’t. I have to get home. My parents are waiting for me. It’s…my birthday,” I said hesitantly, not wanting to make a big deal out of it.

  “Today’s your birthday? That’s awesome. Did you get anything good?”

  “I got a medal,” I said pathetically.

  “You’ll get it back,” Caleb promised as though there wasn’t a doubt in his mind.

  “I hope so,” I answered.

  Caleb wished me happy birthday as we headed for home. He walked me to my driveway, where he wished me happy birthday again before he left. I made my way to the door, trying to imagine what Mom and Dad had gotten me. In my dreams it was new bedroom furniture, a laptop, headphones, cash. I would have unwrapped any of those happily. But I knew my parents would not gift me what I wanted. They would get me what they wanted to give me. Big difference.

  —

  My dog, Oreo, greeted me at the front door. I scratched him under his chin, dropped my bag, and wandered into the kitchen. Our kitchen was a large open space with lots of light and an L-shaped island in the middle that was always covered with papers and calendars. Past the kitchen was the living room, where we had two big couches facing each other and a coffee table in between.

  I saw Mom and Dad sitting on the couches. Something large, flat, and square wrapped in butcher paper was leaning against the coffee table.

  “There she is,” Mom said, like I was a package she’d been waiting for the mailman to deliver.

  “Happy birthday, honey,” Dad said. “How was your day?”

  “Good,” I said, nibbling on a carrot I’d found in the refrigerator. “I came in first in my age group. We got medals. But mine is lying in the grass in the park.”

  “That’s wonderful, Tessa,” Dad said. “Good for you.”

  “You lost your medal?” Mom asked.

  “Well, I didn’t lose it. I know where it is. I just don’t have it with me right now.”

  “Tessa, I wish you’d be more responsible.”

  Suddenly I knew what I wanted for my birthday. A time machine so I could go back thirty seconds and erase the moment when I’d mentioned the medal. I should have known Mom would miss the part about me winning the race and obsess about me forgetting the medal.

  “I would have gone to get it, but you said I was supposed to come home right after. What do you want?”

  “We just want you to be successful,” Mom replied. Not a bit sorry for having missed a great race. Expectation of a win: met. Expectation of being a responsible adult: not met. Time for Mom to act. “And that starts with being responsible.”

  I took a deep breath, closed the refrigerator door, and looked at my parents in the living room. Mom was gazing into space. The look on her face was a mixture of deep concern (probably about my academic future) and irritating satisfaction (because she was going to be the one to solve all my problems). Dad was glancing sideways at his phone like the message that came through next would determine the fate of the planet, unless he missed it. Best birthday party ever. I didn’t know why I was disappointed. This was exactly what I’d expected. I hadn’t had a birthday party thrown for me since I was five years old.

  “So, what’s the big surprise?” I asked.

  Now Mom was back, totally focused on the moment. It happened so quickly, and she was smiling so broadly, I knew right away that whatever was wrapped up in the living room was about her.

  “Go ahead, Alan,” Mom said, gesturing to the package.

  “Wait. I don’t even get to open my own present?”

  “Well, it’s not a present exactly,” Dad explained. We made eye contact just long enough for him to send an urgent message, I’m sorry for this, Tessa. I’ll make it up to you.

  “It’s very exciting,” Mom added.

  “I can’t wait,” I said, crossing the threshold from the kitchen into the living room so that I had a front-row seat for the unwrapping.

  Dad began to rip off the paper.

  “Carefully,” Mom said.

  A moment later, I knew the big surprise.

  And it wasn’t a surprise at all.

  MONDAY, MAY 9

  I was standing in the courtyard at school when Dobie drove his shoulder into mine, propelling me forward. Luckily, I managed to still hold on to my cell phone.

  Dobie was built tough but was shorter than me. We’d become friends in elementary school, but since the beginning of this year, he had been changing. His hair was longer, he had an earring, and his grades were even worse than mine. My mom complained that his T-shirts were satanic. No matter what he looked like, though, Dobie and I still had one thing in common. We loved football.

  “Who are you texting?” he asked.

  “Nobody,” I said.

  “Tessa?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You like her?”

  “Kinda.”

  “That’s cool.”

  I put my phone into my pocket. “Where’s Nick?” I asked.

  “That nerd?” Dobie questioned. “Probably getting extra credit.”

  Just then our phones buzzed at the same time.

  Dobie read his message out loud.

  Verlot Street bridge, 10:00. Friday AP.

  “Same here,” I said. “Who’s AP?”

  Dobie shrugged. “No idea. Ariel, Amanda, Amy?”

  “You’re as dumb as you look. You think there’s a girl who wants to meet you at a bridge at ten on a Friday night?”

  Suddenly Nick appeared from the crowd. “You guys get this?” he asked, holding up his phone.

  “Okay, I guess it’s not from a girl,” Dobie said grimly.

  “Do you know who AP is?” I asked.

  “Just think about it,” Nick said. “Wh
at happens every spring on the Verlot Street bridge?”

  I snapped my fingers. “The plunge.”

  The plunge was a secret Pilchuck tradition—the kind you only knew about if you needed to. Every spring, older players on the high school football team dared a group of eighth graders to jump off the Verlot Street bridge. My brother Charlie had done it when he was in eighth grade. Now it was my turn. A lump started to form at the base of my throat.

  Dobie’s eyes opened wide. “AP, dude.”

  Nick nodded. “Aaron Parker.”

  “So this is real,” I said.

  Dobie nodded confidently. “It’s real. Just like we always said.”

  Nick got quiet.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Dobie asked.

  “The bridge,” Nick answered. “Have you ever looked over the side? It’s high.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Charlie told me they’ve been doing the plunge since my dad was our age, and nobody’s ever gotten hurt.”

  “Really?” Nick asked.

  “Yeah,” Dobie said. “I mean, except for that one time.”

  “Oh right,” I said, playing along. “Did they ever find that guy?”

  “Just an arm floating down the river.”

  Nick swung his backpack at Dobie. “Pond turd,” he said.

  Dobie ducked, then jumped onto Nick’s back. “You missed me,” he said. “Just don’t miss the river.”

  I pulled Dobie off Nick. “Can we eat?” I said. “I’m hungry.”

  We hit Pilchuck Market on the way home from school. Nick got a hot dog. Dobie loaded up on fries. I grabbed an apple and a Gatorade. We sat at one of the plastic tables out front and chowed.

  “You’re not going to eat anything?” Dobie asked me. He looked me in the eye. “What, are you afraid of the plunge?”

  “It’s a long way down to the river,” I said.

  “It’s not the river we have to worry about,” Dobie replied with an evil smile. “It’s the rocks.”

  “Oh great,” said Nick. “So either we drown or we hit a boulder face-first at fifty miles an hour.”

  Dobie looked at Nick. “More like a hundred miles an hour for you,” he said.

  “Breaking news, stupid,” Nick answered. “Weight has nothing to do with how fast an object falls.”

  “I know it’s a tradition,” I said, “but I wish we didn’t have to do it.” The gnawing fear that had showed up when we’d realized it was time for the plunge was back.

  “Here we go again,” Dobie said.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Oh, come on,” said Dobie. “Every time we have a chance to do something fun, you turn into this giant blubbering chicken and try to get out of it, but you always do it anyway, so can you just do us all a favor and skip to the part where you man up and go with it? Because we all know you will. Nick, back me up.”

  “He’s kind of right,” Nick agreed reluctantly.

  “So maybe I don’t love doing things that are illegal and dangerous,” I said. “We still don’t know what this has to do with football.”

  “We have to prove we want to be on the team,” Dobie said. “Otherwise, everyone would try out and there’d be, like, two hundred people on the roster.”

  “I don’t think you understand how tryouts work,” I said.

  “Whatever, Boy Scout,” murmured Dobie.

  “I’m not a Boy Scout, dude. I never have been.”

  “Just say you’re going to do it, man,” Dobie pleaded. “You don’t want to be the one guy who doesn’t show up. They’ll never let you forget it.”

  “Please,” I said. “That wouldn’t happen.”

  “It happened to Oliver Watts,” Nick said.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “You never heard of the Big O?” Nick asked. “He went to our school ten or maybe twenty years ago. He was like a one-man offensive line. I’m talking two hundred and eighty pounds as a tenth grader, and quick. Total bulldozer.”

  “This sounds made up.”

  “It’s all true,” Nick said. “You can look it up.”

  “Fine. What happened to the Big O?” I asked.

  “He made the team and basically carried them all season. But off the field, it was like he didn’t exist. Sat alone. Dressed alone. Ate alone. Picture it. This guy is the best player on the team, maybe ever, but he’s completely iced out by everyone else. All because he didn’t jump.”

  “Tragic,” Dobie said.

  “He had to transfer schools,” Nick added.

  “Don’t be the Big O, Caleb. It’s not worth it.”

  I got Dobie’s point. But the real reason I wouldn’t chicken out wasn’t the Big O. It was my big brother. He had jumped, and now so would I.

  * * *

  JANE DOOLEY FOR MAYOR

  * * *

  That was what the sign had said.

  That had been the big surprise.

  Happy birthday to me.

  “I still can’t believe you want to be mayor,” I said Monday after school, settling onto one of the barstools at the island in the kitchen.

  It wasn’t a total surprise. Mom had been on the city council for five years, and I had heard her and Dad talking about taking the next step. I guessed this was it.

  “I’m going to be mayor,” Mom replied with certainty.

  I grabbed a tangerine from the bowl on the counter and peeled it. I bet a lot of people in my shoes would have been thinking, Cool. My mom’s going to be mayor. Maybe I’ll be on TV, or more people will want to be my friend, or I’ll be able to pull some strings for anything my friends and I want to do. But I was having a hard time getting to cool. It wasn’t like I was afraid this was going to change my life. My mother had been in politics since I was little. But I was concerned about our family dictator gaining even more power. And it really bugged me that my mom and dad were basically making this my birthday present.

  So, maybe I sounded a little defensive. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Your mom believes it’s time for a change in Pilchuck,” Dad said, putting his arm around Mom. “We need new leadership, someone who can help our town reach its full potential.”

  “Okay, that’s great. But why now?”

  Mom sat on the barstool next to me, making this a one-on-one conversation as Dad watched from the background. “Tessa, I’ve been a city councilwoman for five years. I would be a good mayor. I’m ready for this. I want this. And I’m honestly concerned about this town’s priorities. So I’m running. And I hope you can be excited for me. Because it’s going to take all of us.”

  I popped slices of tangerine into my mouth while Mom explained what she stood for.

  “Number one,” she said. “Sustainable growth. We can’t keep building houses all over the mountain when we have open space within the city limits.”

  “We know that a lot of people feel the same way,” Dad added.

  “Number two,” Mom continued. “Roads and bridges. They’re in terrible shape.”

  “We have to fix them,” Dad said.

  “Number three,” Mom went on. “Schools. We have to invest more in teachers, books, and other things that really matter to your education.”

  “Who could argue with that?” I asked, playing along.

  “It’s not quite that easy,” Dad answered. “Finding money for one thing usually means taking it away from something else. In this case, your mom—well, we are proposing diverting funds from the new football stadium.”

  I knew right away that that was going to be a problem. There were a lot of football fans in Pilchuck. I had heard people my age and their parents talking about how great it would be to replace the run-down stadium where the high school team had played for years. “What do you have against football?” I asked.

  “I don’t have anything against football,” Mom said. “Except that it’s dangerous. And I think we need to prioritize education over sports. Nobody ever reached their full potential through football.”
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  “You know I play football, right?” I asked, even though it was only flag football with Caleb and his friends. I kind of thought Caleb and those guys let me play because I was the only girl who wanted to and because I was a pretty good receiver.

  “You don’t play in a stadium, sweetie,” Mom replied.

  It might not have been in a stadium, but it was a big deal to me. We were in a league, and we were two wins away from a championship. Not that my parents cared or knew anything about the games I played in with Caleb and his friends. Mom and Dad made excuses every single time for not coming to the games. I knew they had no interest.

  But any daughter of Jane Dooley’s knew for sure that there was only one reason to play: to win.

  “My team is in the play-offs,” I said. “We have a game on Saturday.”

  “Oh, Tessa,” Dad said, like he was devastated that he would miss the game. “I wish we’d known sooner. We have media training that day.”

  “What’s media training?” I asked.

  “Long hours with someone who thinks they know more than I do about talking to reporters,” Mom said. “The trainer comes to the campaign office and tells me what to do when I’m being interviewed so that I don’t say the wrong thing and embarrass myself.”

  “That sounds way less fun than football,” I said.

  “It’s not that bad,” Dad replied. “We’re sorry we can’t be at your game, but I think we’ll have a lot of family time this summer.”

  “Please explain,” I said.

  Mom smiled. “Well, running for mayor is a lot of work, and I’m going to need all the help I can get. Your dad is helping with the campaign, and I want you to help me too.”

  “Help how?”

  “There’s a thousand ways,” Dad said. “Making signs, knocking on doors, stuffing envelopes, waving signs.”

  “Anything else with signs?” I asked.

  “Tessa, we’re serious,” Mom said. “This is a team effort. Think of it like a summer job.”

  “So I get paid?”

  “Think of it like an internship,” Dad replied. “Unless you have something more important to do,” he added with an annoying wink.