A Sister to Honor (23 page)

“I cannot.” She needed to get to the bathroom. She needed to vomit. She loved Gus so much that it hurt her inside, because now she could tell he didn't love her any more, he thought she would harm him, he spoke her name now like an accusation. “I have to go,” she said. “I'll ring you again soon.”

“Afia, fuck! Where are you?”

“I'm so sorry. I—” She wanted to tell him she would make it up to him, would get him back his books, his animals, his happy life. “It isn't you,” she said, “they want to hurt. I promise.”

“I don't trust you, Afia. This really pisses me off. Afia—”

But she had shut the phone. She was racing toward the back of the shop, to the sign that said
Restrooms
.

I
f the Enright men's squash team beat Harvard, Shahid would be on his way to a shining future, and Lissy's vision for athletics at Enright would have a clear road before it. If they lost, she had begun to realize, her head could be on the chopping block. Her recruits might finish their four years at Enright, but the athletics department would fall back to where it was when she began, spending precious resources on big-name sports like football without the big players or media-savvy coaches to back them up. But if her kids beat Harvard . . . no, she had to stop going there. Her chest got bunched up; her eyes stung. If they won she would snap her fingers, set everything else to rights. It all began, they'd say years from now, that day they beat Harvard.

Shahid has a big game tomorrow
, Afia had said, last time Lissy spoke with her on the phone.
When that is finished, I do something. I make everything all right for Shahid. For Gus, too.

Lissy had told her not to worry about Gus. Gus had family. She needed to worry about herself, and go to the police. As soon as the Harvard match was finished. Promise?

Promise,
Afia had said.

Friday morning, sweating on the stationary bike in the workout room, Lissy ran the afternoon's lineup through her head. Shahid at one, Afran at two, Chander at three. She'd put Yanik at four in spite of his mouth, because he was a fighter and in his last year. Jamil at five, Carlos at six, Johan at seven, Chris at eight. Tom, with a brace on his ankle, in place of Gus at nine. Among the women, Kaitlin was out with mono. She'd put Margot at one, Evie at two, Meaghan at three. . . . When she had run through both teams, she speculated on the Harvard lineups. Amazing how you could set aside what didn't bear thinking about. The blue Hyundai, Gus's dead animals, Afia. Ethan was counting the days, judging her for not going to the police. Too competitive, too ambitious, pigheaded. The cops themselves had asked her to stop by, answer a few questions.

All of it, she put aside. Only the words remained, looping through her head:
honor crime, honor killing
.

Her players were in their uniforms promptly at 3:45, the Enright blue the color of the sky as the sun dipped. The girls chattered in their excitement; the boys fidgeted. “I am
so
going to lose to that Scottish girl,” said Meaghan.

“If she's mine I will punish that bitch,” said Margot. “I still remember how she dissed Lydia last year at Nationals. You remember that?”

“They diss everyone,” said Afran. “That's their MO.”

“Bigots, mon,” Jamil chimed in.

Gus hobbled in on crutches, his jersey tight over his back brace, his leg cast extending from foot to midthigh and graffitied in rainbow colors. Men and women rose as one and gave him a standing ovation. He tried to smile. “You guys are the best,” he said. Lissy kept half an eye on Shahid, who seemed as glad as the rest but didn't come around to clap Gus on the back. At least, Lissy noticed, he had shaved.

“How you feeling?” she asked Gus, putting her arm around his shoulders while the others started stretching.

“Confused, Coach,” he said. His eyes scanned her face. He looked to be the youngest of her players, though he wasn't. It was the freckles and red hair, maybe, or the broad cheeks, the grin without a trace of smirk. He wasn't grinning now. He leaned toward her, spoke softly. “You know who called me just now?”

Lissy frowned. “The police?”

He shook his head. “You can't tell anyone,” he said. Lissy nodded. “Afia.”

“Really.” Lissy held Gus's gaze, her eyes wanting to dart to the nearest exit. She would never be able to bluff her way through this. “Where is she?”

“That's just it. She wouldn't say. Says she went back to my place, after you dropped her in Northampton. That's what triggered the, you know. The bomb. Then she took off. I don't know where. Maybe she's right here in Devon. Just hiding.”

Lissy's hand went to her mouth; she spoke through her fingers. “Did you tell the police?”

“Not yet. She seemed so . . . scared.” He glanced over at Shahid, doing squats. “Like the thing was meant for her. I really don't want to believe—I mean, the cops already talked to him, right? And he's got a tight alibi. Right?”

“Gus, why would Shahid want to hurt his sister?” She wanted to retract the words as soon as they were out.

Gus shrugged. “He's crazy jealous, Coach. That's all I got. Maybe it's like a Muslim thing. Only I don't think he knows a damn thing about making a bomb.”

“Course not.” Lissy tried to think. Afia had called Gus. She had to be preparing herself, to set aside her fear and come forward. All to the good. “I don't see where it helps to second-guess the police, Gus. The main thing is, is Afia all right?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” With his brows furrowed, Gus looked like a fifteen-year-old puzzling out a knotty problem in calculus. “I think I should talk to him,” he said, and started toward Shahid.

Lissy caught his crutch. “Why don't you wait till after the match?”

“I don't see how he can even play, not knowing what's happened to his sister.”

“Maybe playing gives him some relief.”

“But if he knows she's safe—” he began. He leaned on his crutches. Doubt sliced across his face. “You're right,” he said. “I can wait till she calls again.”

“Let's talk more,” Lissy said, touching his shoulder, “after the match.”

He pressed his lips together and tried to smile. “Thanks, Coach.”

She took a deep breath: relief, however temporary. Quickly she stepped away from the chattering teams, into the atrium with its picture window onto the quad. She keyed the landline at the cabin into her phone. It rang a dozen times, no answer.

“Coach?” she heard from the hallway.

“Coming,” she called back. Returning, she pocketed her phone and clapped her hands. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she began. “You look terrific, every one of you. You are ready for this match. You are more than ready. You've been climbing a mountain, and you're on the ridge, you've got the view. So what are we going out there to get?”

“A win!” called Meaghan.

“Wins are nice. They're the peaks, you know, the photo ops. But we are after something bigger. What?”

Chander—the oldest and smallest of the men, a bulldog of an athlete, hoping for med school—gave the answer. “We are seeking honor.”

“Honor, yes,” Lissy said. For the first time the word stuck in her throat. “When we are done with the players on Coach Bradley's team, they will hold us in the highest regard. They will set themselves a goal”—she held up one of her hands, flat, palm downward—“to rise to our level.” She held out the other hand, a foot higher than the first hand. The fidgeting stopped. She had their attention. “And how do we make that happen?” She rocked the upper hand, keeping it high.

“We play,” said Jamil with his broadest Jamaican accent, “our fockin' hearts out.”

Afran high-fived him. Lissy dropped her arms. “That's about it,” she said. “Keep it clean, ladies and gents. You play for each other. You play for Enright. You play for—for respect.”

Then they were jogging out to the courts amid a ripple of applause from the stands.

The men played first. All George Bradley needed to win was his top five. They started with matches six through nine in the lineup. Tom, as Lissy might have predicted, fought valiantly, but he'd come back from his injury too recently and went down in straight games. Johan and Carlos, on the other hand, seemed to thrive on the jeers from the visiting crowd; they nicked and volleyed their way to wins, each in three close games. Chris hung on in the third, trading points to 13 all, then pulled out a pair of boasts that she'd never seen him make in practice, and flung his arms skyward. As the top five starters went on, the match score stood at 3–1 in Enright's favor.

“Your guys came out to play today,” Bradley said as he joined her to watch Shahid warm up.

“No different from other days,” Lissy said, trying to believe her own words.

Shahid faced off against a short, square Singaporean Chinese whom Bradley had recruited just this year. His warm-up looked relaxed, his legs springy and strong, the ball his genie. Bradley seemed to be watching him as much as his own player. “He looks,” he said as the game started in earnest, “as if he plans to slice the flesh from my boy with a neat razor.”

“I don't expect your boy will let that happen,” Lissy said, though as Shahid captured the first four points in a few strokes, she suspected the Singaporean wouldn't have a lot of choice in the matter.

In the first game, Lissy tried not to hover. The crowd had begun to swell. She stepped into the stands, glad-handing the loyal squash groupies, introducing herself to the sprinkling of parents—the women's parents mostly, who were Americans—who'd driven long distances to watch. At the top of the bleachers she found Ethan, with Chloe in his lap.

“Buenos tardes, Mamí!” Chloe sang out.

Lissy's heart sang, to see her girl here. Every winter was brutal this way, sucking away her time with Chloe. And these weeks—this crazy, dangerous week—had distracted her worse than ever. So, yes, hard for Chloe to come to games and get almost no attention, but Lissy was thrilled to see her. She picked her up and kissed her warm cheek. She thought of the Valentine's card Chloe had made, pinned to the fridge at home: four layers of doilies and precut hearts glued at angles on a sheet of pink construction paper. “You going to cheer on our team?” she asked.

“Go Rockwells!” Chloe shouted.

Lissy chuckled. She set her back down. “You just keep thinking good thoughts, cutie,” she said. Quickly she glanced toward the courts. Afran was already behind 2–7; Shahid was holding steady, 6–4. To Ethan she said, “Great of you to come watch.”

“I'm as anxious to see this through as you,” he said. His smile was strained. He leaned toward her. “Win or lose,” he said, “you tell me where that girl is, and we go to the police. Deal?”

“Deal, honey. And thank you.” She squeezed his hand, though he didn't respond.

He glanced over her shoulder. “Looks like you've got some VIPs.”

Lissy followed Ethan's gaze to the squash center entrance. Sure enough, Don Shears and Charles Horton were shedding their wool coats, glancing around for advantageous seating. “Mommy's got to go,” Lissy said. “Keep cheering.”

“Yay!” cried Chloe behind her. “Go Rockwells!”

Putting on her most confident face, Lissy approached her boss. “How great of you to come, Don.”

“Charles wanted to see what this ragtag group of yours was capable of,” Shears said with a meaningful wink.

“This may not be their finest hour.” Lissy forced herself to turn to Horton. Under the lights of the gallery his skin looked like soap. His thin lips curled in a predatory smile. “We're up at the moment. But each match goes to the best three of five games. Harvard's ranked second in the nation. We hover between twelfth and fifteenth. Which isn't shabby for a five-year-old program, but—”

“But the hell with school pride,” said Horton, his smile fixed on his face, “so long as everyone gets their cardiovascular workout.”

Lissy felt stung. She gestured toward the bleachers. “Plenty of school pride here, I think,” she said. “And they come for the football games, too.”

“Yeah, I know. I know.” Horton's gaze was drawn to the first court just as Shahid jumped to smash a volley. A round of clapping from the bleachers. “That's the boy from the dinner, isn't it?”

Lissy nodded. “Shahid Satar,” she said. “He's got a shot at winning the individual championships, once the season's done. Nationally, I mean.”

He thrust out his lower lip. “Impressive.” Then he fixed his cool eyes on her. “I don't like this kind of Europe sport,” he said, “and I don't think women should direct athletics or platoons. But you win this thing”—he pointed rapidly to the other courts—“and you've got yourself the fanciest fitness center in the land.”

“We'll do our best,” Lissy said. She heard the squeak in her voice. “I've got to keep an eye on the courts,” she said. “There should be good seats—let me see—” She glanced upward in the gallery. A handful of female players, in their squash clothes, caught her eye and squeezed sideways. When she turned back to Shears and Horton, they were leering like frat boys. “Fourth row center,” she offered.

“Suits me,” said Horton, pressing Lissy's shoulder as they passed.

At the first break, all of Lissy's starters, except Shahid, were down. Worse, the Harvard supporters had begun their catcalling. Near Jamil they riffed, “He dey Rasta mon, he got joint account in de bank, he bring his spliff dere mon,” while Jamil hung his head and sucked on his water. In front of Afran, they minced with towels on their heads. “Call them off, goddammit,” Lissy said to Bradley.