Fat Angie (13 page)

Jake seemed unprepared for such dramatic statements. Even if his life wasn’t perfect, it was no way as screwed up as Fat Angie’s. Jake’s life consisted of:

mom + dad + dog =

Fat Angie’s life equation was

couldn’t-be-bothered mom − dad − sister + misfit adopted brother =

Fat Angie stood there, awkwardly tugging at her sister’s
HORNETS’ NEST
T-shirt, which was sticking to her. Jake looked at Ryan and said, “Then she’s not.”

Ryan wagged his tail.

“What about everything you said? Um, about how long she’s been gone,” said Fat Angie.

“Hey, I’m just a jock. Arrogance is sort of in the handbook.”

“A freak jock,” she said, chest-passing the ball back to him.

“Takes one to know one.” He slammed the ball back to her.

“Wacko,” she said, passing the ball.

“Crazy.” He passed the ball back.

They continued the firing of back-and-forth ball passing until Fat Angie abruptly said, “I’m gay-girl gay with KC Romance.”

Jake held on to the ball. “Really?” he said, a little too serious for her comfort.

She crossed her arms over her stomach.

“Yeah, I think,” she said. “I think, maybe. Yeah. I don’t know.”

He dribbled away from the basket. “I knew she was, but I wasn’t sure you were. She’s got a history, you know.”

“I know about the cutting thing,” Fat Angie said.

Jake powered hard to the basket. Up. Flying. Slam dunk! The cutest little boy smile cut the edges of his mouth.

“She is really hot,” he said, throwing the ball back at Fat Angie.

Angie, with what most would deem a dorky expression, smiled and basked in Jake’s description. “Yeah. But it’s different.”

“Not really,” said Jake, hands ready for the ball. “But yeah. It is.”

“I think she could really like me . . . does like me. Uggh. What do I do?” She fired the ball back to him.

He ripped the ball right back at her. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m not a gay-girl-gay guru. Just make sure you know what you’re getting into. You know?”

Angie nodded.

“That’s what your sister would say, right?” Jake said.

“Yeah,” she agreed, noticing that Jake knew so specifically what her sister would have said. It was a strange thing for him to mention.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s play.”

Fat Angie practiced and practiced well into the evening for several evenings with Jake. Her couldn’t-be-bothered mother remained unbothered, as she was apparently working late every night. During this time of intense training, Wang watched his sister from his second-floor bedroom deck.

She ignored the increase in Wang’s nasty remarks at school and the way he started to bring his school persona home. When he hinted at tearing her down, she would build herself back up by running basketball drills. Taking to the driveway every afternoon, Fat Angie had attracted an unexpected crowd. The neighbors of Oaklawn Ends began to act in a way that could only be characterized as peculiar. They mowed their lawns even though they had just been mowed. Some organized their garage though they were, by all accounts, already organized. The sound of a basketball beating the driveway had stopped with her sister. The resurgence of the game Jake and Fat Angie played intrigued them, and something about that felt right to her.

And so the neighbors went to bed to one sound: dribbling. And while Fat Angie practiced long past the designated noise-ordinance time, not a single neighbor called the police to file a complaint. They all wanted, in some way, to remember the wunderkind that had made Oaklawn Ends a beginning.

It was a Monday. It was cold and damp, and by all accounts the heat was on the fritz in the Hornets’ Nest gymnasium. Fat Angie’s fingers ached, but the soreness of her somewhat lighter body fell by the wayside. She stood, shoulders back, eyes steady on the huddles of girls waiting to try out for the varsity team. She stood alone, basking in the glory that her gym shorts were not as tight. Her biceps were chiseled into a shape that popped when she flexed. Her chin failed to double so easily when she looked forward. Fat Angie may not have had a body worth promoting according to any number of fashion magazines on the market, but it was a healthier, stronger, and, quite honestly, ready-to-kick-ass-and-take-names body.

With her sister’s photo in the back pocket of her shorts, carefully sealed in the plastic photo protector of her Velcro wallet, Fat Angie was bigger and badder than ever. Nothing could keep her from making the team.

Well, almost nothing.

In expensive high-top sneakers and name-brand socks, Stacy Ann Sloan stepped on the court. Stacy Ann had played JV basketball the year before, her freshman year. She had been a thing to watch. It was only natural for her to gun for a spot on the varsity squad. Until that moment, Fat Angie had blocked out the natural order of such things.

Fat Angie’s palms were damp and clammy, and they left a noticeable streak of wet on her hair as she brushed it away from her face.

Stacy Ann crossed the court toward Fat Angie, who nervously shifted her stance. It seemed to be the makings of a throw-down. In a battle of the good, the bad, and the fat, Stacy Ann seemed to have the upper hand. With beauty and athletic prowess in Stacy Ann’s favor, Fat Angie would seem to have no chance of outshining the star of the William Anders JV basketball team in gunning for one of those two coveted varsity spots.

As Stacy Ann’s eyes zeroed in on those of Fat Angie, she said, “Get off my court, Fatso.”

Fat Angie’s fingers fluttered at her side as if readying to reach for a weapon of mass destruction — the Swiss Roll squished in her shorts pocket. A weapon useless against the anorexic-in-training Stacy Ann, whose lips only touched romaine salads sprinkled with Craisins prepared by her Lexus-driving mother, a woman who most people thought was living well beyond her means. Though Fat Angie had never questioned why. Her mind was distracted by that for 4.7 seconds as she stared at the timer on her Casio calculator watch.

“What?” asked Stacy Ann.

Fat Angie was ripped back into reality by the shrillness of Stacy Ann’s question. A girl whose sweet tooth was soothed only by four extra packets of Splenda on her Cheerios and two twenty-ounce Diet Cokes per day.

She was, by all standards of high-school girls, healthy.

Coach Laden, who had been otherwise occupied in the equipment room, stepped on the court and blew her silver whistle with flair. “Line it up against the wall,” shouted Coach Laden. “Hustle!”

The group of hopefuls fell in, but Stacy Ann and Fat Angie continued their stare-down at the three-point line. Fat Angie knew that Coach Laden did not tolerate dissension in the ranks. She was the law. The long, long, very toned arm of the law. Basketball was her life, her imprint to leave on the world. Laminated and duct-taped to her office door, a sign read:

Coach Laden tugged at the basketball charm she always wore.
A half of what is surely a whole basketball,
Fat Angie thought.

“Stacy Ann,” called Coach Laden.

Stacy Ann clipped Fat Angie’s shoulder as she joined the team. Fat Angie stood there, as awkward as a cow in a stadium full of butchers. It was her versus the Army of Stacy Ann. Fat Angie felt her knees nearly buckle.

“Angie,” said Coach Laden. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m trying out,” said Fat Angie.

Coach Laden put her arm around Fat Angie and led her off the court. “You know you’re special,” she said.

“Yes,” confirmed Fat Angie.

Fat Angie kicked her eyes to the line of girls spectating from the edge of the basketball court.

“You see, Angie, basketball is a gutsy sport. It requires agility, quickness —”

“I’ve been practicing,” Fat Angie said. “I
feel
I can play basketball.”

“I want you to understand,” Coach Laden said, “that you are
special.
”

The word
special
resonated somewhere deep in her. Deeper than she could have fully realized, until she said, “If you say that I’m
special
one more time, I’ll scream.”

Coach Laden, thrown off her well-meant play, lifted her arm off the Charmin-like shoulders of Fat Angie.

“I tried to kill myself,” said Fat Angie. “So what — I should sit in my room and be
special
? I’m tired of being
special,
Coach Laden. Just give me a chance.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” said Coach Laden. “I don’t want you . . . to be hurt anymore.”

Fat Angie took a moment. A beat. That theater thing.

Then she walked past the well-sculpted coach and stood at the end of the line of girls. Laden was taken aback by Fat Angie’s tenacity. This was evidenced by the coach’s subtle grin.

Coach Laden stood center court. “We’ve got two spots and two spots only, so make these next two days count.”

Fat Angie smiled to a girl beside her who, in turn, snarled.

“OK,” Coach Laden said. “Rows of six. Hustle, don’t walk. Line drill.”

The whistle blew and the girls ran between lines on the court. Bending and touching. Sprinting back and forth, gutting it out until they reached the other end of the court. When Fat Angie’s group ran, she finished last. Huffing-and-puffing last, but she did finish. Fat Angie was convinced that nothing short of having all appendages amputated could stop her.

The squad of hopefuls went through drill after drill. Dribbling techniques, passing, and, of course, defense. Given Fat Angie’s girth along with her height, Coach Laden placed Fat Angie at post position, the position closest to the basketball hoop. In the middle of a play, Coach Laden called the Chicken Chat, a play designed by Laden with four possible executions depending on opposing team, score, and time on the clock.

Stacy Ann drove right for the bucket. Fat Angie slid right and planted her sneakers to avoid a foul. Stacy Ann slammed her to the ground for two — plus one Fat Angie knockdown point.

The whistle blew. Coach Laden marched into the circle of girls.

“What was that?” Coach Laden asked Stacy Ann.

“Come on, Coach,” said Stacy Ann. “She doesn’t belong out here. She can’t even block.”

Coach Laden, not looking as lovely as she might, leaned in to Stacy Ann. “So you’re the coach now?”

Stacy Ann half-laughed, crossing her arms in defiance to save face with the girls.