Throwing Like a Girl (26 page)

Coach calls to Sue Bee, who looks like she’s been up for hours. “How many are we missing?”

And then a car pulls up in the parking lot, Anthony’s shiny green Honda. Rocky’s in the passenger’s seat, looking right at me. Mo’s saying something to me, but I can’t hear. I can’t believe Rocky made it.

Anthony gets out at the same time as Rocky. Everyone stops talking and turns to stare at him. Coach says, “Who’s that?” and then she sees Rocky.

I walk over to the car a few steps behind Coach. She hugs Rocky and says something to Anthony over the hood of the car. Theresa gets out of the backseat and helps the little boys. She grins at me, and I give her a thumbs up.

“Yeah, and now we’re at school an hour early,” she says, but she’s smiling.

Rocky gives her an awkward hug, then kisses her younger brothers. “Be good,” she says.

“You, too,” Mikey says earnestly.

To me, Rocky says in her quietest voice, “Thank you.”

“How could we do it without you?” I say before the rest of the team crowds around us.

Coach gives me a scolding look but can’t hide the gratitude in her eyes. “We’ll talk about this later,” she says.

We find seats in the back of the bus. I have a perfect view of the aisle when Sally climbs aboard. I pretend to be fully engrossed in a conversation with my friends. It shouldn’t be like
this, but it is. Sally’s stuck sitting up front. And I’ve narrowly escaped another scene with her.

When Coach, Dixie, Sue Bee, and the tennis coach, Miss Sommers, confirm that everyone who should be on the bus is on the bus, the driver pulls out. Next to me at the window, Rocky waves to her family. Anthony, Theresa, and the little boys stand around the shiny green car, watching us. But this is a huge bus with tinted windows, so they can’t see her. Rocky stands up and knocks on the window, presses her palms against the pane.

“Hey!” she yells. There’s so much noise on the bus that no one can hear the sadness in her voice except me.

She sits down. “They know how much you love them,” I tell her.

“Yeah.” Rocky glances at me. “Thanks for having something up your sleeve.”

“Theresa was the one who did everything.”

“She really came through. But listen. I have to tell you something. He doesn’t know.”

I have this weird feeling she’s talking about Nate. “Know what?” I ask tentatively.

“He doesn’t know I’m here.”

“Your father?”

She nods.

“You didn’t tell him?”

“I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. I know it was part of the plan, but I couldn’t do it. Theresa and Anthony are gonna try to explain, and then I’ll just deal with the consequences when we get back.”

I lean my head against the padded seat and close my eyes. All I can think is,
Oh no
.

Rocky gives a shrug, and tells me she doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. She asks me if I went to Nate’s dress rehearsal, and I give her the same shrug.

“What happened?”

“Sally accosted me in front of Frannie and Mo. So I didn’t go backstage. He didn’t even know I was there.”

“
What?
” Rocky leans forward in her seat. “You didn’t laugh in her face?”

Frannie and Mo pop up over the seats. “What’re we missing?” Frannie asks.

“Nothing,” I say before Rocky gets a chance.

Frannie looks at Mo. “Do you ever get that feeling there’s a lot going on here we don’t know anything about?”

I throw a wadded-up gum wrapper at Frannie, and she ducks. “See what I mean?” she yells from her hiding place behind the seat.

Dixie’s voice interrupts us. She holds up a letter in one hand. “Ladies, ladies. I need your attention for one minute.”

There’s still music, laughter, and some talking, but she’s got as much quiet as she’s gonna get.

“I have a letter here from Mr. Michaels, our beloved headmaster. I’m required to read it to you before we arrive in Tulsa. And since we’re still intact one minute away from campus, I figure
now is as good a time as any. He says, ‘Sports teams: Congratulations and best of luck in the SPC tournament this weekend. Although the thrill of competition is exciting and rewarding in many ways, remember you are representing Spring Valley Day School on and off the playing fields. Please respect your coaches and chaperones.’
That means us
,” Dixie says. “And then he ends with: ‘We are proud to have you as ambassadors of our fine school. Sincerely,’ and so on.”

We all start laughing and cheering. Apparently everyone thinks the headmaster’s a geek. I’ve never even met the guy. The minute Dixie stops talking, everyone resumes their level of noise.

I lean over to Rocky and say, “I don’t want to talk about the Sally thing. You don’t want to talk about your dad. Call it even?”

She nods. And so we talk about softball.

Rocky says, “This whole week I’ve been having softball dreams, and they’re so real. Like normal games. Everyone’s in uniform. The ball is one of the new, white game balls. We play well: three up, three down. We’re high-fiving each other. The stands are full. Mr. Zawicki is there. Did I ever tell you about Mr. Zawicki?”

I shake my head, but I’m caught up thinking how I love being on this bus with all these girls who play sports, even if Sally Fontineau, who wants to ruin my life, is half a bus in front of me. I love how brave Rocky is to be here on her way to Tulsa. I love that I’m on a team. I can hardly remember when I wasn’t. It’s not like every girl is my best friend. I don’t even know everyone that well. It’s just a thing that I feel a part of. It makes everything different.

Rocky’s still talking. “He was my gym teacher the first time I ever played softball. He pulled me aside after class and said, ‘Miss
O’Hara, that’s very impressive.’ And I said, ‘What is?’ And he said, ‘Your arm.’ So I looked at my arm because I was little, and I didn’t know that an impressive arm meant a good throw.”

I try to imagine the scenario and it makes me smile.

“Yeah, he laughed at that, too, in a really nice way. He told me, ‘You don’t throw like a girl, Miss O’Hara. And this is a very good thing.’

“I had no idea what he was saying, but I understood that throwing a ball got me noticed. It was kind of a big moment for me.” She shrugs. “Not that I agree with the girl part. I think I throw exactly like a girl should. But in that moment when I figured out I could throw a ball, it was like I understood the world better. And the world understood me.”

“I
knew
you were the one to teach me to throw like a girl.”

I’ve never been good enough at anything to feel like I understand the world. But Rocky’s story makes me feel a little better. As if I’m helping her fulfill something that she was meant to do all along. Won’t her father have to understand that?

The hotel in Tulsa is about a hundred stories high and has a fountain in the lobby and a pool off the main hallway that you can see through glass windows. Everyone from our bus is on the tenth floor. It’s like a sorority, with our bags and pillows and good-luck teddy bears. Doors slam, music blares. It’s magnificent. We check out the rooms—ours has a great view of Tulsa, which is nothing like Chicago or Dallas, but it’s cool to be up high enough to see the whole downtown.

I hope my parents don’t end up on this floor.

From the hallway we hear Coach yelling into a bullhorn that
we have to be down for lunch in our uniforms in fifteen minutes. That gets us screaming and bustling.

After pooling our snacks together and choosing the ones we want to bring to our first game (sunflower seeds and Starbursts), we dress in full uniform. Frannie demands that we check the comfort quotient of the mattresses before heading down to lunch. So we jump around for her benefit. Of course, she tries to flip from one bed to the next, hits the lamp with her foot, nearly breaks her neck falling to the floor, and ends up with the lamp in her lap.

We hold our breath until Frannie says, “I think that’s the best catch I ever made.”

From the lobby we’re ushered into a large room with lines of tables, not unlike the school cafeteria. On each table is a box with bag lunches.

“Don’t worry, they’re provided by the hotel,” Dixie says.

I’m so excited about our game, about being here and not in school, that I’m starved and nauseous at the same time. All I can manage to eat is a slightly green banana.

At the host school, Holland Hall, the playing fields and track and tennis courts are teeming with kids and coaches. It’s wild to think that everyone here is missing school. Everyone will participate in something competitive—a race, a match, a game. Back at my old school, we had a really good basketball team that always went to state. I just had no idea what it meant. And now here I am.

Before I know it, we’re on the field warming up. Frannie says she spotted my parents wandering around.

“I saw the scarf.”

“Oh, no!”

“Is it unlucky today? Or lucky?” Mo says.

“
I can’t remember!
”

Rocky’s throwing so hard that my hand stings.

I yell, “Zawicki sure knew what he was talking about.”

She cracks a smile.

Coach blows her whistle and gathers us under a tree. It’s so hot the ground is like a furnace pumping heat up through our cleats.

“Drink a lot of water and keep your hats on.” She passes water bottles around. “I know this is so much fun. It’s fun for me, too. And we’re going to have tons of adventures before we get home, but I need for y’all to get your heads in this game…right now. We barely beat Oakridge the last time. They’re gonna want this game. Be ready for that.”

She claps her hands, then says, all passionate and serious, “Get your game face on and make this
ours
from the first pitch. Own it. And remember, you’ve got to want it more.”

We start cheering, then stand up, clapping and hollering. The umps call the captains to home plate. We lose the toss, which means we’re away, which means we’re at bat first. And that’s it. Gwen’s standing in the batter’s box:
The game has begun
.

I spy my parents in the stands, and my mom gives me a private wave, trying not to do anything that would embarrass me. I wish I could run over there and apologize for being moody and thank her for being such a steady fan, scarf and all.

Gwen gets a hit, a nice poke between first and second, and she’s easily safe. Virginia pops out, holding Gwen at first, and Kat gets a single to left field. With runners on first and second, Rocky’s in the batter’s box, and it’s time for me to get up casually, find my bat, swing it a bit, then watch Rocky blast a one-hop
double between second and third. She sends Gwen and Kat home and makes it safely to second.

Oh, the pressure
. With one out, ahead by two, I get up to bat, don’t look at my parents, and try to decipher Coach’s sign: four fingers brush over her right eyebrow. Wait on it.

I’m never patient enough to wait on pitches, even when they’re obvious balls. But today I am. Today I’m in the box with a confident stance and a lucky bat. I remember this pitcher from our last game against Oakridge, and I hit off her by waiting it out. So I do just as Coach says.

Now the count is suddenly 3 and 0. She throws me a strike, but I expected it. I’m 3 and 1. I step out of the box calmly. My best friend has one foot against second base and the other stretching out in front of her. She’s poised to run. She knows I can do this.

The next pitch drifts over the plate like it’s floating, like it’s in slow motion. I twitch my right arm up and back a bit and then swing hard. The ball connects a few inches from the end of my bat—the middle of the sweet spot—and sails between right and center field. Both fielders are going after it as I round first. I slide into second as Rocky crosses home plate. We’re up 3–0 in the very first inning!

My parents cheer in the bleachers. Everyone on the bench high-fives Rocky. Coach jumps up and down by the third-base line. And I see Sally Fontineau chitchatting with one of the ninth graders as if she couldn’t care less.

It occurs to me, as I stand on second base, the sun pounding down on my batting helmet, that Sally is inconsequential to my life. I’ll figure things out with Nate. I’ll take finals. I’ll find a summer job here in Dallas. I’ll start school in the fall. And I’ll answer
back the next time Sally tries to harass me. I’ll start standing up for myself off the field, the same way I do on it. Because there’s no reason in the world why I shouldn’t.

It’s like that moment when Rocky discovered that softball made her world clearer. I think it’s making mine clearer, too.

We beat Oakridge 5 to 0. We’re on our way.

In the huddle after the game, Coach says, “That was good. No, that was great. You played well. You got off to a quick start offensively and played flawless defense.” She looks around at all of us. “Way to go.”

We cheer for ourselves because we’re psyched.

“All right. You have a few choices for the rest of the afternoon. You may go and watch the end of the Episcopal game; they’re on field four. Or you can go watch track or tennis or baseball. As long as you’re back on that bus by five forty-five. And we meet in the lobby for dinner at seven. Got it?”

“Only an hour to get ready?” someone says.