Waiting on the Sidelines (2 page)

“Lennox, right?” she said, flipping through a few papers on her clipboard.

“Yes. Nolan Lennox,” I said, my heart racing now. Is my punishment not over? Or worse, is she going to cut me for being late? I hate that car. My dad had to pour water from a gallon into it just to get us moving. I’m mortified and angry.

“You did a nice job today, Lennox. You keep that up, and you’ll be playing junior varsity this year.” With a small nod of approval she turned and walked into the main coaching office.

I didn’t see that coming, but my lungs filled with air as the heavy weight of dread completely dissolved. I was almost proud. I sat there stuffing my shoes into my gym bag and putting on my flip flops for an extra long time. I knew my dad was in the parking lot, so I didn’t want to keep him waiting long. I had a feeling after the start of our day that the air conditioning probably wasn’t working very well.

As I walked out of the gym I saw Reed sitting on a bench pulling off his cleats and talking to a couple of the other guys. The two older girls from our volleyball practice were sitting on the grass in front of them.

I was just out of their view, but I heard the tall girl with the short shorts start. “Was her name seriously Nolan? That’s a dude name. Do you think she’s a dude?”

I heard the girls giggle. In a way, I expected that. I’m a girl named Nolan. I spent years defending that, and most of the kids in my class were used to it. In fact, people thought my name was sorta cool by now. What I didn’t expect was the next sound. I heard a boy’s voice pipe in with a “dang, that ain’t right.”

I stood still and leaned on the wall for a minute to see if I could tell who was talking. It was Reed. He was pulling a pair of sunglasses out of a cloth pouch and putting them on. Then he looked over at one of the guys sitting next to him and continued. “He, I mean she totally dresses like a dude, though. Maybe she had a sex change.”

“Booooom!” Sean, his weight-lifting partner, shouted, as they smashed fists and stood up, throwing their bags over their shoulders. The older girls were in fits laughing at my expense.

I pushed down the urge to cry.

I waited for the girls to leave so I could walk unnoticed to the Oldsmobile. Then came the sucker punch. As they walked back into the building just around the corner from me I heard them continue.

“I think I know her, you know?” said the other girl, who I’m still on the fence about. “I think her mom works at our office.”

I do know her, I realize. Her family runs an accounting office that serves most of the small cities south of Phoenix. It has several branches, but the main one was in Tucson, and my mom would work there a few times each month answering phones and assisting clients. Tatum Hernandez. A junior. Beautiful. She was always nice to me when I came to work with my mom. I have a brief moment of hope at this thought. Surely, she’ll defend me.

“You know it’s not her fault she’s so poor. It’s sad, really. I think she has to wear her brother’s old clothes. I mean, looking like that? She’ll never have a boyfriend. I would make her my project if she weren’t so embarrassing. She lives in a trailer.”

Silence. And just before the door closed I heard Tatum give me one final wound. “We should tell people she’s a boy. They’d totally believe it, classic prank!” she roared, laughing so hard she could barely get the words out.

Tatum is not a friend. 

-------

Staring at the racks of soccer shorts and team logo T-shirts, I felt my mom put her hands on my shoulders.

“OK, kiddo. What do you say we go for a bit of variety this year,” she says. “Maybe even branch out into some colors?”

What I say next blows her mind.

“Actually, I was thinking of trying on some of the skirts. I think I need to dress more grown up, don’t you think?”

My mom, who has begged me to wear dresses and skirts every school year since I can remember, looks at me with equal parts elation and worry. Elation seems to win, however, because before I know it we’re fully enveloped by the junior girl’s section and I have a pile of ruffled, colorful garments on the floor of a dressing room.

I leave with eight or nine full outfits. Some of them shorts, but not from the boy’s section. As we’re checking out, I feel a pang in my gut from the guilt of giving in to peer pressure. I’m disappointed in myself. But I still wouldn’t change a thing.

I usually arrive first for the first day of school. My dad does deliveries for Marches Grocery in the city and starts his day at 7 a.m. The warehouse is in Coolidge, a good hub for the produce that comes in through Mexico and Southern California. My dad handles the specialty runs, which are basically special orders from the chains in the Phoenix area that are running low on certain items. Every day my dad loads a big truck based on requested inventory and drives into town from store to store, almost like Santa Claus. This, of course, is another reason we make so few trips into the city as a family. A few thousand miles a week and the last thing my father wants to do is follow his own daily tracks up the interstate.

Given my anxiety about starting high school, I’m okay with getting up early. In fact, I tried to talk my brother, Mike, into driving me when he left the house at 6. Mike’s eight years older than me, and he just started working at the nearby junior college. He’s an assistant in the kinesiology lab, which is a fancy way of saying P.E. Mike also managed to land a job as an offensive coordinator for the college’s football team. He played there when he went to the school and was always a favorite among the coaches. My parents were just thrilled he found a way to make a living. I think they were also looking forward to his moving out soon.

When I asked him for a ride, I could tell it hurt my dad’s feelings a bit, so I quickly changed my tune. “Actually, it’s okay. I don’t want to break my good luck tradition with dad,” I said. I could tell immediately that I had mended things. My dad reached for a hidden pack of GEM chocolate donuts in the pantry.

“Here, shhhhhh, don’t tell your mom,” he half-whispered. “You can eat in the car on the way.”

At 6:45, we pulled into the parking lot. The janitor was still pulling back the gate and locking it into position. I felt relief knowing I could slip from the Olds unnoticed and start scouting the locations of my various classes before others arrived.

As I walked to the back of the school where the lockers are located, I could hear the band practicing on the baseball field. The director was yelling at another man who looked like some sort of administrator. Something about how they used to march on the football field before his precious Bears started winning games and how he was single-handedly destroying the arts by relegating them to a baseball diamond.

I scanned the crowd and saw Sienna standing just above third base, her feet wet with freshly mowed grass bits. She tilted sideways a bit and gave me a wave, just enough to not draw attention and ire her already angry teacher.

Among Sienna’s many artistic talents was music. She played six instruments at last count. She elected to play saxophone for high school band because the teacher said he had just graduated four players. Sienna figured this was her best shot at first chair. Her competitive spirit was just as alive as mine.

I turned to the endless row of lockers and knelt down to pull the folder from my backpack that they gave each of us at orientation the week before. Orientation felt more like the cattle runs I see out on the big ranches than a real first high school experience. We had two hours on a Friday evening to squeeze through rows and rows of cafeteria tables with our parents, signing forms to participate in sports, registering for school lunch programs, taking flyers from every club on campus and reviewing our schedules with counselors who really didn’t care how happy we were with our classes but just wanted to make sure we didn’t have anything overlapping a lunch hour. But I studied the folder full of papers from orientation extensively, still wanting to be prepared. I checked and rechecked against my brother’s old year book to make sure the teachers I had were the ones with the honors program. I also made sure my lunch hour lined up with Sienna’s and Sarah’s. Pulling it from my backpack, I opened it to the small Post-It note I pasted on the inside with my locker number and combination written down.

I’m 317. The lockers are clustered in groups of 100. There are the ones, twos, threes, fours and fives. Fours and fives are saved for the juniors and seniors, and the others are spread among the underclassmen. My location was pretty good. Right outside the cafeteria; I would have plenty of time to stop there before and after lunch. It’s the only section without a sidewalk cover, though. Already the metal of the black combination dial was burning hot.
“Just like the damn Oldsmobile,” I thought to myself.

I tested out the combination to make sure I could handle it. It opened easily, so I pulled out the heavy load of books and kept only a notebook and my algebra book out so I’d be ready for my first two classes.

I still had 30 minutes to myself. The bell doesn't ring until 7:30. A few people started to arrive. As I walked between the middle rows of buildings I came to the main area called the quad where the buildings form this large square cut-out filled with picnic tables and grass. You can see a few sad garden experiments along the north wall of buildings, the work of the agriculture club. Some things seem to be growing, but for the most part it doesn’t look like it’s been tended to in months. In the middle of the square is a large bronze statue of soldiers. There’s one from each branch of the military, and they’re all bowing their heads and holding hands. Most folks in Coolidge either end up teaching at the school, farming, leaving or joining the military, so the dedication of the bronze statue a few years ago was a big occasion for the town. Right next to it is the school’s flagpole. Every morning, members of the school’s Junior ROTC program, which is some type of pre-training military program in high school, hold a ceremony, marching in unison and unfolding, connecting and raising the flag. They take it down every day at 3:30. I stopped to watch as they prepared for today’s ceremony, their faces so serious yet so very young. I think how most of them will be graduating next year and will probably be sent to the Middle East for battle.

Ahead of me was the office, full of activity and packed with parents and students who missed orientation. I was glad that I was at least able to avoid that cluster. I was so intently watching the crowds and daydreaming that I didn’t realize the grassy area had ended, marked pointedly by the beginning sidewalk. My toe slammed right into the edge and I flung far forward, my hands bracing my body as I slid several feet across the concrete.

I could feel the heat on my cheeks instantaneously. I knew that my hands were burning and I was pretty sure there was blood. I didn’t want to look at my hands and knees to see how much, but rather stood up and grabbed my backpack and looked around to see who witnessed my fall. Several older girls were just entering the quad and I saw Tatum lean over and giggle to a friend, but they immediately climbed on top of one of the picnic tables and began talking to one another. I may have been a source of amusement to her, but at least my show was very temporary – she seemed to move on.

Finally, assured nobody else saw, I took inventory of the damage I’d done to my body, satisfied that the damage to my ego was in a range I could handle. My hands were skinned and bright pink, small scratches from my wrists to my palms. My knees fared far worse. The right knee had a flap of skin bunched in a line, like I had peeled a puffy sticker from my kneecap and left it there to dangle. The blood wasn’t dripping, but it was there and it was only a matter of time. The left knee was a little better, though not much.

I knew I had to clean things up. Deep down, I blamed the slipper-style shoes I was now wearing and skirt. If I were wearing my normal clothes, I don’t think this would have happened. I walked to the nurse’s area, right next to the bustling office, and asked if she had any band-aids and alcohol pads.

“Oh honey, what happened,” said a large woman wearing jeans and a paisley button-up shirt. She had a badge on that said ‘Nurse Carol’ – but that was the only thing about her that looked like a traditional school nurse.

“I fell, out in the quad. I’m fine, I just need to clean things up some,” I said, a little sheepishly.

“I should say so, you’re about to drip blood on my new carpet,” she pulled my backpack to get me through the lobby of her office and into a small station in the back. There was a sink and a cabinet on one side and a padded table on the other. She told me to take a seat and started to pull out bandages from the cabinet.

“I really don’t need all of those,” I protested. The last thing I needed was something that would draw even more attention to my blunder. I just wanted to find a way to cover it up with makeup and move on. But I guess that really wasn’t an option.

“I tell you what? You just let me do the nursing now, and if things feel better around lunch time, you can rip off my band-aids and pretend none of this ever happened, OK?” she said in a way that felt like my mother.

“OK,” was about all I could muster.

I winced as she cleaned things out and then put some ointment and bandages over each knee. My hands were cleaned and didn’t have any serious damage. In a matter of minutes she had me back up and on my feet, heading out through the crowded office area. I kept my head down, hoping I could just get back to the quad without anyone noticing my giant wounds. And because I was looking down, the first thing I saw were his shoes.

“Wooahhh, I almost took your head off there,” Reed spoke, like we never met. His eyes met mine and he put on the most charming smile, a dimple on one side of his cheek. I could smell the gum in his mouth.

“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. My bad,”
My bad? Really … did I just say that?
I was so flustered at having a conversation with him, and I had no idea why. My first encounter with Reed Johnson resulted in a good three-hour crying fest while I soaked in the tub at home. I didn’t owe him anything.

“You OK? Your bandage is coming off?” he said as he bent down and, with one finger, popped the over-sized swath of cotton that Nurse Carol had tapped to my leg back in place. I was mortified.

“Oh, thanks. Yeah, I sort of had an accident.”
Oh god, realizing that sounds like I peed my pants, I corrected,
“I mean, I fell.”
It was just getting worse. I needed to shut up, and leave.

“Well, be careful. You don’t want one of those wrapped around your head,” he laughed, swirling his finger around his head to mimic a wrapped bandage, but not in a poking-fun-of-me sort of way.

“Good point,” I said, smiling back and swinging my way through the door to the school hallway. He smiled back and turned around, his backpack flung over one shoulder in that perfect sort of way.

That was weird. Clearly, he doesn’t recognize me. Of course, why would he. He doesn’t really know me. I am being neurotic.

My feet were getting blisters, and school had barely started. Knowing I had the back-up Converse in my backpack, I made a plan to stop at my locker before third period. Morning homeroom, which was my math class, was great. I knew most everyone in the class and it was algebra, which I had basically already aced in junior high. I also had my best friends, Sienna and Sarah, in there with me. Truly a great way to start every day. Second period was a bit tougher, English. It looked like I would have a lot of reading to complete this year. I was looking forward to my third period—intro to science.

I didn’t want to be late, so I jogged to my locker and threw the evil blister shoes in quickly. I walked barefooted for a few steps with my backpack pulled around in front of me so I could yank out my Converses. I bent down to slip my thumb in the heel of the first one to fit it to my foot, and as I was tilted, head through knees, I saw Reed walking towards me, a grin on his face.

Oh no.

“Now I know you’re trying to get knocked over and injured,” he chuckled. “Maybe we could just blindfold you and let you walk around campus aimlessly.”

Trying to laugh him off, I threw my head straight and flung my hair up as I stood up. “Actually, this is injury prevention,” I explained. “My feet aren’t made for girly shoes it seems, so my classics are coming out of retirement for an appearance.” Grabbing the second shoe from my backpack, I tossed it in the air a little, trying to make it flip over in my hand. Unfortunately, I was distracted by this entire encounter, and when I went to catch the shoe, it bounded off my palm and flipped end over end down the walkway, over a ditch, coming to rest in a drainage pile of dirt and leaves. Embarrassed, I hopped with one foot down the small hill to retrieve it. My backpack slid down my shoulder and fell from my wrist.

“Hang on, I got this,” Reed said, lifting my backpack up for me.

“Thanks,” I said over my shoulder then turning, red-faced, to my shoe now covered in grass and tree debris. I shook it off, threw it back down and pushed my foot inside. I wanted to find a way to disappear, rewind time, come up with some clever thing to say, but I had nothing.

I shyly turned back around, and Reed was right there next to me.

“Here you go,” he said, handing me my pack. “Where you headed?”

“Science,” I said, deciding one-word answers were probably my best move.

“Hey, me, too. I’ll walk with you,” he said.

Oh god.

“I’m Reed, by the way,” he said, tilting his head to the side as we walked, his eyebrows raised clearly waiting for my response.

“Oh yeah, I know,” I said. Silence. I couldn’t seem to keep this conversation rolling and the pause between our words was becoming increasingly awkward. Finally, not able to handle it, I had to fill the space.