Melissa and I grin at each other. Karey doesn’t need to worry about us running scared from a little innuendo; we’re from the internet.
Jackson breaks the lull with a cough. “Speaking of the sticks between our legs . . .” He fiddles with his fork. “I wanted to ask . . . am I the only one who has, you know, trouble? With the broom?”
The table explodes with laughter. I see some sympathetic nods and a few pained expressions, along with a lot of rolling eyes. John puts one arm around Jackson and starts explaining exactly what to adjust to fix the problem posed by a PVC pipe in one’s crotch. A waitress chooses that second to ask if we’re doing okay here.
“And then just kind of wiggle the broom forward until you’re settled and—ow.”
Someone wisely kicks John under the table, and the conversation drops as we dig into our food.
At the far end of the table, Erin with the platinum bangs steals Aaron’s baseball hat as they discuss the merits and problems of wizard rock bands. Carlos and the other two muscled chasers I don’t know because we never run drills together race to finish their combo platters. Karey and Lindsay launch into less graphic broom advice and John keeps twisting everything into a genital joke while I bury my head in my eggplant and try not to snort-laugh.
“Is it weird that this is making me feel better?” Jackson asks. John claps him on the shoulder.
Once the scarfing slows down, Karey calls for attention.
“Thanks for coming out, everyone. I just wanted to, you know, go over the schedule a little bit now that we’re officially starting the summer. I mean, most of you know it’s the off-season, so our main goal is to have fun and work on our skills, but of course we also want to train hard so we’re ready to beat Katy . . .” At the name, Chris scowls and Lindsay and John growl in stereo in my ears. I wonder whether “Katy” means a person or the town just outside of Houston, and why everyone hates her or it so much.
“So first off, the League City team asked about doing a joint practice next Sunday. What do y’all say? Want to scrimmage against someone besides each other for a change?”
People nod and smile and offer carpools to get down to League City, a little less than an hour south of us. I’m left confused again, because I’ve never known of a team that made up their own schedules or debated when and whether they were going to play. For the first time, I really notice the lack of adults in this activity. Not that college students aren’t, you know, technically legal adults, but . . . there’s a huge difference between Karey asking what I want to do and Mrs. Blackmon, the choir director, telling me what time rehearsals will be.
“Vote,” Karey calls, and I miss raising my hand for either “aye” or “nay” because I’m not sure if I’m allowed to travel to a different town, even one that’s part of the greater Houston area. But the team does vote—almost unanimously—to play League City next week.
Melissa pokes me and raises one eyebrow (which always makes me jealous, because no matter how hard I try, my eyebrows only move in sync). I shrug back and then change my shrug to an enthusiastic nod when Melissa glares. I guess it’s not enough to silently accept her silent offer to drive me down to League City next Sunday; I also have to be silently excited about it.
It just seems like a long way to drive just to do the same thing we do at Garvey Park.
“Maybe we can drive down together,” Chris whispers to Melissa several seconds too late. I can tell he doesn’t mean for me to hear him, but I do, and I know that I’m not included in his “we.” Which worries me not at all (Melissa will honor our silent agreement), but does make me feel sorry for the lovesick guy. Annoyingdorable.
“Yeah, I figured we’d all drive down.” Melissa speaks loudly, her breezy wave shutting down Chris’s attempt at secrecy. “I have one more spot in my car,” she announces to the table at large while Chris sighs and stabs his tofu. “Two if someone wants to squeeze in the middle seat.”
As a short, skinny, and usually accommodating person, I can predict that the someone squeezing will be me, so I cast a silent vote for three passengers only.
“I’ll snag a spot, actually,” Karey says. “If you don’t mind. I don’t want to have to negotiate car usage with my brother and sister, and plus the fields can be hard to find if you haven’t been there before.”
Chris sulks, but Melissa nods. “Fun!”
“And don’t forget,” Karey adds while everyone organizes cars, “there’s the University of Houston mini tournament at the end of June, which is great because it’s close and always awesome, and good practice for the Austin tournament in July.”
The experienced players at the table give little whoops at the mention of this last event. Melissa, Jackson, and I stare blankly at each other.
“The Midsummer Flight’s Dream Tournament.” Karey offers these nonsense words by way of explanation. She hushes the chattering veterans and continues, “It’s this big thing every year, a two-day tournament with all the Texas summer teams and some from Louisiana, and it’s a lot of fun and you should all go, and I’ll definitely give you more details about it as I get them, but right now all I know is that it’s coming up and that it shouldn’t interfere with any of the freshman orientation weeks.”
I smile and nod along with everyone else, but I’m not too worried about the details, really. I’m not at all sure if I’m up for a three-hour drive to a full weekend of quidditch, and I’m even less sure that any part of that plan will pass parental approval stage, and it’s all months away anyway. Who knows if I’ll even still be playing quidditch by July?
But as I listen to Lindsay and Carlos swap stories about previous years’ tournaments, it does sound like it could be fun.
Karey passes around a sheet for contact info as everyone starts clearing the table and milling around the entrance. I scribble my email and pass the sheet to Elizabeth, who spins me around to use my back as a writing surface.
“Thanks,” she says when she’s done. “Ellen Lopez-Rourke?”
Her tone and face are neutral, but my stomach drops as I glance down at my messy handwriting on the paper. Everyone has a comment when they see my name, and whether it’s “Oh I didn’t realize you were Hispanic” or “Why don’t you use the accent on López?” it always feels like people are trying to weigh my heritage to file me into a mental box.
“Um, yeah,” I say. “I know, the hyphen is so gringo. Er, gringa, I guess. Or . . .” My brain spirals and my face heats as I realize that I don’t know the word “hyphen” in Spanish and have no idea whether it’s a feminine or masculine noun, and maybe it doesn’t matter anyway because maybe I should use a feminine ending because I’m talking about myself, but then that opens the whole can of gender worms lurking in my brain, and besides, plenty of Latinx people in the US do hyphenate their names so does anything I’m saying even make any sense at all?