I am here to play.
Yeah, Maggie. It’s bulletproof.
I quiet the noise inside my head, the noise of all those people, and feel their energy instead. I feel it in my body. I feel it in my bones. I feel it in the faintest flutter deep in my belly, like a tiny wing emerging from the rubble. The last thing I hear before the ref’s start whistle is her small, clear voice saying, “Game on, motherfuckers.”
CHAPTER 66
The same phone-playing sub is already at Ms. Tanner’s desk. Written in chalk behind her is FRIDAY: CONTINUED REVIEW FOR SUMMATIVE EXAM. QUIET GROUP WORK OR INDIVIDUAL STUDY.
Kurtis and Omar have already moved my desk into an island with theirs. Kurtis is bookmarking pages and Omar’s making a master sheet of formulas to memorize.
“So, Greer, are you going to the formal this weekend?” Kurtis says, pressing the book open to the summary page at the end of the first unit.
“Yeah, she’s going with the new guy. Right?” Omar interjects.
“Um, not anymore.” They both look at me like I said I had to put my dog to sleep. Omar actually sighs.
“I’m sorry. I would go with you but I have to go to a quinceañera. It was planned before the formal.”
“Thanks, Omar. I’m all right.” He squinches up his forehead like he does when he’s trying to figure out a sinusoidal regression. I wonder if he’s thinking about how to get out of the quince.
“I’m actually her chambelan,” he says to himself. He looks up at us. “Like the escort? For my cousin? It’s kind of an honor. I really have to go.”
“Oh, Omar. She’s lucky to have you.” He still looks pained, like he’s letting me down, and I decide I better change the subject before Omar disgraces his family by trying to help me out. “How ’bout you, Kurtis?”
Kurtis is instantly embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Greer, I already have a date.”
“No! I didn’t mean with me, I was just wondering—wait. You have a date?”
“Of course. My girlfriend.”
“You have a girlfriend?”
“Yeah. Paige Polasky? She’s a junior?”
“I know who Paige is. She’s cute.” I try not to sound surprised. “I didn’t realize you two were together.”
“Well, Greer, you only ever talk about math.”
The bell rings and the sub says, “Get to work, guys.” Omar and Kurtis start debating which of the review questions are most important. This whole year, while I was thinking they were those nerdy math boys who didn’t know anything about girls, they were thinking I was that nerdy math girl who didn’t know anything about boys. (And it seems that they were right.)
It doesn’t take long before the band of losers around Kyle Tuck is snorting and giggling. This morning I found a striped waffle-weave Henley that I’d retired. It’s not tight, but it’s not as big as anything I’ve worn in a while, especially the winter coat I had on in class yesterday. In other words, it fits. In other words, my boobs are having a coming-out party. I even considered wearing the plaid Perk Up! bra and panties set today, except that as cute as it is, that bra is less supportive than a piece of Scotch tape, so I stuck with my usual on top and just wore the unders.
Kyle fake-coughs “Hooters!” into his hand, and the boys erupt.
The sub looks up and says “Quiet, please,” in their general direction.
My instinct is to bend my shoulders and slide down my chair, take a hall pass and get my jacket out of my locker. Instead, I squeeze my hands tight and feel a sharp pain where my pinky jammed going for a hit last night.
It was the best we’ve ever played. Everybody was on their game. And that coach who didn’t like my uniform ended up getting himself thrown out (and I hope mauled by his own players on the bus back home). What happened was, when Coach finally rotated Kaia in, it was like they all smelled blood. They hit everything they could at her, and the girl could not make a block. She was desperate for Reinhold to take her out again, but Coach just said, “You got this, Beaumont. Stay with it.” Finally, this giant girl from Ironwood smoked the ball like a missile, the kind of shot we’d call “kill or be killed.”
And somehow Kaia blocked it. She jumped up, a perfect mirror of the hitter, hands and forearms shooting high, and the thing tipped back to their side. We all went crazy. Kaia was standing there with her mouth open like she’d just burped a cloud of sparkly rainbow-colored fireflies. The other team hit it right back over the net, and we missed it because we were too busy high-fiving Kaia. Jessa ran in from the sidelines and lifted her up.
Somehow, this sent Ironcoach completely over the edge. He stood right on the sideline and screamed, “What are you doing? Why are you cheering? You lost the point! Don’t you dummies even know you lost the point?”
Nasrah, who is usually very polite, walked right up to him, eye to receding hairline, and said, “Actually, I think you lost the point.” Everyone who heard it went crazy, and everyone who didn’t assumed she’d said something awesome and went crazy, too. The guy’s head burst into a ball of fire and he said some things my grandmother would call “uncharitable,” and that’s when the referee told him he could either take a seat on the bleachers and be quiet, or forfeit the match. He chose Door Number Three, which was to storm out of the gym.
After the game, a player from Ironwood found me to talk about the Stabilizer. She told me they had just added colored versions and pulled back the neck of her shirt to show me her purple straps. She had been thinking about surgery but wasn’t sure yet. Her mom wanted her to wait until after her first year of college, in case she felt differently, but that would be waiting two more years and she’d been this big since seventh grade. We traded numbers and she said she’d let me know if she decided to do it.
The match started with me tied up Houdini-style in Jessa’s jersey and ended with me talking plus-size bras and reduction surgery with a player from a rival school. I didn’t even wrap up in my sweatshirt till I was home and showered.
But today’s another day and this is math, not volleyball. Yesterday I was on a team. Today I am just me. I pinch my swollen finger. Hard. It’s a routine volleyball injury—if the bone is not poking straight out of your skin you don’t complain—but it still hurts, and I am reminding myself what I’ve learned from the girls on my team: You play through the hurt. You have to or you’ll never play at all.
My hand clenched, I swallow hard and walk over to Kyle’s table. Even Asher and Anitha look up. The boys with Kyle look stunned, like the Rock caught them making fun of the name Dwayne. “Do you need something?” the sub says from her seat.
“Just Kyle. I tutor him on Fridays. Ms. Tanner lets us go out in the hall where it’s quieter.” Everyone is too curious to contradict me.