Being Whitney
The first in a series of four novels
Elizabeth Thompson
SUMMER
Chapter 1
Eighteen points, eleven rebounds, strong all four quarters; the good stats arrived first. Whitney smiled as she pulled her long brown hair into her standard ponytail. Then she sighed.
“Awesome game Whit, per usual,” her best friend Hannah said crossing the locker room.
“Thanks,” Whitney replied under her breath.
Hannah turned and looked her in the eye. “You’re the best player on the team Whitney. Try to focus on the positives.”
Whitney nodded, but the minute the locker room door slammed shut the other stats appeared forefront in her mind: four missed free-throws, that awful missed pass late in the second quarter, the missed jump-ball. Instinctively the drills she needed to run appeared in front of her. ‘First thing tomorrow’ she told herself. ‘And every day until our game on Wednesday. Then Wednesday will be better. It has to be.’
Whitney stepped out of the locker room hopeful, and stopped short, her dad’s voice freezing her steps.
“She’s going to our money maker one day. Stanford and then the WNBA. That’s her path. When she’s out there, you can see it in her eyes.”
The strange man next to him, likely another college scout her dad cornered like he did nearly every tournament, nodded politely.
“I think that’s your eyes honey. You’re the one who can see it.”
Her dad glanced at her mom with a clinched jaw. Whitney winced; her mom’s interventions never resulted in progress.
“Well I think we can all see it,” her dad continued to the stranger, “Whitney knows it though. She knows where her talent lies. She may only be fourteen, but she’s very aware this is where she can make something of herself. It’s now or never.”
Whitney’s attempt at a deep breath caught in her tight chest. Worried she’d puke if she listened any longer, she stepped into the large gym and joined the trio. While her dad continued to direct the opinion of the recruiter, more of his almost-praise filled Whitney’s head, every statement tinged with ‘maybes’ and ‘ifs’ relying on “how bad she wanted it.” She wanted it of course, but her dad wanted it even more. She added in the affirmations required of her, shook the recruiters hand with a smile, and followed her parents out into the warm summer night.
Once inside the car she reminded herself of her errors and her plans to fix them, building up her confidence for what she knew awaited her.
Her dad started before pulling out of the parking lot.
“Do you believe you played up to your potential today Whitney?”
“No.”
“Do you have another lame excuse you’d like to give me about why?”
“No. There are no excuses.”
“Then why the hell do you keep playing like shit? Why do you keep wasting everything we’ve worked for?”
Whitney fed her dad all the lines she knew he wanted, but he didn’t stop. Although the lectures became commonplace around seventh grade, their intensity continued to grow. Usually Whitney could handle them, he was just trying to help, but over the summer his words had grown sharper and today they felt covered in salt. By the time they hit the freeway Whitney’s eyes were full.
“Now you’re going to cry? That always helps things.”
Whitney wiped her face and dug her fingernails into her palms to stop the tears.
“I’m not crying.”
“You used to love basketball Whitney. This used to be your dream.”
“I do love basketball. This is my dream. I want to do well Dad. I really do.”
“Apparently not enough.”
Whitney tried to ignore the weight of his expectations crushing her chest.
Her dad turned the car into their private gated neighborhood and maneuvered past the familiar broad houses and perfectly manicured lawns.
The car filled with bitter silence as her dad killed the engine and reached for the door.
“I’m sorry dad. I want it. I do,” Whitney said.
Her dad turned his piercing green eyes towards her identical ones and Whitney held her breath waiting for any token of acceptance.
“Your actions don’t show that. I’m just not sure this is all worth it anymore.”
Whitney moved quickly from the car, for once relieved that her house’s 4,000 square feet allowed her to completely escape even when everyone was home. Her dad’s words echoed in her mind and tore apart her chest: ‘you’re not worth it anymore.’
She pulled out her phone and glanced, through eyes blurred by tears, at her pictures. The waterpark trip, front row at the hottest summer concert, shopping in San Francisco with Hannah and their mom’s, riding lessons with her sister Mable and, of course, basketball, so much basketball. She smiled when she landed on pictures from a recent tournament in Los Angeles. They’d beat the top team on the west coast in the last thirty seconds of the game, dogpiling on Hannah when she made the winning basket. The memory weakened Whitney’s grip and she let her phone fall as her mind drifted to what happened after the picture. Fury had filled her dad when he laid into her before their flight home. He didn’t work his butt of so she could just be on the winning team, he’d said. That wasn’t good enough.
‘Whitney just isn’t good enough’ she heard him say in her mind. Or so she thought, until her mom’s reply followed it.
The voices pulled Whitney towards the hall and she tiptoed to the landing where Mable sat, face pushed against the cold steel bars of the railing, listening to their parents in the kitchen below.
“How can you even say that?” Whitney’s mom said.
“I’ve worked with her tirelessly and she just isn’t there. We’ve given Whitney the world and she is still just a normal girl who can play okay basketball.”
“The world isn’t what they need. Those girls don’t need any of this crap. The private lessons, exclusive camps, huge house, show horses, designer clothes and whatever else you’re throwing at them aren’t important.”
“I’ve never once heard them complain.”
“They’re kids Matt. They don’t know what they need.”
“But I’m sure you do?”
Whitney shrunk back into herself, sitting cross-leg beside Mable, her whole being heavy under her parent’s latest argument.
“I think they need a change. They need some fresh air and room to be themselves. They certainly could do without your excessive pressures.”
“Those girls are thriving here. A move is exactly what they don’t need.”
Whitney and Mable scurried to their feet and moved quickly towards their room as their mom started up the stairs.
“We’ll see,” Whitney heard her mom say before closing her bedroom door.
The hreat hung over the house like a mourning cloak; the air impossibly thick. Day after day, Whitney woke anxious for it to lift, assuring Mable it’d soon be gone, and working endlessly on the court, yet in the end it was all pointless.
Three weeks later her dad’s look of shock mirrored Whitney’s, on opposite sides of the tinted glass window of the SUV Whitney’s mom drove her away in.
◆◆◆
Whitney’s mom billed it as the most humanitarian rescue mission in history. Her dad billed it as the single greatest mistake her mom would ever make, in regards to Whitney’s life and her own. Whitney just cried. Her friends, her court, her house, her entire being, they were Mountain View, California. Until they weren’t.
Her mom’s threat of a change was exactly what they
got. Stuck on their need for fresh air, her mom took a professor position at the University of Oregon, easily within commuting distance from a small town where the girls could ‘be themselves.’ Pulling into their new town, as the sun set behind the water tower, standing tall over tiny Millersburg, Oregon – population 4,237, Whitney fought to understand how she could ever be herself completely stripped of everything she knew.
She’s moved me to a foreign country. Whitney text Hannah.
It can’t be that bad. It’s only a state away.
This town has two stoplights, three auto parts stores and a McDonalds. No Starbucks, no mall, no you.
Are you serious? I thought every town had a Starbucks.
I’m serious here Hannah. I’m very certain I’m not in California anymore. Send help. Fast.
Their new home set back off the road, on a small hill appearing glorious in a way Whitney hadn’t imagined a century-old farmhouse could. She followed her mom inside and retreated to her bedroom on the second floor. It’d been done in secret, but one look around confirmed Whitney’s suspicions that her mom had carefully orchestrated the whole move, right down to hiring a decorator to carefully meld their style with their new home. The same pinks and greys of her old room filled the space around her, but warm dark brown furniture replaced the brushed steal industrial feel of the furnishings she’d spent the last four years with. She brushed her hand over her large sleigh bed, surprising herself with how much she liked it. The wood offered a warmth she’d never realized the steel robbed her of.
Whitney crossed the room to the two tall windows looking out over her drive and the endless fields beyond. Her eyes were drawn to a tractor, making perfectly straight passes across the tan grass in the field nearest her house. She watched, mesmerized by the farming as only a city girl could be, until he reached the last row, parked the tractor near a beat-up old truck and climbed down. Only then did Whitney see that the ancient old man she’d pictured inside the tractor’s enclosed cab, was actually a bare-chested, blonde haired teenage boy. His jeans hugged his hips perfectly as he climbed into the truck and drove off leaving Whitney with a little hope for this foreign land.
FALL
Chapter 2
School started a week later, at which point Whitney still understood nothing about the foreign town she now called home.
Working her way across the yellow lawn in front of the school, she heard kids greet each other, warmly reminiscing about their summer. They talked about afternoons fishing at Bond’s Pond, stargazing for hours in Jasmine’s far field, wild bonfires at Dylan Johnson’s house and weekends spent riding ‘quads’ at the beach. Whitney shook her head; nothing at all made sense.
Outside Whitney had felt invisible to the hundreds of kids around her, now however, navigating the long hallways, she felt all eyes fall on her. The entire school seemed to watch her with purpose, shamelessly sending more judgment and scrutiny her way than she had ever known, and she’d been in school with the epitome of mean girls since first grade. Up ahead she spotted four girls, wearing clothes no one in California would be caught dead in, cowering from everyone who walked by, except for Whitney. As Whitney approached they turned and stared. Whitney looked away quickly, unsure how she was a spectacle in this world where they wore wranglers with chew circles on the butt pockets, drove huge trucks followed by plumes of dark smoke and apparently, didn’t do their makeup or hair. She ducked into the nearest bathroom and checked her reflection. In front of her she marveled at how exactly the same she looked while feeling so completely different.
Whitney moved silently towards first period, avoiding eye contact at all costs, and slid in next to the most normal looking girl. She spent most of the period oblivious to the muttering of the teacher and instead engrossed in people watching. A very pretty girl with long blonde hair curled to perfection and carrying herself with a confidence that demanded attention, and three decently attractive boys, with cute jeans joined the normal looking girl right before the bell and while still country, they at least looked human.
With class winding down the teacher, who looked exactly like Dru from Despicable Me, retreated to his desk, and first day chatter filled the room. Whitney, though, sat alone and awkward, highly aware of the whispers surrounding her.
Finally one of the cute boys turned her way. “Hey new girl?” he said, “Where’d you move from?”
Whitney turned around cautiously. “California.”
“Awesome! Do you surf?” he asked. His buddies all smiled.
“No,” Whitney replied.
“Do you know anyone famous?”
“No.”
“But you’re rich, right? You look rich.”
“Like everyone in California is rich dude,” his friend threw in.
Whitney struggled to understand if they were serious. “Not really.”
The bell rang, and the trio of boys headed for the door. “She’s got to be rich,” she heard them say on their way.
“Ignore them,” the normal girl said. “We all do.”
Whitney smiled.
“I’m Ivy, and this is Brynley.” The pretty girl smiled and swung aside her perfect hair.
“I’m Whitney.”
The girls smiled briefly before catching up with the boys in the hall and leaving Whitney to wander towards where she thought the science classes were held.
Whitney didn’t talk to another person for a full eighty-nine minutes. If the stares had stopped, she would have doubted people could even see her. They didn’t though and instead the eyes followed her through biology and into drama, the most dreaded class on her schedule.
Making her way towards the front of the theater, Whitney passed, row after row of giddy, dramatic teenagers overjoyed about getting to act out someone else’s drama for a change. She cringed as she took a seat on the edge.
A short rundown of the rules and expectations proceeded the energetic drama teacher, Mrs. Emmerson bringing out two large bags of M&M’s and passing them around with the only instructions being to grab some, but not eat them yet. When the bag reached Whitney she hastily grabbed a handful and passed them on.
“Okay, kids.” Mrs. Emmerson said, “To start, we need to get to know each other, so for every M&M in your hand you are going to tell us one thing about yourself.”
As Whitney stared at her M&M’s in horror a quirky brunette turned around with the same face.
“How many did you take?” She asked.
“17,” Whitney sighed.
“I took two handfuls…..forty-three,” quirky girl said, defeat permeating her eyes.
Her pain did ease Whitney’s terror a little, but Whitney knew, just by looking, that this girl had a plethora of interesting facts to share. Whitney did not.
The stress of the first day compounded within the dilapidated theater as students started sharing. Whitney stared at the sea of unfamiliar faces, anxiety twisting tighter as each unwelcoming person finished.
“I’m Everley, by the way,” the quirky girl whispered.
“Whitney.”
“Your hair is amazing! My friend Brynley is going to hate you for that.”
Whitney smiled weakly. She’d always been much more tomboy than pretty, but her long brown hair she did take pride in. Although now it seemed like maybe blonde Brynley from first period was going to hate her for it. Awesome.
Across the room, two senior girls, attracting attention like major magnetic fields, must have known how the game worked because they each only took two. “Eva” went first, flipping back her long strawberry blonde hair and taking a breath before starting. The first of her facts was her name…so fascinating. Second, she stated she just returned from a family trip to Mexico, which was apparently very exotic and awe-inspiring to this crowd.
Whitney removed ‘we have a vacation house in Whistler’ from her potential list of facts.
“Jasmine” went next, but not before adding “with me” to Eva’s Mexico comment and receiving a round of jealous looks from the cl
ass. Jasmine’s blonde hair sparkled with natural highlights people in California paid hundreds of dollars for, and her blue eyes shone brightly. Jasmine also used her name as fact number one and then stated she had six brothers and sisters.
Whitney’s eyes moved with the class to the trio of boys next to Eva and Jasmine, but while most stopped to listen to Ian, a broad football player stuck between intimidating and teddy bear, Whitney’s moved instinctively to the guy next to him. In a simple football sweatshirt and dark non-descript jeans sat the boy from the tractor, looking every-bit as hot up close as he had from her window. Whitney watched tractor boy, intensely, as Ian’s comments sent the class into a roar of laughter. She could tell others regularly dismissed him as the typical high school jock he appeared to be, but he was different somehow. His clear blue eyes met hers, for just a second, and immediately she was lost. Whitney needed to know him, yet the next few minutes would only reinforce that however mysterious and alluring he seemed, he was way out of her league.
“I’m Leif,” he said, running his hand through his short blonde hair in a way that made Whitney’s heart jump.
“I play running back on the football team.
I spent my summer working on our family farm.
It sucked.
But I got tan.
I actually enjoy running.
I have five sisters.
They are all extremely annoying.
My favorite subject is history
Ms. Tharp is my favorite teacher….yet Mrs. E is my second.
And, I realized this summer that I really need a friend with a swimming pool.”
Whitney nearly raised her hand as the last comment came out.
Next to Leif sat Chris. He liked sushi, played football and baseball and enjoyed a good bonfire. The last remark received strong support from the rest of the class and a scowl from Ms. Emmerson. Whitney returned to stressing about her own list.
Most people only had 4-7 M&Ms moving the activity swiftly through the rows of students like a wild fire madly approaching Whitney.
Being Whitney (Book one of the Being Series): A Young Adult Novel Page 1
