by Amber Kizer
Probably because you’re rarely home.
“Thanks for opening the letter before me,” I say, just to stop the flow of parental concern.
As predicted, she bristles. “I thought it was important.”
“Whatever.” I clomp up to my room.
How badly do I want a better score? Badly enough to retake the test? Badly enough to study for it? Badly enough to risk doing worse the second time around? What happens if you do worse? Do they keep track? Do they have a list of decreasing scores, like a blacklist? I bet there’s a list.
I slam my locker door shut, hoping the dent in it will go away with the extra force. Stevie isn’t here to walk me to Ms. Whoptommy’s, which is weird.
“What’d you get?” Adam pauses long enough to backpedal. He’s so going to run into someone doing that.
“On what?” I’m hoping the whole class didn’t get their scores at the same time. It will so suck if this week is all about who scored what on the test.
“Gertie.” He stops and stares at me.
“Don’t ask. You?” I can’t spend the energy discussing this right now.
“One hundred sixty-three.”
“Great.” I try to feign celebration. Adam isn’t smarter than me.
“Can you believe the delay in us getting our scores?”
“What?”
“Didn’t you read the letter? Some bullshit about natural disasters and a computer malfunction?”
“No.” Hmm, did the parental take it or did I just miss it in the haze of seeing a lifetime of minimum wage flash before my eyes?
“Oh. Well. We should have gotten them a couple of months ago, but they screwed our school. Good thing we’re sophs and it doesn’t matter. I guess it screwed a bunch of Merit stuff too.” Adam waves his hand around. “You must have hit two hundred easy, right?” He jogs backward several more feet until he smacks into a pillar.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say. It’s written all over my face: I’m a total idiot. I should pick up a heroin needle now and go join the Cloud Riders. My membership in the Brains will be revoked at any minute. I should perfect my giggle in case I’m adrift in a world with no like people.
The warning bell rings.
“I’m so, so—” Adam’s sympathy is lost in the chaos of scurrying to our next class.
Stephen never shows up to walk with me. Odd. Maybe he’s sick or something? Or not here today? I don’t think I’ve seen him around.
I slink into Ms. Whoptommy’s, certain that if anyone is going to ask the class what their scores are, it’ll be her.
Stephen’s already here. Weird. I smile at him. He looks miraculously healthy. I mouth, “Hi!” His friend Charlie smirks at me.
Stephen gives me a weird half smile, half shrug. Maybe he is ill. I’m getting a strange vibe.
I make it through the period with my eyes glued to the clock, watching the second hand tick. What’s that saying about boiling water in a pot? It goes slower if you watch it, right? Second hands are the same. I swear the thing goes backward a couple of times to make the torture last longer.
Tangent: sorry.
The bell rings and I jump up, ready to dart out of class. Boyfriend with plague is so on his own. Today is not a selfless day.
“Gert, wait up,” Stephen calls to me.
I can’t ignore him. It’s in the code-of-conduct dating handbook. I stop and turn back. “Hi,” I say.
“Hi.” He pulls out a note from his pocket.
A love note? Today could get so much better. So much brighter. I can feel the sun on my face and hear birds twittering a Disney song.
“Here.” He pretty much thrusts the lined notebook paper at me.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah.” He backs away like I’m the one with the weird contagious illness.
That’s when I get a chilly feeling of evil. I’m not turning into a vampire killer or anything, but I really don’t think reading this piece of paper is in my best interest. Really not.
Stephen is acting all weird. No kiss. No “save me a seat at lunch,” no “tell me what’s up with you.”
I close my eyes for a minute, blinking away innocence. He’s dumping me. I look at the crinkled paper, still warm with his body heat, and I know. I know. I move to the side of the hallway before slowly unfolding the paper. I’m going to vomit.
I read:
Dear Gert,
Our relationship is dying. I think it’s because we have moved to a new level and we’re not giving each other what we need. Relationships need growth and giving to be healthy and have longevity. Ours doesn’t have staying power. So I liked dating you, but I have to move on for my own health and development.
Regards,
Stephen
Is he serious? This isn’t a breakup note, it’s a self-help book.
I stop the first girl who walks by. “Is he serious?” I say, handing her the note.
It happens she’s a senior with all her crap together and we’ve never exchanged glances, let alone words.
“Cowardly little shit. You are so better off single, girl.” She hands the note back and moves on.
“Thank you!” I call over my shoulder as I slump against the lockers.
I’ve been dumped. Dumped by Dr. Phil’s evil twin.
“Hey, Gert, warm-ups are at three-thirty. Look alive!” Lucas waves at me as he ducks into a classroom.
Warm-ups. Soccer home game. Lucas seeing me with my I’ve-been-badly-dumped face on. That’s a cherry for you.
Okay, here’s the deal. I don’t have delusions of athletic ability. Really, I’m not the girl who thinks she’s a jock but is really a Brain on the inside. Nope, I really am a Brain. So how did I get roped into this?
Clarice is actually talented. Maggie is worse than I am, so she’s an alternate and rotates in when other people need breathers. None of us are in such great shape that we can play an entire half without needing to pass out for a few seconds until the oxygen begins flowing again.
I take that back. The goalie, Karmel, doesn’t need breaks because she never actually tries to stop the ball. She likes to play the odds. She’s so wide that the opposing team needs a mathematician to calculate the best angle of assault. Otherwise it’s just luck. She likes the luck form of soccer.
Candace and Becky are both seniors, have played soccer since they were in utero, kicked boy-butt on many a field and played weekends on club teams for fun. They must so want to kill themselves right now. It’s pretty much them as our team, and us running, jogging or walking along the field until the other team steals the ball from them and tries to calculate a goal.
Is there really anything else to say? Oh, the uniforms are nasty-ass polyester from ages ago. The school district bought them on eBay from a Russian state hoping to fund terrorism. They got enough money for the clothes to make a tongue-depressor gum-ball launcher. Sad, really.
So we’re stuck wearing nonschool colors and absorbing who knows what kind of nuclear waste. I swear these were the official soccer uniforms of the Chernobyl company team.
I take the field. The other team, Mount Henley, looks like they do weight training and all sorts of cosmetic preparations. They actually look cute in their outfits with matching ribbons in their hair. How come we don’t have matching ribbons and pink lip gloss?
The ref blows the starting whistle and it startles me. I’m too busy waving back at Mom, Dad, Mike and Heather.
Whoosh! The ball speeds past me and I can feel the ground vibrate as a million elephants stampede in my general direction. I don’t even have time to brace myself before I’m knocked to the ground by a Mount Henley assassin. Air. I need air.
The ref leans down and peers into my face. “Take deep, even breaths,” he says, like I’m gasping on purpose for the fun of it. “She’ll be okay.” He points at Ms. Assassin and gives her a foul. “Pushing.”
Pushing? You’re kidding, right? How about murderous intent? Clarice helps me to my feet, but then leaves me as the
ball goes sailing down the other end of the field. Clarice takes her position more seriously than my health. Good friend.
We don’t have official positions yet. Mack wants us to get a feel for all the stations before we get assigned to permanent locations. Clarice is a forward today, and I’m a halfback. Maggie is a benchwarmer.
The crowd cheers and I blink, trying to bring the field into focus. We score. I think. No one stands still long enough for me to really get a good view of the scoreboard.
The ball flies past me again. I try to run after it, but it seems like every time I manage to get where the ball is, it’s gone, replaced by nothing except empty air and me looking inept. I really try to keep up, but Holy-Mother-of-the-Sports-Bra, there’s a lot of running in this game.
The ball comes toward me. I move to stop it and kick it back in the opposite direction. Some girl from the other team kicks me in the shin. “Ouch.” I kick her back.
“Ouch.” She swears, too.
“Stop that,” I say, trying to kick the ball toward Clarice and Candace. Now shin girl and her teammates are all ganging up on me and kicking my legs as hard as they can. Isn’t this bad sportsmanship?
Finally, I kick the ball free and pass it directly to an opponent who is lined up at the perfect angle to score.
Karmel yells at me. “Thanks, Gert.”
Mack screams from the sideline and throws his ball cap on the ground. Lucas is shaking his head like I’ve let down the entire free world.
It’s a lot to keep track of, thank you. I need steel-toed cleats so I can whack some serious shin next time. Although I could just not go after the ball and then I wouldn’t get kicked.
My shins have to be broken. Everyone will feel really stupid when they find out I’m playing with two broken shins.
Mount Henley scores again. Perhaps I should have run in the general direction of the ball, but it really doesn’t stay in one place long enough.
And again.
We score. Or more like Candace scores.
Clarice steals the ball, only to be tripped on her way to goal. Ouch. That had to hurt. She picks grass out of her hair as the ref gives another foul to Henley. How many do they get? This has to be number twelve.
The ball rolls toward me and I kick it as hard as I can. It moves down the field about ten feet. Pathetic. One of the other team grabs it with her toes and does a samba toward me. I make a few attempts to stop her that are the least likely to cause me physical injury. I’m not big on the pain thing. My shins are throbbing so much that at any moment I’m going to look down and see bone poking out of my kneesocks.
Halftime.
My parents are clapping. I think they’re trying to be supportive. Mike is talking on his cell phone with his back to the field. He showed up, I guess.
I sink onto a bench in the locker room and look for open wounds.
“Good job out there, Garibaldi. You really showed effort.” Mack hits me on the back hard enough to displace a rib or two.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
“Don’t worry about it.” Candace walks by like she hasn’t been running for forty-five minutes. She doesn’t even seem out of breath. Her breasts are perky and her sweat glistens like in a bronzer commercial. It’s not fair.
The rest of the game is a blur of ball, bodies, fouls and pain. I think I rupture my spleen.
The ref finally blows the whistle to signal the end of the game and I glance at the scoreboard. 12–2. Us losing a soccer game with a baseball score—not a good sign. The rest of the season sits in my future like the Grim Reaper.
Mack gives us a big pep talk after the game. I don’t remember a word of it. I guess it’s supposed to be all motivatey and unpatheticy.
Really not working.
“I forgot my history book!” I yell to my parents, motioning with my arm that I’m going to get it. They wave. Mike and Heather have already left.
I walk—stumble, really—toward my locker. My muscles don’t want to do what my brain is asking of them. I have to slow way down or pass a group of cheering Pops coming out of the boys’ basketball game in the gym. I hit the brakes.
“Did you see them?”
“They sucked so bad.”
“It’s not like they’re playing because they like balls.” They all cackle.
Why do I have that sick feeling they’re talking about the soccer team?
“What do you mean?” one of the Pops finally asks.
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Soccer chicks are always gay. Always.”
“Turf munchers,” says another Pops, shrugging.
I’ve been verbally punched in the stomach. Gay?
“What?” says Pops number one.
“You know. They like eating pussy.”
I’m going to vomit. I duck behind a post. I don’t need my soccer-team sweatshirt drawing their attention. I’m not ready to defend my sexuality, especially when I didn’t know I had to.
They walk past me, moving on to other illustrious topics.
Gay? Eating pussy? I thought I was playing a sport. To get Lucas’s attention. How does that make me gay? And how didn’t I know I was gay? And how come my gay friends didn’t think to warn me that this was the general feeling about soccer players? Dumped and gay all on the same day. Bloody brilliant.
Is it true all female athletes are gay? Does that make me gay? Why aren’t male athletes considered gay? Okay, so figure skaters are gay … and ballerina-boys … and oh there I go … I’m sure there’s a male figure skater who’s straight … isn’t there?
Will people think I’m gay now that I play soccer? Are male footballers really ballers? How to combat assumptions?
Do I care? Maybe. But I know I will never touch a manly-boy butt if I give off the butch vibe, even if only through association.
Clarice isn’t gay. Maggie isn’t gay. Or are they? No, that would have come up in conversation. I’m not. I guess maybe I shouldn’t assume that the burly girl playing goalie means anything when she smiles at me. Do I have to be careful how nice I am? Will I be attacked in the locker room by fanatical lesbian players? Is Lucas our coach only because he thinks none of us are lusting after him?
I tried just not getting out of bed this morning, but the parentals noticed my absence around the coffeepot in time to get me to school. Damn.
I so don’t want to be here. I don’t want to see Stephen. I don’t want to see those bitchy cheerleaders. Basically I’d like a dark hole with a home theater system, Netflix and junk food to live in. I could stay there forever and not feel the need to see school again.
“I have Vaseline.” Tim and Adam lean over me as I’m digging through my locker before classes start.
“For what?” I ask. Do I want to know what my favorite gay boys need Vaseline for?
“His locker,” Adam says.
“Huh?”
“We’re going to cover his locker with slime because he be a slimeball.” Tim goes all ghetto gay.
“Uh-huh.” Weird. Sweet, but weird. “Maybe I should be all mature and not make a big deal about it.”
“That’s Charlie over there with the Cloud Riders.”
“So?”
“So he’s pointing at you and they’re all laughing.”
“Smear away.” I slam my locker door.
Adam and Tim high-five and all but run in the direction of poor Stevie’s locker.
“Hi!” Clarice and Maggie show up.
Holy-Mother-of-Suicide-Watches, what’s up with the friends putting in appearances?
“Hi.”
Clarice pulls out a gift bag that says “Over the Hill.” She points at it. “Sorry, had to make do with what they had in stock.”
“What’s this?” How do they all know already?
“Care package,” Maggie says.
“For what?”
“For you. The school has already heard about the breakup.”
“It has junk food, Kleenex, Sharpies for doodle cle
anup on anything you might have drawn hearts or his name on, a scented ‘single-and-loving-it’ candle—”
GREAT! “From your older sister?” I ask Clarice.
“Both of ours,” Maggie answers. “Mine said you need a copy of GI Jane, which is her favorite kick-butt girl movie.” Maggie’s sister is at NYU.
“Uh-huh.” I’m touched.
“Plus I printed out a list of ways to get over a broken heart.” Maggie points to the small ream of paper tucked into the bag.
“Thanks.” How am I going to show my face knowing everyone is talking about me?
“You’re welcome.”
Bell rings. I stash the loot in my locker.
“See you at lunch.” They wave.
Lunch. Huh. That’s gonna hurt.
I can’t do it. No matter how great my friends are, I can’t walk through the cafeteria today. I can’t pretend I’m superbusy looking for a superimportant group of superpeople to eat with.
I’d like to be the totally together girl who calls the dumping dude a wanker and moves on to the next penis person. I’d like to be. In fact, I’d sell my virginity to the devil to be that girl. I’m so not that girl.
I pull my feet up and push against the stall door as a group of Giggles arrives in the bathroom for after-lunch upchucking.
Is it always going to feel this bad?
He’s a bad kisser.
He sucks at conversation.
He probably doesn’t even remember my favorite color or my favorite group or the world’s all-time best movie according to moi.
So why am I crying? I blow my nose in really cheap toilet paper when the herd leaves.
My mascara is turning into lip liner.
Why can’t there be an expiration date on dating so you know when to abort the mission? Like those alarms in the space shuttle that scream, “Pull up! Pull up!”
I would have appreciated a little ejecting before the crash and burn.
He dumped me. And he sucks.
So why am I so sad?
I thought things were looking up, but they’re not. It’s a weird blip on the radar, me thinking that life was turning around and good.
Okay, he wasn’t perfect.
