Center of Gravity

by Shaunta Grimes

  “One more,” Oscar says behind me.

  Thanks. I can count. But obviously you can’t. I need six more. Six.

  For the next couple of plays, I’m just chasing behind the girls, running myself ragged like sometimes happens in a real soccer game when the other team is better. Even though I’m standing in one spot, I’m breathing hard, like I’ve been running the field from the goal to the half over and over.

  Somehow, we stay even with them, though. They score, then we do. Every time they get the ball past Jay Jay, I get a jolt of adrenaline and somehow manage to power it past their keeper.

  The only problem is that if we keep up this pattern, they’ll win. Our last score brings it to 9–9, and I’m so anxious I can’t breathe.

  “One more,” Oscar says again. At least he caught up with reality.

  And suddenly it’s over. I score again, and the game stops. The girl across from me spins her front line in frustration, and the tender says, “Don’t do that. Shake hands.”

  I reach across the table and the girl hesitates, but finally takes my hand. “Good game,” I say.

  “Good game.”

  When Jay Jay is done shaking hands with the player across from him, he turns to look at me and my face breaks into a smile. He gives me a double high five and then Marvel is there, with his arms around my waist, jumping like a jackrabbit.

  “You did it,” Oscar says. “I can’t believe you pulled that off.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I say.

  “Not you.” He shoves Jay Jay’s shoulder. “What happened to you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re too used to playing against each other,” I say.

  Jay Jay looks up, like he’s checking for spies. There are still a handful of games going. “Maybe Tessa should play in the next game. She won this one.”

  “It’s ours,” Oscar says.

  “She’s right, though. I was thrown off by playing someone other than you guys. If I’d been playing with any of you, we’d have lost.”

  “We won’t lose.” Oscar is unmovable. And the last of the games are finishing.

  Each team’s name is written on a giant chalkboard, matching teams up for the second round of the day. Every team plays six times, getting a point for a win. The ten teams with the highest scores move on to play next Friday in the finals.

  Next Friday, the teams that are left standing will play a standard elimination final series until there is just one winner who will take the $1,000 prize.

  I look around at the other teams. Some of the kids look much older than we are. Some are dressed in matching uniforms. Marvel is looking up at me with the hood of his bear costume falling over his eyes, and I think, Our lemonade stand better work.

  * * *

  Petey and Oscar are creamed by a team of high school boys. Creamed. They don’t score at all and the whole thing’s over before any of the other games have even properly gotten started. It’s painful to watch.

  “Come on,” Jay Jay keeps saying. “Come on, what are you doing?”

  Petey and Oscar have the same problem Jay Jay did. They’re totally thrown off by plays they aren’t used to, and there is no time to recover. The goals come fast and furious. No time to talk to each other, since neither calls for a time-out. No time to strategize. The shots just keep coming. Petey does his best and manages to block some of them, but not enough. Oscar never even comes close to scoring.

  If this were real soccer, they’d need stretchers to take them off the field.

  I look up at the stands and find Lila. She has a hand over her mouth. Oscar’s mother and Jay Jay’s grandmother are leaning close to each other. All three of them look like they’re watching a train wreck.

  “This is so stupid.” Petey kicks at the bleachers with the toe of his sneaker. “What were we thinking? We’re never going to win.”

  “Don’t say that.” Jay Jay puts his hand on Petey’s shoulder before the boy can kick again.

  “Why not? It’s true. We really are losers,” Oscar says.

  “Who’s best in the goal?” I ask.

  They all turn to me.

  Marvel pushes his hood off his head. He looks overheated to me, and I wonder if he’s wearing shorts under all that fur. He says, “You are.”

  I shake my head. “Besides me. Who is best?”

  Jay Jay tips his head. “Petey is.”

  I try to work through a strategy that is only just starting to take shape. “No, that won’t work. Between you and Oscar, who’s best?”

  “What do you mean it won’t work?” Petey asks.

  “You already play defense. We need to shake it up.” They all look at me and I wrap my arms around my chest, but I don’t back down. “Jay Jay and I did better when we switched.”

  “Oscar’s better than I am,” Jay Jay says.

  I was afraid of that. I look at Oscar, and he’s glaring at me. He doesn’t trust me. I’m right, though. We’ll do better if we play positions we’re not so used to. The boys need to stop expecting the other players to play how they want them to.

  “So who’s playing offense?” he asks.

  “Petey,” I say.

  “No.” Petey shakes his head. “It has to be you, Tessa.”

  “What?” The referee blows his whistle, and the sound makes me jump.

  Petey lifts his eyebrows and tips his head toward the table. The other team is already there. “You’re better than I am.”

  “Are you in or what?” Oscar asks.

  My hands and feet tingle and my ears are ringing, like all the blood in my body has rushed to my head. I look up at the stands again, and Lila waves at me.

  You can do this, Soldier. I hear Mom’s voice in my head, and I have to look away from Lila. I wish Dad were here. Or Gran. Or Megan and Denny.

  I rub my fingertips against my palms and then rub my palms hard against my hips, bouncing on my toes. Oscar takes his place beside me and pulls the keeper back and forth, like he’s testing the rod.

  Our tender bounces the ball on his palm once, twice, and then when the ref blows the whistle, he drops it in the center of the table.

  I lose the drop, and Oscar groans. The boy across from me gives a little whoop as he passes the ball back to his defense. The defender sends it flying through my front line to Oscar, who blocks the shot.

  He keeps the ball for a minute, passing it just up from the keeper to the defensive line. When I look back at him, he says, “Ready?”

  I take a breath. You can do this, Soldier. “Ready.”

  He passes the ball to me. We’ve given the other side a chance to regroup, and they’re ready, too. The boy on defense bounces on his toes and pulls his keeper and his defensive line back and forth, like two saws moving in opposite directions.

  “One.”

  The boy looks up at me.

  “Two.”

  He crouches down and readies himself. Like I’m counting down for him, letting him know when I’m going to shoot. He expects me to say three and then go. So when I shoot on two, sending the ball hard toward the far-left corner of the goal, he’s not ready.

  That won’t work again, but it worked once. The ball goes in.

  * * *

  My strategy for the game, combined with the good luck of playing against a team that wasn’t as good as the first two we were up against, works.

  Oscar and I win.

  The guy at the chalkboard writes “The Losers” in the ninth slot for the finals. For three more games, we manage to stay right there. Ninth. Only one of the top-ten teams is worse than us, but we do it, even with an iffy first game and a terrible second game.

  “You were amazing,” Lila says to me when we’re in her car, as she struggles to get the seat belt around her huge belly. “I wish your dad had been here to see that.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  “He wanted to be. You know that, don’t you?”

  I hardly need Lila to tell me what my dad wants. A few minutes ago, I was flying high. My n
ew friends were hugging me. For the first time in a long time I felt like I belonged somewhere. That good feeling takes a hard shift now and anger floods me.

  My jaw rusts shut again. If I speak, I’ll say something awful. But it’s not like the something awful is bursting to come out, either. I don’t want to hurt Lila’s feelings.

  I can’t make myself say anything at all.

  But on the way home, Lila asks me if I want to go grocery shopping with her, and I remember something that makes me finally pry open my mouth. “We want to have a lemonade stand.”

  She looks at me, then back to the road. “You and Jay Jay?”

  “And the other guys, too. By the beach.”

  Lila makes a little sound and nods her head in approval. “That’s a great idea. The bluff is always packed.”

  “Will you help me buy the stuff?” I ask.

  “Can you reach my binder, behind you?” I turn in my seat and pull the heavy binder into my lap with a grunt. It must weigh ten pounds. “See the divider that says ‘beverages’?”

  I flip the book open and run my finger past coupons for frozen orange juice and canned soda and chocolate milk powder.

  “I think I have some coupons for Flavor Aid,” Lila says.

  I find them, at least a dozen clipped from the Sunday paper. Flavor Aid, fifteen for a dollar. Where does she get so many? “I see them.”

  Lila pulls into the grocery store parking lot without asking me again if I want to go with her. After she pulls herself out of the little car, she stops for a minute and puts a hand on her lower back. I watch her, a little worried I’m going to have to go get help, but then the pain on her face passes and she goes to get a cart someone’s left two parking spots down.

  I prop her giant coupon binder in the baby seat and wonder what she’ll do when she has to put a baby there. “When will Dad be home?”

  “He should be there when we get home.” She stops walking. “What’s your favorite? We should have your favorite dinner tonight. To celebrate.”

  “Oh.” Her excitement about the Losers making it to the finals is embarrassing for some reason. For a minute, I can’t even remember what I like to eat. I finally spit out, “Spaghetti?”

  She smiles. “Perfect. With meatballs?”

  I haven’t had spaghetti, with or without meatballs, since the last time my mom made it for me.

  Lila watches me struggle to figure out what to say, then just smiles and says, “That’s good then.” She goes back to pushing her cart toward the store.

  She’s as uncomfortable as I am. That hits me hard. It hadn’t occurred to me before. I follow behind her and test the idea of her making spaghetti for me and decide that it should be okay. It won’t be just like Mom’s anyway. Mom put grape jelly in her meatballs.

  * * *

  Dad sits at the kitchen table and listens to Lila tell him all about the tournament. I want to tell him myself, but she’s gushing and hearing her talk about me has tied my tongue into knots. My face feels beet red.

  Dad reaches over and chucks my chin gently with his fist. “I guess you really are a foosball champion. I wish I could have been there.”

  “I wish you could have been, too,” Lila says. “She was amazing, Gordy.”

  Dad twirls spaghetti around his fork. He’s not really eating, and I wonder if he’s remembering, like I did, that the last time we had this dinner Mom made it for us.

  I was right at least; it doesn’t taste like hers at all. Still, I wish I’d said pork chops or meatloaf.

  “Can you come next week?” I ask Dad. “For the finals.”

  Dad looks at me, and my stomach sinks. I know what’s coming, just from the way he exhales slowly. “It’s fine,” I say, before he can tell me that he won’t be there.

  “I can be there Friday,” he says. There’s a but. I feel it in the air. “But my flight to Portland is in the morning.”

  “How long will you be gone?” I ask.

  “Just until Tuesday.”

  Lila asks the next question before I can. “Do you have to go?”

  He looks miserable and doesn’t say anything. I wait, but when he still just sits there, I say, “Do you have to, Dad?”

  If he says he has to, then I’ll believe him. I’m not one hundred percent sure about whether or not he’ll lie to Lila, but he doesn’t lie to me.

  He finally sighs and sits back in his seat. “It’s not mandatory exactly. But I’ve been strongly advised that I should be there.”

  I should be upset. He’s leaving me alone with Lila for—

  “How long will you be gone again?”

  “I’ll be home Tuesday morning. Early,” he says.

  For three days, practically as soon as we’ve set foot in California. I barely even know Lila. But it helps that he told the truth. He still doesn’t lie to me. “It’s okay.”

  “Are you sure?” he asks. And he means it. I think he’ll stay, if I tell him I need him to. He’ll believe me, the way I believe him.

  “I think so.”

  “Lila will be here,” he says. Then he looks at her. “Won’t you?”

  She’s not as easy to forgive as I am. Her arms are crossed tightly around her, above her belly. “Of course I will be.”

  “Thank you,” he says. To both of us. I look from one of them to the other, and it suddenly hits me. They don’t have any sort of silent back and forth. Mom and Dad used to have whole conversations just looking at each other. He would have been able to smooth things over with Mom without saying a word.

  “I’m going to have a lemonade stand on Sunday,” I say, to change the subject. “With my friends.”

  “Oh yeah?” Dad says.

  “Lila bought the stuff for us today.”

  “Starting your empire, huh?” He’s talking to me, but he’s still looking at Lila.

  I want to tell him. About Petey and Marvel and their mom. About why the tournament matters so much. If we actually do win, I’m going to have to figure out some way to explain why I don’t have my part of the money.

  I’m meeting the boys at the clubhouse at midnight. Late enough that all the grown-ups will assume we’re in bed for the night and will probably be in bed themselves and not get up to check on us before morning.

  Not telling Dad that I’m going to camp out at the clubhouse isn’t the same as lying, I tell myself again. If it were, then he’d lied to me every time he was with Lila before the day he told me he was marrying her. And I can’t let myself believe that.

  Jay Jay’s bringing an extra sleeping bag for me. We’ll all leave notes that we went to the beach early, so no one misses us in the morning, if they check.

  The boys have done this before. It never fails, Oscar said.

  Dad has left the house without saying goodbye to me practically every day since we got to California, so I doubt he’ll even know I left.

  And if he does find out?

  I don’t let myself think about that right now. There’s no way I’m missing this campout.

  * * *

  I wait until Dad and Lila are on the sofa watching a movie on her box-top VCR before I go upstairs to check Lucy’s turret window for any messages.

  Nothing.

  “Hey.”

  “Oh my God.” I nearly come out of my skin, my heart beating so hard it actually pushes me back a step. Jay Jay stands on the balcony in the dark, to the left of the door. I was so focused on the window at his house that I didn’t even see him or that the door was open. “You scared me!”

  “Sorry.” He’s got a blue sleeping bag in his arms, rolled up tight. “I just wanted to bring this by. And make sure you’re still coming tonight.”

  “I am.” I take the sleeping bag and put it on my bed, next to my shoebox that is sitting out.

  Jay Jay’s blue and green eyes take it in. “Those things are really important to you, huh?”

  “They aren’t things,” I say. “They’re people.”

  “I meant the cards.”

  “I know.�
� I don’t want to talk about it.

  “I wonder if they’ll put Petey and Marvel on a milk carton? If we pull this off.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. Jay Jay saying it out loud makes me uncomfortable. I sit on the edge of my bed and watch him as he moves to inspect the weird doll wallpaper.

  “We could tell my dad,” I say. “He’d help them. Teachers have to.”

  Jay Jay turns to me. “You promised.”

  “I know. But running away is—”

  “It isn’t really running away. They just need to get to their uncle. Everything will be okay after that.”

  “How do you know?”

  He leans against the changing table. “Their mom didn’t used to be like this. She’s sick or something.”

  “Sick how?”

  “Something happened to her, before Marvel was born. Petey doesn’t know what, exactly. He was only five. But something. She started drinking, and whatever it is, she takes it out on Marv.”

  “We really should tell my dad,” I say again.

  “They’ve told before, and it only made things worse. There isn’t anything your dad can do.”

  “He can call the police.”

  Jay Jay shakes his head. “That happened once.”

  “Someone called the police?”

  “Marv’s kindergarten teacher caught him stealing food out of the other kids’ lunch boxes.”

  “What happened?”

  Jay Jay takes a deep breath. “They went to separate foster homes. Their mom got them back, but it took six months.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I guess things got better for a while. Then they got worse. Much worse. This year has been bad.”

  Jay Jay leans over to my bed and picks up the box of missing kids. He takes the first card out and holds it toward me, so I can see Christine Adams’s face. She has full cheeks and an easy smile. Her stats come to me. “She’s about Marv’s age.”

  “I know that. But—”

  “Petey’s smart. He’s smarter than any of us. If they get to Michigan and their uncle won’t help them, they can get help there. Away from their mom. It’s not like they’re really running away.” He puts Christine Adams back and flips through the cards, barely glancing at each face. He finally looks up at me. “They have to at least try. Petey has to try. You promised not to tell.”