by Nancy Rue
It turned out to be true. Lucy used a long, lofted pass to get the ball to J.J. over Januarie’s head. When she ran for it, he took a few dribbles and called “Wall!” to Lucy. As the ball came toward her, Lucy trapped it while J.J. ran around Januarie. Feeling like Mia Hamm herself, Lucy passed it back to him. By then they were so far ahead of the poor kid that she sat down on the dirt and burst into tears.
“Not fair!” she wailed.
Lucy trotted over to her and put a hand down to pull her up. Januarie turned her streaked face away and continued to blubber.
“Cry all you want,” J.J. said, “but you gotta get off the field. Go home — and remember — you can’t tell — ”
“I am telling!” Januarie struggled to her knees and then her feet.
“I’m telling that you — ” She thrust a hand toward Lucy. “ — won’t let me play because you think I’m too fat.”
“Huh?” Lucy said. She swiped her bangs back with her hand. “I never said you were fat.”
“Yes, you did. They told me you did. And I didn’t believe them, but now I do.”
Carla Rosa was right about one thing. There was a lot of stuff coming out of Januarie’s nose. And the crying screech made Lucy wish for the Chihuahua whine.
It howled out of Januarie as she stomped off the field and down the road. That’s when it occurred to Lucy that Januarie had walked all that way to be with them — and that she was going to cross the highway by herself.
And that she really was going to tell J.J.’s dad.
“We better go after her,” Lucy said.
“I hate that kid,” J.J. said.
“We’ll fix it somehow. But if she gets run over by a car — ”
“Guess what,” Carla Rosa said in her matter-of-fact voice. “She’ll get killed.”
J.J. muttered something about that being fine with him. Lucy herself would have at least let Mudge loose on her if he’d been there.
They caught up with Januarie at a bent sign that seemed to have once said SLOW CHILDREN PLAYING. She was sitting against it, huffing and puffing, and the crying started again as soon as she saw them. Lucy hushed her up with a Jolly Rancher she found in the pocket of her sweatshirt and a promise that Januarie could spy for her the next day — just as soon as Lucy needed her.
“I still want to play,” Januarie said stubbornly when Lucy said good-bye to them at the gate.
“You get to play at school,” Lucy said. “And as soon as you get good enough, you can join our team.”
J.J. grunted. But Lucy found herself warming up. “See, our team is secret. And so is the field. That’s what makes it special. It’s not an honor to belong to it if you don’t have to work to get in on the secret.”
Januarie wiped her nose on her sleeve. Fortunately, the jacket was the same color as what came out.
“It’s so special,” Lucy said, “Gabe and Veronica and Dusty aren’t even good enough to be on it yet.”
That was actually not true, Lucy knew. But “good” could mean a lot of things. As in good sport, which they so were not.
“If you tell,” J.J. said, “that ruins the whole team, and you’ll never get to be on it.” He glanced at Lucy, who nodded at him.
Januarie looked as if she were eating his words with her eyes, tasting them for truth. “But when I’m good enough, I will be on it,” she said. “Right? You said that.”
“Yes,” Lucy said quickly, before J.J. could point out that the chances of her ever being good enough didn’t exist.
“All right then.” Januarie drew her finger across her lips and pressed them together so tightly they turned white.
“What was that?” J.J. said.
“I’m zipping my lips,” she said, barely opening them.
J.J. grunted again. “That’s the smartest thing you ever said.”
Dad was sitting in his special cracked-leather chair in the almost-dark living room when Lucy got inside with an armful of Mudge. Marmalade was snoozing on his lap, and Lollipop sat in a curl on the tile in front of the fireplace, face to the f lames like she was trying to get a tan. Artemis Hamm crouched with her whiskers to the corner near what Lucy and Dad called the Napping Couch, where you could nap, as opposed to the Sitting Couch, where you could sit. Lucy suddenly wanted to be with Dad again.
“Artemis Hamm is stalking something,” she said.
“I hope it’s not alive,” Dad said. “You have Mudge with you.”
“How do you always know?”
“Because Marmalade’s heart rate just went up about twenty notches.”
Mudge gave a low growl and leaped out of Lucy’s arms, straight for Lolli. She rolled under the Sitting Couch, so Mudge tore after Artemis, who hissed and spit — and then retreated to the windowsill.
“Outside with him,” Dad said in his dry voice.
Lucy scooped Mudge up and shut him in the kitchen with his food, which she could hear him eating between grumbles.
“Why is he so evil to the other cats?” Lucy said as she perched on the arm of Dad’s chair.
“That’s his job,” Dad said. “They all have their jobs.”
“Artemis’s is definitely to hunt. Tell me about when she first came.” She’d heard it six thousand times, of course, but happy as she was with the day, she was in the mood to hear it again.
“She just strolled up to our back door one day with a snake in her mouth.”
“Dead, right?”
“Yes, or your mother would never have let her in. She wanted to exchange it for food.” He gave his special chuckle. “You have to be good to catch a snake, which is why Mommy named her Artemis.”
“The goddess of the hunt in mythology,” Lucy said. “But I got to give her the middle name Hamm.”
“Your mother was so proud that you knew about Mia Hamm. Of course, she was telling you about female soccer players when other moms were talking to their daughters about fairy princesses.”
Lucy shook her ponytail. “Artemis Cinderella wouldn’t be a very good name.”
“Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Artemis Hamm. Did you ever notice how she won’t come running for her food if you don’t say the whole thing?”
“Sometimes she doesn’t even come then if she already ate something. Something gross. Like a kangaroo rat. Those things are nasty.”
“Like you said, that’s just her job.” Dad eased his hands down Marmalade’s sides. “Marmalade’s is to sleep, and Lollipop’s is to cuddle with you.”
Lucy peered under the Sitting Couch where Lollipop was still puffed up. Her eyes were almost as big as Mora’s at the moment.
“She’s mad at me because I brought Mudge in. What’s his job?”
“To be grouchy. That’s why his name is Curmudgeon, a grumpy old man.” Dad tilted his head back. “Am I turning into a curmudgeon, champ?”
Lucy didn’t answer right away, and Dad laughed. “I guess that answers that question.”
“You’re not grumpy,” Lucy said slowly. “Like you didn’t care that I was gone all day playing soccer.” She slid down from the arm of the chair so she could get comfortable on the thick, nappy rug. “It was awesome, Dad. We all played so good on that big field.”
“Excellent.” Dad said.
And then he waited. He was never fooled by a Lucy fast change-of-subject. Lucy dug her fingers into the rug. You’re not grumpy, Dad, she wanted to say. But —
The phone rang on the table next to him, and Artemis shot off the windowsill and pounced on it. That cat would hunt anything. Lucy laughed, until she heard Dad say, “Karen, hi.”
So much for the happy mood.
Lucy started to crawl across the floor, but Dad stopped her with his foot. She flattened her face on the rug and closed her eyes. Maybe if she pretended to be asleep she wouldn’t have to talk to her.
“We’re good,” Dad was saying. “Yeah, that’s working out fine. She has a granddaughter Lucy’s age.”
There was a long pause in which Lucy could imagine Aunt Karen
asking if this granddaughter was a good influence on her. Like, did she wear pink and look in the mirror every minute?
“She’s formed her own soccer team,” Dad said.
Lucy opened her eyes. His voice sounded kind of proud.
“No, it’s just a bunch of kids from school — ”
Lucy sat up and tugged at Dad’s pant leg. “Don’t tell her,” she whispered.
Dad felt for the top of her head and tugged at her ponytail. “Really?
Well, she’s pretty excited about this one — ”
Another long pause. Lucy f lopped back to the rug and propped her feet on the arm of the chair. Aunt Karen was probably telling Dad Lucy’s team should wear pink uniforms.
Uniforms. She hadn’t thought about that yet. What should their colors be? Something very cool, but not too flashy. Blue, maybe, and red. Blue pants and red shirts —
Dad nudged her with the phone. “She wants to talk to you.”
Lucy made a face.
“Be nice,” Dad said.
Sometimes she was just sure he only pretended to be blind. With a hidden sigh, Lucy put the phone to her ear.
“Hi, Aunt Karen.”
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Aunt Karen said, instead of “hello.” It was like she was always too busy for friendly. “They have a great community soccer program here in El Paso. My company sponsors a team.”
In spite of herself, Lucy said, “What does that mean, they sponsor it?”
“We pay for their uniforms — ”
Here we go.
“ — provide money for them to travel when they win championships, and they have the company name on the back of their shirts.”
Lucy couldn’t imagine anything but her players’ own names on their shirts. Maybe they could all have soccer nicknames. Not Lucy Goosey for sure —
“I’m going to look into it.” Aunt Karen’s voice was business crisp.
“Look into what?” Lucy said.
“The soccer program. If it’s as good as I think it is, I’m going to bring you down here to see some games, introduce you to the coaches. You know, show you real soccer.” Aunt Karen actually took a breath. “You aren’t going to get it in that town.”
“That town,” “this house.” It was like she was saying, “those germs.”
“Okay, well, I gotta go,” Lucy said. “We have to start supper.”
“I thought the nanny was doing that.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Here’s Dad,” Lucy said, and handed off the phone.
How did Aunt Karen know Inez was cooking the dinners? Had that been her idea?
Lucy gathered herself up off the rug and headed for the kitchen. They were having their Sunday Night Special — macaroni and cheese out of a box, which she knew how to make by herself. There were some things that weren’t Aunt Karen’s idea. Sunday night supper and her soccer team were two of them.
And she was going to keep it that way.
11
Oh, nuh-uh.
Inez had not just said they were going to do Bible study.
But the fact that on Tuesday afternoon two worn-out-looking leather Bibles appeared on the kitchen table next to the quesadillas was proof that she had.
So was the bug-eyed, open-mouthed expression on Mora’s face. She looked as if Inez had just suggested the three of them get up a game of basketball in the middle of Highway 54.
Lucy would have preferred that. At least it would put her closer to the soccer field, where J.J. and the rest of the team were probably practicing their passing like she’d told them to do until she got there.
As she snuck a glance up at the clock over the sink, she caught a glimpse of a round face peeking in the window of the back door. Even Lucy’s little spy was in place, ready to alert her should Gabe or the Gigglers come on the scene.
“One half hour,” Inez said.
Mora f lung her hands in the air. “I’ll miss Oprah!”
“I do not like you watching that.”
“Well, I would watch Hannah Montana, but she — ” Mora f lapped a finger toward Lucy. “ — doesn’t have cable.”
“It’s not like that’s a crime.” Lucy turned to Inez. “I ate. I did my homework. How come I have to spend another thirty minutes doing Bible study?” She fanned the pages of one of the books. “I go to church. I already know about the Bible.”
Inez made her eyes go level like her straight-cut bangs. “Not so much, your father says.”
Lucy stopped fanning. “My dad said that?”
“He says do the Bible study, so we do the Bible study.” Inez pointed to the plate. “Are we finished here?”
Lucy nodded glumly. When Inez had her back to them, Mora leaned across the table, eyes still bulging like a frog’s.
“The man is blind,” she whispered. “Can’t you just tell him you read it?”
“He’s blind, not stupid,” Lucy said.
Besides, he would quiz her over supper if she knew him — which she wasn’t entirely sure she did at the moment.
Inez pulled a sleeping Marmalade off the third chair and deposited him in an empty laundry basket on the dryer. Mora stared.
“He mostly goes for younger women,” Lucy said quickly. The lie didn’t feel like it fit, but, then, what did?
Inez pushed a Bible toward each of them. Her hands, usually so swift in their busyness, were gentle on the covers, as if she were handling china tea cups.
“Open,” she said. “Book of Ruth.”
“I don’t see why I have to do this just because her dad says she has to.” Mora’s fingers f lew to punctuate every pronoun.
Lucy was momentarily fascinated. She’d never seen anyone talk with her hands so much. But Lucy’s eyes went again to the back door, where Januarie was giving hand signals of her own.
“I just need to do one thing,” Lucy said to Inez.
“You need to open to the book of Ruth.”
“As soon as I — ”
“Old Testament. Right after the Judges, just before the First Samuel.”
“Huh?” Mora said.
As Inez opened Mora’s Bible for her, Lucy leaned back and stretched her arms over her head. Closing and opening her hands, she f lashed ten fingers three times and hoped Januarie would get it.
Januarie’s brow furrowed into Tootsie Rolls. She obviously didn’t.
Lucy pointed to her chest, made her fingers walk and do a kick, and then pointed at her watch. Januarie looked as if she were trying to understand brain surgery, but she finally nodded and disappeared from the window. Lucy listened to the gate opening and closing and heard Mudge meow. If Januarie got even half that message to J.J., it would be a miracle.
“It’s on page 289.” Mora tapped Lucy’s Bible with a long, busy finger.
“Like you knew that,” Lucy said.
She fumbled through the pages, thin as the skin of an onion, and located a section with “The Book of Ruth” printed at the top in letters with pictures wound around them. Pretty — but for Pete’s sake, they weren’t in Sunday school.
“Read,” Inez said.
Lucy stumbled silently through the first part of the first sentence.
In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah —
Lucy felt a yawn coming on. If the Bible didn’t sound like some history professor wrote it, people might actually read it.
— together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.
Lucy rubbed her eyes. “How much of this do we have to read?”
“Mora,” Inez said, “you read out loud.”
Lucy groaned inside. Out-loud reading was like a funeral in her class.
“The man’s name was E-lim-e-lech,” Mora read — pretty smoothly — “his wife’s name Naomi, and the names of the two sons were — ” She lifted her big eyes. “Who wrote this stuff?”
“Dr. Seuss,” Lucy muttered.
>
Mora gave a soft snort.
“Close the Bibles,” Inez said.
“We’re done?” Lucy said hopefully.
“We have not yet started.” Inez folded her hands in front of her on the tabletop, fingers in a tidy stack. “Listen,” she said.
Lucy propped her elbows on the table and dropped her chin into her hands. Mora picked up a pen and fiddled with it.
“You ever been hungry?” Inez said.
“Yes,” Mora said, “for a biscotti at Starbucks to dunk in my mocha.”
“Sorry?” Lucy said. “I don’t speak Starbucks.”
“Very hungry,” Inez said. “So hungry your stomach it feels like it eats itself because it has nothing else.”
“Ewwww!” Mora said.
Lucy was quiet. Dad talked sometimes about the starving children in the places he and Mom had worked. But what did this have to do with anything?
“Think of day after day of that,” Inez said.
“No thanks,” Mora said.
Lucy wished she would hush up so they could get this over with.
“It is that way in Bethlehem, so Senor Elimelech, he takes his family — his esposa, Naomi, and their two hijos — to Moab.”
“It didn’t say ‘Senor’.” Mora made quotation marks with her fingers when she said “Senor.”
“I see my world in there when I read the Bible.” Inez ran the side of her hand down the page in front of her. “You will learn that senora Naomi has to leave everything she knows — her family, her amigas, her church.”
Lucy pulled a foot up under her and sat on it. Okay — maybe if she learned it today, they could be done with this. All right — Naomi leaving everything — that might be what it would be like if she had to go live with Aunt Karen. Lucy sighed. That wasn’t going to happen, so why even think about it?
“More worse,” Inez was saying, “Senor Elimelech dies and leaves her with the two sons. It is not so easy raising children alone.”
Okay, okay, so that was like Dad raising her. Which he was doing just fine until Aunt Karen made him think he wasn’t doing a good job, and now here she was doing Bible study with a lady who obviously —
“They marry women from Moab,” Inez said. “And then, the hijos died too.” She shook her head as if the two hijos were relatives of hers. “Naomi decides she will go back to Bethlehem where her family might provide for her.”
