The Football Girl

by Thatcher Heldring

  If a girl can play on the football team, does that mean my dog can run track? Cause she’s crazy fast. I mean my dog.

  McCleary, Coach says no holding hands in the huddle.

  Call me when you can.

  The third and the last ones were from Tessa.

  After stopping at home to shower and change, I ran down to Pilchuck Market to meet Tessa. She was sitting on a bench in front of the store wearing light blue track pants, a white tank top, and a green visor. She waved when she saw me.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hey,” I said back, wondering who was going to say it first.

  We went inside to buy food. Tessa bought a bottle of water and a granola bar. I got a hot dog and a soda. The clerk at the counter smiled at Tessa. “The football girl,” he said.

  “That’s me,” she replied. She turned to me, beaming. “I’m famous.”

  “Yeah, I heard.” I paid for our food and followed Tessa back to the bench. “So, you really want to play football?” I asked.

  “You know I do,” she answered.

  I took a bite of my hot dog. “I do?”

  “We talked about it, like, two days ago.”

  “Well, yeah, but I didn’t think…”

  Tessa unscrewed the cap from her water bottle. “What?”

  “I mean, I didn’t know you really wanted to play.”

  “Oh God, now you sound like my mom.”

  I stopped chewing and wondered if this was the most uncomfortable moment of my life. I thought about walking out of town and never coming back.

  “Why would I say I did if I didn’t mean it?” Tessa asked after a long sip.

  “Because it’s, you know,” I said, trying not to dig myself into a deeper hole.

  “Yeah?”

  I was going to say because football isn’t for girls, but I held up, like a batter checking his swing. Tessa was so revved up about this. How could I talk her out of playing football when I had already told her she was good at it? On the other hand, if I ignored my friends, they’d ice me out. I couldn’t live with that. “It’s a rough sport,” I said at last.

  “I can handle it,” Tessa answered. “Can you?”

  “Hey, I’m a freak of nature,” I said, flexing my arms. “Look at these guns.”

  Tessa barely laughed. “I don’t even know if I’m allowed to play,” she said. “There might be rules against it.”

  “Hey, rules are made to be broken, right?”

  “Wait,” Tessa said, looking perplexed. “You just told me it was a rough sport. Now you’re saying I should go for it?”

  “Well, I wasn’t saying that exactly.”

  “What were you saying?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It just sounds like you want it both ways, Caleb.”

  “Who cares what I want?” I said, trying to be breezy.

  “Sooner or later you’re going to have to pick a side.”

  We ended the football conversation. Tessa went to meet her friends. I went home. As I walked, I thought about picking sides. The whole thing was confusing. Part of me was into the idea of Tessa trying out for the football team, even though it was crazy and she’d never make it. But if I was being honest, I really wished the whole thing would just go away.

  At the edge of Boardman Park, where the fields met the woods, there was a spot where Marina, Lexie, and I always cooled down after a run. I loved the view of the grandstand and the mountains behind it.

  “Wow,” said Lexie, looking at her phone. “We made awesome time.”

  “There’s no way we’re not making the cross-country team,” Marina said.

  I saw Lexie look sideways at Marina. “What?” I asked.

  “What do you mean, what?” Lexie responded.

  “Something’s going on,” I said. “I can tell.”

  “Well, we were just wondering,” Marina started.

  “Wondering what?

  Lexie finished the sentence. “How you plan to play two sports at once.”

  “Oh, that,” I said. Obviously Marina and Lexie had seen the news, but we hadn’t actually had the talk about what it meant. In my head I knew I had to choose between cross-country and football. I just hadn’t admitted it to myself yet. Or the fact that I wanted to play football more than running cross-country.

  “Yeah,” Marina replied. “That.”

  “Well, you know I love running with you guys.”

  “But?”

  “But I also love football. And I think I’m pretty good at it. Or I could be. Plus, I feel like I’ve got this thing hanging over me, and if I don’t do something about it, it’s going to bug me forever. Also, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life helping my mom run for Congress.”

  “I think you lost me,” Marina answered. “Did you say Congress? Aren’t we just talking about running? Because on top of this, you never told us your mother was running for mayor either. You don’t tell us anything anymore.”

  “I’m sorry. I was trying to block that from my mind,” I said. “Don’t you guys ever get frustrated with other people making decisions for you? Like you’re in a play reading lines someone else wrote and you just want to say what’s in your head and not what’s on the page?”

  “Are you talking about us?” Lexie asked. “Because you’re free to make your own decisions, Tessa. And it kind of sounds like you already have.”

  “I haven’t decided anything. I’m just not sure what I want to do right now. I’m not even sure I’m allowed to play football.”

  “Well,” Lexie replied, “maybe after you figure it out, you can go on the news and tell us.”

  “Are you guys leaving?” I asked.

  “Sorry,” Marina said. “Gotta run.”

  I watched as my two best friends left me. I had never felt lonelier. I had always thought they would be there no matter what I did. A scary thought crept into my mind. What would happen now if football didn’t work out? I could get hurt or not make the team or not even be allowed to play. Would my best friends take me back?

  FRIDAY, JUNE 3

  “Eight–one thousand. Nine–one thousand…Ten!” I relaxed my upper body and let the bar rest on the metal arms with a slight clang. I sat up on the bench and pumped my fist, exhaling heavily. “Yeah, baby!” I had just pressed 180 pounds ten times. I felt like the Incredible Hulk.

  “Not bad,” said Charlie, who had been spotting me. It was a week before the end of school, and we were in the garage. The door was open, letting in the warm breeze. Country music played on the radio. Luke was there too, going a few rounds with the heavy bag Dad had hung from the ceiling.

  “Not bad?” I said. “Look at me. I’m ripped.”

  “You’re not ripped,” Charlie said. “When you get into the locker room, you’ll see ripped.”

  Luke wound up and gave the canvas one last roundhouse. Then he roared.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Charlie asked.

  “I punished that bag!”

  We watched him beat his chest.

  “Man, not you too,” said Charlie. “What do you guys think? Lifting weights and punching a bag makes you superheroes?”

  “I wouldn’t want to fight me,” said Luke.

  “Both of you, just relax,” Charlie said. “You want to work out to get stronger for sports or whatever? That’s awesome. But don’t make this about girls or brawling.”

  “Why not?” Luke asked.

  Charlie added two twenty-pound discs to the bar I had been lifting. “Because it won’t work and you’ll just be a bigger version of the dumb punk you already are. Now spot me.”

  Halfway through Charlie’s reps, a shadow appeared on the concrete floor of the garage. I looked over and saw Dad standing in the doorway. The glow of the streetlight made his gray hair look white.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said. “You want to do a few reps?”

  Dad smiled and pointed to his back. “I don’t think I have it in me,” he said. “Doctor’s orders. And your mom’s.”
>
  “Maybe you should try yoga,” Luke suggested. “It’s supposed to be good for your back.”

  “I’d rather join a knitting club,” Dad answered. He looked at me. “I need you at the shop tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said.

  “What about me?” Luke asked.

  “Not till you’re fourteen,” Dad answered with a sigh. “It’s the law.”

  We were all quiet for a minute while Dad began looking absentmindedly through a box on a shelf.

  Charlie broke the silence. “Dad, you know I’d be there, but I have to work all week. Towels aren’t going to wash themselves.”

  “You do what you have to do, Charlie,” Dad said.

  Before Charlie could respond, another figure appeared in the doorway. It was Tessa, in a pair of gym shorts and a gray hoodie. I prayed she had come to tell me she’d changed her mind about football camp.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hey, it’s the football girl,” said Luke.

  I jumped up and jogged over to her and my dad.

  “I watched your mom on TV,” Dad said.

  “Thanks,” Tessa replied.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Dad reminded me before going into the house.

  “You want to come in?” I asked Tessa when Dad was gone. I hoped she noticed my arms.

  Tessa pointed at the bag. “Can I do that?”

  Luke tossed her the gloves. “They’re sweaty.”

  “If she had a problem with sweaty hands, she wouldn’t be hanging around with this guy,” Charlie said, gesturing at me.

  “Shut up,” I said to Charlie, knowing I might pay for it later.

  Tessa blushed but she took off her sweatshirt and put on the gloves. “So I just hit it?” she asked, tapping one glove against the bag.

  “Spread your feet apart a bit,” I said, standing next to her now. “And put your right foot slightly forward.” I pointed to a spot on the concrete floor. Tessa slid her foot toward the bag. “Yeah, like that,” I said. “Now drop your left arm a little and punch with your right.”

  Tessa’s first few punches were weak. The bag hardly moved.

  “Come on!” Charlie barked. “You hit like a light breeze. Punch like a man!” That was his way of encouraging her. And it worked.

  Tessa went after the bag like it had slapped her in the hallway. She landed three or four solid punches before trying a jab with her left. Now the bag was rocking back and forth on the chain and Tessa was hopping from side to side to stay in front of it. That was when I noticed her arms. Not muscular. I doubted she could bench-press thirty pounds. But they were cut; solid lean muscle. I was impressed and a little afraid.

  Caleb handed me a Gatorade and took one for himself. “Green okay?”

  “As long as it’s cold,” I said, hoping he would say right away that he’d been wrong and that I should definitely go to football camp.

  We brought our drinks to the backyard and sat on the edge of the empty hot tub, dangling our bare feet in the warm air. I took a sip of Gatorade and exhaled the last of the anger. It had been a week since Lexie and Marina had called me a liar, but it still hurt. Something about the punching bag had brought the anger out. I knew in my heart what they’d said wasn’t true. I had changed my mind and had neglected to tell them. About football. About my mom. That was different from lying, and it was my right. If one of them had told me they wanted to try something besides running, I would have been cool with it. My life. My choice. Not theirs.

  “I saw your mom on the news,” Caleb said. “She was talking about you.”

  “That’s because the more she talks about me, the more she gets on TV.”

  “I thought you liked being famous.”

  “She’s using me,” I said. “And she’s a hypocrite. She’s telling everyone she’s proud of me for doing something that she never really knew about or paid attention to before. She hasn’t ever noticed anything I’ve done. As long as I don’t mess up, I don’t exist. It’s just her and her job. Even my dad is wrapped up in her career. That’s why I said what I did on TV. Because I wanted her to hear me say that what I do is up to me, not her anymore.”

  “Because you want to play football?”

  “Because in our house, she’s the only story.”

  “Maybe football isn’t dramatic enough,” Caleb said. “What if you took up bobsledding? Imagine how big a story that would be if you made the Olympics.”

  “Bobsledding?” I asked. “Are you serious?” I looked at Caleb. I liked being around him and didn’t want to risk losing him now. But he was really starting to let me down.

  “It was just an idea,” he said awkwardly.

  I twisted the cap back onto the Gatorade bottle. “Do you know she wants me to work for her this summer? It’s bad enough she’s my mom. Now she’s my boss too. Absolute misery.”

  —

  Mom was at the dining room table when I got home.

  “That’s amazing,” she was saying to Dad. “Well, let’s keep pushing it.”

  “Keeping pushing what?” I asked.

  “Oh hi, sweetie,” Mom said. “Your dad figured out that when a story on the Internet mentions both you and me, the click rate doubles and the bounce rate goes down—what was it?”

  “Thirty-seven percent,” Dad said. “And searches for Jane Dooley daughter football are higher than Jane Dooley mayor, Jane Dooley taxes, or Jane Dooley parks.”

  “Is that good?” I asked.

  “Well, traffic to our website has tripled since the interview.”

  “Wow. Imagine if I make the team. You could run for president.”

  “What’s wrong, Tessa?” Mom asked. “I thought we were being excited for each other.”

  “Are you really excited for me? Or are you excited because of your web…whatever Dad was talking about.”

  “Both!” Mom said. She was standing in front of me now, hands on my shoulders, looking me in the eye. “Sweetie,” she said, “if something about the campaign is bothering you, we have to talk. Come doorbelling with me next week, and I promise we’ll work it out. The last thing I want is for you to be unhappy. Your happiness is more important than any click rates or voter polls.”

  “So if I want to talk to you, I have to go doorbelling? We can’t just have a conversation at home like a normal family?”

  “Okay,” Mom said. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “I want to know what you really think about me playing football. If you weren’t running for mayor, what would you say?”

  “I guess I would say I’m confused,” Mom admitted. “I don’t understand why you want to invest time in something that is dangerous and might not happen, when you have such a bright future as a runner.”

  “Then why don’t you say that?” I asked. “You’ve never paid attention to anything I’ve done.”

  “Tessa, I am not going to make a public statement about whether I think my daughter should play football. That’s between us. And of course I care about your extracurricular activities. But you put me in a corner when you told the reporter during my interview that you want to play football. Who is going to vote for the mother who takes away her daughter’s dream?”

  “It doesn’t play well,” Dad agreed.

  “But between you and me,” Mom went on, “I think it’s a bad idea. You could get hurt. You might be ostracized. And there’s a good chance you’d end up standing on the sideline instead of actually competing. And, to be honest, I’m not even sure the school district will allow it.”

  “Well, if you’re mayor, you can just tell them to allow it.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Tessa,” Dad said. “The school district is governed by a volunteer board that oversees—”

  Mom shot Dad a look. I hated that look. Who did she think she was, telling me what I couldn’t play and telling Dad when he couldn’t speak? She really was a dictator.

  “Anyway,” Mom said. “We already agreed you’d be focused on the campaign this summer. It’l
l help me out, and you’ll learn so much.”

  “About waving signs?” I asked.

  “It’s all part of the experience. We have to think about the future.”

  Whose future? I wondered. Mine? Or yours?

  WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15

  One morning during the first week of summer vacation, my phone buzzed before my alarm, which was set for ten o’clock. I was still in bed with a pillow over my head to block the sunlight blazing through the window. I felt blindly on the floor until my fingers came across the phone inside a sneaker.

  It was Dobie. “You want to do something?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sleep.”

  “Can I come over? I’m stuck at my dad’s. I don’t want to be here.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  By the time I got downstairs, Dobie was already in the kitchen with Luke. They were both eating cereal.

  “What’s up? You good?” I asked.

  “I am now,” he said. “Thanks. I had to get out of there.”

  “Lydia?” I asked, pouring myself a bowl of Cheerios.

  “Everything,” Dobie said. “Day started with my dad yelling at my mom because she wouldn’t sign the football permission slip, and then Lydia yelling at my dad because he got the wrong kind of air freshener. I don’t know. Can we just go do something?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Dobie pointed to the football on the kitchen table. “Think we can get a game together?”

  “Like a real game?”

  “Anything. Just for fun.”

  “I’m in,” I said.

  “Can I play?” Luke asked.

  I nodded. “Ask Charlie too,” I said.

  Luke tilted his head toward the ceiling. “Charlie! Football!”

  “Helpful,” I said, swiping my phone on. I sent a message to Nick. Football.

  He wrote back almost immediately. When?

  It didn’t take long to get a game going. With Luke, Charlie, Nick, Dobie, and me, we had five. We got Roy, Fish, Julian, and Shane next. “That’s nine,” I said.

  “We need one more,” Dobie said. “Where’s everyone else?”

  He meant the other guys from the flag football team. “Gone, I guess. Vacation, camp, sleeping,” I said, scrolling through my list.