Playing the Field ebook final draft

by Gray, Mackenzie

  “Two!”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  Then I have my work cut out for me, because I want a date with Blue Girl, and I’m not going to stop until I find her again.

  “Three!”

  Exhausted and starved for food, Austin and Casey and I pick up three large pizzas on the way home after practice. Usually we’re pretty good about eating a balanced diet, but I never claimed we were saints.

  We chow down while sprawled across the large, L-shaped couch that dominates the living room of the house we share, watching the last half of the UEFA Championship: Germany versus England. It’s pretty much your typical college-male living room, with a foosball table shoved into one corner, a flat-screen mounted on the wall across from us, and storage for various gaming systems underneath. Oh, and a surround sound system. Can’t forget that.

  “No! No! No!” Casey surges to his feet, a slice of pizza in one hand, the other gripping his long black hair by the roots. “You moron!”

  The ref blows his whistle and gives the right-forward a red card for slide tackling a defenseman. That was an extremely dirty play. Luckily the defenseman is unhurt, because I’ve seen slide tackles break bones.

  As a result of England’s misconduct, Germany now has a penalty kick. Only two minutes remain in the game. The seconds count down. If Germany makes this shot, they’ll be up by one, and it’ll take a miracle for England to make a comeback.

  The field is a sea of red and yellow for Germany, white and blue for England. The right-forward places the ball, shifts it a few inches with his foot, then takes three large steps back and three to the left. The goalie stands inside the goal, hands spread and legs braced, the last line of defense. From the corner of my eye, I see Austin perched on the edge of the couch, attention glued to the screen. He’s analyzing how the player will take the shot. The first game we ever played together, he missed a penalty shot much like this one. Afterward, he told me the goalie only has a fifty percent chance of stopping the ball, because either the player will kick it to the right or to the left, and if the goalie chooses wrong, it’s over. He watches plays like these religiously, training himself to better read a player’s body language.

  The forward bounces on the balls of his feet, gearing himself up for the kick. He runs, takes the shot. The ball flies beautifully.

  Whoosh.

  It hits the back of the net.

  “Fuck.” Casey crashes onto the couch, covers his face, and groans as the crowd goes wild on screen, the camera zeroing in on the goalie kicking the dirt in frustration.

  Austin merely shakes his head and shoves another slice of pizza into his mouth.

  It’s all downhill from there.

  The final score is 2-1. There are few situations I’ve seen grown men cry, but high intensity sports is one of them. When you work so hard for so long only to lose in the end, it guts you. There’s no shame in that either, because I’ve been there. We all have. Last season we made it to the championship finals and lost by a point. One point. I bawled like a baby. The English players crying on the field, pulled close by their teammates—I understand them.

  Casey turns off the television, sulking. He bet money on this game and is now out fifty bucks. As for myself, I knew England wouldn’t be ready to take on Germany. Last year they lost three of their strongest players. It takes time to build a team, even more time to build one that works seamlessly. England just isn’t there yet.

  The room is silent save our chewing, the sound of beers being drained, Casey’s phone buzzing from the occasional text. I don’t bother checking my phone. It’s in my soccer bag across the room, and I’m too exhausted to bother grabbing it. I know Blue Girl hasn’t texted me.

  “Are you ready for tomorrow?” Austin asks into the silence.

  “What’s tomorrow?”

  Austin raises one eyebrow, his eyebrow ring catching the light. He never wears it during practice, but always puts it back in when we get home. “It’s Family Weekend.”

  Oh fuck.

  I shoot to my feet, scanning the room as if I’ll find the answer to my problems hiding behind the couch or under the rickety coffee table. I’ve been so consumed with thoughts of Blue Girl that I forgot my father would be visiting this weekend. My father, Mr. Benjamin Burns, hotshot businessman. I don’t have the closest relationship with him. We want different things. He wants me to slip on a tie every day and put my future business degree to good use. I want to be part of something greater than the daily grind. If I can spend the rest of my life chasing a ball down a field, then I’m not going to settle for anything less.

  I face Austin as anxiety coils inside me. “Are your parents coming to visit?” The words slip out without thought.

  Austin glances away, his jaw tight. He gives the smallest shake of his head.

  “Bro.” Casey looks at me with an expression that says, Really?

  Now I remember. Austin didn’t have the most stable upbringing. I learned this our first year as teammates, when his mother showed up at our place out of the blue, drunk on whiskey. His father isn’t in the picture. He walked out when Austin was just a baby.

  “Sorry, Austin.”

  He accepts the apology with a nod, but it’s stiff. Some wounds, I know, will never heal.

  With a sigh, I sink onto the couch, head in my hands. Since it’s my last semester at university, my father’s been hounding me about academics and internships and resumes and a bunch of other shit I don’t care about. It’s hard enough focusing on healing physically without the added pressure of feeling coerced into job interviews and networking events.

  “Dude.” Casey stares at me, an over-the-top expression pinching his eyes. “What’s your deal?”

  A few weeks ago, I spoke with my dad over the phone. He kept going on about how distracted I was. How soccer was pushing me away from my true future. How my academic performance had gone downhill. How I had yet to apply to the internships he sent me. So I dropped a bomb.

  “I have a girlfriend,” I told him. “She’s a law student. Top of her class. A National Merit Scholar.” The bullshit poured out. I needed a reason for my poor academic performance, something other than soccer, and this was it. “Her father works for Apple and she said she could get me an internship once I graduate, or even a job working for their marketing team if I wanted.”

  There was rustling in the background. Paperwork, probably.

  “That’s great, son.” For once, my father sounded pleased. “You need stability in your life. Chasing around a ball won’t provide it. I’m glad you finally see the light.”

  After hanging up, I told myself I needed to find a fake girlfriend, proof that I hadn’t lied. But then life happened, and I forgot.

  Glancing at Casey and Austin, I run my fingers through my hair. “Nothing,” I mutter, staring at the blank television screen. They don’t know about the fake girlfriend, and I want to leave it that way. This shit is embarrassing.

  But I know my father. He’ll want to meet this fake girlfriend, especially now that he thinks she’s the ticket to jumpstarting my career.

  How the hell am I supposed to find one of those?

  I’m on a full sports scholarship at Duke, but that only covers the cost of tuition. I still have to pay my own way for rent, food, and the occasional beer. My part-time job working as a youth soccer referee pays well, but it doesn’t cover everything. My dad pitches in to cover the rest, and knowing him, he won’t hesitate to cut me off, if only to teach me a lesson about honesty and good faith and the importance of academics. It’s always business with him.

  If he finds out I lied to him, that I’m not dating a girl on her way to a law degree, that I’m busting my ass for a chance to shine on the field rather than in a cubical, that most nights I’m going out to bars and basically acting like the twenty-two-year-old that I am and not the thirty-year-old he wants me to be, that I’m not setting myself up for a white collar career should the soccer plan fail, that I don’t give two fucks about business,
then shit will hit the fan.

  My friends peer at me with bemused expressions. Casey says, “You look like you just shit your pants.”

  I didn’t—yet.

  But if I don’t find a fake girlfriend before Family Weekend tomorrow, I’m screwed.

  Chapter 4

  rebecca

  I stare at the piece of paper with slack horror, the words blurring into one long smudge of nonsense. My sandwich lies forgotten on the picnic table, and flies have already descended. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m no longer hungry. Actually, I feel close to throwing up.

  My hand shakes. Slowly, I lower the paper to the table and flatten it out. It must be some mistake. I paid my tuition in full this semester, didn’t I? I think back to when the deadline for tuition payment was due. When was that? March? April? It’s now September. According to the Office of Financial Aid, I only paid a portion of the six thousand owed. I still owe a thousand dollars. If I don’t pay it by the end of the semester, I won’t receive my degree. More importantly, I won’t be able to attend graduate school with a hold on my record.

  My final semester of college. How am I supposed to move forward in my academic career if I can’t afford to pay?

  It’s close to two o’clock, and I’m sitting outside near the main library under a Magnolia tree, the shade offering some reprieve from the suffocating heat. North Carolina summers are torture.

  It’s even worse because I’m wearing a mustard yellow sweater and a knee-length wool skirt I bought from a thrift store last week. I’m also wearing dark tights. Glasses—they’re mine, but I usually wear contacts. My dark hair is restrained to a severe bun. No makeup besides cherry-flavored lip balm.

  Since classes began a few weeks ago, I’ve donned what I like to call the “Wallflower Becca” persona on five different occasions: two bars crawls, a basketball game, a movie theater release party, and a local outdoors concert. I find it fascinating how differently people react to you depending on your attire. For example, I approached an attractive guy at the bar last weekend and started talking to him, and two minutes passed before he turned to me and asked who I was speaking to. It’s like I didn’t even exist!

  Then, when I was at the outdoor concert, I struck up a conversation with a group of pretty sorority girls. They glared at me before walking away. They didn’t say goodbye. Didn’t say anything. They just left.

  They didn’t see me smiling at their backs as they went either.

  So far, I’ve managed to record a wide variety of reactions from various age groups of both genders. Today, my plan was to wave hello to random people to see their reactions. When I did this same experiment yesterday, I estimated that sixty percent of people responded, and the responses were overwhelmingly positive.

  Unfortunately, I’m going to have to put this on hold. The Office of Financial Aid closes at five, and since it’s Friday, they won’t open again until Monday. My Social Media and Self-Esteem class starts in twenty minutes, but I decide to skip it. This can’t wait.

  Snatching my backpack off the ground, I swing it over my shoulder and begin the ten-minute hike to the northeast section of campus, where most of the registrar and administration is housed. Despite the heat, it’s a nice walk, as massive oak trees shade the walkway, old and gnarled against the brick backdrops. I’ve grown to love North Carolina very much. The slower pace is a nice change from my home state of Illinois, and the people are some of the friendliest I’ve ever met.

  I’ve always been interested in people, but during my time at Duke, that fascination has morphed into something that, on occasion, borders on obsession. I love the why of sociology. Why do certain social norms exist? What compels people to act a certain way? Why do we have these unspoken boundaries and constructs and laws? What brought us to this point? I’m forever falling down a Wikipedia hole, learning about the history and evolution of the human race. Someday, I hope to become a college professor and manage my own research projects. But first I need to graduate.

  I step into a large, four-story building with floor to ceiling windows taking up the eastern wall and climb the stairs to the second floor. I’m very familiar with the layout of this building, as every semester I’ve had to fight for wavers and deadline extensions so that I have time to scrounge up enough money to pay for my tuition. A good majority of the employees recognize me by face, and some even know me by name.

  I grew up in a lower-middle class household. I never went hungry, but I never had new clothes either. Since I knew my parents wouldn’t be able to pay for my college education, I worked hard in high school to get good grades, and I applied to every scholarship I could. It still wasn’t enough. I had to take out loans and find part-time work to cover my living expenses.

  Unsurprisingly, the line is a mile long. Well, ten people long. But I’ll be here for a while.

  Twenty minutes later, I approach the desk, notice in hand, and say, as calmly as I can with my heart beating in my throat, “I think there’s been a mistake.” Dear God, please let it be a mistake.

  The middle-aged woman, Marilyn, glances at me before turning to her computer screen. There’s no recognition in her eyes. “What’s your student ID number?” I rattle off the numbers, and when she pulls up my profile, a frown tugs at her mouth. Her gaze flickers between me and my information on the computer screen. “Rebecca?”

  I smile sheepishly.

  “Oh honey, I didn’t even recognize you!” She squints at me through her cat-eye glasses. It’s quite comical.

  I can’t help but laugh at her bewilderment. “Long story.” I’m such a ball of anxiety that I doubt I’d explain it with any sort of eloquence anyway.

  She types a few things into the computer. “What’s your issue?”

  Passing her the notice, I say, “Apparently I still owe a thousand dollars for my tuition this semester, but I swear I paid that already.”

  Her loud typing fills the space. I swallow hard, waiting.

  Marilyn leans closer to the screen in concentration, scrolling down the page. “Hm. You did pay in June, but you only paid five thousand out of the six thousand due.” She turns the computer monitor toward me so I can see the documentation, pointing with her mouse. She brings up a check in my hand-writing, made out for five thousand dollars.

  I don’t know what to say. I can’t remember that far back. If six thousand had been due, why did I only pay five thousand of it?

  My voice trembles, drat it all. “You’re sure you don’t have any other records of this payment?” I don’t have a thousand dollars lying around in the bank. Most months I have barely enough to eat, and sometimes I have to choose between food and putting gas in my car so I can drive to my job.

  With a pitying look, Marilyn scrolls through my record, but we both know she won’t find anything. It’s just the way things are.

  “I don’t see anything,” she says.

  The paper crumples in my fist. My face is hot. No doubt the students standing in line behind me hear everything. “There’s nothing you can do? Is there any financial aid that hasn’t been claimed yet?”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie.”

  I feel close to passing out. Pressing a hand against the counter, I fight the sensation of the floor sliding out from under me. “When is the deadline to pay this?”

  “November 1st.”

  Not enough time.

  Marilyn says, “That is the final, final deadline for you to pay. Otherwise you’ll be placed on probation, and you won’t be allowed to graduate.”

  Taking a deep breath, I look her straight in the eye. My throat tightens with oncoming tears. “Please. Is there any way, any way at all, that you can extend the deadline? All the other deadline extensions I’ve had I’ve paid. I just—” My voice trails off, and I close my eyes to gather myself, not wanting to fall apart. I still have my dignity. “Please, Marilyn.”

  Sympathy swims in her brown eyes, but she nods, slow, and turns back to her computer. After a few moments of typing, she tells me, “Your new
deadline is December 15th, which is the last day of exams. That is the absolute last day you can turn in your payment, all right?”

  A huge rush of air whooshes out of me. “I understand. Thank you.” I manage a smile and scurry out of there, needing the sunshine and the air and the wide-open space. My heart races, and I try desperately to breathe deeply, to slow its frantic pace.

  What am I going to do?

  I have exactly three-hundred and four dollars in my checking account, and even less in my savings account. I don’t touch the money in my savings. That’s for I’m-going-to-die-unless-I-spend-this-money emergencies only. The checking is for rent and food. I work a part-time serving job, and I pick up as many weekend shifts as I can. It’s how I’ve put food on the table every semester.

  December 15th. That’s three months away. Three months to scrape together a thousand dollars.

  I’m too worried about my financial situation to pay any attention to where I’m going. When I focus on my surroundings, I find myself near the business school. I hardly ever walk through this part of campus. There’s a vacant bench in the small, green courtyard, ivy crawling along the ground. I take a seat, trying to think of ways to produce more income. While I’d like to take on more restaurant work, I won’t be able to dedicate the time I need for my thesis.

  Someone swears behind me.

  I turn, and everything inside me stills. It’s him. The guy from the bar. Amber Eyes. No—Mitchell Burns.

  Standing on the opposite side of the courtyard, he rubs a hand over his face as he stares at a tall, well-dressed man in a suit who approaches him.

  Mitchell looks around, and when his eyes latch onto me, panic swells, because I’m afraid he’ll recognize me, even though I look completely different.

  Seconds later, he’s beside me on the bench, scooting close. I blink in surprise. “What are you—”

  “Play along and I’ll give you fifty bucks,” he mutters from the side of his mouth, looking at the man skirting one of the picnic benches, his long stride bringing him nearer.