by Belle Payton
Coach stood up too and went around the table to take both of her hands in his. “Honey, I totally understand your frustration,” he said quietly. “But my job, my role here in town, they depend a lot on your relationship with the town.”
Mrs. Sackett nodded and grasped his hands for a moment. “I know. I just—I need some time to—to adjust, Michael.” She left the room.
The dinner table was quiet, except for Tommy, who had just taken a large bite of salad. He paused midcrunch, mouth bulging, looking guilty.
Alex broke the silence. “Don’t worry, Daddy,” she said brightly. “Ave and I will help her bake cookies, right, Ave?”
“Sure,” said Ava weakly. She studied Coach’s face and noticed that he had tiny worry lines around his eyes. She felt almost as bad for him as she did for her mother.
“And we’ll make your anniversary dinner the best ever, right, guys?”
Tommy and Ava nodded vigorously.
Coach’s mouth was set in a grim line. “Thanks, kids.”
That night Ava fell asleep after just three pages of White Fang.
On Thursday she got back the previous day’s pop quiz. There wasn’t even a grade on it; in large red letters across the top of the paper, Ms. Palmer had written “SEE ME!”
But when the bell rang, Ms. Palmer was bent over another student, answering a question. Ava glided out of the classroom, like a fish underwater, without getting stopped.
Ms. Palmer caught up with her before the end of the school day. “Ava Sackett!” she called as Ava was emerging from social studies with Kylie. Kylie gave her an uh-oh look and walked away.
“Did you see my note on your quiz?” asked Ms. Palmer, staring at Ava over her half-glasses.
“Um, yeah, sorry, had to get to my locker,” Ava mumbled, looking down at her green sneakers.
“Ava, I’m baffled by your uneven work,” said Ms. Palmer, not unkindly. “You are clearly very bright, and you say insightful things when called on in class discussions, but you don’t appear to be keeping up with the outside reading. Is everything all right at home?”
Ava thought about the sort-of fight her parents had had the night before, but she nodded. “Everything’s fine,” she said. “I just . . . I guess I just have trouble concentrating sometimes.”
“What do you mean, exactly?” asked Ms. Palmer.
“I don’t know . . . my mind just sort of wanders when I try to do the reading,” Ava replied truthfully. “I’ve been trying really hard, but . . .” Her voice trailed off as she remembered Coach’s pep talk from the night before. “I just have to try harder. And I will, I promise.”
Ms. Palmer nodded thoughtfully. “Thanks for your honesty. You know, I’m going to recommend to Mrs. Hyde, the learning specialist, that you participate in after-school study until you can improve on your homework performance,” she said. “Why don’t you try it out today, to see what you think?”
Before Ava could respond to say she had to do something after school, the bell rang.
“Go on to class,” said Ms. Palmer. “We can talk more about this later.”
Ava scurried away, wondering how this after-school study thing would work. She was supposed to meet Alex to go to Le Pain after school today. And very soon, football tryouts would start.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
“You’re late,” said Alex. She closed her math book and stood up.
She hadn’t meant it in a mean way, more of a concerned way.
She was worried about Ava; her sister seemed even more flustered and distracted than usual lately.
“I know, I’m sorry. I had to go check out an after-school study thing, which felt an awful lot like detention to me.”
Alex had already started down the school steps, but at Ava’s words, she turned around. “You had detention?”
“No,” said Ava quickly. “I said it felt like detention.”
“Are you in trouble academically?” asked Alex, alarmed.
“No!” Ava said more emphatically. “It’s just a study group, that’s all. Come on. Let’s hustle before they have to start setting up for dinner and stuff.”
Alex’s mind snapped back to their to-do list. “The good thing is we can walk to Le Pain from here,” she said. “Although it is a zillion degrees out and I was having the world’s best hair day.”
Le Pain was midway down an otherwise unassuming stretch of stores, two blocks from the high school. They stopped in front of the restaurant.
A few small tables were set up on the sidewalk, although it was too hot to even think about sitting outside. Alex loved the looks of the plum-colored wooden door and the quaint small-paned windows. “It’s right out of Paris!” she said excitedly.
Ava pulled open the heavy door. A little bell tinkled, and a cool rush of air greeted them. Inside, it was hushed, the dim light a relief after the heat and glare from outside.
“May I ’elp you?” asked an elegantly dressed older woman. She wore a beautifully cut yet simple navy sheath and a necklace of blue and silver-gray baubles that looked so perfect Alex resisted a strong impulse to take out her phone and snap a picture so she could copy the look.
“We’d like to make a reservation,” both girls said at the same time.
The woman smiled. “You are twins, non?”
“Yes,” the two girls answered together. All three laughed.
Alex explained to the woman about their parents’ upcoming anniversary. “We’d like to reserve a special table for them,” she said. “With candles and flowers and everything. For next Thursday at six thirty.” The girls had already spoken with Coach about ending practice promptly at six.
“We will take very good care of your parents,” the woman assured them. “I am Madame Nicole, the co-owner, and my ’usband is the chef. We will prepare a special amuse-bouche for them, and perhaps a cake for dessert?”
The girls agreed that those would be wonderful, and Alex made a mental note to look up what an “amooz-boosh” was. As they turned to leave, Ava stopped, her hand on the heavy door. “Oh, and by the way?” she said to Madame Nicole. “We’d appreciate if no one knew about the reservation.”
Madame Nicole’s perfectly arched eyebrows rose in question.
“Because, see, our dad is the coach of the football team,” Alex said hastily. “And, well, a lot of people in the town like to talk to him when he’s out in public, and we really want our parents to have a quiet evening, just the two of them.”
Madame Nicole smiled. “I quite understand,” she said. “We will look forward to seeing them!”
Back outside, Ava turned to Alex. “What about music?” she asked.
Alex blinked at her. “Music?”
“Yeah, you know how in old movies there’s always a dude who comes to the table and serenades the couple with a violin? Maybe we could find a dude to play violin.”
“First of all,” said Alex, “we don’t know any ‘dudes’ who play violin. And second of all, we don’t have the money to pay for something like that. And third of all, we’re trying to keep this dinner quiet. If word got out that Daddy is going to be there the night before the first game of the season, chances are the newspapers would be there to pester him!”
“Tommy might know someone,” persisted Ava. “He’s part of . . . I mean, I think he knows other people who play instruments. I’m going to ask him.”
“Okay, fine,” said Alex. Suddenly she stopped short.
“What’s up, Al?”
“A present,” said Alex. “You know Daddy won’t remember to get Mom a present, right?”
“Oh, you’re right,” said Ava.
“And she’s probably got something really special for him. Remember that year she made him that amazing ceramic football that he loved? So we have to think of something.”
The girls walked in silence for a few more paces before Alex stopped again and clutched her sister’s arm. “I just thought of the perfect present,” she said to Ava, her eyes shining. She told Ava h
er idea.
“It is perfect,” agreed Ava. “I can’t wait until he gets home so we can tell him the plan.”
But Coach was late getting home for dinner that night.
“He stayed behind with the other coaches to watch film,” Tommy reported as he slid into his chair, freshly scrubbed from his postpractice shower, and heaped two pork chops onto his plate.
“I’ll put aside some dinner for him,” said Mrs. Sackett wearily. She had dark circles under her eyes and barely touched her dinner. The girls exchanged worried looks.
After the dishes were done, Alex and Ava disappeared into their own rooms to do their homework. It wasn’t until much later, after she’d turned out her light, that Alex heard her father’s tires crunching in the driveway. She knew her mom had long since gone to bed. She heard some bangs and clanks in the kitchen—he was probably heating up his dinner, she figured.
The last thing Alex was aware of before she drifted off to sleep was the smell of cookies baking.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
The twins came home from school on Friday to a steaming kitchen and a very frazzled mother.
“Hi, girls—ow!” said Mrs. Sackett, quickly banging the oven door closed. “That’s the second time I’ve burned myself in half an hour,” she said, sucking on the back of her hand. “Have I mentioned that I am not a baker?”
“Yes,” said Alex. “But Mom, I appreciate what you’re doing. It’s really important to Daddy, and it’s fantastic how well you’re carrying out your duty as the coach’s wife.”
Ava frowned at her sister and moved into the kitchen to help their mother shovel warm cookies onto the cooling rack. “You make it sound like this is 1955, Alex,” she said. “This must stink, doing all this PTA stuff,” she said to their mom. “When there’s so much other stuff you could be doing.”
Mrs. Sackett wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a streak of flour behind. “It’s not like your father is kicking back and watching TV,” she said. “He’s working hard too. In fact, when he got home late last night, he stayed up past midnight and baked as many batches as he could stay awake for.”
“That’s so sweet!” said Alex excitedly. “And we’ll help you with the rest, won’t we, Ave?”
Ava was already stacking cooled cookies onto plates to make room for the next batch. It was hot, despite the blasting air-conditioning, and her short hair stuck out in spikes. Alex made a mental note to try to interest her sister in stylish headbands. They’d look so cool and sophisticated on her.
Coach and Tommy returned from practice just as Alex was taking the final batch of cookies out of the oven.
“Mom and Ava are upstairs getting ready,” she said to them. “And I’m about to head up too. There’s sandwich stuff for dinner because we’re heading off to the Activities Fair. Are you going to come too, Daddy?”
Coach shook his head. He looked tired. “I better not,” he said. “I’ll just be ambushed, and this evening is for you girls, not me.”
He headed upstairs to confer with Mrs. Sackett, leaving Alex and Tommy alone in the kitchen. In a conspiratorial whisper, Alex reported on their progress with the anniversary dinner.
“Ava wants a violin player to serenade them at the table,” she said dubiously. “She thinks you might know someone?”
Tommy was thoughtful. “I just might,” he said. “I’ll get back to you on that.”
Ava, Alex, and Mrs. Sackett pulled into a space in the vast Ashland Middle School parking lot, which was already a sea of cars.
“So you girls know what you’re going to sign up for, right?” asked Mrs. Sackett. “Because honestly, I’m exhausted. I have to work the bake sale table for an hour, and then I’d love to get out of here, if you’ll be ready. I think trying to field questions about Daddy’s offensive strategies is going to make me even more tired!”
Alex giggled. “We’ll be fast, Mom,” she said. “I have my list: student government, newspaper, debate team, math club, model UN, and community service.”
“Not the Human Genome Code-Cracking Club too?” teased Ava.
Alex sniffed. “All these clubs are good résumé builders. Besides, I have to have backups if I don’t win the election for class president.”
“Well, I’ll be done in five minutes,” said Ava. “I’m just signing up for one thing.”
As they got out of the car, Mrs. Sackett handed each of the girls a heavy shoe box, which they’d helped line with wax paper and fill with cookies. “Just leave these on the refreshment table and you’re free.”
They entered the double doors leading into the gym. Alex was overwhelmed by the vast crowd of kids and parents roaming from table to table, talking and laughing. Representatives for the activities were stationed at each table to answer questions and direct sign-ups.
After dropping off her box of cookies, Ava set off to find the football table and was soon absorbed into the crowd. Alex looked around, wondering what she should sign up for first, and spotted the cheerleading table, and right next to it, the marching squad table. There was Lindsey, and there was Emily, both surrounded by hordes of laughing, chatting girls. She thought fleetingly of signing up for cheerleading tryouts, but quickly dismissed it. She was too uncoordinated, and at AMS the cheerleading was top-notch. As fun as it looked, Alex knew she would only humiliate herself if she tried out.
She scanned the crowd for Corey. There he was, sitting at the football table, looking gorgeous and jock-y. Her heart gave a leap. Had he seen her? He wasn’t facing her direction.
Oh. And there was Ava, also at the football table, talking to him. Is she really going to sign up for football? Alex thought. It was one thing when it was Pee Wee football in Boston, but middle school football in Texas? She wondered how big of a deal this would be, and how big of a deal Ava could handle. . . .
Ava wrote her name on the clipboard. She was really signing up for football.
She was aware that the boys standing around the table had gone quiet. That they were all staring at her as she put the pen down and straightened up. At least Corey was smiling at her.
“Awesome,” he said. “What position do you play?”
“Kicker,” she replied. “At least, that’s what I was on my old team.”
“That’s a position that requires a lot of finesse,” he said. “And we can sure use some finesse on this team, if you look around.”
Someone threw a crumpled napkin at him, and the tension near the table eased. Ava felt a swell of gratitude toward Corey. She headed off into the crowd, feeling them staring at the back of her as she did so. She knew they were talking about her. About the new girl who thought she could play football.
Sometimes Texas felt like a foreign country. It wasn’t like a girl on a football team was exactly an everyday thing back in Massachusetts, of course, but there, after the first few days of practice, everyone sort of got used to the idea, and it wasn’t such a big deal. Would the same thing be true here, where football itself was so much more important? She hoped so. But she somehow doubted it.
Someone whacked her over the head with a rolled-up poster. She turned. It was Jack.
“I hear you signed up for football,” he said, grinning at her mischievously.
“News travels fast,” she said. “I only just signed up forty-two seconds ago.”
“Yeah, well, it’s going to be on the eleven o’clock news tonight.”
“Come on, seriously?” she scoffed. “Is it really something people are talking about? Should I be freaked out?”
“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “I was just talking to a couple of guys on the team and they know I”—he paused, considering his words—“they know I know you,” he finished.
What had he been about to say? Ava wondered to herself. Had he been about to say “they know I like you?” She shook her head almost imperceptibly. That was dumb. Of course he didn’t like like her. Theirs was a mutually respectful sports friendship. Besides, her life was complicated eno
ugh.
“Um, I think your sister is over there waving at you,” said Jack, gesturing with his chin.
Ava followed his gaze. Alex was standing by the stage, giving Ava a look, one that Ava knew meant her twin needed to talk to her.
“Yeah, we probably have to go rescue our mother from the bake sale table,” she said to him. “See you later.”
Ava could feel her cheeks getting warm as she left him. This was totally dumb. She already had a kind of, sort of thing with her friend Charlie, or at least, she had when she left Boston. They’d been texting each other pretty often before school had started, but lately, life had gotten busier, and the texting had been less frequent.
She joined Alex near the stage. “Everything okay?” she asked her sister.
“Yes and no. I keep getting these looks from Lindsey, and I think it’s because Corey might just possibly like me. And I might just possibly like him.”
“No, really?” asked Ava with a hint of sarcasm, but it was lost on Alex.
“Well, I’m not positively positive yet. It is true—no, it is incontrovertible—that he is really cute.”
“Does that mean true?”
“Yes. But the thing is, I feel like if I let on that I like him, that’s going to make Lindsey mad, and I really want to stay on her good side, so I’ve been trying to avoid him since we got here. But he keeps showing up when I don’t expect him to and—ow! Why did you just kick me?”
Ava raised her eyebrows meaningfully. Alex’s blood froze, and she turned oh-so-casually to her left.
Corey was standing right next to her.
“Hey,” he said to Alex.
“H-h-hey!” said Alex breathily, her face turning bright pink to the tips of her ears.
Ava tried to sidle away, but she was semi-trapped between the corner of the stage and a French Club sign-up table. She turned toward the table and pretended to be engrossed in a French menu, but she kept her ears open.
“So, like, I assume you’re going to the game next Friday?” Corey asked. Then quickly he added, “Because, I mean, obviously you are because your dad’s like, the coach.”
