by Kellie Bean
Unlike our last attempt at fundraising when our goal was to get the entire town behind us, this time, we keep things quiet. Easier said than done when the people trying to keep a secret are a group of teenage girls, but I can’t exactly see the school or the down behind all that enthusiastic about our efforts.
So, I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission.
I still have zero intention of asking for forgiveness either. They’re the ones who should be apologizing.
The video starts to come together over days, then a week, all the while I’m researching how to setup my own crowdfunding campaign.
The longest I ever go without working on it is three days, when my next math test is approaching. I don’t even need my parents to tell me that my grades for the year really can’t afford for me to screw this one up too. So for three days, I switch gears from soccer to math, but after the test is done—I doubt I got higher than a B, but still—it’s back to soccer, figuring how and what to include that might get people interested, and get them to want to help.
We matter.
It takes longer than I think it will to get everything I need, and to get it all right.
No matter what comes from this, I want to do it properly. Instead of charging in and hoping for the best, I plan and I organize. I actually take breaks when I need them. Mostly.
My team and I get in the habit of playing soccer together twice, on a regular schedule, without the camera present.
I like to think that everyone comes out because they think this might actually work, and that they want to be ready. Maybe it’s just they missed the feeling of passing a ball between their teammates, of scoring goals on an unsuspecting goalkeeper.
After our second practice, I’m completely exhausted, passing out on the couch as soon as I get home.
I must have been completely out of it because by the time I wake up, Molly is sleeping on my chest even though I never felt her jump up on the couch, or on me.
The startled look on my face must be pretty amusing, because the next thing I notice is Dad laughing at me from across the room, sitting in his favorite chair with a newspaper on his lap.
“How was practice?” He asks once I’m sitting up, having moved a still sleeping Molly to my lap.
“Kind of hectic.” I admit. “It’s a little weird without having a coach.”
“Have you thought about asking Coach Wasserman if she’d be willing to be come out in the evenings sometimes, so at least you have a little direction?”
I actually hadn’t, even now that it has been suggested, I’m not sure it’s possible. “We couldn’t pay her or anything like the school does. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Well, it never hurts to ask. If nothing else, she’d probably be willing to give you a bit of direction on how you can best spend your time during practices.”
“Hmm, fair enough. Good idea.”
“I know. Every once in a blue moon, I surprise you.”
Despite my nap, my body isn’t quite ready to get up off the couch yet. Though I can already tell that when I do get up, it’ll be because I’ve gotten too hungry to wait any longer. My stomach is already rumbling, having already burned through everything I’ve eaten today. I snuggle deeper into the overstuffed couch cushions.
“I’m proud of you, sweetheart.” Dad says, still watching me. “Your idea was a great one.”
“It hasn’t actually worked yet.”
“Well, you haven’t actually finished it yet.” Dad points out. “Whatever comes of this, you’ll have made an impact. Either you raise all the money you’re hoping for and take over the world, or you draw attention to what happened, helping to make sure it doesn’t happen again next year. Whichever outcome you get, it's a good one.”
His words are enough to convince me to get up.
“Where are you off to?” Dad asks, still in his chair.
“I’ve got almost half of the footage. I want to start trying to edit it into something I can work with. I have no idea how to edit something like this, so it’ll probably take a while.”
Dad chuckles. “Fair enough. If you’re hungry, there’s a plate of leftovers in the fridge for you. Pot roast with some vegetables.”
Okay, editing can wait a few more minutes, but after that, I’ve got a video to put together.
Learning how to edit video doesn’t exactly come naturally, but as Halloween approaches, I become completely obsessed. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right.
It needs to look good.
The introduction to the video is my favorite part. There’s a clip of each of my sisters doing something they love. Art, drama and studying. Each one comes with a voice over… “I’m a girl and I love… whatever.” Then there’s me, playing soccer with my friends.
I’m a girl and I love sports, but according to my town and my school, my passion for soccer isn’t going to matter in the long run.
According to them, our team wasn’t worth saving.
That's exactly what I say into the mic that Reagan borrowed from the drama department, so we could include a decent audio track with the video.
From there, the view flips to a late afternoon practice that shows a group of girls absolutely working their asses off as the voiceover summarizes what happened and what we want to do about it.
I never once spell out what Joel, Coach Wasserman or anyone else actually said. Instead, I let the story speak for itself.
Okay, I hint pretty heavily at exactly what I want people to take away from what I’m telling them. Our team lost out because our school didn’t think we were as valuable as the guys.
No matter, we love the game just as much as they do. Maybe we even love it more after having it ripped away from us. That's exactly what I want to show the world.
This matters to us.
In the end, it ends up being a month before I’m finally ready and even then, I still have Rhiannon look over everything for me. She manages to make the finished project even better.
In the end, what we have feels a little like magic.
It’s good. It’s actually really good.
On a random friday night that feels like it should be any other day, I finally talk myself into hitting publish on both our video and the campaign to go with it.
It’s up, it’s done. It’s out in the world.
That's not even the scariest moment. Not by a long shot.
The part I really dread is what comes next, posting all of it together to Facebook. My finger hesitates on my keyboard, not quite ready to hit enter.
I’ve been working on this for what feels like forever. This video has so much of me in it that it feels like putting it out into the world is basically an open invitation for people to look inside my soul.
People might decide they aren’t interested and just click away.
It's not like backing out is really even an option at this point. Everyone I know knows I’ve been working on this, they know it’s almost ready.
This is going to happen one way or the other.
I hit send on my post that includes a link to the campaign as well as a request for everyone who sees it to share.
Now it’s just a matter of waiting to see if the people around me are going to care as much as I hope they will.
As much as I need them to.
I shutdown my computer before I can drive myself insane.
Chapter 27
I wake up the next morning, pull out my phone and go straight to our campaign page. So far, no donations.
The video has been viewed only fifteen times. I’m pretty sure about half of those are me.
I keep reminding myself that this could take time, and that even then there weren’t any guarantees. I’m still disappointed our campaign didn’t go viral overnight.
At least it looks like everyone involved is starting to share it within their own circles. It’s not a game changer yet, but at least we’ve gotten started.
Also, since I’m not a millionaire yet, I
have no choice but to go to school.
I find John almost as soon as I separate from my sisters. Even though things have been awkward between us for weeks now, I’m still happy to see him.
“Hey.” I say, coming up behind him. “How’s it going?”
When John turns to look at me, he smiles right away, but the look doesn’t quite reach his eyes anymore.
If only I could tell him that when I said no to going out with him, I was in no way saying no to him. It wasn’t a rejection.
“I’m good. How about you?”
“I did something kind of cool last night.” I said. When I made everyone else swear to keep our secret, I held myself to that same standard. But, John has been the person I have most wanted to talk to this whole time. Now it’s all out in the open.
I tell him everything about the video and what I’m hoping to do. When I finish, John’s expression hasn’t changed. I’m not sure what I expected, but it was more than what he’s giving me. He doesn’t seem excited or surprised. He doesn’t seem to care at all.
“I’ve actually been dying to tell you about it since that night I had dinner with you and your mom. She kind of inspired this whole thing.” I continue, hoping to draw him into a conversation. “I had to finish it first though.”
“That’s great, Reece. Really.” John’s words may be what I was hoping to hear, but there’s no real feeling in his voice.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. Immediately, my imagination jumps to something having happened to Poncho, or maybe to his mom. He would have told me if that were the case, right?
“I don’t think I can do this. You’re awesome. You know I think you’re awesome. That night at my house… that was the first time I’d ever asked anyone out. Now anytime I see you. It just sucks.” When I frown, surprised and sad, I see the first real hint of emotion in John’s expression. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” he tries to reassure me. “I just need some more time.”
I almost let John walk away knowing that if I do, whatever we had will disappear with him. I get the strangest feeling in my stomach. Standing in the hallway of my school, surrounded by people who have no idea how much I’m going through right now, the feeling isn’t completely unlike the one that made me double check that Riley was okay, not all that long ago.
“Wait!” I say, before John is too far gone he can’t hear me.
I’ve realized I’m being an idiot. There was absolutely no part of my deal with my parents that said I couldn’t tell people what I’d agreed to. That was just something I told myself to save me a little embarrassment with my friends. Friends who probably wouldn’t have cared at all. Yeah, they know I am a pretty enthusiastic lover of guys, but they also know how much I wanted Molly. They probably wouldn’t have judged me.
If there’s one person I absolutely know will understand the decision I made, it’s John.
“That might at your house...” I start, wincing a little at the pained expression that comes across John’s face, “I meant what I said. My answer wasn’t about you. I wanted to say yes! So much.”
“Then why didn’t you?” John asks, still not looking like he trusts what I’m saying.
“At the end of the summer, I made a deal with my parents. They thought I was taking on too much stuff. The only way they’d let me get Molly as if I agreed to give up guys for the semester. No dating. I took the deal in a heartbeat, which meant I couldn’t say yes to you. Or to anyone else.”
“You should have told me that. I’ve spent a month…”
“I know, I know. I’m really sorry about that. I was kind of being an idiot. It was just embarrassing.”
John tilts his head a little, looking at me like I’ve said something kind of crazy. “You would have said yes?”
“Yes. I still wish I could say yes… I still can’t.”
John grins, and my heart flutters a little. “Well, that’s still the best news I’ve heard all year.”
The warning bell rings, and the people around us start to scatter.
“I should go.” I say, wishing there was some way I could take this conversation farther. Nothing has changed, not really.
“Me too.” John’s still smiling. In no way does he look like someone who just got bad news.
I wave goodbye and head for class, but before I turn down into the next hallway, I look back over my shoulder. John is walking in the other direction, but he’s looking at me too.
He narrowly misses bumping into someone going the other way, I practically dissolve into a fit of giggles as a well of emotion bubbles up inside me.
Okay, who am I kidding? Everything has changed.
For the rest of the day, every time I see someone from the team, they ask me or an update. I don’t know anything more than they do, which is that we really are going to have to wait and see.
If that’s the case, even with our unofficial team practices now plus trying to put in a little more effort in school, I could really use something else to keep me busy.
By the end of the day, even though I haven’t had a chance to see John again, I’m still feeling a little bit like can take on the whole world and win.
So I take a chance.
Reece: Hey Kendra. I hope you’ve been well. I was just wondering if maybe it would be okay if some mornings I came by to walk some of the dogs? I don’t need any volunteer hours or anything. I just want to help out, if I can. If you’re okay with it. I miss all those tiny faces, even BLANK.
For once, an answer comes almost immediately.
Kendra: Reece, I’m so glad you reached out. Maybe you can come in sometime this week and we can talk about it? Besides, we have someone interested in Bingo and I think it’s going to be a good fit. I’m sure he’d love it if you came by to say goodbye.
So far, our campaign has raised a whopping thirty-eight-dollars, and as far as I can tell, most people at school haven’t even heard about it yet. Despite that, today still manages to feel like the best day ever.
I’m walking rescue dogs in the morning again by the next day. This is the first time in a while that I’m walking back in the building, I’m almost in tears. I’m just so glad to be back, also I'm glad that I didn’t do permanent damage to my relationship with Kendra. Our schedules still don’t intersect much, but she never even brings up the shift I missed again. She’s as focused as ever on helping those animals, I’m determined to do the same.
For the rest of the week, every time John and I run into each other in the hallway, his face lights up. I’m pretty sure mine does the same.
It’s the only thing that keeps me optimistic as more days pass without much changing. Our video still have less than six-hundred views, and we’ve only raised about three hundred dollars.
I even tried emailing the video to a multiples fan forum moderator, even though I’ve never really understood what those communities are really about. No one ever responds.
Maybe I was just too late. Or too early. It hasn’t really been that long since the last time we tried to do something like this, so maybe people are just too burned out on the idea.
Or maybe they only ever cared about that last campaign because of how it affected the guy’s teams.
I say all this to my family and more, at dinner on the first night of November.
“You’ve still raised a few hundred.” Reagan points out. “ That's not nothing.”
“Sometimes these thing just take a while to pick up steam.” Rhiannon adds. Both Reilly and Dad nod in agreement.
I want to point out that no one at this table is any kind of expert on these things, so they probably don’t have any more idea about how this is going than I do, and maybe if I were more angry than disappoint, I would.
In most of the stories I’ve read about campaigns going viral, it has happened within the first few days because the story is one that people really can’t resist.
Clearly, our story doesn’t qualify.
“You don’t look convinced.” Reilly points out.
“I
dunno, John’s been saying the same thing. That I need to be patient. I wish I could do something more to nudge it along.”
“John?” Mom says with interest. “Who is that?”
“Kendra’s nephew.”
Mom doesn’t get a chance to answer any more questions, because just then her phone rings from its place beside her on the table. She gets up from the table and steps into the next room before she answers. It’s probably one of her patients, and not the kind of call she should be taking in front of her family.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Reilly asks again, never one to just give the bare minimum of effort when someone she loves is in need.
“Nope. You’ve done more than enough already. Just help keep me sane, then let me cry on your shoulder when I’m the laughing stock of the school.”
“Don’t say that.” Reilly says, but before she can add anything else, Mom’s back.
“That was Mindy.” she says, sounding a little bewildered.
“Kent’s mom?” Reagan asks, perking up in her seat.
“The very same. The paper was contacted a couple of hours ago by Wake Up, Good Morning—that morning show everyone around here watches. They saw your video, Reece.”
My heart stops beating right then and there.
“They want to interview you on their program.”
“Wait. Can you repeat that?” There’s no way I heard her right.
“Next week, they want to do a segment on what you’re trying to do with your campaign, drawing attention to sexism in high school sports.”
“Is this good?” I ask, looking at each of my family in turn. I can’t tell what I’m supposed to be feeling right now.
“This is very good!” Rhiannon says. “This will get you in front of a lot more people and if even some of those people donate… this could be huge! Assuming you’re allowed to go?”
I whip my head back around to look at my Mom, but she’s already moved to talk to Dad, crouching down beside him so their heads are close together. Neither me or my sister says a word as we try to figure out what they’re saying.
It’s only a few moments before she’s standing again. “This is a great opportunity, Reece. Of course you can do it. You’ll have to miss a day of school because they film in Richmond, but you’ve made some real improvements in your school work. You can handle this.”
