by Lin Oliver
“Which court are we on?” Charlie asked. She was trying to be polite, but there was a definite edge in her voice. Neither of us like it when people make a big deal out of the fact that we’re twins.
“Court eleven,” Mr. I-Don’t-Have-Much-of-a-Mustache said. “Your match begins at exactly twelve thirty. Oh, by the way, you have three guests waiting for you on the court. They already checked in.”
As we walked down the cement path to court eleven, I craned my neck to see if it was Alicia and Oscar and Eddie. Ever since last night, Charlie had been distant and cold to me, and I was hoping to see a friendly face or three.
It wasn’t them, though. It was just the opposite— Lauren Wadsworth, Brooke Addison, and Jillian Kendall. The girls were lounging around on the bleachers, sipping iced Frappuccinos and looking ever so gorgeous in their tennis whites.
What are they wearing white for? They aren’t playing.
“Charlie! Over here!” Lauren screeched, waving to Charlie as though she had been shipwrecked on a deserted island and they hadn’t seen each other in twenty years.
Charlie went running up to her and all four of them hugged in that overly enthusiastic SF2 way, which is to say there was lots of squealing and jumping up and down and hand-holding involved.
“Hi, Sammie,” Lauren said when I strolled up and plopped my monogrammed red canvas tennis bag down on the bench. It had been a going-away gift from my mom. “Cute bag.”
The one thing you have to say about Lauren is that the girl has a good eye for accessories. She never misses a new leather belt or a pair of dangly earrings. She’s like one of those radar screens that lights up when she spots an expensive purse.
“Hi, Lauren,” I said.
“Wasn’t it so great of them to come?” Charlie said to me.
“Are you kidding?” Lauren squealed. “We wouldn’t have missed it. We all came to support you guys.” As she spoke, she looked behind me, her eyes searching the empty path to court eleven. “So, where’s Ryan?” she asked ever so casually.
“He couldn’t be here,” Charlie answered. “Volleyball practice.”
“Oh,” Lauren said, a little frown starting to form around her mouth.
“Bummer,” Jillian added.
“That sucks,” Brooke noted.
“But the important thing is that we’re all here together,” Charlie said. “Right?”
“Right,” Lauren nodded, doing a really poor job of concealing her disappointment. “So … do you think Ryan’s coming later? Not that it matters, of course.”
“He doesn’t have a way to get here,” Charlie said. “So I think you’re stuck with just me today.”
She laughed like she was making a joke, but I noticed that the other three girls didn’t laugh. They just went back to their Frappuccinos and took their seats on the bleachers. Charlie and I went out on the court to warm up.
We had only been hitting a few minutes when our competition showed up. Anna Kozlov and Marjorie Shin were from the SoCal Racquet Club in San Diego. We had played them before, and they were really good. Kozlov was a hitting machine with a monster serve, and Shin was quick and fast with some of the best reflexes at the net I’d ever seen. Charlie and I ran up to say hello and shake hands with them.
“Sorry we’re a little late,” Anna said. “We got hung up at the registration desk.”
“Yeah, there was a whole commotion going on there,” Marjorie added.
“Like, what kind of commotion?” I asked, aware of an uncomfortable feeling that was taking hold in the pit of my stomach.
“There were these three kids who were trying to get into the club,” Marjorie went on. “They had on totally the wrong clothes—no collared shirts and black-soled tennis shoes. Naturally, the club officials wouldn’t let them in.”
“I think they were from Mexico or something,” Anna said. “I felt bad for them, especially for the one guy who had a messed-up foot.”
That was all I needed to hear. Without a word, I raced off the court and ran at top speed down the cement path and into the lobby of the beach club where Mustache Man and his sidekick Ted were still sitting on their velvet chairs.
“Did you kick out my friends?” I demanded.
“Their attire did not meet club standards,” the one called Ted answered.
“Well, I think your standards are stupid,” I yelled, and before I could go on, I felt a firm hand on my arm, tugging me away from the desk. It was my dad.
“Calm down, Sammie,” he said. “GoGo is with Alicia and the boys now. Everything’s okay.”
“Where are they?”
“I gave them some money to go get ice cream,” he said. “Candido had already left, so GoGo’s going to walk them down the beach to the snack bar while you and Charlie play. Everybody’s happy.”
“Happy? How can you say that, Dad? I’m not happy, and I’m sure they’re not happy. They just got kicked out of here. I bet they were totally embarrassed and just wanted to sink into a hole and disappear.”
“Sammie,” my dad said, taking my face in his hands and directing my attention toward him, “you have a big match to play. Now settle down and focus. Nothing terrible happened to your friends.”
“Oh, really? How would you like to get booted out by those two old stuffy dudes because you don’t have a collar on your shirt? I’d say that’s pretty terrible. Collars are stupid, anyway. They don’t serve any purpose except to hold those stupid clothes tags, which are totally annoying.”
I was yelling, and several members of the Sand and Surf Club were looking at me with raised eyebrows. I overheard one lady with a pearl necklace turn to her friend in a gold necklace and whisper, “Imagine, talking to your father like that.”
“I’m going after them,” I said, breaking loose from my dad’s grip. “I’m not playing. I quit.”
I bolted for the entrance and dashed out into the parking lot. I could see GoGo in her wide-brimmed straw hat walking with Alicia and Eddie. Oscar was trailing behind.
“Wait up, guys,” I yelled and took off across the asphalt. My dad was right behind me and in about two giant steps, got in front of me and blocked my path.
“Hold it right there, young lady,” he said in a stern voice. “You are playing today. I have committed you. Kozlov and Shin drove all the way down here from San Diego. And as your father and your coach, I will not allow you to withdraw from the match unless you are injured.”
By that time, Alicia, Eddie, and Oscar had come back to where my dad and I were standing in the middle of the parking lot, staring each other down. A BMW honked at me and I stuck my tongue out at the driver. Okay, I know that wasn’t mature, but it felt great. Alicia reached out and put her hand on my shoulder.
“It’s okay,” she said to me. “We can do something else this afternoon.”
“I am so sorry,” I said to her and the boys. “I invited you to come but I forgot to tell you about the dress code. And you even gave up going to Etta’s party.”
“I don’t think they wanted us inside anyway,” Eddie said.
“Everyone there has white skin and yellow hair,” Oscar added.
Now it was me who wanted to drop into a hole and disappear. As if Oscar didn’t have enough problems, now he had to feel bad about his skin color. Tears of anger welled up in my eyes. I wanted to say, “It’s not like that, Oscar,” but I knew he was right. This wasn’t just about shirt collars. This was flat-out prejudice.
“Sammie and I apologize for the embarrassment we’ve caused you,” my dad said to Oscar and Eddie and Alicia. “This whole incident was very unfortunate. But right now, Sammie needs to get on the court or she’ll have to forfeit the match.”
“That’s fine with me,” I muttered.
“It’s not fine with me,” he snapped back.
It was GoGo, as usual, who came to the rescue.
“Come on, kids,” she said, taking Oscar’s hand. “I’m dying for an ice cream. Frankie’s Clam Shack on State Beach has an amazing chocolate-dipped
cone.” Of course, she pronounced it cho-co-LA-tay like they do in Spanish.
“Me gusta el chocolate,” Oscar said. Whether he actually liked chocolate or not, I couldn’t blame him for wanting to get out of the tense situation.
“Then follow me,” GoGo said, turning to go. “And afterward I’ll show you the tide pools. You can see mussels and hermit crabs and those cute little sea urchins.”
“Can I take one home with me?” Oscar asked. “I’d like to draw it.”
“Oh no,” GoGo said. “On the beach, we take nothing but our time and leave nothing but our footprints.”
“That’s cool,” Oscar said.
GoGo smiled at him and latched her arm into his.
“So is the ice cream,” she said. “Wait till you taste it.”
While GoGo led them away, my dad took my arm firmly and led me toward court eleven.
“I’m not playing,” I said. “You can’t make me.”
“No, but I can ground you. And take away your allowance. And your television privileges. Need I go on?”
When we got to the court, word that Alicia and her cousins had gotten thrown out had already reached Charlie and her friends.
“OMG, aren’t you so embarrassed?” Lauren said to me. “I’ll bet you wanted to just die.”
“Why should I be embarrassed?” I said. “The people at this club should be embarrassed for being total jerks.”
“I think this is a really cool club,” Brooke said. “My Uncle Biff is on the board here.”
“Oh, is he the one who drives that classic Mercedes?” Jillian asked.
“No, that’s Uncle Talbot. Uncle Biff is the one who’s married to Aunt Bitsy, the one with the really huge boob implants.”
I stomped away. Those girls didn’t have a clue how it felt to be completely rejected. I didn’t want to hear one more word about whose uncle drove which classic car. I couldn’t believe that Charlie was standing there listening to them chatter on without taking a stand to defend Eddie and Oscar.
Under the threat of being grounded and stripped of all my privileges, I did play the match. I figured my dad could make me play, but he couldn’t make me play well. Every time the ball came to me, I’d hit it right to Anna, who then powered up and slammed it down our throats.
“What’s wrong with you?” Charlie said after we lost the first three games in a row. “You can’t keep lobbing her soft balls like that. She’s killing us.”
“I don’t care,” I said.
“Well I do, Sammie. All my friends are watching. You’re making me look bad.”
That’s just fine, I thought. Just like the people at the club had made Alicia and Oscar and Eddie look bad. I had no desire to win. All I wanted to do was leave the Sand and Surf Club and never come back again. The quickest way to do that was to lose.
Which we did. Six–love. Six–love.
That’s right. We never even won one game.
You Can’t Ground Me!
Chapter 7
“To say I’m disappointed in you, Sammie, would be the understatement of the century,” my dad fumed as we drove home after the match.
Smoke was practically coming out of his ears. He was in the middle of a long lecture that lasted all the way home and continued right on into dinner and even after. He didn’t really wind down until he fell asleep on the couch watching the nightly news. Even GoGo couldn’t get him to put a cork in it. He left no cliché unturned. I’m sure you can imagine the basic thrust of the lecture. Some of the highlights (which if you ask me, were actually lowlights) included:
(1) I let him and my sister down.
(2) I was part of a team.
(3) There is no “I” in team.
(4) Winners do their best at all times.
(5) Losing is for losers.
As the cherry on top of his marathon lecture, he told me I was grounded for the following week. That meant I couldn’t go to any after-school activities. This was especially devastating because the Truth Tellers were going to be rehearsing every day for the performance on Saturday night. When my mom called from Boston, which she does every Sunday night to see how the week went, I told her about my punishment, hoping she would talk Dad out of it. She was very sympathetic, and agreed that what the Sand and Surf Club did was wrong, but she said she couldn’t go against Dad’s rules. They always back each other up, my parents, which Charlie, Ryan, and I find really annoying.
I tried calling Alicia all night, but she didn’t pick up. She doesn’t have a cell phone, so I just kept leaving messages on her family’s voice mail. I was worried that she was mad or hurt or both, and I was desperate to talk to her—to explain, to apologize, to hear that things were okay between us.
The next morning, I left for school early and walked really fast to the bus stop at Third and Arizona, where Alicia always gets off. When the bus pulled up, she wasn’t on it. I waited for the next one, but she wasn’t on that one, either. Finally, I had to leave for school and found myself walking right in front of two of the SF2 boys, saggy Jared and the General.
“Hey, I hear somebody choked at her tennis match yesterday,” Jared said, holding his throat and making a noise like he was choking.
Really? Don’t these guys have anything better to think about than my tennis game?
Apparently not, because his remark was followed by the General’s.
“Charlie says you were freaked out because your friends from Guatemala got busted,” he said.
“They are from El Salvador,” I said.
“Same difference,” he answered.
I stopped walking and turned to look him square in the face.
“Since you seem to be a general in some unknown armed forces, you might want to take a geography lesson and learn the countries of Central America, our neighbors to the south.”
“Whoa,” he said, smirking at Jared. “Somebody’s in a touchy mood. You should chill out and be more like your sister.”
Before I could answer, his phone beeped and he reached into the pocket of his camouflage cargo pants and pulled it out.
“Text from Brooke,” he said. “She’s here.”
We had just walked up to the front steps of Beachside, our school, and Brooke was getting out of her dad’s car, holding her phone. She looked around, and when she saw the General walking toward the steps, she waved and squealed all at once. There should be a word for that … I know, a squave. That’s it. She squaved at the General.
“Hey,” she said, running up to him. “How come you’re walking with Sammie?”
“Are you jealous?” he asked.
“Oh right. Like, so jealous,” she said with a laugh.
That stung. Not that I was interested in the General even the tiniest smidgeon of a bit, but still, it hurt not even to be considered good enough for a minute of his attention. All I was to them was a joke.
I was never so grateful to hear the five-minute warning bell ring. I left them and dashed up the stairs to the office. Mrs. Humphrey, who runs the attendance office, was in her usual foul mood, but I didn’t care. I asked her if Alicia had called in sick. She just frowned at me over her steel-rimmed glasses and told me she was not at liberty to give out that information, like it was some big security breech or something.
At lunch, I went to Ms. Carew’s classroom. Most of the time, she eats lunch at her desk and leaves her door open for anyone who wants to come in and hang out. The kids in Truth Tellers all love Ms. Carew, and usually, there are four or five kids in her room or on her patio, talking and eating. When I went in, she was working with Etta and Bernard, helping them refine their ideas for a monologue for our Saturday-night performance.
“Have you seen Alicia today?” I asked. “I really need to talk to her. I think she’s mad at me.”
“I haven’t seen her,” Ms. Carew answered, “but you two are such good friends, I’m sure you can talk through your feelings.”
I told her what happened at the club. She listened and sighed deeply.
&nb
sp; “Exclusion is a terrible thing,” she said, “especially when you’re excluded for no other reason than being yourself.”
She went over to the intercom and buzzed Mrs. Humphrey.
“Can you tell me why Alicia Bermudez is out today?” she asked.
“Why does everyone want to know?” Mrs. Humphrey barked. “You’d think I have nothing else to do with my time than take attendance.”
That was a weird thing to say. Since she does run the attendance office, I would think taking attendance is one of the main things she has to do. I could hear her typing on her computer, and I could feel the annoyance as she punched the keyboard hard.
“Here it is,” she grumbled. “Her father called her in absent at seven forty-two this morning. He said it was a family issue.”
That worried me. Was Alicia staying out of school because she was too embarrassed about what had happened at the club? Or because she was furious with me for going on with the match? Or because something bad had happened in the family? I had to talk to her. I tried calling a few more times in between classes that afternoon, but all I kept getting was voice mail.
As soon as the bell rang, I walked out the main door and headed for the bus stop at Third and Arizona. As I passed Starbucks, I saw Charlie hanging out there with Lauren, putting her backpack down on one of the outside tables.
“Sammie,” Charlie called. “Where are you going?”
“I’ve got to do something.” I stopped reluctantly at their table for just a minute. I didn’t want to miss the bus.
“Um, are you forgetting that you’re grounded?”
“Um, no, I’m not.”
“Well, not to bother you with little details, but don’t you think Dad’s going to notice that you’re not home like you’re supposed to be?”
“Could I talk to you in private a second?” I whispered to her.
“You can say whatever you have to say in front of Lauren,” she answered. “We’re best friends and she’ll keep any secret I ask her to. Right, Lauren?”
“Totally.” Lauren nodded.
I didn’t like saying anything about Alicia in front of Lauren, but I had no choice. I needed Charlie to help cover for me.
