Beyond Blonde (12 page)

“Damn,” she said. “Stay with me, girl.”

“Yay, yoohoo, yoohoo, yay, Madison, Madison, ya
da
ya!”

Not surprisingly, the horrible hankies didn’t grasp the finer points of the terrible-towel tradition, like you’re not supposed to distract your own players. Madison made the shot anyway. I was elbowed just tossing the loose ball back to their guard. Okay, now it begins.…

I threw myself at everything and Oakwood fouled me like I was a two-for-one sale. The horrible hankies had the time of their lives. And I am ashamed to say that I posed. Luke was looking. I couldn’t help myself. For every single free throw, I elongated, bounced the ball just so, pulled the ball into my chest, and then tossed it up and over, holding the follow-through just a beat or two longer than was necessary. In between bounces, I cursed the stupid dorky tunics that Northern made us wear. Oakwood had silky shorts and sleeveless jerseys. Trying to look sexy and fierce in a navy blue tunic and grey bloomers was tough, but I still posed my guts out. And it worked. I’d have to remember my posing technique in future. I made thirteen out of a possible sixteen foul point shots in the first half. Coach took me off five minutes before the half ended. I knew it was David’s idea.

I looked up.

Gone.

David caught me searching. Had he seen?

He called me over, looking like I was holding his loved ones hostage instead of winning his game for him. “Sarah needs some confidence,” he said, “some juice.” It was true, they were double-teaming her and she only had four points. “Give it to her, captain.”

What the hell? There wasn’t a piece of me that wasn’t in pain. I looked up again. Still gone. Never mind all those amazing posing points, he wanted more? The whistle blew and I yelled, “It’s all yours, Sarah,” as I ran back on court, replacing Kathy Bicks. “Let’s crank it up!”

“Got it!” said Kit bringing up the ball. She snapped to me, I snapped to Madison, Madison dribbled and ducked and snapped to Sarah, who made the shot and got the foul, even though I’d have to say she had charged the Oakwood player. Since that was like throwing yourself onto a skyscraper, we noticed that the refs tended to err our way on those fouls. She made the shot. The horrible hankies levitated. Our bench went wild, the buzzer blew, and we trotted off at the half with a tie. Sarah glided off the courts. I snuck a peek at the stands.

“He left when David called you off,” whispered Kit. Before I could say anything, she threw her arm around my neck. “Welcome back, captain. Haven’t seen you play like that in forever!”

David threw me a towel. “You’re playing like you’re hungry.” Pause, slight nod. “I want you hungrier in the second half.”

I mean one lousy little smile. Seriously, would it kill him?

I gave him hungrier. I was going to show him and those
Oakwood Goliaths. We used their size against them. I, we, played recklessly, drawing out all possible fouls, and the refs, God bless ’em, called them. We were diving like the Italian soccer team. My right arm was shot. It didn’t matter. Kit was limping and dragging her butt from one end of the court to the other. Madison had to sub out in the third quarter and couldn’t go back in, and Sarah was on it. She was the centre and they could not throw her off her game. The horrible hankies were hoarse from screaming. And what the hell, they just may have made the difference.

We won 57 to 55, no overtime.

The Aunties were down like a bullet, hugging the ref, Coach Wymeran, and David. You’d think we had just won the city championship. Which in a way, maybe we did. After getting our heads handed to us in almost every single game last year, we had just beat Oakwood—a team that we were sure to face in the finals and a team that had gone out of its way to humiliate us. David high-fived everyone, while I was smothered by Mama.

“Let go, Mama!” She just rocked me tighter. “Mama!” She let go only when Auntie Eva ripped her off me and then smothered me herself. “Remember I’m not going home with you guys,” I mumbled into her well-padded shoulder. “I’m sleeping over at Kit’s.”

“Ve know. Your Papa is outside parking in za no parking zone.” Then she tackled David. The look on his face was worth every suicide David had thrown at us this season. My fivefoot-two, girdled-and-gilded Auntie smothered my six-footfour-inch, rock-solid assistant coach. “Bravo, Valter David!”
She set him free long enough to pat his cheek. “Bravo, such a coach you are being and so, so nice to look at, eh, Sophie, eh?” More cheek patting.

To stop this, I was going to have to puke my guts out enough to make Kit stand back in awe. Wait. Was he smiling? Valter David
was
smiling. He was probably just relieved to be set free again. That and he must be used to it. One of the many unbearable things about David was that he was so aware and comfortable with the nuclear effect he had on girls, women, and now, Aunties. The team started filing into the dressing room.

I turned to Mama. “Guys, we gotta …”

“Da, da, da!”
Mama whipped out her hanky, which led to one last waving and cheering spree. “Congratulations, bravo, bravo!”

David and I were the only ones left in the gym. “God, I’m, uh, sorry about that, them, uh, they’re like tornadoes. Truth is, I like to think I can control them, but I can’t, not even a teeny bit.”

David opened the door to the dressing room still smiling. I mean, right at me, both dimples blazing. For a second my world opened.

“Congratulations, captain. That was leadership
and
fine ball.”

Oh. Right. Yeah. The game. I finally had his respect as a basketball player. Great. Really. It was what I had wanted all these weeks. David winked and stepped toward me, placing his hand on the small of my back. “
Bravo,
Sophie,” he whispered. Then he gently pushed me through the door. Did his hand
linger on the small of my back? No, I’m sure it didn’t. But my back burned even while I showered, and it burned all the way over to Kit’s. I swear I felt the press of his hand for the rest of the night, and I swear it helped.

I’ve had a million
sleepovers with the Blondes since grade nine, and every single one of them turned out great. Every single one. And for every single sleepover, including going over to Kit’s tonight, I vibrate with anxiety. I know it all goes back to grade six and my first almost-sleepover. Mama had to come and rescue me at four in the morning. After an everescalating evening of humiliating the “murderer’s kid,” we played hide-and-go-seek. I hid in the closet. No one came to seek. I heard them laughing, eating pizza, talking … about me. I was there for over three hours before I tiptoed, terrified, into a pitch-black hallway and called Mama. That was five years ago, and I was still on high alert for any fresh disgrace.

Isn’t there an expiry date for this level of dread?

The Blonde modus operandi, no matter where we were, was to lay in a ton of junk food and haul over all of our manicure/ pedicure machinery. We usually had sleepovers at Madison’s,
since her room was the size of our condo and Fabi kept the junk food stocked to ultimate levels, but we also had them at my place, Sarah’s, and Kit’s. I’d just never had a one-on-one sleepover at Kit’s.

I responded with championship house-guest angst. Sleepover stress had morphed into house-guest horror. I reviewed my sleepover etiquette, my mantra. I must strive to be easygoing but not a wuss. Funny-edgy but not biting. Complimentary but not NutraSweet. Quick to laugh but not idiotic. And finally, helpful and adorable to the parents/ siblings/servants but not cloying. I had to be vigilant about all of these since I was the only one who didn’t drink. I totally understood
them
drinking; how else do you survive a sleepover? I got pissed at Papa all over again for depriving me of a necessary rite of passage.

And all of that was just while you were awake, for God’s sake! What if you snored, scratched your butt, or farted while you were asleep? What then? You can’t stay awake all night. Believe me I’ve tried. I twitched all the way to Kit’s.

“Hey!” called Mr. Cormier. “How’s my favourite right guard?” Mr. Cormier was a dentist, although I could never really picture him doing needles and drills, especially since he was wearing an apron. “So, how did it go, ladies?”

“Great! We won, Mr. Cormier.”

“It was never in doubt!” He wiped his hands on his apron. Well, I’m sure it was actually Mrs. Cormier’s apron, but since she took off before I arrived on the scene, it looked entirely proper on Kit’s dad. “Never in doubt!”

Kit groaned quietly. I understood quiet groaning. Mr. Cormier
knew even less about basketball than the Aunties did. I once pointed out that her brothers played hockey. “So?” she said. “He learned about hockey for them. Why can’t he learn about basketball for me? I mean, your mom comes all the time and she knows squat about the game. No offence.”

“None taken,” I assured her. “Thing is, he’s got this big important job, two kids in university, a daughter at home, and meals to ruin. No offence.”

“None taken,” she assured me.

“And he’s doing it by himself. The guy’s tired. Mama would be too, if she was a regular human, plus I’m her only kid.”

“Come over to the counter, ladies,” he called. “I’ll explain dinner.” More quiet groaning. “That’s beef stew in the Crock-Pot. I have late rounds at the Free Clinic, and I’ll grab a sandwich there, but I’m sure the stew will be great!” We all looked at this massive white thing with a lid that was sitting in the middle of their kitchen counter.

“Brace yourself, Soph. We’ve exploded one lamb and one pork stew so far. We’re working our way through the protein group. The cleaning lady went ballistic.”

“Nonsense!” Mr. Cormier patted the machine gingerly. “It’s the cleaning lady’s recipe this time. It’ll buzz or clang or something when it’s done,” he looked at his watch, “in ten minutes or so.” Then he adjusted his tie and slipped on his jacket.

“A jacket
and
a tie, Dad? For the Free Clinic?”

Mr. Cormier’s ears reddened. The man was stupendously out of his element when it came to his daughter, but that never stopped him. Maybe he couldn’t come to our
games, but he always tried to buy the right tampons and the perfect leg-shaving cream and even ventured into dangerous Crock-Pot recipes. “I’ll be meeting one of my, uh, colleagues.” He started for the door.

“I smell date,” whispered Kit.

“I heard that! Ten minutes, girls.” And the front door shut.

“Okey-doke!” Kit clapped her hands. “Let’s grab a dinner plate and we can put it in front of us for protection.”

BRRRRRRRRING!!!

Even waiting for it, I was startled by the noise. We approached the beast warily. Kit went for the lid while I kept my plate in front of my face.

“Damn, he did it!” She shook her head, stunned. The warm and sweet aroma of the stew invaded the kitchen. “Wow, he pulled it off. Who knew?” She ladled three big dollops onto my plate.

“Kit, don’t you think that, maybe, it’s time to ‘cut him some slacks’ as Auntie Eva would say?”

“Nope, he owes me.” I must have looked shocked because I was. “It’s his fault she left.”

Wow. She couldn’t believe that. No normal breathing, human-type woman would leave
her children,
leave the country, to go and “find herself ” unless she was married to a mass murderer. The topic of Mrs. Cormier got the Aunties going for outraged hours on end. And, on this one lonely point, I agreed.

“Kit, how about it was
her
decision to go? That maybe she was thinking more about herself than you guys?” Well, so much for House-Guest Rules number one through twenty-seven.

Kit sat down and tried out the stew. “Pretty good!” She took a bigger mouthful. “You always blame the woman, Sophie.”

“Do not!” I said, stunned and offended at the same time.

“Yeah, you do.”

I tried the stew. It was almost as good as goulash. “Nooo!”

She grabbed our plates for seconds even though I had just had a couple of bites from my firsts. “Sophie,” Kit plopped on more stew, “you blamed your mom for your father’s drinking
and
for him leaving.”

We sat side by side on the stools at her kitchen counter.

“Well, yeah, but the thing is …”

“And … you blame Alison Hoover for—”

“
Oh my God, Kit,
she got herself pregnant!”

“Oh my God, Sophie,”
she parroted. “Do you think Luke had anything to do with that?”

I blew on the stew to cool it and me down. “Touché.”

“You told me last year that your mom
made
your dad drink, remember?”

Okay, so, I may have
thought
that for a minute,
last year
.

“I don’t think anyone
makes
someone drink, not your mom, not you.” Kit looked up at the ceiling. “And maybe I’d rather blame my dad about Mom taking off ’cause it’s easier than blaming me.”

“You?”

“She waited until my brothers finished high school, but she didn’t, couldn’t, wait until I was through.”

“That’s seriously nuts, Kit. You don’t really—”

She held up her hand. “Yeah, I know that now, most of the time.” We cleared up and then examined the fridge for
dessert options. Kit grabbed a gallon of Neapolitan ice cream for herself and I embraced a gallon of chocolate fudge. She snapped off both lids and offered me a tablespoon. It was quiet for a minute as we let the ice cream work its magic. “Thing is, she wants me to go to California and do my senior year there.”