Shutout (3 page)

So I just waved and kept walking.

It's only a couple of blocks from the field to our house, but of course something happened on the way home too, because it was that kind of day. I was walking with my ball under my arm, and some loser on a bike came by and punched it. The ball rolled into the street right when somebody was driving by in their big stupid SUV they probably had to expand their garage for, and they squashed the ball flat.

We have lots of balls at home, so it's not like it was some irreplaceable family heirloom or something, but I just didn't have it in me to be tough about anything anymore, so I sat down on the sidewalk and started to cry.

At this point the idiot loser on the bike who had played the hilarious prank on me came wheeling back, I guess to rub my nose in how hilarious his prank was.

Oh, did I mention that the idiot loser was my
step
brother, Conrad?

So there I was crying on the sidewalk, and Conrad came over on his bike. I ignored him.

“Hey,” he said.

I didn't raise my head or any part of my body other than my middle finger.

“It's just a ball, Amanda, God,” he said. I knew this was the part where I yelled at him and we had a big fight, but I didn't have the energy to do anything but cry. I guess this must have caught him off-guard because he didn't say anything for a while.

Then, finally, he said, “I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to wreck it or anything.”

Now I did look up at him, because his stupidity was offensive to me. “Well, what did you think was going to happen? I mean, did you think about the fact that we're right next to a street with cars on it, and that rolling balls can actually get squished by two-ton machines?”

He didn't say anything for a second. Then he practically whispered, “Um. I didn't really think about that, no. I just thought it would be funny.”

“Well, it's hilarious. Almost as funny as me getting cut from varsity.”

“Oh. I'm sorry about that. But you know they really don't ever put ninth graders on varsity. I mean, for somebody to be on varsity in the ninth grade, they'd have to be like Mia Hamm or somebody, but for normal humans—”

“Lena made it.”

His reaction to this news was enough to make me take the “step” away, at least for a minute.

“What?” he yelled. “That is total bullshit! I can't believe that! She's good, but she's not better than you. That is so stupid! God, Geezer must have had her brains fried by the sun.”

This was enough to get a laugh out of me. “Geezer?”

Conrad looked at me like I was from outer space. “Oh my God, you've never heard that? Everybody calls her that.”

“Not at soccer practice they don't.”

“Yeah, well, in the real world, they do. She's all old and crinkly, and her name rhymes . . . it's a pretty obvious joke.” He held out his hand to me and helped me up. Then he got off his bike and walked with me the rest of the way home, fuming about Geezer's idiocy the whole way.

“You know what it is, right? It's freakin' Stephanie LoPresto. She's a senior, so they have to put her on varsity, but she's a sieve in the goal. They would have totally made states with you in the goal. They'll be lucky to win the conference with her back there. They might as well just pull the goalie altogether and put another forward in.”

Of course I would never tell him this, but it was really nice to have Conrad on my side for a change. It seemed like we'd been fighting more or less nonstop since I was ten, and it felt good to get a break from that on a day when I totally couldn't deal with it. It should have been comforting to know I hadn't made the team because of some senior girl, but it wasn't. Because if I wasn't afflicted with Sever's disease, then I would be able to run and I could play another position and maybe be a backup goalie. It was so unfair.

We got home and Conrad went over to the bulkhead to park his bike in the basement and I headed in the front door.
I wanted to run up to my room and cry, but Dad and Dominic were home playing Mario Party. I looked in the living room and rolled my eyes. Because, okay, you expect to see your annoying eight-year-old brother there in front of the TV frantically pounding on the controller, but when your forty-three-year-old father is doing the same thing, it's just embarrassing.

It's also embarrassing when your dad pumps his fist at your eight-year-old brother and goes, in this weird accent, “Waluigi the winner!”

He looked up at me after video game trash-talking his son and didn't look the least bit ashamed. “Hey, sweetie!” he said. “How was practice?”

I was going to give him the standard “Fine,” and head upstairs for a good sulk (which, for once, was not going to include calling Lena, because she couldn't understand what I was feeling), but unfortunately, Conrad came up from the basement at that point. He was holding a box of latex gloves in his hand, and he kind of shook them at Dad and said, “She didn't make varsity. And Lena did! Can you believe this crap?”

Dad looked over at Conrad and asked, “Why are you holding a box of gloves?”

Conrad looked at his hand like he'd forgotten they were even there. “Oh. I don't know. I guess I must have picked them up in the basement.”

“Cool!” Dominic shouted. “Let's fill 'em up with milk and make udders to drink out of.”

“Awesome!” Conrad said, and he and Dominic went running to the kitchen.

All Dad said to them was “Make sure they're the powder-free kind, guys.” I really wished Mom was home at that point. When it's just me in the house with three boys, I start wondering if it's them or me who's completely insane, and when Mom's here, I can be confident in the knowledge that it's them.

Dad looked at me with his concerned face. “I'm sorry, sweetie,” he said. “I know how much that hurts.”

“Dad, you never played soccer in your life.”

“Yeah, but I had . . . did I ever tell you the story of
Romeo and Juliet
senior year?”

“You mean about how the screen fell down and the whole school accidentally saw that girl's butt you had a crush on?”

“It was her whole self I had a crush on, not just her butt, but no, that's not the story.”

Every single thing that ever happens, Dad has a story. I knew I was going to have to hear it eventually, so I figured I might as well get it over with. “Okay, what was it?”

“Well, you know Uncle Jake was in that play too?”

“Yeah?” Jake's not really Dad's brother, but he's always been Uncle Jake to me.

“He was my best friend then as he is now, and we were both seniors, so, you know, we had a reasonable expectation that we'd get big parts. And we did. Jake was Romeo and I was Friar Lawrence.” He had this look on his face like he'd said something important.

“So?”

“So? So my best friend gets to play the tragic romantic hero, and I get to play the old buffoon! How do you think
that feels? He got more dates than me anyway, and here's our director, a respected adult—well, after hearing about all the—”

I rolled my eyes. “Dad? The point?”

“Right. So here's this respected adult who hands down this decision that says, essentially, you, Jake, are an attractive young man, and you, Dan, are so far from attractive that you can play an old celibate buffoon. I know it probably sounds stupid, but it hurt. A lot. There are other parts in that play for young men—Mercutio is a great part and he also gets to die tragically, Tybalt is this hotheaded brawler, and he gets to die too, but no, I had to be the cowardly old fool. The kid who played Mercutio was a
freshman
.”

I looked at Dad's face—he looked mad. “You know, Dad, the fact that you're still upset about this like twenty-five years later really isn't much comfort right now. I'm just gonna go to my room.”

“Wait, wait! This story has an interesting postscript!” This is how Dad's stories always go. I really wish he'd try telling an interesting story with no postscript instead of a boring story with an interesting postscript, but he doesn't seem to have it in him.

“Go ahead.” I sighed.

“So Jake is getting crazy phone numbers after every performance. From all the girls at our school, plus all these girls we've never even seen before.
College
girls. How many high school boys do you think get phone numbers from college girls? I'll tell you—it never happens. This was the only time in the history of the world it has ever happened. And there's me, just standing there, hoping maybe Jake will tell some of
these girls he needs to double so I'll at least get a pity date out of the deal. Did I mention that I performed in a padded robe to make me look fat on top of everything else?”

“You didn't mention that.”

“Yeah, well, I might as well have had a sign on that said
NEVER DATE ME
. Anyway, only one girl congratulated me on my performance. This really cute, shy girl from the basketball team came up to me blushing and said, ‘You did a really good job.' And that, of course, was your mom.”

I didn't really understand what the point was, but I didn't want to hurt his feelings, especially since he gets all sensitive when he's talking about Mom, the dead one, so I just let it go. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Okay, sweetie. Life is tough, but you're tougher. Remember that.” And suddenly he was hugging me and I was crying like a little girl.

“It's just so unfair. So unfair,” I blubbered, and he rubbed my back and said, “I know, sweetie. I know.”

Eventually I stopped crying and Dad gave me some Oreos and whatever milk was left after my idiot brothers had finished making udders out of latex gloves and milking them into their mouths.

I took my snack up to my room and flipped open my phone. The screen was black. I had turned it off at the beginning of practice because Geezer gave this speech on the first day about how you didn't disrespect the team by having your phone go off when you were supposed to be practicing. Like I had a lot of respect for the team at this point anyway.

I had eight texts from Lena. “R U mad?” “Pls call b4 I lose service,” that kind of thing. Where Lena and her family go in New Hampshire there's no cell phone service, like it's 1870 or something.

I called her and she picked up on the first ring.

“Hey,” she said. “Are you mad at me?”

“Of course not. I mean, I'm mad at Geezer, but not you.”

“Geezer?”

“Conrad called her that.”

“That's awesome. Wait. Did he say anything else?”

“Yeah, he told me how he pines for your love.”

She was silent for a few seconds, and I felt bad for teasing her. “I'm joking, Lene.”

“Oh yeah, I knew that. I mean, I don't think he'd really say ‘pines.' ”

“Not unless he was talking about trees.”

Awkward silence fell. How weird was that? Usually the only awkwardness I felt while talking to Lena was how to get off the phone when I still had four hundred stupid things to say to her. Finally I bit the bullet. “So, uh, how was practice?”

“You are a way better goalie than that girl. She's only there because she's a senior.”

“Yeah, that's what Conrad said.”

“Was that before or after he talked about pining for my love?”

I laughed. “After. Of course the pining was the first thing he said to me.”

“Damn right. Just tell him he's gonna have to get in line,” she said.

“Okay,” I said. Now she was the one making a joke that kind of hurt. Because of course Lena would have tons of guys lining up for her, probably even gorgeous Duncan, so hot that nobody ever even made the obvious donut joke about him, while I just stood to the side and passed out the numbers. We didn't say anything for a minute.

“Well, have a good weekend.”

“Yeah, it's supposed to rain the whole time. We'll probably stay inside and play cards until we kill each other.”

I laughed. “Make sure you're the one still standing at the end. I'm not doing the first day of school without you.”

“I know. Totally. I'm terrified. I'll call you when we get back.”

“Okay. Bye!” She didn't answer, and my phone said “call was lost.”

I texted Mom at work to tell her the bad news. I didn't like to call her in case she was in a meeting or something. “I got cut and Lena didn't,” I wrote.

A couple of minutes later my phone beeped, and Mom replied: “That sux. Ice cream tonite?”

See, now whereas Dad thinks boring me with some story about how he was a loser is the way to react to something like this, Mom knows exactly what you need when you're upset.

“Totally,” I texted back.

“Girls only,” she replied. I flipped the phone closed and smiled. I picked up my last summer reading book and tried to read but couldn't because of the noise. All three boys were now playing Mario Party, and I could hear Conrad bellowing in his best Luigi voice, “Im-a De Best!”

I plugged my ears with my iPod and read for a while, but a few minutes later Dominic came knocking at my door.

“Yeah?” I said, annoyed. Why wouldn't the kid let me sulk?

“Amanda?”

“Yeah.”

“Will you play Operation with me?”

I took a moment before I answered. I really wanted to tell him to buzz off and go bug somebody else, but then I'd feel guilty and sad instead of just sad. I knew he was up here because Dad and Conrad never let him win at anything, and I always let him win. Well, I didn't have a choice.

“Sure. Come on in,” I sighed.

He came in, all smiles, with the battered Operation box under his arm. “Great. Dad and Conrad are hogging the video games.”

“Yeah, they'll do that,” I said. We spent the next half hour digging plastic bits out of a two-dimensional guy. I like playing Operation with Dominic because it requires no effort at all to figure out how to let him win without looking like you're letting him win. Just pick up the water on the knee or whatever and buzz against the side and act mad.