Smashed (21 page)

“I didn’t know I had to
be
perfect for you to
be
my friend.”

“I just don’t want you to blow it. I wish you could understand that. It’s because I
am
your friend.”

“Well, you know what? That’s my business. If I blow it, it’s my business.”

“Forget I mentioned it,” Matt said, but he wasn’t over it.

Neither one of us spoke.

He stood there for a minute while I finished organizing my things.

“You’re still coming over tonight, right?” he said finally. “To help me pick the final pictures for my portfolio?”

“Yeah, if you still want me to.”

“I do,” he said. “See you then.” And he disappeared around the corner.

*     *     *

Matt had photographs spread out all over his bed when I arrived. “These are the ones I’ve made prints of,” he said, not looking up at me. “The rest are still slides.”

I glanced at a small cardboard box on the other bed. Inside it, in a thin plastic container, were several rows of slides we’d selected out of hundreds back in the summer.

I stood in the doorway, waiting, as Matt moved around the bed adjusting the photos, lining them up in perfect, neat rows.

Finally he stopped and looked over at me. “Are you coming in?”

I shrugged. “Do you want me to?”

He took a deep breath; his shoulders fell and relaxed. “I told you I did,” he said quietly. “I
do
want your help.”

He looked anxious—not just about the fight we’d had but about his portfolio. He wanted to study traditional photography, to take photos that were
art
, like Ansel Adams and Man Ray. He wanted to prove he could do that.

I stepped into his room. “Okay,” I said. “What can I do?”

Matt threw himself into an armchair, head back. “I’m afraid I’ll pick the wrong ones and they won’t like them, you know?”

“That can’t happen, Matt. There are so many good ones, it’s hard to even narrow it down. They’re
all
beautiful.” I picked one up off the bed. “I like this one a lot.” It was a close-up of a cow, taken with a telephoto lens by the side of a road. One narrow half of a cow’s face, a single, soulful brown eye gazing into the camera, filled the frame.

“Me too,” he said.

“Let’s start a pile of our favorites.”

“All right,” he said. “Then we can start getting rid of the rest.”

Matt liked abstract photographs the best, and working in black and white. First we went through the slides, placing them on the light box and viewing them through the loupe—a magnifying glass mounted on a clear plastic platform that made the picture larger and clearer to the eye. Then we considered the
prints. We eliminated more than half as we went, and then put the rest into categories: personal favorites, different styles, color, and black and white. Finally we began choosing, agreeing and disagreeing, setting second and third choices to the side. We were almost finished when Matt went into a drawer and pulled out one last photo.

“I’d like to use this,” he said. “It’s one of my best portraits.”

When Matt said “portraits” he didn’t mean posed shots—he hated those. He meant photographs of people in their element, caught in real moments—candids. Honest shots, he called them. “There’s nothing interesting about people smiling into a camera lens,” he’d said many times. “Not to me, anyway.”

I took the photo from his hand. It was one I’d never seen before. There I was, in black and white, on the bench next to the hockey field during that first scrimmage of the season, when Coach Riley had benched me. Around me were freshmen, JV players, second-string varsity, their eyes on the game. My arms were folded in front of me like I was shivering, even though it had been a very hot day. I was hunched over, my eyes cast down. Looking at it, I remembered that moment so clearly, the rocking motion of my body as I gazed at the grass, too humiliated to watch the game.

“I didn’t know you took this.”

“I know.” Matt stood quietly in front of me. “I won’t use it if you don’t want me to.”

I looked at it a moment longer. “That was a bad day.”

“I know.”

“You can use it,” I said, and handed it back to him.

“Katie?”

“What?”

“I know you think I’m a jerk sometimes. That I’m always down on you or something,” he said. “It’s just . . .”

“What? Say it.”

He held the picture in his hand, his lips pressed tightly together. “I just don’t want you to feel this way.”

“What way?”

“The way you did in this picture.” His brown eyes shone.

“I’m okay, Matt,” I said quietly. “Really, I am.”

He nodded. But something in his face told me he wasn’t so sure.

Later, outside, we crossed the road and walked across my lawn, dead leaves rustling like crumpled paper beneath our feet.

“I’ve got to rake these before it snows.”

“I’ll help you,” Matt said.

We reached my porch and he hugged me. I didn’t want to let him go.

Cassie told me everything that happened.

She’d caught up with Megan and Cheryl behind the field house as they were getting into Cheryl’s car. Marcy was with them, too, her long blond braid swinging against her hockey jacket. She’d had a bad practice that day—she found out Sue Tapley was going to the homecoming dance with Alec, and Coach Riley had been on her about her attitude again.

Cassie shivered in the dimly lit parking lot. “Hey, can I talk to you guys for a minute?”

“What’s up?” Megan said.

“You going to Scott’s party this weekend?”

“Yeah, want to come?” Megan looked slightly surprised.

“No, I’m waiting until after the tournament. I figure we’ll have a big party after we win the States.”

“I’m having that one at my house,” Megan said. “My parents are going to Florida for Thanksgiving.”

Cassie nodded.

“So, what’s up?”

“Well,” she said slowly, “I was hoping you’d wait until then, too. Once the play-offs are over, it doesn’t matter anymore if we party.”

Cheryl rolled her eyes. “No offense, Cassie, but Riley hasn’t exactly been on top of the situation this season. I don’t think we’ve got anything to worry about.” She rubbed her arms. “Damn, it’s cold,” she said, and climbed into the driver’s seat. “You guys ready to go?”

“While you’re on the lecture circuit, why don’t you talk to your co-captain,” Marcy said. “Wouldn’t want Miss Scholarship to blow it.”

“Shut up, Marcy. You’re just jealous,” Megan said, and Marcy got into the car, scowling. “I hear you, Cass, but don’t worry. We’re not going to do anything stupid. I’ll guarantee you we’ll all be playing in the quarterfinals on Monday.”

“That’d be good, because we’d be sunk without you in the goal.”

“Not to worry,” Megan said. “See you tomorrow.”

*     *     *

“I think she heard me,” Cassie said now, backing her Beetle out of the parking lot. “I know they care about the play-offs as much as we do.”

I was grateful to Megan: She hadn’t blown my cover, and she’d put Marcy in her place. But Marcy was a real wild card—not someone you’d want on the other side playing against you. If she knew what I’d done, I could forget it.

Cassie stopped, looked both ways, and turned out of the lot.
If I reached over, I could touch her sitting there, her hands on the wheel. But I felt a million miles away. It had been that way ever since the accident, ever since the first lie. Then there’d been the concert, when I hadn’t told her about dancing with Alec or holding his hand, and then that dent in the hood of my car. I thought about standing by the tall fence at the fair, blowing sweet smoke into the dark, relief coursing through my body as my mind slipped away. I could never explain that moment to her.

I stared out the window into the darkness. “Cassie . . .”

“What? You’re nervous aren’t you? You know, I shouldn’t have made such a big deal out of the party. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“That’s not it.”

“What is it? You know, even if we lose the first game—which we
won’t
, by the way—you’ve already got a scholarship. Coach Hollyhock promised you money.”

“I know. The tournament won’t change that.”

“Listen, those guys can’t ruin anything. Marcy’s always a jerk—even Megan knows that—and Riley can handle her.”

Her car sat idling in my driveway now. “We’re kicking butt next week.” She reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “Now get out of my car, or I’ll be late getting home.”

*     *     *

I was actually glad to have the house empty that night, to have it entirely to myself. I pulled the new jug of red wine Stan had gotten for me out of the cupboard and poured, filling my glass. I’d delivered the empty jugs to the recycling center in a brown
paper bag earlier in the week. I’d wanted them gone the minute I took the last sip; once they were out of sight, it was like they’d never existed.

Sort of like how drinking alone could make it seem like you weren’t drinking at all.

In the recliner in the living room, I considered the old riddle:
If a tree falls in the woods and there’s no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound?

A different version, my own, had been floating through my mind for weeks:
If you drink some wine and there’s no one around to see it, does it still count against you?

My theory was that it did not. What other choice did I have?

It was just one more thing I kept inside me, like a tightly wrapped package, ready to explode.

*     *     *

The following week we went into the quarterfinals ranked number one in Western Maine Class B and won the game 3–0. Marcy behaved perfectly, blank-faced and silent on the field, even when the ref made a clearly bad call in the second half and gave the other team a free hit into the circle on a ball that should have been ours.

“Nice job today,” I said to her as we jogged off the field, and she actually smiled. I saw Coach Riley give her a thumbs-up, too.

Megan, Cheryl, and some others had partied over the weekend, but they were right. Nothing had happened. Nothing ever did. Coach Riley talked tough, but like most grown-ups, she didn’t have a clue what was really going on.

It was Friday afternoon and it seemed like the entire school had gathered around the field. On Wednesday, we’d rolled over Jamaica 4–1 in the semifinals. If we won today, we’d be Western Maine champions, heading to what we hoped would be our final destination: the States.

Kids who had never been to a field hockey game in their lives were giddy—laughing, shivering, sipping soda. Cars paraded into the parking lot, filled with parents who had taken the afternoon off work to see their daughters play. Outside the locker room, I watched Bobbi Crow talk to her father, then hug him and go inside.
What would it be like to have a dad like that to support you at one of the most important moments of your life?
I wondered. A sharp ache jabbed at the back of my throat and I pushed the thought out of my mind. Sure, neither of my parents were going to be at the game, but I’d known that. I’d expected no different. I was here for myself and for my team.

Our nerves running high, we ran through our drills on the
field. We wanted to look strong, to psych the other team out. When Coach Riley gave us the signal, we jogged off the field in a line and gathered, sticks pounding the ground to the rhythm of our cheer.

It was time to play.

*     *     *

We dominate during the first half. They can’t hang on to the ball. Their passes go nowhere. But we can’t seem to score, either. We’re within twenty-five yards of the goal most of the time, but their defense is tough, and their goalie is playing high, charging bravely out of the goal, which cuts off our angle. And she’s got a sweeper backing her up who has dead-stopped two gorgeous line drives right in front of the cage. They’re all defense. If they can’t score, they’ll keep us from doing the same. I catch a glimpse of Coach Riley on the sideline and meet her eye. She calls a time-out.

“Did they send that kid off to goalie boot camp since we last played them or what?” Marcy asks in the huddle.

“We’ll just have to work around her,” Coach Riley says. “Cassie, Sarah, go in deep and
wide
. You’ve got to watch the off sides, but her sweep is covering the goal when she comes out, so you can get in close without a violation. And she’s vulnerable. Katie, Sarah, Bobbi, feed it out to them, then rush. We’ll score, even if it’s in a scramble. Ready?”

“Let’s go!” we say together, and run back out onto the field.

The best way to score is not to think about it too much, just do it. Cassie goes in wide and waits. Bobbi receives the ball on a free hit and their goalie rushes her, but Bobbi’s pass is fast and
precise. Cassie picks it up and sends it. Their sweeper picks up Cassie’s shot, but it bounces off her stick and Cassie grabs it again, taps it around her. Sarah dives for it and nudges it in over the line. We’re screaming and jumping up and down as we help Sarah back to her feet.

“Now that’s teamwork, girls! Way to go!” Coach Riley is beaming. Our crowd is on their feet.

They can’t score
, I think, and a chill zips up my spine.
They’re all defense. We’re really going to win this thing.

But we’ve got to keep our heads, channel our adrenaline in the right direction. We’re more determined than ever to notch a second goal and cement our lead. Within minutes, we’re at our end of the field again. Inside the circle, I drive the ball toward the left corner of the goal before their defense can react; it speeds through every one of them. The goalie lunges and misses, and the ball flies into the net, making it inside the edge of the cage by an inch. We are 2–0.

Four minutes later the whistle blows and we are the Western Maine Class B champions.

The day of the States, the wind was gusting strong, picking up the dead leaves that skittered across the field, whipping them into mini cyclones that flew off into the crowd gathered on the University of Southern Maine’s risers. The sun hit a tree with a lone cluster of bright orange foliage, lighting it up like fire against the cold blue sky.