The Underdogs (14 page)

“And what time is that?”

“About nine,” she said. “I started my rounds about ten thirty. The receipts and all that junk was done, and the place was quiet. So I headed back to the front desk so I could lock the doors right at eleven.”

“But…”

“But,” she said, her voice growing softer, “when I walked back through the lobby, I heard yelling in the women's locker room. I hadn't seen anyone around, yet there were two voices in there. Whoever it was, was angry, and—it wasn't like I was eavesdropping or anything—it was so quiet in the club that I could hear most of it.”

“Who was arguing in there, Beth?” Pause.

“I can't be sure, but it sounded like Lisa and … Annabel.” My mom took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “They were screaming at each other. Annabel was angry, saying things like, ‘It's
you
, I knew it was you.' That kind of stuff. Then Lisa called her something horrible, and Annabel threatened to tell everyone about whatever Lisa had done, and to get her fired. Then Lisa said something like, ‘If you don't want to believe me, that's your problem. You're a phony and everyone around here knows it.'”

I cringed. I hated to think Annabel had to hear those words only hours before she died. Shame on Lisa.

“Do you know what the fight was about?”

Mom replied, “I don't know what started it, but Lisa was talking about Annabel stealing every boy she ever liked … Patrick … Goran … even Nicky, which of course is ridiculous.” She sighed and seemed to measure her words carefully for once. “I knew Lisa didn't like Annabel,” she said slowly, “but they're teenage girls. Competition comes with the territory. Lisa's had a hard time in life. Things came easily to Annabel.”

“I'm not happy about you leaving this out of your statement. You've cost us valuable time,” Ashlock said sternly.

“I'm sorry about that,” Mom admitted. “It's just that a part of me thought I'd imagined it. Like I said before, I didn't see Annabel come into the club that night, and I even checked the membership card records, but she hadn't swiped her card that day. Only Lisa was still around. She has her own key, so I knew she'd let herself out. The pool was pitch-dark when I left, and I never heard anyone go out there.”

At that point things got even worse. “It bothers me that you were one of the last people to be around this girl when she was alive, and then you lied about it. We might have to take another hard look at
your
movements,” Ashlock finished ominously.

My eyes widened. Evie turned to me and whispered soothingly, “It's okay. Detective Ashlock is only covering his bases.”

When she smiled reassuringly, I almost felt better. But my emotions had been yo-yoing and I was scared again. A trickle of cold fear had been building up inside me, and I was starting to shake now. I was strong; oh, I could handle so much. But I got overwhelmed sometimes, and when someone messed with my mom it got to me. The club's maintenance man, Roberto, walked by us and waved, a bunch of tools clanging on his tool belt. Then I saw a white rope slung over his shoulder. That did it. I had to get away, and I took off running as fast as I could. Evie didn't even try to stop me, and instead went straight to my mom, pushing aside the privacy curtain as I took off.

“Beth! Beth, hurry. Something's wrong with Chelsea.
Hurry
—”

In the distance I heard the grown-ups' footsteps clunking after me and yells of
What? What happened? Wait, Chelsea!

But I was already gone.

*   *   *

I guess one of them had called the reception desk after I took off, because when I made it to the front of the club, Gene was there to catch me. He was one of the only people at the club who knew my entire story, according to my mom. As much as the police had revealed to my mom, anyway. He was squatting, his arms open, his eyes tired, as they always were these days.

“Chelsea,” he sang. “Chelsea. Stop. It's okay. Slow down…”

But I was crafty and I was quick. I slipped past him, turned around, and ran again through the lobby. I wasn't sure where I was going to end up, but I needed some space. It took Gene a second to get his age-fifty-something legs going, but I heard him—and a few others—behind me when I was halfway back to the aerobics court. I had a head start, but I knew I was running on borrowed time. Everyone turned their heads as I ran through the lunch area and through the pool lobby. I wanted to hide. So I ran past the basketball-court-slash-aerobics-floor and into the weight room.

A couple of guys appeared startled at my racing into the room as they lifted their dumbbells, I guess because I came out of nowhere. A second later Gene, my mom, Ashlock, Roberto, and Evie—in that order—blew in. I was sitting on the floor breathing heavily and looking around at everyone. I felt nauseated and pretty freaked out.

My mom came and knelt next to me. At that moment, I almost didn't remember how I got there. She tucked a curl behind her ear and said, “He doesn't have the rope anymore, Chelsea. See? Look at Roberto.”

Roberto was a little shaky, and he tried to smile. “It's gone. See? Gone.” He added, “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I must go back to work.” He strode off as fast as he could.

My mom helped me up, and together we walked out of the weight room. When we were standing in the pool lobby, she fixed her gaze on Gene, Evie, and Ashlock, who had been silent. “It's the rope,” she said quietly. “She saw the rope and it—she's having a bad day. That's all. She'll be okay.”

I guess the men took that to mean they should leave us be, so Ashlock and Gene walked off, whispering and gesturing. Evie sat down next to my mom and let us have our moment, but she wasn't gonna leave me. I felt better with her there, and with my mom cuddling me. It wasn't only the rope that upset me, like she thought. It was my mom's role in this Annabel thing—I had this feeling of doom growing in the back of my mind, and I couldn't snuff it out. It was also the physical pain that was nagging at me. Some old injuries had been acting up, and I was finding it harder than usual to run and play, but I didn't want my mom to know—she'd force me to
slow the heck down
or, worse, get a sitter and make me stay home when she went to work.

Mom let go of me for a moment and took my best friend by the shoulders. It was only then I saw Evie had been crying. “This has nothing to do with you, you understand me?” Mom said to Evie. “There's nothing you could have done. You know what happened to Chelsea when she was younger. Sometimes it gets to be too much for her. She has things called triggers, and that rope was one of them. Okay? It's not your fault.”

Evie nodded, tears rolling down her face. I wasn't the only one who'd felt the threat, and I had to remember that. Evie and I couldn't lose each other. That wouldn't be acceptable.

Later, I overheard Gene telling my mom that maybe it was time for me to go back to “that woman.”
Puh-leeze.
My mom had promised to get me professional help along with medical attention when she adopted me, and she'd stuck to her word. But after three sessions she put a stop to it. She said I always came home totally hyper after seeing this lady, who my mom called “a loony-tunes nut job.” All the rich St. Claire families swore by this woman, whose name escapes me now. In the end my mom said her method of “tough love” was baloney. “We're doing fine on our own,” she said. “We'll get through this together, Chelsea.”

And we
were
getting through it, even if we had to roll over a few bumps in the road along the way.

 

Before

As it turned out, my mom was a genius. Based on her sage advice, I had let Evie stew in her own juices for a while, trying once every day to coax her out of the stinky back room before finally leaving her to her misery when she didn't respond. Each day, her eyes stayed on me for another second longer as I left.

I was worried the day would never come, but one evening Evie finally reached her breaking point. Tad Chadwick had been on her case, this time with Goran in earshot. On top of everything else, Evie had to go without dinner again. Lucky had started dating someone, a bank teller he'd met while cashing his paycheck, and he was seeing her tonight. Which meant Evie was stuck at the club until the date was over. I was there when he broke the news just before camp ended for the day.

“But, Dad, if I stay here, what am I supposed to do for dinner?” Evie said, her face falling. I really didn't think her angst was only about the food, though.

Lucky had fished around in his pockets and checked his wallet. He'd frowned, shrugged, and handed her eighty cents. “Get some corn nuts or something,” he said.

“But, Dad—”

“You'll be fine for one night, kid,” he told her, and patted her on the head. “I'll swing back and pick you up as soon as we're done.”

I know, I know. To any normal person it would almost sound like child abuse. To Lucky, the fact that Evie would certainly survive without one meal was a simple fact no one could argue with, and it was not a cruel thing to say, but rather a given. These moments made me angry for Evie, but also grateful. God knows my mom would never, ever leave me without food. I mean, when she hired sitters for me she gave them three pages of instructions about what to feed me and when and all that. Corn nuts for dinner did not enter into the equation.

And so, a few minutes after five on a gloomy July evening, I found Evie tearing up her storage room. I was nervous, but also prepared. My mom had explained to me that Evie might have to get lower before she could rise up again. I watched as Evie turned out her sweatpants pockets, found only lint in the little pink coin purse she kept back there, and scrabbled around on her hands and knees along the cold concrete. I knew what she was looking for; she was desperate for spare change. Eighty cents wasn't buying anyone a pack of Twinkies, and she had no one to ask for money without getting the third degree about why she wanted it. I watched her try, and fail, to find any coins. She even checked the refrigerator. As if, magically, cash would be hanging out under the carrots or something.

“This is
ridiculous
!” she cried when she knew she was beaten.

She froze in place for a moment, thinking. I was quiet as a mouse. Then she started breathing heavily, and the heaving grew louder and louder until I thought I'd have to run and get my mom to give Evie a paper bag or something for her hyperventilating. Then, inexplicably, she slowed down. She got a strange look in her eye. And then she made a move. I followed Evie as she stormed out of the back room and stalked up to the front desk, where Mom was killing time until the end of her shift.

“What's eating you?” my mom asked Evie.

Evie ignored her, and kept glaring at no one in particular. I watched my mom's attitude change from mildly curious to slightly worried. We could now both see Evie was angry, and she was up to something. She still had that strange expression on her face, one I hadn't seen before. Kind of like a demented version of the otherworldly focus Goran showed when he was heading out to the tennis court. Evie slipped behind the desk and before we knew it, she'd reached into the loaner bin under the desk and was rifling around with
thud
s and
bang
s. She finally withdrew a racket, an old graphite Wilson with a massive head.

“Those are three bucks a day,” my mom told her, tucking a bit of errant hair behind her right ear. Evie paused. The girl couldn't even raise the money to buy a Twinkie. My mom offered a magnanimous smile. “Oh, all right. Bring it back when you're done.”

I knew my busybody mom was happy to see Evie doing anything new. I, however, was slightly concerned. I mean, clearly the girl wasn't going to play
tennis
. More likely she was going to bang the racket against something to let out her frustration. I followed her, and wasn't surprised to see her head for Court 5. I sighed. Back to the smelly room we'd go.

Oh, but how wrong I was. She walked through the door to Court 5, but instead of going straight behind the curtain, she went left, out to the court. She grabbed a few stray balls and stood in front of the imposing wall, a monstrosity made of cinder blocks painted a drab olive green. It went as high as the start of the pitched tennis roof, twelve feet at least. I couldn't believe it. Was my Evie going to attempt tennis?

She tucked two balls in the waistband of her sweatpants like she'd seen the elites do, and gripped the racket as if she was shaking hands with it, like the counselors always instructed. She stood ten feet away from that wall, held a ball in one hand, dropped it, and whacked it as hard as she could. She was shocked when the ball came right back to her at a softer pace, and she hit it again easily. Her first time, and she was already a pro. I literally jumped for joy as she smacked that ball over and over and over. She was on fire. She just kept whacking that fuzzy yellow ball. I was mesmerized by the unusual sight of her holding that racket, of her moving from side to side with urgency to get the shot.

By the end of the session, she'd kept a single ball going for about twenty hits in a row
on her first day
. She seemed to take to the game immediately, her ease with the racket and her ability to control the ball surprising us both. I watched Evie come alive, even if it was in secret, even if only for a brief moment, as she wielded that racket and bossed those balls around. I could see in Evie's eyes what she was thinking:
this is even better than Twinkies
.

*   *   *

That day began a tradition for Evie and me. We named the great wall on Court 5 the Green Monster. Despite his scary name he was a perfect addition to our partnership. When camp ended at five every day, there was a good hour before the staff remembered to turn the court lights out. That's when Evie had her chance to slip in and play some tennis. Sometimes she lasted ten minutes, and other days I swear she was on the court for an hour. I'd sit there and watch her whack the ball at the great green wall, her fine, dirty-blond hair held back in a long ponytail with wispy bangs. I'd help her fetch the balls if I was in the mood.