All That Glitters (7 page)

The rest of us covered our mouths with our hands to keep from laughing so we wouldn't get kicked out of the library by the already pissed-off Miss Dorsey.

As it turned out, the librarian may have been too engrossed in her microfiche to bother with us at the moment … but someone else had taken a particular interest in our conversation.

In her purple Vera Wang turtleneck wrap dress, Willa nudged Kennedy and the two of them looked up and glared at us.

“Yow,” Camille whispered to me. “If looks could kill, I'd be writing your eulogy right now.”

Before I could respond, Willa held up her Virgil invitation as if it were a challenge and mouthed three terrifying words.

Bring it on.

“If you can't be an Athlete, be an Athletic Supporter”

After school, Camille and I swapped our skirts and Missoni sweaters for grubby sweatshirts, warm leggings, and field hockey skirts. We met up with Ramsey on the front steps of Thoney.

“Let's talk formations,” Ramsey said as she started walking, very briskly, toward the river. She had an enormous mesh equipment bag slung over her shoulder, and in her red Adidas track suit and white earmuffs she looked vaguely like a version of Mrs. Claus on steroids.

“Formations?” Camille said. She practically had to break into a jog to keep up with Ramsey.

I had to give Camille major fist bumps for jumping onto the field hockey team just because she knew I'd need a friend by my side. This was just what I'd always loved about Camille. She'd try anything once, she
wasn't afraid to screw up, and she never, ever complained.

Still, if our early days playing Little League T-ball on the Rockettes back in third grade were any indication, I was guessing Camille wasn't exactly going to be the star forward of the team. I remembered the day our coach had decided to move the team up to a more competitive league—he called Camille's mom to politely suggest that Camille retire her purple and green uniform (complete with elbow and knee pads for all the sliding we did) and trade in T-ball for something less active, like piano.

Sure, Camille had been heartbroken for about an hour—after all, every single one of our friends played on the team, and she didn't want to be kicked out of the party. But as we sat on the tire swing near 68th Street in Central Park and moaned about how awful life was, Camille came up with an idea. She didn't have to trade in her Rockettes uniform at all. She'd just be our cheerleader.

From that day on, I've never stopped being impressed by how good a sport Camille really is, regardless of whether she was winning, losing, or completely banned from the team.

“Okay,” Ramsey said. “So the first thing you have
to learn is: Defense is not the only thing. It's everything, except for offense. Get it?”

I was hoping that getting banned from the Thoney field hockey team wasn't anywhere in Camille's future, but as I listened to Ramsey spit out strategic sound bites, I noticed the panic in Camille's eyes and made a mental note to help her out on the field as much as I possibly could.

“It's a bummer we don't have enough girls to even get a real scrimmage going,” Ramsey said. “Usually we do a lot of two-on-two exercises, just to get a feel for some of the plays.”

“Great,” Camille muttered to me under her breath as we fell a couple steps behind Ramsey. “I can just see it now—you and me pitted against Kennedy and Willa.”

“Totally,” I shuddered. “I just hope Ramsey's got extra shinguards in her bag o' fun up there.”

“What's that?” Ramsey turned around. “You girls need shin guards?”

Camille and I started laughing. “Oh no,” I said. “I was just making a joke. It's not a big deal.”

“But it is,” Ramsey said, looking serious. “A team like Stuyvesant would take one look at us with this equipment and think we don't have dedication or
people at our school who truly care about our sport.” She hung her head as we turned downtown at the East River. Camille and I followed her toward 90th Street and wondered what to say to lighten the mood.

“We were supposed to get this donation from the Morphew Fund over break,” Ramsey went on. “It was going to cover all the gear and replace our grub uniforms, but at the last minute, the money didn't come through.” Ramsey sighed and rummaged through the bag. “It looks like we're stuck with what we have for now, which is one-and-a-half pairs of shin guards. Which one of you wants 'em?”

Camille and I looked at each other. Was she asking which one of us was the easier target?

“Give them to Flan,” Camille said. “Who am I kidding? I'm more of a ‘Run around the sidelines' girl myself.”

By then we'd passed the only field I knew of this far up on the Upper East Side, and Ramsey didn't show any signs of slowing down. I turned to Camille.

“Do you have any idea where we're going?”

Camille shook her head.

Just then, Ramsey swung a left onto a huge barge, which I quickly realized was covered in Astroturf.

“Whoa,” Camille said. “Does anyone else feel like
Roger Federer playing on top of that helicopter landing pad in Dubai?”

The “field” jutted out into the East River, and as we walked out to center court, I could see the teeming Triborough Bridge to my left and the giant Coca-Cola sign across the river in Long Island City to my right. New uniforms or not, this was a pretty prime spot to play field hockey.

And apparently, we weren't the only ones enjoying the view. No sooner had the three of us tossed our bags down on the sidelines than I noticed a small crowd of familiar faces tossing a Frisbee right behind us.

“Omigod,” Camille gasped. “
What
is Xander doing here? My defense is so not cute.”

“First of all,” I told her, “he
already
thinks your defense is cute. Second of all, I don't know what he's doing here, but whatever it is,” I said, scanning the sidelines, “he's doing it with Rob.”

“And Danny,” Camille added, giggling when we saw Danny leap dramatically into the air to catch a Frisbee he could have easily caught by just standing there.

“And Alex,” I said as we watched him jog over to meet the other guys. “What are they
doing
here?”

“And TZ,” a nasty voice said from behind us.
Kennedy and her scary sidekick were both in matching Burberry field hockey getups. “And since you asked,” Kennedy continued, “they're here because TZ is my boyfriend, and he understands how important it is to support my extracurriculars.”

“Does he also support your extra-bitchy attitude?” Camille asked.

“Ha ha,” Kennedy barked, hands on her hips.

“Okay, girls,” Ramsey shouted, clearly oblivious to the drama she was interrupting. “Let's huddle up and get going.”

At first, a few of the other girls on the team seemed to defer to Willa and Kennedy, but once Ramsey started leading warm-ups, it was clear she was the leader. Even without the right equipment, and even with the bad juju between the players on her team, Ramsey managed to run a pretty tight ship. We did sprints up and down the field, squats, push-ups, and then what I thought might be a never-ending set of jumping jacks. By the time we'd finished warming up, I was so tired I'd almost forgotten we had an audience.

Almost, but not quite.

It was so obvious that all the girls were consumed by not wanting to look awkward and unathletic in front of the boys. The only thing more obvious was
that the Frisbee the boys had brought with them was just a decoy so they could watch us all run around the increasingly windy field in skirts.

And sure enough, Camille was a little klutzy. She tripped over her own feet a couple times, and each time, I'd glance over at Xander to see what his reaction was. Willa may have been snickering, but the look on Xander's face was so genuinely concerned that I knew Camille could fall a hundred times, and he would only find her more and more adorable.

When we split into two-on-two scrimmages, Ramsey paired Camille and me up with Willa and Kennedy. At first, it made me a little nervous, but once I got going, I realized that all that time I'd spent playing roller hockey with Patch during the summer wasn't for nothing, and that I was actually pretty good at this whole field hockey thing.

“Flan, you are totally kicking butt out there,” Ramsey called out to me, and I couldn't help but look over to see whether maybe Alex had heard. Our eyes met and he gave me a thumbs-up.

Wham!

Something hard and cold had collided with my shoulder. It was Willa's bony body edging past me toward the goal.

“Way to have your eyes on the prize, Flood,” she
called out, her long blond ponytail blowing in the wind.

“Hey,” Ramsey said, jogging over to the spot where I'd landed on the ground. She put her arm on my shoulder, and I thought about what a great coach she'd make someday. “Listen,” she said, “Willa's tough on the field, and I'm not saying everyone should play like her. But it doesn't hurt to have a couple of offensive plays up your sleeve.” I knew Ramsey was all about the sport and not at all invested in the social drama going down, but I figured any little offensive tip could help. “Let me show you how to hip check,” she said.

Ramsey positioned herself in front of me, and as I dribbled the ball past her, she lightly bumped my hip with hers and used her momentum to gain possession of the ball.

“Hey,” I called, “nice play.”

Once I got it down, I was eager to try out my new offensive moves on Willa and on Kennedy. Luckily, I didn't have to wait too long.

The next time I got the ball, both of them were on me like glue. While Camille lagged behind, I could feel them both narrowing in on me—Kennedy implementing her powerful death glare on my right, Willa baring her designer orthodontic fangs on my left.

And to think—all this time, I'd been under the impression that the games at Stuyvesant were intense. I felt myself moving faster and even sort of
growling
. Hopefully in a cute way, but still, I was deeply into it.

Sticks flashed, ponytails flipped, and our three sets of cleats pounded down the field. I didn't know how much longer I could keep dribbling the ball under this sort of pressure when suddenly, without thinking, I tried out the double hip check.

“Oww!” Kennedy bellowed.

“Argh,” Willa growled, and amazingly, my one-two punch knocked both of them out of my field of view. Before I knew it, I'd blown past them, and I went on to score the goal.

When I looked behind me, Kennedy was fuming. She definitely wasn't a pretty sight when she was angry. Seeing her all red-faced and panting made me wonder—not for the first time—what it was exactly that TZ saw in her.

But I had to admit: It was pretty amazing to see her so riled up. Now all I had to do was figure out how to do it
off
the field.

I expected to see Willa at Kennedy's side, plotting their next attack against me, but Kennedy was picking the grass off her skirt alone, and Willa was nowhere to
be seen. Finally, I spotted her crouched on the ground, groaning and clutching her side. Whoops. I guess maybe I hip checked her a little harder than I'd meant to. I jogged toward her to make sure she was all right.

“Willa,” I said, leaning down. “Are you okay? I'm sorry. I didn't mean for things to get so rough.”

I stuck out my hand to help her up. She stared at it for a moment like I was offering her some kind of contagious disease.

“Well gee, thanks, Flan,” she said, deciding in the end to take my hand. She put away the fangs for a change and gave me a sugary sweet smile as she stood up.

From the other side of the field, to the boys or to Ramsey it might have looked like we were just two teammates helping each other out. But when Willa got to her feet, I felt the hard grind of her cleat dig into my toe.

“Oww.” I pulled my foot back and tried to do the same with my hand, but she just squeezed it tighter.

“Can I just say one thing?” she asked, her voice still dripping saccharine. “That whole running-for-host thing that your little friends are trying to put you up to”—she clucked her tongue—“so not a good idea. You see, there's an order to what happens at this
school.” She finally released my hand and took a step away from me. “It's like this: Everyone knows that I'm in line to be this Virgil Host. Hardly anyone even knows who you are. And if I were you, Flood, I'd keep it that way.”

What willa doesn't Have …

I was so shell-shocked (and hip sore) by Willa's utter scariness on the field that I nearly forgot that night was my monthly “Cheap Thai food and trashy movie night” with SBB. We'd started the tradition when SBB was in a slump over some bad press she'd gotten for
Willow Walks with Wendy
, a cheesy date movie she'd starred in with the fallen former child star Fenton McCallister.

When the movie debuted, I'd spent days trying to convince SBB that even though the
New York Post
had called it “horrifyingly vapid,” that her own acting had been much more highly praised (relatively speaking) as “borderline inoffensive.” But the only thing that seemed to cheer SBB up in those days was to watch movies that she claimed were worse than
Willow Walks
.

Somewhere along the way, bad movies and pad thai
became a tradition. Now that we'd seen just about every Keanu Reeves movie in existence, it was almost a challenge to keep digging up disasters that would beat the one we'd watched the month before. But somehow, we always found one.

By the time SBB rang my doorbell, I was stretched out on the couch with a heating pad slung over my hip.

“Door's open,” I called out. “I'm infirm and can't get up.”

SBB stepped into my living room wearing a geometric print bodysuit, bobby socks, and a high black babushka. More often than not, I wanted to crack up when SBB showed up at my house wearing something ridiculous. But I always had to remember to keep myself in check. If she was wearing it today, everyone on the street would almost certainly be wearing a toned-down version of it next month. Though in this case, I doubted very many people on the street could pull off a geometric print bodysuit. But a New Yorker could always try.