Playing With the Boys (15 page)

“You could tell him I’m bringing you home,” Regan offered.

“Oh, I can give her a ride,” Benji said quickly.

“I don’t mind,” Regan insisted.

Benji reluctantly agreed and gave a little half-wave to both girls. “See you tomorrow then,” he said. “And Regan . . . um, thanks.”

Lucy and Regan walked in silence to Regan’s BMW and got in. They drove silently for a mile or so. Lucy could still feel the stickiness from the tape on her legs and arms. She wasn’t sure what to say, but she figured she should probably say something.

“My dad—I didn’t exactly tell him I was playing football,” she began, then corrected herself. “Well, I told him I was playing. He said I couldn’t, and I did it anyway.”

Regan glanced over at Lucy from the corner of her eye. “Huh,” she said. Lucy failed to detect any judgment in Regan’s voice.

“He’s going to kill me,” Lucy continued.“I don’t know why I even wanted to play stupid football anyway—this is all Martie’s fault.”

“Ugh,” Regan groaned. “Martie drives me crazy. It’s like she’s trying to be thirty or something.”

Lucy remembered the soccer girls talking about Martie’s birthday one day before practice. “Um, I think she
is
thirty.”

“Whatever,” Regan interrupted, changing the subject back to football. “Those guys are serious jerks. All of them. People at this school can be such a-holes.”

Lucy didn’t mention that she’d heard Regan had been exactly that to Charlie. This wasn’t the time to bring that up, she figured.

“Oh, take a right here,” she said, remembering she was supposed to be the one who knew where they were going.

“So what’re you going to do?” Regan asked. “About the team? Isn’t tomorrow supposed to be your first game?”

Lucy nodded. It was
the
first game, but it wouldn’t be hers. “I’m quitting,” she said simply. Obviously, that was the only option. Tomorrow she would march into Coach Offredi’s office and tell him and his ugly walrus mustache to shove it. She was almost looking forward to it. They could lose every game for the rest of the season for all she cared.

But before she could deal with Coach Offredi, she had to deal with her dad.

When Regan pulled her car into Lucy’s driveway, almost careening into the garage, the front door flew open. Lucy’s dad rushed out, worried sick.

“Lucy!” he yelled. She could see the look of relief on his face, even in the dark.

“Thanks so much for the ride,” Lucy said quickly to Regan. She grabbed her bag from the backseat.

Regan smiled politely. “Sure.” Then she added, “I know it’s hard to, you know, come to a new place and make friends. So if there’s anything I can do . . .”

“How about talk to my dad for me?” Lucy joked as she jumped out of the car. She quickly rushed up to her dad, without a clue as to what she was actually going to say.

Fifteen minutes later, after hearing her dad rant about how he had checked everywhere at the school (well, not quite everywhere) and how he’d been “this close” to calling the police, she still hadn’t come up with an explanation.

“We agreed to meet at six,” he said, then finally asked the question she’d been dreading. “Where were you?”

Lucy’s head spun.What could she say? She debated just telling him the truth. But why? It wasn’t like she was going back to the team. Not if this was how her teammates were going to treat her.

All that would happen was that her dad would be pissed. Pissed that she’d defied him and joined the team. She would not only get a big “I told you so” about why she didn’t belong on the boys’ football team, and she’d probably be grounded for all eternity. If she thought her social life was nonexistent now, imagine what it would be if she couldn’t leave the rental house.

No, “the truth” wasn’t an option.

What she needed was a good excuse. She’d already used the class project, but he’d checked all the classrooms and the library, so that wasn’t going to hold up. She could say she’d taken off with friends, but that would seem irresponsible and would probably get her grounded as well. And why hadn’t she picked up her cell phone when he’d called (according to the “missed call” log, seventeen times), leaving four panicked messages?

Then suddenly she had an idea.

“I was locked in the women’s bathroom,” she lied, hoping desperately that he would buy it. Frankly, it wasn’t that hard to believe. She was clumsy. And it had happened before. Just in the past year alone she’d been trapped in ladies’ rooms three times: once on the plane to L.A., once at a Mexican restaurant, and once at Annie’s cousin’s apartment, where she’d had to climb out the window on the second floor to the fire escape!

“What?” he said. “Locked in the bathroom?”

“Yeah.” She nodded vigorously.

“For all that time?” he asked. “Why didn’t you crawl out under the stall?”

Hmm. Good question. She thought fast.

“Well, it wasn’t that kind of bathroom. You know, with the stalls. It was the one-person kind. So it was the main door that locked. I’d slammed it really hard. And no one knew I was in there because it was downstairs, by the boiler room.”

“The boiler room?” he asked. “What were you doing there?”

Oh God. This was the problem with lying. It always required more lies.

“Um, I was upset. About not making the soccer team. And about having to tell Coach Offredi that I couldn’t play football. And, um . . . people . . . other kids . . . they were making fun of me. You know, because of my clothes and Midwestern accent and . . . you know . . . it’s just hard. I don’t really fit in. . . .”

Her father’s face softened. “So you went down there to kind of hide out?” he guessed.

Sure. That sounded good. Right. Hide out.

“Exactly,” she said. “I just . . . didn’t want to be teased by everyone.”

Her dad thought for a minute. “Here’s the thing, kid,” he said warmly. “You can’t let other people keep you from living your life, from doing what you want. You’re not always going to fit in someplace, especially someplace new, and people, especially kids, can be jerks.”

If she hadn’t been so freaked out, she would have smiled at her dad’s encouragement.

“Seriously,” he insisted. “They can be. But the answer isn’t running away. It’s not letting the jerks win. You stay and you face them and you show them that you aren’t backing down. . . .”

Lucy stared at her dad, taking in every word. He had no idea how appropriate his advice was—how scared she’d been tonight. She could feel her eyes welling up with tears.

Her dad looked at her, worried. “Hon? What is it?” He pulled her chair close to him. “Lucy? What’s wrong?”

She shook her head, unable to answer.
Try everything.
She missed her mom. She missed trading clothes with Annie for school. She missed being on a team where her teammates actually liked her—or at least didn’t try to cut off her circulation with duct tape. She missed having a dad she could talk to about things, instead of hiding things from him.

But instead she just said, “I don’t know.” She tried to compose herself. “It’s fine,” she quickly added. “I’m okay.” Over the years, she’d become good at putting on a brave face.

Her dad put a firm hand on her shoulder. “I know this is tough, Luce. But so are you, okay? Just remember that. You’re tougher than you look. You know your mother dropped you on your head at least . . .”

“. . . five times,” Lucy and her dad said simultaneously. Lucy smiled. Her mom loved to say she had the toughest head in the Midwest. Maybe now she had the toughest head in California, too. Both her dad and mom were right. She
was
tough. Tougher than Coach Offredi or any of those stupid boys were giving her credit for. She wasn’t going to be intimidated by their stupid hazing or pranks. And it was abundantly clear that she wasn’t ever going to be one of the guys. She was a
girl
. A determined girl who was a member of the boys’ football team. From here on out, she was going to act like it. Her dad, without even knowing it, had made her see that.

“Thanks, Dad.” She smiled, giving him a tight hug back. “That really helped.”

He tousled her hair, pleased, having no idea that his little speech had just convinced her to do the last thing he would have wanted. She was going back to the team.

ten

The following morning, as Lucy grabbed her bag for school, she made a startling discovery. Pom-poms.

Rifling through it, she realized that she must have accidentally grabbed Regan’s bag while hurrying out of the car the night before. That meant Regan had her backpack, which she desperately needed. But it also meant something else—the perfect excuse she needed to keep her dad from knowing what she was up to.

“You
what
?” he gasped as they drove to school. That was what? Big lie number two? Or was it three? She was losing track.

“I joined the cheerleading squad!” Lucy explained. She couldn’t even believe she was uttering the words. She held up Regan’s pom-poms, pretending they were her own. “See?”

“Between last night and this morning you joined?” he questioned, as if this were impossible . . . which, in fact, it kind of was.

“Um, well,” Lucy stammered. Here came lie number four. “No. I joined yesterday. I just didn’t get to tell you about it. I’d been thinking about it, ever since the whole football thing didn’t work out. Regan—she’s the girl who drove me home. . . . Anyway, she said they needed a few more girls, so ...” She trailed off, barely even knowing what she was saying. Was her dad actually buying this crap?

“Aren’t you the one who said cheerleaders aren’t real athletes?”

Lucy nervously tugged at the sleeves of her sweatshirt. “Did I say that?” she wondered innocently. “I don’t think so.” Not only had she said it, she remembered exactly where she’d been
when
she’d said it. At Hillcrest’s homecoming game. She was sure she was so transparent he’d be able to see right through her.

“It’s just, I love . . . you know . . . school spirit. And clapping.”

Her dad raised his eyebrows but didn’t question her. “Well, I’m just happy you’re getting so involved. Maybe this will help you feel like you’re fitting in.”

Lucy kept a fake smile plastered to her face. Fitting in was apparently not what she did best. However, lying? It turned out she was pretty good at that.

And actually, this plan was perfect. The cheerleaders and the football players had identical practice and game schedules. It was the ideal cover, until . . .

“So what time’s the game?” her dad asked enthusiastically.

Lucy’s eyes widened. “What?”

“The game tonight. What time? It’d be fun to see you out there. You know, with your pom-poms and school spirit.”

Lucy gulped.
Oh no.

“It’s just—it’s my first game . . . and I don’t even know all the details. I mean, I just don’t think I’m ready to have you see me yet—I haven’t even had one practice with the team, and if I totally suck, well—”

Her dad interrupted, putting her out of her misery. “Fine, fine. I won’t come. I don’t want to make you any more nervous than you already are.”

Lucy breathed a sigh of relief. Crisis averted . . . for now. Her dad signaled and pulled into the school driveway.

“The next one,” her dad promised. “I’ll be there.”

Lucy nodded. She’d just have to deal with that when the time came.

 
Her heart raced as she headed down to Coach Offredi’s office. This would be her first time facing the team since last night’s hazing incident. She knew they’d probably expected her to quit. And she’d been just about to do it, too. But now, at the thought of showing them how wrong they’d been about her, her pulse pounded. She couldn’t wait to see the looks on their faces when she walked in the door. Suckers.

She peeked in and found most of the team already there, sitting on folding chairs that had been dragged in and placed around the TV. Coach Offredi hadn’t yet arrived. Everyone wore his football jersey. A few players were looking down, reading something, as Caleb read aloud.

“‘Sophomore standout Lucy Malone is garnering lots of attention for being the first female player on the Beachwood football team in history. . . .’”

Lucy quickly realized they all had copies of the latest edition of the
Sand Dollar
. The article! It had come out just as Wesley had promised.