The Odd Ballerz (8 page)

He remained quiet for two to three seconds more, staring at her like he’d didn’t believe her. “Okay then, let’s go,” he said, walking away.

She shook out her arms and then her legs for the second time.
Easy does it, girl. You’ve got this under control. Take a deep breath, Jones. The track is our friend
.
You can do this. This is easy
, were her final thoughts as she raised her eyes to meet Coach Z’s—which were staring back at her—finding confidence in his gaze.

A few moments later, she heard “Set, go,” and she did, tripping a little at the start, stumbling a bit after that, it was few seconds more before she was able to get her feet completely underneath her. But she did. Yes! at the small, yet huge feat, of not falling, she thought. She worked to increase her speed then, pumping her arms as she’d seen Alex do countless times, and then she was done, running past the Coaches, holding their stopwatches. “Good run Jones.” Coach Harris said to her at the end.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling at him, so proud of herself.

# # #

Memphis stood in front of the tires, waiting her turn to start. Coach Z was near, of course, and watching her, and what she wouldn’t give to be able to read his thoughts, all of them; not just the quick ones in the short, unguarded moments immediately after she’d finished whatever drill. A mix of confounded, confused, and perplexed had been the expressions he’d let slip through during those moments. It had been both funny and painful to watch his hopes for her die as the camp progressed.

Whatever. She just wished he’d stop with the watching her. It was getting old and annoying, when it wasn’t helpful. And yes, it was helpful, surprisingly so, this sticking close and watching her; it pushed all thoughts of anything but him off to the side in her brain, making her focus like nothing else. She’d kept her knees up throughout the ladders, ran more than walked her laps, did her calisthenics without too much of a hitch, all because he was near and watching. She wanted to impress him, she thought, the hunky new guy that she had no chance with. It was her, with her crushing, that silently fed this new desire to stand up straight, stick out her chest, and give this football thing her best effort.

He was walking beside her now, and she was using plenty side-eye to keep track of him as she completed the drill—without falling, thank you very much. “You rock, Jones,” she said aloud.

He smiled, as if he’d heard her. “Not bad, Jones,” he said when she reached the end of the tires.

“Go away,” she said.

He laughed, and there it was again, that beautiful smile of his, a punch to her gut, and a motivator like no other.

“I will if you keep those knees up,” he said before moving on to the next camper.

# # #

Someone had blown the whistle and it was time to move onward to the next drill, which was her least favorite of them all: the cones. Unfortunately, Coach Harris, her favorite of the coaches so far, wasn’t anywhere near them, standing instead in the middle of the field, bent over and wrapping an ace bandage around his knee. She walked over to talk to him.

“Hi, Coach,” she said, coming to a stop in front of him. “You hurt?”

“My knee has been acting up lately. I thought I might take a minute and wrap it, to give it a little more support. Coach Z is going to fill in for me until I’m done here,” he said, and they both looked over in the direction of the cone drill and yes, there stood Coach Z, talking, probably explaining the drill again. She didn’t need to hear it again, she reasoned, her explanation for not going over and joining the group immediately.

“You wouldn’t be looking to get out of your drills, now would you, young lady?” Coach Harris asked, his gaze filled with humor.

“Who, me?” she said, smiling, not even going to pretend that it had not been a part of her calculations when she headed this way. “A little, although I did want to see about you, so it’s not all ulterior motives,” she said.

“You don’t like camp?” he asked.

“Camp doesn’t like me is more like it. Athletics aren’t really my thing. You’ve seen me,” she said, smiling. “I suck. You know that, right?”

He laughed. “You can run fast.”

“Jones,” she heard before she could respond. It was Coach Z, no surprise there, waving her over.

“It appears your luck is at an end,” Coach Harris said.

“Yes, it does. I hope your knee gets to feeling better,” she said before she made her way over to an irritated Z.

“Jones,” he said when she reached him, staring at her, or those shades were. “This doesn’t have to be hard,” he said.

“Speak for yourself,” she said.

“It’s your turn.”

“Right,” she said, walking over to the starting line

“Set. Go,” he said, and she did. Not a full-out sprint, but as close to it as she could offer. Maybe she hadn’t had time to consider what this drill required of her was the explanation for how she was off to her best start yet. Or maybe it was that trying-to-impress-him thing again, but whatever, she was off to her best run. She ran past the first cone, speeding directly to the second one, where she touched it. She ran back to the first cone, flying past and around it smoothly, feeling confident enough to speed up a little bit more. She went back to the second cone, touched it this time, smiling inside, because she’d managed to stay on her feet. It was back over to the first cone one final time, where she touched it, before running as hard as she could back to the start. She stopped in front of Z and smiled, super proud of herself.

“Out of order is how you ran that. You know that, right?” he said.

“What? I did?” she asked, looking up at him from her current bent-over-trying-to-breathe position.

“Yes, you did,” he said, and he felt a twinge of sympathy at the expression of genuine hurt that covered her face. “Hey, it’s no big deal,” he said, surprised that he felt the need to offer comfort. Hurt, huh, he thought of her expression. “Watch for a while, and maybe you’ll do better on your next try,” he said.

She smiled, not very brightly and walked to the end of the line. Her second try was a little bit better, albeit slower. The third time was her best, except for that almost fall at the start, but she had gotten the order of operations correct that time.

“Good job,” he said.

“Yep,” she said, moving to the end of the line again, giving him her same lackluster smile from earlier. The whistle blew—someone other than him—and it was time to move on to the next drill.

# # #

As with Monday’s camp, throwing and catching the football capped the end of this camp’s session, and not a minute too soon as far as she was concerned.

“Jones, you’re with me again today,” Coach Z said, intercepting her before she could find someone else to partner with. “Give me a few minutes to make sure the others are good?”

“I thought you were the new Coach Harris, working the cone drill,” she said.

“Nope,” he said, before moving away.

She looked back over her shoulders, and yes, Coach Harris had resumed his coaching duties at the cone station. She sighed, disappointed and disheartened. She didn’t want to be here anymore, working with him with his looks of pity. His gaze had been filled with it after she’d gotten the order of the cone drill wrong the first time, really she’d seen if after every one of her attempts. God, she hated pity.

“Take as much time as you need,” she said. He gave her another look, which she couldn’t read. She stood waiting as requested, watching as he moved through the group of boys, demonstrating and talking, basically coaching. He seemed to be a pretty good coach: nice, calm, and patient, all that you would expect and very different from her past experiences. It was a few more minutes before he was standing in front of her again.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“If I must.”

“Don’t get discouraged.”

“Who’s getting discouraged?”

He didn’t reply. “Remember anything from Monday?” he asked instead, moving them to a spot at the end, a little ways past the others.

“Say hello to my little friend, the diamond,” she said, and she was smiling again, he thought, which was good.

“Very funny, Jones,” he said without any hint of laughter. “Show me,” and then watched her as she demonstrated. “That’s good. Now take a step back,” he said, and he waited for her to follow his instructions. “What’s up with your eyes? Are they closed?” he asked.

“Nope, they’re open, just not all the way open. It’s better if I keep them in slits. I’m less afraid if I can’t see what’s coming,” she said. She was messing with him, an antidote to the pity thing she’d seen earlier, falling back to the class clown days of her youth and it should not have been so easy to resort to that.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes, I think so,” and he threw the ball to her softly. It passed through her hands, before landing on the ground.

“Sorry,” she said, picking up the ball.

“My bad. I forgot. You need to be close to me. Let’s start where we left off on Monday?”

“Working with the baby using the baby steps,” she said, not sure what to do with the close to me comment. She threw the ball back to him.

“Right, now come closer,” he said, watching as she did. He threw the ball to her and she caught it. “Good, now again.” And he threw about three balls from that distance before he asked her to take a step back. Which she did, and she caught the ball that time too.

He smiled again. “Good, Jones, and now take another step back,” he said, and threw two balls to her. One she caught, the other one she missed, but she was back to feeling hopeful again. The whistle ending camp sounded. Thank you, god of small favors, she thought. Z had turned away from her then, looking around the field, making sure the boys had gotten the message and were moving to the middle of the field for the end of the day speech.

“I’m starting to like the whistle, especially when it comes at the end of the day,” Memphis said, smiling when she reached him. He gave her a little side-eye, following her as she made her way to the center of the field with the rest of the boys.

# # #

Less than five minutes later, the boys and Jones were crowded around Coach Harris, listening as he discussed expectations for Friday. Z stood at the back, half listening to Harris too. More he was watching Jones, who stood toward the front of the pack, eyes and face forward, the picture of an interested student. Two days and four hours of camp and he was about ninety-nine percent sure she was terrible, and that there was nothing intentional about her inabilities.

It had been the totality of all he’d seen so far, both today and Monday that had cemented this opinion. Jones’ athleticism was a lot contradictory, but overall terrible. You couldn’t fake that level of bad. She’d told him the truth on Monday when she’d said she sucked. She did.

Her time in the forties was the only bright spot in her efforts, when she wasn’t swaying on her feet. And
what the hell
had been his first thought, at seeing her rock from side to side as she talked to herself. Talking to herself wasn’t unusual, or at least it wasn’t new. She’d talked to herself on Monday, but that swaying thing. Wow. A conundrum was Jones for sure; a puzzle of speed and falling horror and whatever else, but a conundrum that had improved.

Yes, Jones was better today. Millimeters was the change he was measuring here, but better nonetheless, and even funnier was that she seemed at her best when he was riding her ass, when he was in her face, challenging her. He knew with some kids a type of in-your-face coaching style worked best, he knew that from experience; but for others, it could cause major harm. The trick in coaching, or any type of teaching, he thought, was in matching up the correct motivational style with the correct kid.

Jones was moving away from the group now, toward the restrooms to retrieve her gear, he supposed, as Harris had just dismissed them for the evening and maybe now was a good time to talk to her again. He had questions that needed answers.

While he waited for her, he turned his attention to the boys making their way to their parents’ cars for the trip home. Everything had gone according to plan, as it always did and it was two days down, and four more days of camp to go.

“Good job today, Luke,” he said to Jones’s twin in the uncoordinated department as he walked past.

“Thanks, sir,” Luke said, his smile tentative. It was always tentative with this kid.

“Good job,” he said to Gabe, who was passing him as well.

“Thanks, sir,” he said.

Z stood for a while longer, offering up a few more goodbyes and other words of encouragement as more of the boys streamed past. It wasn’t much longer before the one he was waiting for exited the restrooms. He stood in between her car and the restrooms, so there was not way she’d miss him.

“Coach,” she said, surprised to find him loitering about. It was his camp, so he could do whatever he liked, she guessed, fighting against her desire to stare. It was too easy to get lost in the beauty of his athletically built form.

“Jones,” he said, falling into step beside her. “You were better today,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Did you play any sports in school?” he asked.

“Me? What? When?” she said to his out of the blue question.

“Middle school, high school, either or both. Any college?”

“No college, PE in middle school and a little bit in high school. Why?”

“Curious,” he said.

“Right. I know what
that
means,” she said, chuckling.

“Okay, I’ll bite. What does it mean?” he asked.

“It
means
, what the hell is this?” she said, pointing to herself, chuckling. “I’ve noticed you watching me. You did a good job of hiding your shock at my lack of athletic abilities. I’ll give you credit for that. But now it’s how? Why? And what to do now with me huh ’cause I’m terrible right, that’s what you’re thinking,” she said, chuckling. “I suck at sports, as I told you in the beginning. It’s not my fault you didn’t believe me.”

“You have it and me all figured out,” he said, coming to a stop, forcing her to stop too. He met her eyes with his straight, no-nonsense gaze. This was the serious Coach Z talking now, she thought.