Ultimate Sports (15 page)

“I
took him home and fed him egg and milk,” Jessie said. She looked out the window. Heaps of dirty snow everywhere, but it was cozy in the van. “Oh, man. You should have seen my mother’s face when she walked in from work and saw that kitty sitting in my lap.”

“Why doesn’t she like cats?” Meadow said.

“Did I say that? He’s a stray, he needs vet care, and Ma says that’s like one of the most expensive things going. Anyway, she’s in one of her poverty moods.”

“What moods?”

“Poor. Poverty. Hello? She says we don’t have any money to spare. Lots of bills and not enough bucks to go around.”

Saying this, Jessie was momentarily furious, as if Meadow had forced the words out of her, as if it were a shameful thing that the Cowan family’s brick house had three chimneys and four bathrooms, while Jessie, her mother, and Aunt Zis considered themselves lucky to be
able to pay the heating bill on time and would think it pure heaven to have two bathrooms.

“The kitten’s adorable,” Jessie said, “although somewhat battered. I made him a box next to my bed. I’m soaking his injured paw. I think some jerk drove over it, or maybe it got hurt when whoever abandoned him tossed him away.”

“Poor little thing,” Meadow said empathically. The Cowans had three dogs and four cats, and they’d taken in strays, too. “What are you using on the paw?”

“Hot water and Epsom salts.”

Meadow tossed the little blue playing ball into the air and caught it. “Better get him to the vet,” she advised.

Jessie felt like pounding her best friend. Hard. Hadn’t Meadow heard what she’d said about money?

“Everything okay back there, sweetie?” Mrs. Cowan called alertly from the front of the van, as if her motherly antennae had picked up Jessie’s brief but sincere desire to do away with her daughter. Meadow’s baby sister, Scout, was up front in the car seat, and her little brothers, Lance and Deaver, had taken over the middle. Jessie and Meadow had retreated to the back for privacy.

“Did you tell Diane what time we had the court?” Meadow put her feet up on the seat and relaced her sneakers.

“No, I didn’t tell her the time. I said just come whenever you feel like it.”

“So funny.”

“So, do you think she’s going to be on time?”

“I hope so, Meadow. We can go on and warm up if she’s not.”

“They get you off the court the instant your time is up. I want our full court time.” She tapped her foot on the
floor, as if the court time were already lost. “You said she was always late for things.”

“Did I? I’m sure I didn’t say that.” Meeting Diane to play cutthroat had been Jessie’s idea, which she was now starting to regret.

“You said it,” Meadow said. “And you know her better than I do. She’s your friend.”

“Med, how late can she be? Relax!” Why did she keep trying to push Meadow and Diane together? It was that thing of wanting the friends you loved to love the friends you loved.

“You okay, Med?” her mother called again.

“Fine, Mommy.”

“Fine, Mommy! Fine, Mommy!” Meadow’s little brothers yelped.

“Shut up, you two,” Meadow ordered.

“Shut up, you two,” Lance and Deaver mimicked.

“Disgusting brats,” Meadow said.

Jessie unzipped Meadow’s sports bag to make sure Meadow had brought a racket along for her. Because she was an only child herself, the way siblings got along was a mystery to her. Sometimes Meadow was all over her little brothers, hugging and kissing, as if she couldn’t get enough of them. Other times, she sounded as if she were just waiting to drop them in the nearest garbage can.

Love-hate, Jessie thought. Like their friendship?

Their relationship had started back in the misty past, when they were a couple of kindergarten kids. Meadow, slight and skinny, with tight blond braids, could do the best cartwheels, somersaults, and leaps in the class. She was also the shyest person. Jessie, not only unafraid to speak up, but eager to do so, became Meadow’s voice. “Mrs. Lesesne, Meadow wants to be blackboard monitor
…Mrs. Lesesne, Meadow wants to carry the milk for snacks.…Mrs. Lesesne, Meadow has to go to the bathroom….”

By now, they knew each other so well they could probably each predict what the other was going to eat for breakfast, a state that was both slightly annoying and terribly comforting to Jessie. A school psychologist had once told her she liked routine and repetition because her father had walked out on her and her mother years ago and upset the balance of her life. Okay. Maybe.

She knew people who changed their friends like they did their socks, and it was true she didn’t understand that in the least. She had always assumed the Jessie-Meadow friendship would last forever. Now, though, a worm of doubt sometimes entered her mind and made her a little nauseous. She and Meadow were so far from a harmonious pair! They bickered and picked at each other like a grouchy married couple on the verge of divorce. It had never seemed to matter before. What was different now? Well…Diane.

Jessie had met Diane McArdle last summer at an acting class down at the Y. They’d noticed each other right away, and when the purple-haired coach had called for teams to do improv, Diane had looked at Jessie and Jessie had looked at Diane, and they’d stood up at the same moment, as if it had all been planned. They’d put their heads together and then done a sketch about two friends who couldn’t agree on anything—a real natural for Jessie! The class had loved it, and Jessie and Diane had loved themselves for being funny and loud and spontaneous.

After that, they were friends, so absurdly compatible they called themselves the B&W Clones. Private joke. Diane was black, Jessie white. It amused them when people
noticed them on the street. They put their arms next to each other, looked at their skin—
that’s
black?
that’s
white?—and laughed their heads off. Everything amused them. They made jokes and puns, teased each other. Their minds were like a couple of runners, sprinting side by side along the same track.

Jessie and Meadow, on the other hand, were more like two goats butting heads. Sure, it was affectionate, but sometimes it got real heated and they’d have a big, slam-bang fight. Still, they always made up. They had something deep between them—all those years. Jessie knew it was unfair to put her friendships on a scale and weigh them against each other, but she found it hard to resist.

•   •   •

“Who is he?” Meadow breathed as they walked away from the check-in desk in the clubhouse. She tipped her head back toward the blond guy with muscles behind the counter, the one who was wearing a skintight T-shirt.

“Jack Kettle,” Jessie said.

“How do you know his name?”

“The universe brought it to me on the wind, Med.”

“What?” Meadow said in an anguished whisper.

Jessie took pity and pointed out that parading across the skimpy T-shirt that covered those amazing pecs were ten big red letters. “J-A-C-K!” she whispered into Meadow’s ear. “K-E-T—”

“Shhh! He’ll hear you!” Meadow glanced back. Her normally pale skin had gone even paler, and her eyes were round and glazed, as if she were under hypnosis.

Jessie recognized the look. Meadow had just been struck by a Fatal Crush—a silly thing, in Jessie’s estimation,
but a silly thing she and Meadow had been through together, and more than once.

The first time this phenomenon had been noticed—and named by Jessie—had been back in fifth grade when, midway through the term, their class got a new teacher: Mr. Rivera of the bright blue eyes and dazzling smile. Poor Meadow. She hadn’t been able to get a word out for the rest of the term.

“Want me to introduce you to Jack?” Jessie said.

“You don’t know him!”

“I can still introduce you.”

“No! No, no.” Meadow held Jessie’s arm in an iron grip and rushed her down the stairs to the locker room.

Diane was waiting for them, doing sit-ups. “Hi, guys.” She was in powder blue sweats, her long black hair pulled up in a ponytail.

“How are you, sweetie pie baby doll?” Jessie scrubbed Diane’s head.

“Just great, honey bunch piggy face.”

Meadow yanked open a locker. “Jack Kettle,” she mumbled.

“What’s a Jack Kettle?” Diane asked.

“For most of us, Diane,” Jessie said, “it’s that blond bimbo with the overgrown muscles at the check-in desk. But for Meadow—”

“Shut up, Jessie,” Meadow said.

“—he’s a Fatal Crush.”

“Is that like an Orange Crush?”

“Diane. Pu-leese! Fatal Crush, as in hopeless, impossible. As in the beloved is beyond your mortal reach.”

“Beyond your
mere
mortal reach,” Diane corrected.

“Meadow has had some very cool Fatal Crushes, Diane. Am I right, Med? But this time I don’t think she’s picked
a winner.” Jessie wound a bandanna around her head. “I’m afraid Jack Kettle hasn’t got a single active brain cell to go with all those muscles.”

“What are you talking about?” Meadow said. “How do you know anything about him, Jessie?”

“Med, guys who are obsessed with working out, guys who are always on the machines—”

“How do you know he works out? How do you know he goes on the machines? You never even saw him before today.”

“Meadow, do I have to be dropped into the ocean to know it’s wet? Do I have to burn my hand to know fire is hot?”

Shut up, Jessie
, she told herself, as she often did. And as she often did—she didn’t. “Do I have to see Jack Kettle, in the flesh, lifting weights, to know where he got those big puffy muscles?”

Meadow walked out of the locker room, slapping her racket against her leg.

“Well, let’s get on the court so Meadow can beat us up,” Jessie said. Now she felt bad for going on like that at Meadow’s expense. Cheap shot. She’d done it to amuse Diane.

“Is Meadow a good player?” Diane asked.

Jessie laughed. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“She’s very good?”

“Let me just say I’ve seen her run
up
the wall after a ball and make the point.”

Diane swung her racket a few times, whipping her wrist around.

They had Court Three, one of the glass-walled courts. The first thing Meadow did was inspect the floor. She picked up a curl of dust in the corner and threw it out
the door. Then she scraped the soles of her sneakers against the wall to rough them up. “Who gets first serve?”

“You,” Jessie said, knowing Meadow wanted it.

Meadow took the serving box, bounced the ball five or six times, then lifted her racket and drove it down for a serve that ran so tight against the forehand wall, it would have been a miracle if Diane had returned it.

“Ace,” Diane said—a trifle tensely, Jessie noticed.

“One, nothing,” Meadow said, bouncing the ball. This time she served into the backhand court, Jessie’s side, looping the ball up so high and so soft it seemed to hover against the ceiling like a hummingbird.

“Got it, got it!” Jessie cried as the ball slid slowly down the wall and she tried to remember all the tips Meadow had given her.
Face the side wall
.…
Step into the ball
.…
Use your wrist, don’t stiff-arm it
.…She barely got a piece of her racket on the ball. It was a weak return, and without even leaving the serving box, Meadow killed it against the front wall.

“Oh, shoot!” This was the first time Jessie had played racquetball with Diane. “Sorry, partner.”

“We’ll get her this time,” Diane said.

“Come on, team,” Jessie added, but she was a little taken aback to see the same nearly grim, I-play-to-win look on Diane’s round face that she was used to seeing on Meadow’s leaner features.

“Two, nothing,” Meadow said briskly.

“Let’s get her, Jessie!”

“Yeah, let’s get tough.” Jessie smirked at Meadow and crouched, swinging her racket like Jennifer Capriati.

On the seventh point, Diane looped the ball up into the air, forcing Meadow back, and she and Jessie made their
first point. “Finally!” Diane yelled, punching her fist into the air.

“Yaaay, Diane! Yaaay, us! Yaaay for the good guys!” Jessie was determined not to be too serious about the game.

On the next point Meadow’s serve came caroming off the back wall. Jessie picked it up low, something she rarely managed, and heard that thrilling sound of the racket connecting perfectly with the ball.

“Nice return,” Meadow complimented her, and lofted the ball high and soft down the middle, driving Diane and Jessie to the back wall, where they collided as they both tried to take the return shot.

“Oh, now I’m mad, partner,” Jessie said.

“Mad, mad, mad,” Diane agreed.

“Breathing hard,” Jessie said.

“Snorting fire! Watch out, Meadow!”

Meadow gave them a Tonya Harding smile, but they made the next two points. After that, though, it was Meadow’s game all the way. She won, no surprise, 21-7.

In the second game, with different partners, the score was reversed. Diane, playing hard, managed to make seven points. “I should have done better,” she said when they went off court for a drink of water.

“You were playing against the Jessie-Meadow team,” Jessie said. “What did you expect? Oh, excuse me, I mean, it was
supposed
to be the Jessie-Meadow team. Maybe you thought you were just playing Meadow.”