The St. Ambrose School for Girls(32)
She doesn’t look at Greta. Greta doesn’t look at her. And it’s then that I see both girls have scuffed knees and dirt on their shorts—and what the hell happened to Francesca’s eye? Did things get physical behind the bathrooms?
The image of those two paddling their useless palms at each other is an unexpected high point of the whole day for me.
With their affiliations declared, Hot RA laughs in a relaxed way, as if everything is all right with him. “Who else wants to play?”
Stacia backs away toward the picnic table of pretties, like she doesn’t want to have anything to do with the faction that’s happening. Meanwhile, girls clamor to be led by Hot RA. They raise their hands and jump up and down when he’s picking, sit on their proverbial palms when Ms. Crenshaw does. We end up with both teams filled, and the rest melt away to the sidelines. While the rules are being explained, I find myself searching the crowd hoping that someone will rush into the fray to insist that they be provided a spot on the field. Strots and Keisha remain on their table in the shade, and I mentally urge them to join exactly the sort of competition they so readily engage in during their practices and at their games. It’s a no go. The true athletes among us are not participating with us lunch-laden amateurs.
And they are no doubt going to enjoy the show of fools.
Now we are in a huddle. Or the Ms. Crenshaw version of one, which is more like a group of strangers on public transportation, everybody trying not to catch someone else’s rhinovirus. Unlike Hot RA’s team, we don’t link our arms around each other’s shoulders. We’re not chanting. We’re not breaking apart with a clap of anticipatory triumph.
We are Ms. Crenshaw’s team, and not even Greta’s luminosity can elevate us. Apparently, being in the game is only exciting if you’re on Hot RA’s side of things.
“Let’s just go have a really good time,” Ms. Crenshaw says as she looks around at us. “That’s all that matters. Just have fun, girls.”
She claps, too, but not in the cool, hip way Hot RA does, palm against palm, a high five to himself. She claps in a patty-cake fashion, and Greta stares at her as if she’s wondering how Ms. Crenshaw is able to put her pants on right, much less operate a motor vehicle or teach the Pythagorean theorem.
Ms. Crenshaw and Hot RA are the quarterbacks and will have to alternate possessions or whatever the hell they’re called. The rest of us form lines and face off in the center of the field. Touching, no tackling, is the main rule, not that that’s relevant to me because I don’t intend on getting anywhere near the action. There’s also some kind of system of downs, but I don’t bother to track it, and there’s some sort of time limit, but I don’t remember what it is.
Hot RA has the ball first, so Ms. Crenshaw stands on the sidelines, and after we’re all in position, he calls hike and jogs back, springing lightly on his feet, looking for a receiver. Meanwhile, girls lock against girls, and Greta is surprisingly hearty about the pushing and shoving, although she avoids Francesca or maybe it’s the other way around. In contrast, I’m not enthusiastic. I don’t even do my job. I let the one I was supposed to block go right by me, and as she streaks past, I watch her like a well-wisher on the dock as a boat goes off to sea, bon voyage, traveler.
The pass is incomplete. Play stops. We reassemble.
“Do something this time,” someone snaps. “Don’t just stand there.”
I believe the person is addressing me, but it’s not Greta, so they’re easy to ignore. On the next hike or down or whatever it is, the same things happen. Hot RA gets the snap, in spite of it having a parabolic arc, and he springs backward like a gazelle, the ball cocked over his shoulder. I refuse to engage. People run by me. I let them go.
I’m hoping to be kicked out of the game. Instead, as we line up again—I’m not even sure what happened during this play—Ms. Crenshaw puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
“You’re doing just fine.”
I’m doing nothing at all, I want to say. But the woman doesn’t seem to notice this. Or perhaps ascribes my failure to engage to my mental defects.
On Hot RA’s third attempt to move the ball, he decides to duck his head and rush. Greta somehow reads this intention, and as he zigzags to the left, dodging girls with outstretched palms, she zeroes in on him and T-bones his body with her own. They tumble onto the grass, her short skirt flying up, their arms and legs tangling, him laughing as he loses his grip on the ball. When they roll to a stop, she is self-satisfied as she pushes herself off of him, her hands shoving against the pads of his chest, forcing him down so that he cannot get to his feet.
As Greta stands over him, she gathers her long blond hair and tosses it over her shoulder. Her scuffed kneecap is really bleeding this time, but she doesn’t appear to notice.
“Well, I guess you got me,” Hot RA says as he jumps up with a smile.
“Sorry. I tripped.”
“On me.”
“It happens.”
He pulls her in for a hug in a brotherly way, shoulder-to-shoulder, not face-to-face, and he tousles her hair like she’s a little kid. Greta says something that I cannot catch and they part, going back to their home teams. Everyone, including Ms. Crenshaw, is looking at them, but they pay no mind to this. Their interaction is innocent, the sort of thing that would go unnoticed if I’d been the tackler or Ms. Crenshaw the tackled. But there are implications that resonate, and I wonder if anybody else saw them up at the summit or in the middle of the night or down in town. Sidelong glances that are not as casual as they might appear arrow across the field, not only from the game’s participants but from the spectators as well.