“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.
For a moment, the conclusions that I prefer to avoid stir. Except then I see how unfazed Hot RA and Greta seem. I tell myself that I am not the only one making up stories about them.
After all, beautiful people can’t quarantine their attractiveness, and sometimes it does make other people sick.
The game continues and now it’s our team’s turn to have the ball. On our first attempt, by some inexplicable miracle, Ms. Crenshaw throws, and someone catches, and we score. This is so unexpected, we all stand around for a moment as if some referee is going to spontaneously materialize and contest the goal. When this doesn’t happen—because, in fact, there is no referee—everyone except me goes into spasms of victory, the girls jumping into each other’s arms. Meanwhile, Ms. Crenshaw taunts Hot RA, but Hot RA is too busy joking with Francesca, sure as if he’s utterly unaware his fellow residential advisor is trying to speak with him.
The score is quickly evened, and the teams slug it out through more innings—or whatever they’re called—until we are up by one goal. Touchdown. Whatever the term is. During his next possession, Hot RA tries another rush, tugging at a girl’s ponytail as he slants by her, and then dodging past Greta and her outstretched hand so that she falls face first into the grass as he scores.
While his team goes ecstatic, Greta’s eyes are full of cold vengeance, like he’s let her down in some kind of bargain. As if he was supposed to help her tackle him for a second time. As if it was rude of him to continue to the finish line. Goalpost. Whatever.
I watch her rise up out of the meadow’s sweet nap, and her anger rattles me. This is the part of her that I call forth. This is what stalks me, leaving behind the remains of my shampoo bottle, my wounded clothes in that washer, the falsified memos in my mailbox. With her mood change, this has ceased to be a game to her, and as a result, it’s no longer a game to me. I am frightened by her malevolence, and I’m struck by the need to run over to Hot RA and tell him to be careful. To appease her if he is able. To redo the play and let her take him down to the ground again. He doesn’t want this part of her. I know this firsthand.
Hot RA is blithely oblivious to the change he’s wrought. He goes to trade places with Ms. Crenshaw on the sidelines, nodding at her as she insists on talking to him while he looks away to his players and claps his hands in encouragement. Ms. Crenshaw, eventually giving up on her attempts to open a dialogue, approaches us where we’ve congregated at the halfway point of the field. Her smile looks forced, and I marvel at how even grown-ups can get their feelings hurt. I believe she’s finally noticed her lack of engagement with Hot RA, a door she thought had been merely shut actually locked, if not barricaded.
Ms. Crenshaw makes two attempts to score, and both go nowhere, the football bouncing out of bounds when she throws it badly. Then someone gets stung by a bee and there’s a play delay. As we wait around in the sun while aid is rendered and there’s talk of EpiPens and Benadryl, the day feels like August, not October. Even though I haven’t been doing much, I’m panting, sweaty, and tired of the whole damn thing.
“Hey, Taylor.”
I look up. Strots has come over to the edge of the field, a Coke in her hand, an amused look on her face.
“Why do you do this?” I ask between breaths so deep, it’s like I’m giving myself CPR. Even though it’s been a good five minutes since I actually did any running.
“Because it’s fun.” She puts her hand up. “Okay, fine, when we do it, it’s fun. You guys are different.”
“No kidding.”
My roommate leans in. “Lemme give you a little tip, Taylor.”
“It’s too late for that.”
“Don’t worry about the eyes and the faces of your opponents. Focus on the body in front of you. The arms and legs will tell you where they’re headed. The body never lies.”
She inclines her head, like she’s just given me secret insider information.
As she saunters back to her table in the shade, I hate to burst her bubble, but she’s just given a fish a bicycle.
Bee sting issue resolved, we resume our lineups, a collective weariness setting in on both sides, the enthusiasm of the initial scrum of conflict long evaporated on the hot plate of our exertions. Our obligation to finish is like a bedside vigil gone bad, our sympathy for the patient now lost, impatience to have this over with so we can go about our lives all that we feel.
We slog through the motions, pathetic and slow, and Nick Hollis’s team ends up making another goal. Then it’s the fourth and final down of the game. When we’re called into a huddle, I stand in the back of the girls on my team and only one among us is still fully engaged. Greta is in the front of the loose ring we’ve formed, and she’s leaning forward, as if she’d like to rip the ball Ms. Crenshaw is holding out of the woman’s hands and do this herself, goddamn it.
Regardless of our overall loss of morale and interest, Ms. Crenshaw gives us some instructions so we can get into overtime. I’m too busy watching the opposing team and their captain to bother listening to her. I suspect that Hot RA is also ready to end this game whether or not he wins, although I don’t think the outcome ever mattered to him anyway. This was all just a way to avoid Ms. Crenshaw, one that backfired and put him exactly where he didn’t want to be.
Ms. Crenshaw claps her hands in that little-girl way of hers, and the members of my team break out of the huddle, loafing into a wilted formation at the fifty-yard line. I’m getting into my space at the end when Ms. Crenshaw is suddenly right in front of me.