her cleavage peaked out of her shirt, and she smiled. She was a freshman
on the soccer team, like his senior sister Jenn and Rebecca. He glanced
back over at Rebecca. He imagined himself in her chair, but with a notepad, sketching images with charcoal.
“Good,” Heather said, resting her hand on his knee to regain his
attention. “I wish we didn’t have practice before it.”
Tony saw Heather later at the game dressed in a sports bra, her
stomach painted with a big red “G.” He watched the cheerleaders bounce
and kick, waving their glittery pom-poms. He imagined Rebecca reading
her book during the game, not lifting her head up for a touchdown or
“Go Team!” But as far as he knew, Rebecca was not there.
He saw Lacey Darvill, standing by the fence in her varsity soccer jacket, talking with his younger sister, Chloe. As a freshman, Lacey
started as a midfielder, but Tony could not take his eyes off her hair. Her
smooth cream ponytail flicked as she laughed, vibrant and alarming like a
caution sign. He left the stand and joined their group.
Chloe was only in eighth grade, but was a better soccer player
than their older sister, Jenn. Tony did not like seeing Chloe at the game,
because she was not yet in high school. He wasn’t allowed to attend in
eighth grade.
The game did not go well. They lost, and Lacey seemed more
interested in talking about soccer to Chloe than to him. He stood, mostly
silent, next to the two girls, who giggled and whispered. There were two
types of girls in this world: those who painted their stomachs and those
who giggled by the fence. (And there was Rebecca, but she was an exception.) Tony hated Chloe for excluding him. He did not care for soccer;
his sisters revolved around it. He would have preferred to talk about art.
That night, when his mother asked about the game, Tony just
grumbled. His dad was not home, though he hardly ever was anymore.
They were getting divorced, even though his mother was starting to bulge
like an expired can of fruit.
“It’s going to be a boy and his name will be Bill,” she told Tony.
She had a “feeling.”
“I’m going to start varsity when I’m a freshmen like Lacey,” Chloe
informed Tony Monday morning before school.
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