“If he was a soccer player, maybe he really wanted to start a team,” Tina interrupted her. “We don’t know what’s inside his head.”
“I just want to know what’s inside his pants,” a sophomore at the next cooking station interjected.
“We all saw THAT,” Candace said, holding a rolling pin in front of her pelvis and waving it suggestively.
“And thank God it’s not shaped like a rolling pin.” I corrected her penis shape comparison by picking up a banana from one of the fruit bowls arranged by a previous class.
Dana cleared her throat and I tried not to roll my eyes.
“Anyway, he was a last-minute hire,” she told us. “If you remember, we were supposed to have a girls’ basketball team. But resources didn’t permit it.” She even sounded like a principal. I wondered if she practiced.
“Oh yeah, because of the gym,” Tina said, referring to the spare gymnasium at the back of the school that had been closed off at the end of last school year when a huge chunk of the ceiling had fallen in.
“Why soccer? Who would a team even play?” I asked, more out of concern that Coach McMann would be taken from us before we even got to know him. I didn’t pay much attention to sports—I’d only go to football or basketball games when Candace dragged me—but I still knew none of the other high schools around here had a girls’ soccer team. Even boys’ soccer was limited to the private schools. Guys at our high school acted like it was girly to play soccer, and the joke was that the guys who played it only did because they hadn’t made the football team.
Of course, Dana looked ready to answer my question, but Candace cut her off.
“Who cares?” she said, swiping her finger near her lip, where a dot of powdered sugar clung. “Tell us more personal details.”
Dana continued authoritatively, like she was already in charge of Bobby’s fan club. “His birthday’s November seventh. Scorpio.” You could tell by the way she said it, she was compatible with Scorpios. But so was I, as an Aries. “He drives a 1973 Datsun,” she continued, “the blue-gray one in parking spot twenty-seven. This is his first teaching job.”
“Oh my God, are you guys going to camp out by his car or something?” Tina shook her head. “The poor guy. He only wanted to shape minds.”
“He is shaping minds,” I told her. “Dirty ones.”
Dana pursed her lips tight, like my impertinence was the same as if I’d suggested peeing in the lemon curd. “He’s never been married. And he lives on Mansfield, probably in one of the duplexes near Rocket Slide Park.”
“And what are his turn-ons and turn-offs?” I said, getting a laugh from Tina and Candace and another look from Dana. I gave my lemon one last run across the grater and filed away all the information Dana had offered like it was answers for a test I’d be having soon.
“Do you think you’re going to try out?” Tina said, mostly to me and Candace.
“I don’t know,” I said. I hadn’t known I’d even been considering it before she asked, but I realized in that moment that I’d made a mental note of the place and time for tryouts the next day when I had passed the sign-up sheet on the way out of the cafeteria. “Are you?”
Tina nodded with certainty. “I want to,” she said. “It might be fun.” I could imagine Tina on a team. She was good at everything she tried, which we teased her about. She claimed she did well in school and joined extracurriculars because it made her parents happy—Tina’s mom kept a stack of college brochures on the coffee table—but I knew she kind of loved that her house was a shrine to her accomplishments.
“I was thinking it could be good exercise,” Candace said. “And maybe we’d bump into the boys’ teams if we practice after school?”
“Yearbook doesn’t really get going until winter, and I don’t have a fall activity,” Dana said.
“But none of us know anything about soccer,” I said.
“Who does?” Candace waved the whisk, sending a spray of lemon curd toward me. “I’m sure no one.”
“But why not tennis, or swimming? Why soccer?” I couldn’t imagine a world where I’d make the team, much less one where I’d want to practice every day after school. But if my friends could see themselves doing it, did I want to be the one left behind? Plus, getting to look at Mr. McMann in his shorts every day might be worth faking an interest in a sport.
“You guys, the curd’s going to burn,” Candace said, now stirring furiously. The other teams of girls were already assembling their pies, while our curd smelled like toast on fire.
Miss Cuddle padded over to our station and tilted her head. She looked like Mrs. Claus’s cousin with her short copper curls and soft gaze. “Good work, girls,” she said, clearly not noticing or at least not caring that our work was anything but good.
When the bell rang, Tina offered me a ride home but I turned it down, saying I needed a couple books from the library. As the halls emptied, I made my way to the cafeteria.
I stood in front of the soccer tryout sheet Coach McMann had tacked up. There were a few names on it, but most of the lines were cluttered with guys’ handwriting and rude fake names, including a couple for Coach McMann: Booby McMann. Bobby McNads.
My stomach growled noisily. Our team’s lemon pie had been mostly inedible after the curd had turned brown and stuck to the bottom of the pan. I eyeballed the blank line where I could write my name.
No. I would sleep on it.
“Need a pen?”
I recognized his voice instantly. How had he snuck up on me twice today?
I spun around and was looking right at Coach McMann. Bobby.
I gulped. “Um, no,” I said.
His grin faltered. He held up a palm, like he was apologizing for bumping into me, and said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you might be thinking about trying out.”
“I am,” I stammered. “I mean, I’m going to.”
This got a smile. A smile that made me sure I was going to try out.
“Oh, good,” he said. He peered at the sheet. “Do you think Jimmy Carter’s Balding Ballsack knows this is a girls’ team?”
I laughed and involuntarily reached to flip my hair over my shoulder, a gesture I’d only ever been inspired to use in my daydreams. “Don’t worry, I know a few girls showing up tomorrow who aren’t on the list. I bet there will be a lot of us.”
That smile again. “Good to know. Maybe the sign-up sheet is silly,” he said. He pulled the paper from the bulletin board. “I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow . . . um . . .”
“Susan,” I said. “Susan Klintock.”
“Susan, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
On my walk home, I was able to make my stomach flip over and over just by thinking about my name spoken in Bobby’s voice.
Susan, I’ll see you tomorrow.
My mom’s car was in the driveway, and I walked into the house with the same feeling I got when I broke curfew. Like my mom would smell the lust on me and be disappointed that I was so interested in a man. For all her concern about me knowing what the clitoris was, she mostly read self-help books with titles like How to Be Your Own Best Friend and said she wanted to find her whole self before she committed to anyone else again.