CHAPTER ONE
4:15 P.M.
I’m skipping practice.
Skipping practice isn’t something people who want to play water polo in college should do, but sometimes you find out your mom is dating your coach and there is absolutely, positively no way you can show your face on the pool deck.
My mom broke the news to me last night at dinner. It was casual. Like, “Pass the peas and, oh yeah, Coach Sanchez is my new boyfriend.”
I gagged. Literally. On a combination of food and disgust.
She ignored my disdain. “It’s a good thing, Ruby. I promise.” Her gaze floated to some faraway, blissful place. “We’re actually going on a little romantic getaway for Valentine’s Day next weekend.”
Did she have to use the word romantic?
And did she have to swoon over Valentine’s Day?
Since when does my mom believe in hearts and flowers? I want her to be happy. I do. But does she have to find happiness in my world? With my coach?
“That’s it,” I said. “I have to switch schools.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“This isn’t dramatic, Mom. This is serious. You’ve ruined my life. So thanks a lot.”
I pushed my chair away from the table and stormed off to my room, where I mainlined Netflix for the rest of the night, too horrified to tell anyone what I’d learned. I wasn’t ready to tell my friends. Or my boyfriend. Maybe nobody would ever have to know.
But then the thoughts crept in.
What if they last forever?
What if my mom becomes Mrs. Coach Sanchez?
I wouldn’t be able to keep it secret.
They’d have a sunset wedding on the beach, with me as the reluctant maid of honor. So different from the way my mom married my dad at city hall. And then Coach Sanchez would be in my living room on Sundays and on the couch on Christmas. In sweatpants with his whistle around his neck. A horrid visual. He belongs on the pool deck, not at my dinner table.
I don’t dislike Coach Sanchez. I love him as my coach with his dorky jokes and his six-on-five plays and his surprise buñuelos after morning workouts. But in my house? With my mom? As my possible stepdad? No. My worlds were separate. Water polo was my happy place, home was my safe space. The two worlds colliding meant both were ruined.
Later in the night, after she spilled her news, my mom knocked on my door. Three gentle taps. Short and sweet.
“Ruby, can I come in?”
“Nope.”
“Ruby.”
I heard the thump of her pressing her forehead to the wood door as she sighed. I could feel her there even though I couldn’t see her. And when I sensed she’d finally walked away, I cracked my door open. There she was, shuffling down the hall toward her bedroom, head bent. Defeated.
Good.
I wanted her to feel guilty. I wanted her to wallow in her selfishness and the way she had crossed the line. I hoped that’s what she was thinking about as she fell asleep.
She was already gone for work when I left today, and I was glad I didn’t have to see her. We had a late-start so we didn’t have morning practice. But I saw Coach in the hallway as soon as I got to school because he also teaches chemistry. I couldn’t look him in the face. Did he know my mom had told me? How long had they been a thing? I tried to figure out what clues I had about them as I unloaded my books into my locker. I remembered the way they’d been talking, heads tilted toward each other, shoulders touching, when I came out of the locker room after my game last week. I was worried my mom had been doing something inappropriate, like asking Coach why he’d benched me for practically the whole fourth quarter. Because I need you to try smarter, not harder, he’d told me. I hadn’t imagined they were making plans for Valentine’s Day.
Shudder.
Because it was a late-start day, Thea, Iris, and Juliette had insisted we meet up with Mila for breakfast even though Mila and I were barely on speaking terms since our New Year’s Eve meltdown five weeks ago. When I’d gotten up the guts to tell the four of them about my mom and Coach, I was hoping for support, but Mila rolled her eyes because that’s what she does best. “Guess we all know who’ll be the star player now. Red-carpet rollout for you from the locker room to the water. Should I ready my camera? Go full-blown paparazzi on your ass?”
Mila’s great at water polo. And sarcasm.
“Try the opposite,” I said. “Coach will probably be extra tough on me now. Like he has to prove a point he’s not playing favorites.”
Mila slowly stirred her yogurt. “I wouldn’t count on it. You’re basically his favorite already. Now maybe we know why.”
Damn. She knew how to aim.
Thea, Iris, and Juliette nodded their heads in agreement because that’s what people who aren’t me do with Mila. Smile. Nod. Repeat.
There was no way I could go to afternoon practice after that. Not when I knew Mila would spend the whole day texting the rest of the team to tell them Coach was making out with my mom and treating me like royalty.
So I skipped.
And now I’m here.
At the laundromat.
For one reason and one reason only: it’s next door to the liquor store, and Mila taught me this is where you go when you need someone to buy you beer. There’s always a surfer or a burnout or a sailor from the navy base practically waiting to be asked. There’s a party tonight, and it seems like the perfect place to drown my sorrows or whatever it is you’re supposed to do when you find out your coach likes to stick his tongue in your mom’s mouth.
Ew. No!
I pound at my skull, trying to erase the visual. Beer will help. Even if I swore I’d never get beer this way after what happened the last time. But that was before I knew there would be a day like this. I’m taking a cue from Mila, and I don’t even care if it makes me a hypocrite.
I dump an armful of beach towels into a washer and scope things out. There’s an older woman folding laundry in a cubby in the back corner. She works here, and customers pay her to do their laundry. There’s also a guy who doesn’t look much older than me, but right now he’s my only option. I push a bunch of quarters into the washer’s slot and listen to the swoosh of water filling the drum as I try to figure out exactly how I’m going to work up the nerve to ask this prep in a polo to take my money and buy me a twelve-pack. If Mila were here, she’d do her usual skirt-and-flirt routine. Me? I’m six feet tall. This makes me great at playing the two-meter position in water polo but not so great at finding skirts that end past the crotch of my underwear. So I’m in jeans. And my team sweatshirt. With my feet shoved into flip-flops so well worn, the toe impressions are permanently carved into them. If asking people to buy you beer were covered on the SAT, I’d ace it. But it’s not. So I’m nervous.
I watch the guy’s hands as they carefully smooth over the folds of T-shirts and khaki pants with the precision of an assembly line.
One day I will meet someone with bigger hands than mine.
I notice stray blue paint on his knuckles. A little more under his chin. He piles his folded shirts into a duffel bag similar to the one I have for water polo, only his bag is hand-dyed like an art project, his name spray-painted in black stenciled letters along the side.
C. Smith.
He could be anyone.
C. Smith is so common that he is nameless. C. Smith is a face in the crowd. There are probably at least twenty C. Smiths in this town alone, two of them in my graduating class.