Field four. Tie-dyed shirts. Was that him—the tall guy in the yellow shorts? She squinted as they made their way in the other direction, feeling her pulse quicken. Or was it the guy in the sweatpants?
What, Hollis wondered suddenly, would this moment mean to her in twenty years? Would it become just one more chapter in her crazy story—something to share at dinner parties or to tell her own kids someday? Your grandfather was a hippie Frisbee player.
“You okay?” JJ whispered.
Hollis nodded, assuming the look of someone who wasn’t about to pass out. JJ reached over and grabbed her thumb. She felt her nerves settle slightly.
But now here they were, standing at field four, just yards from the Floppy Discs. Hollis closed her eyes, as though this would make her invisible. She listened. Everyone was whispering.
“I don’t see him.” (Abby)
“The guy in the yellow shorts?” (Noah)
“Nah.” (Abby) “His hair’s too straight.”
“He could have gotten a haircut.” (Milo) “My hair looks straighter after a haircut.”
“Mine, too.” (Noah)
“Yeah, but look at his nose.” (Abby) “It’s way too big.”
“What about the guy in the sweatpants?” (Milo)
“He has no eyebrows.” (Noah)
“Really?” (Milo) “I can’t tell.”
“He has eyebrows.” (JJ) “They’re just sparse.”
“There.” (Abby)
“Oh my God.” (Milo)
Hollis felt someone grab her elbow. Her eyes flew open. The light made her blink. “What?”
“That’s him,” Abby said. “Coming out of the bathroom.”
Hollis squinted. Jogging toward them, red-cheeked and sweaty, was a man. She sucked in a breath. That was him, wasn’t it? But lots of men had thick eyebrows. Lots of men had dark, curly hair. So what if he was wearing a tie-dyed shirt. They were all wearing tie-dyed—
“Yo, Bardo!” someone hollered. “Sub!”
Yo, Bardo.
Hollis’s legs were Jell-O. She could feel her heart thump against her throat. He was here, ten feet in front of her, running onto the field. If she had a Frisbee, she could bean him in the head.
“Oh my God,” Milo murmured again.
Hollis felt Abby’s hand, damp and hot against her skin, and she saw that Noah was crying a little, and Milo’s mouth was hanging open, and the only one who wasn’t having any kind of fight-or-flight response was JJ, who had taken out his camera and was casually clicking away. While JJ moved into open space, the rest of them unconsciously inched closer together and were now standing motionless, like a family of deer in the road. Silently breathing in and out, watching their sperm donor lurch and trip around the field. How preposterous he looked. Hollis would laugh about this later. Hollis would laugh about all of this, just as soon as she got out of here.
“Wow,” Noah said finally, shaking his head. “He’s really uncoordinated.”
“And yet surprisingly effective,” Milo said.
“You think?” Abby said.
“Watch. He’s going out for a pass…”
Hollis watched as Will Bardo clomped the Frisbee between both hands, then pitched his whole body forward to make a remarkably wobbly but accurate pass up the field to the guy in the yellow shorts before he stumbled, then quickly righted himself.
“Every time,” Milo said, “he looks like he’s going down like a ton of bricks.”
“But he doesn’t,” Noah said. “He defies gravity.”
“He’s a Weeble,” Abby said.
Hollis found her voice. “A what?”
“A Weeble. Remember Weebles? You could push them over as hard as you wanted, but they rolled right back up.”
“Well.” Noah half smiled. “I see where I got my athleticism.”
Who knows how much time went by. Two minutes? Twenty? But they were still standing there, and Hollis was just getting used to the idea that she was related to this Weeble-like man, staggering and heaving his way around the field, when Milo dropped a bomb.
“I want to talk to him.”