15

The Huntington Avenue Y is not in the best part of town, but neither is it in the worst. It has plenty of prestigious neighbors, like Symphony Hall, the Mother Church, the New England Conservatory, and Northeastern University, so the area is dense with music lovers, followers of Christian Science, music students, and students in general. I did myself a favor and left the car home. Instead I caught the Dudley bus from Harvard Square. It came within five minutes of my arrival at the stop, miracle of miracles, and I climbed aboard, trailing my gym bag. I didn’t nab a seat, but I hadn’t expected to.

Kristy, our captain, best setter, and coach, was already dressed and warming up. The others were straggling in. I joined the stragglers in the locker room to change to crotch-cutter shorts, long-sleeved top, knee pads, socks, and sneakers. The locker room boasted cement walls painted a pale green, matching battered lockers, mirrors plenty high enough for midgets, and that comforting high school sweat-sock-and-mold aroma.

I changed quickly and went out to join Kristy. After I stretched my muscles out, we went to work on a spike-and-dig drill. The gym filled slowly. I was concentrating on the drill, but I could tell by the increasing volume.

A whistle sounded. Five minutes to game. My team huddled on the far side of the gym, and Kristy gave us a brief lecture on the perils of overconfidence. Our opponent today was from the western suburbs, and we’d decided long ago that they were the patsies of the finals, a team that would run screaming if their fingernail polish got chipped. An unfair assessment, maybe, but the ’burbs have that reputation in tough old Central Square, Cambridge. Their team was called the Butterflies. Hardly awe-inspiring. We’re the Y-Birds, which I always think sounds like jailbirds. Far as I know, we have no ex-cons among us.

Kristy tried to give them a buildup, but the truth of the matter was they were a one-woman team. She was supposed to be quite something and I’d given her more than a passing glance when she came into the gym. She was a Boston College player, banned from their team for flunking grades. A former National Team player, six-four if she was an inch, blond, agile, and aggressive by repute.

Our basic game plan was to keep the ball out of her hands.

The whistle blew; we all slapped hands and ran out onto the court. There was a smattering of applause. I didn’t even look over at the bleachers. Paolina wasn’t there.

“Who’s the hunk?” Samantha, a middle blocker, murmured in my ear. She’s some kind of computer programmer. She has count-the-house eyes and rarely misses a setup shot.

I’m an outside hitter. I sent my eyes along the stands in the direction of her nod and found the guy she had to mean, sitting alone three rows behind our team bench. Hunk didn’t do him justice.

I shrugged, reached down, and touched the floor with my palms. My back felt a little tight.

The ref tossed the coin and it went our way. Kristy stood in to serve and the ref did a quick check to make sure we were all in position.

The first game went as expected. When someone made the mistake of serving near Miss Boston College, we lost the point. But there were five other players on the court, and while B.C. tried to cover as much ground as possible, the others weren’t helping her. There was one small brunette who practically stood there imitating a fireplug. B.C. was starting to steam when we took the first game 15–6.

Between games, Edna informed us that the hunk was an Olympic scout sent to check out B.C., the Olympics having lower academic standards than Boston College. Edna’s friend, Joy, maintained the hunk was the fireplug’s fiancé, but nobody believed her. Conjure up faces to go with those names: Edna and Joy. Then I’ll tell you that Edna, who has a wicked serve, is our team beauty, and Joy is as plain and dour as they come.

“So if he’s here to scout B.C., how come he’s watching Carlyle’s every move?” Kristy asked.

I glanced at her, surprised. And I admit, I gave the hunk another once-over as well.

He had sandy hair, longish but well cut and gleaming clean. Late twenties, early thirties. An athlete’s thick neck and wide, sloping shoulders. A broad face, maybe a little chin-heavy. Couldn’t tell the color of the eyes, but for some reason I assumed they’d be blue.

We took the second game. This one was tougher because B.C. was roaming at will, and one of her teammates had caught fire and was setting the ball up for her taller friend. I’d rarely blocked against anyone who had the kind of height advantage B.C. had over me. And it wasn’t just her height. It was her quickness and her misdirection. She’d go up facing one way and then swivel midway through her arm swing and angle the spike. I’ve been known to grunt when I smash the ball, but this woman’s noises were incredible. And she kept up a steady stream of abuse at the ball, at her teammates, and at me whenever I faced her across the net.

Bad move on her part. It made me jump higher. Spike harder. I killed a ball right down the line, pretty as a pro shot, and I could hear her hiss like a kettle ready to steam.

The second game went 15–12, far from a rout. Kristy gave us a pep talk cum warning to finish them off in the third game. If any of their other players woke up, we could be in trouble. B.C. was playing a hell of a game, and there was further speculation about the Olympic scout. Joy thought she might have seen him on TV. Didn’t he play for the Patriots?

We had the third game won when it happened, and I’m not saying B.C. did it on purpose. But she did have that unbelievable control, and I wouldn’t have put it past her, not the way she was yelling and fuming and swearing. The referee glanced over from time to time, and I think he should have called an unsportsmanlike on her, but nobody asked me.

Anyway, we needed two more points for the match. Kristy was serving on a hot streak, five points in, aiming ’em at the little fireplug who surprised everybody by setting one up. B.C. came roaring over to smash it. I countered to block her and launched myself at the same time she took off. She saw me rise to meet her, rearranged herself to fire off to my right, to miss my block entirely. Joy, next to me, moved late, and the ball would have sailed by her for the kill.

Instead of taking the easy shot, getting the side-out and the ball, B.C. switched in midair. I swear I could see her eyes flicker when she decided to do it. She must have sensed that I’d relaxed, seeing that the ball was going to be Joy’s to hit or miss, not mine. She didn’t aim for air; she aimed for me.

On pure reflex I deflected the ball with my left hand, but it still hit my face with hardly any of its momentum gone. Then I was on the floor, crouched on knee pads and elbows, blood pooling in front of me. There was a lot of it, and it seemed like it must have come from somebody else. For a moment I flashed on the scene in the Fens and almost lost my breakfast.

Somebody thrust a towel at me and I held it to my face. It came away bright crimson.

Shit, I thought. Not my damn nose. Not again.

Kristy was yelling at the referee and at B.C. The ref was trying to get everybody back in the game.

One of the differences between men’s and women’s teams is how they react to injury. You watch a football game, a hockey game, and some guy gets injured, flat on his back, down for the count. The other guys on the team don’t even go over to ask if he’s alive. The coach comes out, the trainer, then the ambulance crew with the stretcher. With as little fuss as possible, the guy is carted off, a replacement comes in, and play resumes.

With us, if somebody takes a bad fall, stays on the parquet too long, we stop. We all rush over and offer assistance, a kind word, a hand up. A wet towel. The game stops dead until we’re sure she’s okay.

I prefer it. Maybe that’s why you don’t see many women’s team sports on the tube. Takes up too much time, all that helping the wounded.

I couldn’t feel the bridge of my nose. I badly wanted a mirror. The thought of the locker-room mirrors did nothing for me. If I bent down far enough to look in one, I was sure I’d get nauseated.

Two people, I think it was Edna on one side and Kristy on the other, helped me over to the bench. I sat and bloodied the towel some more. As soon as my eyes started focusing, I assured my teammates I was okay. Kristy looked at the relative size of my pupils, then asked me the key questions: What’s your name? Where are you? I must have answered correctly because she motioned to our best bench-warmer.

“We won’t need you for these last two points,” she said. “Hit the locker room. Lie down. We’ll be there in a minute.”

“Yeah,” I said.

As soon as the game started up again, I hauled myself to my feet. I remembered seeing a ladies’ room right outside the double gym doors, one that might have a mirror in an accessible position.

It’s not that I’m vain, but my nose has had its troubles. I broke it for the first time when I was six years old. My next-door neighbor had done the honors, wielding a wooden toy hammer. I busted it again when I was a cop. And cab driving did it the third time. I don’t have a huge nose or anything, but the bridge has a rather distinctive bump. I’ve gotten fond of that bump.

I touched it as I walked. If it was broken, it wasn’t a bad break. My nose wasn’t squashed to one side or anything. My cheekbone hurt.

The ladies’ room was where I remembered it, across from a men’s room with a drinking fountain in between. The hunk was standing by the fountain holding a wet towel. He walked over and held it out to me.

“You ought to get cold water on that, Ms. Carlyle,” he said. “Ice cubes would be better.”

His eyes were blue.

I took the sopping towel and held it to my face. Water dripped down the front of my already sweat-soaked top. I must have been a little hazy, because I was wondering why an Olympic scout would know my name.

His voice was baritone. Accent from the South. Close up he looked even better than from afar.

I mumbled my thanks and stumbled into the bathroom. I no longer felt nauseated. From practice, I knew what to do next. I filled the sink with cold water, took a deep breath, pleased that my nose still functioned, and plunged my whole head into the sink.

The water was pink when I came up for air. I let the pink water drain and started again. This time I dared to glance in the mirror.

Not bad. I’d envisioned a hunk of raw meat, and what I saw still had the definite contours of my nose. I tried a profile view, ran my fingers carefully along the bridge. I didn’t think the damn thing was even busted. I put my nose and face back in the sink. The water changed color less.

The hunk was waiting when I emerged, damp but feeling a hell of a lot better. I headed to the gym, thinking I might be able to play if we’d lost the third game, thinking I’d like a chance to spike a ball into that damned B.C. dropout.

“Ms. Carlyle, could we talk awhile?”

“Huh?” I said.

“About Manuela Estefan?”

I stopped dead. “Who are you?”

“INS.”

Well, damn, I thought, who woulda guessed?