FRIDAY, AUGUST 26

1:39 P.M.

ALI

Ali Park pulls along the curb in front of her house, turns off her Jeep, and sits. Her parents haven’t left yet. Their sedan is still parked in the driveway, the trunk stuffed so full of presents—rivaling the back of Santa’s sleigh—that it can’t properly close. Her father has used a bungee cord to secure it.

She should go in. See them off. Make sure her father has the right GPS app on his phone, the one that updates live for traffic.

Instead Ali sinks low in her seat and pulls out her phone.

There’s no other way to put it. She’s turned into a stalker.

She can’t even remember what she used to look at before finding Darlene Maguire on social media. Since then Ali can pass hours like minutes scrolling through Darlene’s posted pictures, reading and rereading the comments people have left. Ali’s found Darlene in pictures posted to other people’s accounts. Friends, relatives. Figured out that the boy who took Darlene to formal was likely just a friend. She’s read Darlene’s field hockey stats back to when she was in middle school, read a movie review Darlene wrote freshman year for the Oak Knolls student newspaper. She’s found the fax number for Mr. Maguire’s accounting office, found a fundraising page Darlene’s mother set up to purchase beanbag chairs and a throw rug to make a reading nook in her second-grade classroom.

Or maybe this isn’t too different from how Grace scouted Darlene at Kissawa. Studying the way she played, noting Darlene’s favorite moves, like that breakaway fake out, so that when the time came, Grace would be ready.

The thing is, Ali could already tell Oak Knolls was about to score on her. Like some weird sixth sense, the warning manifested in a physical way, a muscle that progressively tightened in her gut.

The championship game had been scoreless for the first half. It was a grind befitting the two best teams in the division. Hardly any breakaways, hardly any passes rolling out of the midfield. Ali faced maybe three shots on goal, and none of them were direct hits. More like desperate chips.

But the Oak Knolls strikers came hard and fast at Ali in the second half. They showed zero fatigue, no trace of exhaustion. As if it were the first week of September and not the end of December. All swagger, even though the Wildcats had bested them in their two previous regular season outings.

The Wildcats, in comparison, were nervous, unsure, tentative. Her defenders kept getting beat. Ali, who normally manned her goal in silence, had taken to screaming her throat raw for the last seven or so minutes.

Right side! On the left, the left, the left! Watch her!

Ali kept glancing over at the sidelines. It was so quiet, she wasn’t sure if Coach was even still there. Maybe he’d gotten too disgusted and left.

But no, Coach was there, arms crossed in front of his chest, his mouth a firm horizontal line.

And then, off Darlene Maguire’s stick, the orange ball came whizzing. If she’d been looking at the field, Ali probably could have stopped it. But with her reaction time delayed, she only managed to get a fingertip on it, enough to shift the angle at which it hit the back of the net by a few meaningless degrees.

The Bulldogs erupted in screams and fell all over themselves. The undulating hug pile was practically a simultaneous team-wide orgasm. And Ali, alone in her goal, was choked with a painful, shameful impotence.

That’s the thing about being a goalie. Any point scored is ultimately your fault. The buck stops with you. Or it doesn’t.

Sometimes Ali will do the same kind of deep dive on herself. She’ll look at every picture she’s posted, read the comments, find herself tagged on other people’s pages. Photos of her parents, her two older brothers, John and James. Of her sister-in-law, Susan, and her wedding to John two years ago, first a ceremony at Susan’s family’s church in New Jersey in traditional hanboks, and then later a chic champagne celebration at the top of a New York skyscraper. Of Ali and baby John-John, heavy on her lap, on Ali’s seventeenth birthday. John took the train down from New York City with Susan and John-John. Ali’s brother James, who would normally get a pass because he lives in Seattle, flew in on a red-eye, tacking on a few days at home before beginning an overseas business trip.

But it’s a pointless exercise. Ali’s account has always been locked, friends only. Still, she wonders if Darlene did any recon on her? Figured out ahead of time that Ali was weaker on her right side than her left? Was she actively looking for a vulnerability to exploit? Or did she just stumble upon one?

Ali hears the front door of her house close, the lock click. She turns off her phone. Her father pulls two roller bags toward the car, her mother following with a hanging bag holding her new dress, a pink-and-black houndstooth tweed shift with black enamel buttons running up the back. Ali had been with her mother when she bought it. The dress was so expensive it gave Ali pause, but her mother didn’t hesitate. When it came to anything related to John-John, she needed no justification to splurge.

Not to mention, this was John-John’s first birthday, a big deal for any Korean. Her brother John and Susan had rented out a restaurant overlooking Central Park. Susan had three aunts and an uncle flying in from Seoul.

“They’re staying for three months,” John had whined when they last FaceTimed. Ali had sat at the breakfast bar while her parents drank smoothies before heading to the golf course. She could watch John-John for hours, the plump rolls of his cherubic body, the way he waved at her with his meaty hands and cooed when Ali sang to him.

Susan, who was on the couch behind John, threw a stuffed rabbit at her brother’s head.

“What? I love when they visit! I just hate doing the touristy stuff. It’s like, how many times in my life do I have to go to the Statue of Liberty?”

Ali let out an anguished cry. “You promised that the next time I came to New York, you’d take me to the Statue of Liberty!”

John and Susan both leaned toward the camera. “Does that mean you’re coming to John-John’s dol?”

Ali grimaced.

Of course she wanted to say yes. So much so that she waited until the last possible minute—until she heard that Coach was for sure coming back—to tell her family no.

Playing field hockey at Ali’s level is a year-round commitment, and there are always things you miss out on. Ali’s declined countless party invites and weekend trips with friends, and she even missed the Spring Fling her sophomore year for traveling team. Sacrifices she never thought twice about. But John-John’s first birthday was a special moment for her entire family, an important and revered Korean tradition. Having to miss out on it was like salt in a wound Ali was pretending not to have. Still pretending.

All this to say, it would have been a difficult decision for Ali, had it been hers to make.

Ali hurries up to meet her parents in the driveway, the strap of her heavy gear bag tipping her body visibly to the left. She kisses and hugs them, combining her hello and goodbye.

“Please take lots of pictures, okay? Like, double what you think is enough,” Ali tells them. She moves her gift for John-John from the trunk into the back seat. She doesn’t want it to be crushed. She wrapped the gift in an adorable paper—one with illustrated animals in silly party hats—bought from the specialty stationery store in town. And Ali tied the ribbon four times before she was satisfied with the loops on the bow. “And take a video of when John-John opens my present. Oh, and another one of the doljabi stuff too! I want to see what John-John picks up.”

“He’ll pick up the book, like me,” her father says.

“First and last time you did,” her mother teases.

Her parents speak to each other. Not to Ali. Still, she’s quick to chime in, “I picked the ball, remember?”

Her mother deadpans, “As if we could forget.”

Ali knows they are still angry she didn’t press the issue with Coach. After all, this was a onetime, one-game miss for a family obligation.

“My team needs me,” she tried explaining. That she hadn’t actually asked Coach would only make it harder for her parents to understand, so she didn’t mention it.

It did feel good to be back playing with the girls again, especially after skipping out on Kissawa this summer. Despite how things ended last season, the Wildcats are looking strong. Grace did great against the freshman Luci, shutting Luci down from getting off a shot most times, though Luci got better each day. Mel was unstoppable, especially now that Phoebe was back chipping her perfect passes from midfield, which allowed Mel to really use her speed, sprinting ahead with full confidence that the ball would land where it needed to. Mel’s shots on goal flew like fiery orange comets. Ali caught them hot in her goalie gloves, slapped them back into the atmosphere with her stick. She held her own. More than held her own.

She was damn near perfect.

“Call me when you get there,” Ali says.

Her father kisses her on the top of her head. “Good luck tomorrow.”

Her mother squeezes her. “We’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too.” Ali feels something catch in her throat.

It really does suck not to be going.

But on the upside, her parents will miss tomorrow’s scrimmage, which is a huge relief. Ali didn’t need that worry on top of everything else.

After the drive away, Ali takes the stone path into the backyard. She kneels on the warm patio stones, unzips her bag, and removes her goalie pads one at a time, laying each out to bake in the afternoon sun.

First out are the pads that strap to Ali’s legs, thick U-shaped foam blocks that cup the tops of her feet up to her mid-thighs. Next are the pads circling each of her arms, wrist to elbow. Next is Ali’s chest pad, which she slips over her head like a sandwich board before putting on her varsity jersey. Her helmet and the plastic piece that hooks under her chin, protecting her neck, come out next.

Last are her goalie gloves, far and away the nastiest pieces of gear, but they are Ali’s prized possessions, passed down to her by the previous Wildcat goalie, Livvy Mills, after her last game. The foam inside is turning to dust, so cleaning them must be done with care.

She stands up, and from that angle, the assembled pads are like a black exoskeleton, the discarded shell of a teen-sized locust. Her cocoon.

With it all strapped on, the shape of her body completely changes, taking on the bulky squared-off look of a Lego person. No hint that her breasts are full C cups, that her thick black hair gleams and hangs to the middle of her back. The scar on her hand where her grandmother’s dog bit her is hidden, as is the splotchy birthmark on her right thigh. You can’t tell that Ali’s posture is impeccable, that her limbs are long and lean, benefits of having studied ballet through grade school.

This is the reason why she hates watching game film. How awkward she looks lumbering out from the goal when Coach calls them in for a time-out. It’s hard to even take a drink of water. She has to set down her stick, flick off her gloves, unhook the neck piece, lift her helmet up.

That said, it is necessary protection. Protection that makes her brave enough to stick out an arm, lift a leg, take a shot off her chest. The field hockey balls fly hard and fast, hit your skin like bombs. Ali’s teammates are far more exposed in their pleated kilts, bloomers, knee socks, and polos. Sure, they look way cuter, but she’s seen their skin swell, bruise, split on impact. She’s seen girls lose teeth, crack bones.

Really, the only bit of Ali that’s still visible is behind the cage of her helmet—her eyes, the bridge of her nose, her cheeks. But that’s all you need in competition. Some small, vulnerable spot to exploit. Just ask Achilles.