FRIDAY, AUGUST 26

2:25 P.M.

MEL

Melanie Gingrich pulls up to the West Essex Starbucks and counts the cars idling in the drive-through lane. Six, which makes her white Mini Cooper number seven, annoyingly the norm for this location. For whatever reason, it’s always busy.

But the parking lot itself is surprisingly empty. Mel scrunches up her nose. The decals plastered to the store windows make it hard to see inside, but she thinks she spies a few empty tables.

She reaches over and squeezes the shoulder of her very best friend, Phoebe Holt, slouched low in shotgun, refreshing her email on her phone.

“Phoebs, let’s ditch drive-through and grab a table inside instead.”

Phoebe’s blue eyes light up but she pauses before unbuckling her seat belt. “You sure you don’t need to get home?”

Since Coach dismissed them from his classroom, Mel’s been dashing around town, slaying the last of her to-do list, with Phoebe ready to assist just like on the field. There are still a few loose ends to tie up, but if she runs out of time she can always pin her hair up instead of blowing it out with a round brush, the way she’d been planning to wear it tonight. It feels ungrateful not to accept this serendipitous gift bestowed upon them by the Starbucks gods, a chance to properly toast the long-awaited return of Mel and Phoebe, the Wildcats’ dynamic duo.

She zips out of the drive-through line and into a parking spot, though Mel doesn’t turn off the car right away. Instead, she announces, “I wanna hear the rest of this song,” and ticks the already loud volume a few notches louder. She hasn’t listened to it in forever and somehow forgot how much she loves it. Mel reclines her seat and stretches out.

“Last track,” Phoebe informs her, lowering the back of her seat to match the pitch of Mel’s, and begins to sing along.

Mel closes her eyes and sings too, totally not caring that her voice never stays in key. With the sunshine streaming in her open sunroof, all Mel sees and feels is warmth.

This mix was a surprise gift from Phoebe. Their personal greatest-hits soundtrack, Wildcats Season 1. Phoebe stealthily connected her phone to the car’s Bluetooth while Mel drove them out of the high school parking lot. When Phoebe pressed play on the first track, Mel legit gasped, and then the two best friends busted out the dance they used to do on the varsity team bus to burn off their nervous energy. Despite being restrained by seat belts, not a shoulder shimmy or hand gesture popped off-beat.

Mel could have fooled herself into thinking no time had passed between that first season and this one, if not for the glimpses she caught in her rearview mirror of their newest and youngest teammate. Luci, wide-eyed and rod straight, in Mel’s back seat, her hands tucked under her thighs.

Phoebe twisted around, stunned that Luci didn’t know the song, even though Luci would have been only like nine or ten when it came out. Despite Mel’s protest, Phoebe abruptly skipped to the next track, another favorite. At first Luci played like she’d heard this one before—clearly wishful thinking, because by the chorus, it was obvious she hadn’t. Before Phoebe jumped ahead to the third track, Mel shut her car stereo off and didn’t let Phoebe turn it back on until after they’d dropped Luci at her house. These were their love songs after all, and with everything their friendship had endured in the last few months, Mel didn’t want to squander a single note on a third wheel.

When this last song ends, Mel opens her eyes and turns her head to face Phoebe. The girls smile at each other. It reminds Mel of this very night three years ago. Mel and Phoebe, pre-boobs but post-periods, wearing their brand-new varsity jerseys like nightgowns, were tucked in their sleeping bags, smiling at each other through the dark while their teammates snoozed around them. They felt like the two luckiest girls in the whole world.

And really, all things considered, they still are.

Phoebe turns her head and says, “I can’t believe this is our last season.”

Mel nods. “It’ll be a miracle if I get through tonight without crying.” She’s quick to add, “Happy tears,” despite already knowing she’ll cry tears of sadness, too. How could she not, when it marks the beginning of the end of her time as a Wildcat.

Mel cuts the engine and grabs her wallet from the center console. Phoebe heads straight for the entrance, but Mel circles around and clicks open her trunk to grab a hoodie. This Starbucks is always freezing. She’s got so many packages and shopping bags stuffed inside—plus her and Phoebe’s field hockey gear—that it takes a bit of digging before Mel eventually pulls out a slouchy cotton sweater instead of a hoodie. Which is fine.

She slips it over her head and checks her reflection. Maybe cuter, actually.

Mel quickly adjusts whatever stuff she disturbed, though she takes extra care when repositioning an enormous gold piñata, making sure it won’t get crushed when she closes the hatch.

It was a last-minute impulse buy—not accounted for in Mel’s carefully laid plans, a bullet-pointed rainbow of ink copied in her very best penmanship—but this piñata might very well come to define her entire Wildcat legacy. She runs her hand lightly over the shimmering paper, her reflection mirrored in the hundreds of metallic snips. The confidence she’s known for comes back from whatever mysterious place it drained to.

Mel feels ready. And not a moment too soon.

Tonight is the first Psych-Up of their brand-new season.

Coach has always been brilliant at coming up with different ways to keep his field hockey girls close. At the very core of his coaching philosophy is the belief that cultivating bonds off the field translates to bonds on the field. But Coach’s implementation of Psych-Ups is, undoubtedly, his most genius idea. It’s become such an important and beloved tradition, she can’t imagine it would ever be abandoned by the Wildcats, not even when Coach eventually moves on and coaches somewhere else.

Psych-Ups are when the entire varsity Wildcat squad is invited to a senior player’s house for a team dinner and sleepover before their weekend game. So either a Friday or Saturday night, depending on the schedule.

Coach always shows up for the dinner part. And depending on the vibe or what else he has going on, he sometimes sticks around and hangs out for a little while afterward.

A good bet is to get him talking about field hockey. Movies are also one of Coach’s favorite topics. The girls have fun winding him up about famous movies they haven’t seen. He can’t believe they’d rather watch garbage reality TV instead of whatever cinematic masterpiece is currently streaming on Netflix. But it’s not like getting stuck talking with one of your parents’ friends, because Coach isn’t butchering some hugely famous person’s name. He listens to the same music, he doesn’t need someone to explain why certain texts show up in blue bubbles and some in green bubbles. It’s just … super chill.

Either way, before Coach takes off, he’ll make a speech about the next day’s game, get them fired up not simply to play but to win.

After he leaves, all twenty girls cram themselves into a den or family room and spread out their sleeping bags. Then they watch a movie of the senior host’s choosing as a way to unwind, multiple bags of microwave popcorn in orbit. Sometimes they make it to the end credits. But at most Psych-Ups, the movie gets shut off well before. Coach expects everyone in bed, with lights out, by ten o’clock.

Every senior holds a Psych-Up at some point during the season—sometimes two—but first-night hosting duties always fall to the team captain. Mel’s parents are going all out tonight—caterers booked, a white tent erected in the backyard, dozens of white rose arrangements, helium balloon sculptures assembled in Wildcat colors. Even still, Mel’s Psych-Up will follow the structure of any other.

Until the clock strikes midnight.

That’s when, at Mel’s direction, the Wildcats break Coach’s curfew for the first and only time all season to hold their own secret season kick-off celebration on their home field, underneath the twinkling stars.

It’s not to undermine his authority. This is in no way a rebellion. If anything, it’s about the girls doubling down on the values Coach works so hard to instill in them. Loyalty. Pride. Grit.

Team first, always.

The captains have plenty of opportunities to put their own spin on the festivities. What music they’ll listen to, what bonding games they’ll play, what late-night diner to stuff their faces at afterward. But the night always, always culminates in a special ceremony where the captain presents each of her teammates with their varsity jersey. And, in accepting those jerseys, the girls pledge their hearts to the Wildcats.

It’s a beautiful thing.

Mel is a golden girl, a top player of not just the Wildcats but all high schools in their state. Naturally, she aspires for her Psych-Up midnight celebration to be the greatest yet. That she’s had less than a month to prepare for it—while previous captains got an entire off-season—has only made Mel more determined to exceed expectations.

But that wasn’t the only challenge Mel faced with her Psych-Up plans. There’s another horrible kink she needed to account for.

Until last season, the Wildcats have always been champions.

The best strategy Mel could come up with was to avoid, avoid, avoid, and instead keep her teammates focused on the future. In fact, she planned to expressly forbid any mention of last season’s disastrous end during her Psych-Up. This was how Mel herself survived the off-season, embracing whatever methods of distraction necessary to put it out of her mind. And she suspected she wasn’t the only one.

Mel and her teammates each swallowed the same bitter pill of disappointment, forced it down, and tried to move on. Was it really such a big deal if the loss was still there, a lump bobbing in the backs of their throats?

Mel’s answer remained a firm nope, even after tryouts began this week and the girls who were on last year’s varsity team were reunited after the different leagues and camps and club teams that scattered them in the off-season.

They seemed nervous to be around one another again. But in the aftermath of last season, the girls had never turned on one another, never pointed fingers or threw blame at another player’s feet. So it didn’t take long for things to warm back up. Muscle memory to kick in.

Mel felt this most acutely with Phoebe. Those nine long months of having not played together compressed into seconds as soon as Coach blew his whistle Monday morning. They knew each other again.

Technically speaking, this week the girls performed as well as maybe they ever have. Each of Mel’s teammates was sharp, focused, committed, determined. They played like they had everything to prove.

Which apparently they did.

What else could explain Coach’s punishing final workout today, which lasted almost twice as long as years past? Her teammates probably accepted it as an overdue penance. But Mel suspected there was more to Coach’s methods. It was as if he were trying to physically wring any lingering effects of last season out of their bodies. As if he could see, somehow, that they still carried it with them, a shadow stapled to the turf on a week of sunny summer days.

Standing with her teammates around the flagpole this afternoon, Mel had a nagging feeling that she’d made the wrong call with her Psych-Up approach. That she, as team captain, could hinder Coach’s efforts instead of help, was completely out of the question.

Even though the returning players had individually dealt with last season’s losses, they hadn’t ever processed it as a team. Maybe they needed to. The timing wasn’t ideal, especially with so many new players, who had nothing to do with the championship loss, joining them. But it might be good for the new players to see—up close and unvarnished—how deeply it still mattered to the ones who did.

It was a delicate situation, sure, but when Mel finally let Phoebe pull her up onto the classroom chair, she looked out at her teammates dancing and remembered that the girls themselves weren’t. They were strong. Not only that, they would become even stronger tonight, when standing side by side in their varsity jerseys, as Wildcats.

It dawned on Mel how cowardly her decision had been to treat last season like some kind of dirty secret. Nope. Instead she would help her team face the past head-on.

She just needed to figure out how. And fast.

It came to her when she ducked into Party City to grab boxes of sparklers for the varsity jersey ceremony. She loved the idea of each teammate lighting one sparkler off another, forming a glittering chain that would brighten the midnight dark. On her way down the aisle, she breezed right past the piñatas.

Then Mel stopped. Hustled back. Moved a papier-mâché rainbow to the side. Shifted over a unicorn.

And there it was. A giant golden number 2. Probably made for a little kid’s birthday party.

Mel, however, saw an effigy of a runner-up trophy.

Like the best ideas, it came together in a snap, the whole thing playing out like a movie in her mind. Her teammates, blindfolded and spun around one by one, each getting to take a crack at it with a field hockey stick. It would be lots of laughs, watching the girls stumble and sway before getting their bearings. But working together, using all their might and mettle, fueled by their heartache and frustration and disappointment, they would smash that 2 to smithereens and gorge themselves on the candy that spilled out.

I mean, could anything be more perfectly Wildcat?

The only thing Mel hasn’t yet figured out is how to string the piñata up at the field tonight. But something will come to her. Today proved yet again, as always, that Mel only needs to trust herself, trust what Coach has cultivated in her. In all of the girls.

Mel closes the trunk and hurries across the parking lot to the Starbucks. Her hand is on the door when her phone rings in the back pocket of her cutoffs. Her heart lifts. Wondering.

But it’s only Gordy.

Shit.

Through the window, Mel meets eyes with Phoebe, who’s already in line. She points to her ringing phone and mouths, “One sec!”

The first words out of Gordy’s mouth are, “Did you make the team?”

It seems so stupid now, how stressed Mel let herself get last night. Making Gordy stay up late with her on the phone, way later than she should have, reassuring her that she wouldn’t be cut. Especially after she’d so artfully dodged Gordy’s calls and texts these last few weeks, found plausible excuses to decline his repeated invites to hang out with him.

“Yes, I made the team,” she tells him sheepishly.

Though honestly? With Coach, you really never know.

Gordy lets out a breath he’d apparently been holding. “When I didn’t hear from you, I got nervous.”

“Sorry. Phoebe and I have been out—”

“And you’re still team captain?” Gordy asks tentatively.

“Yup.” Hearing Gordy’s sad sigh, Mel reminds him, “Um, that’s good news, Gordy.”

“For you, maybe. I’m about to be dumped.”

She could correct him. They were never officially together. Mel was careful about that from the start. Making it clear to Gordy that this, whatever this was, was super low-key, a summer thing. Not to say it hadn’t been nice. Maybe even really nice. But it didn’t change the fact that come September, she would need to devote herself completely to her field hockey team. Anyway, Gordy goes to West Essex. He already knows how it is with the Wildcats.

Mel says sweetly, “I wasn’t planning to dump you. Just ghost you.”

Gordy lets out a little puff of breath instead of a laugh. Mel can almost feel it against her forehead, the way she would if she were curled up in his arms.

“Wow, that’s really cool of you, Mel. Thanks so much.”

Mel teases him like this sometimes. As if she didn’t care about him. But hearing him pout, already missing her, tugs at Mel. No joke.

She should get off the phone.

Instead Mel walks the curb like a balance beam, setting one white canvas sneaker in front of the other and asks, “Where are you?”

“I just got to the lookout on the Frick trail. Where are you?”

“Starbucks.”

“Oh wait. Yeah. I see you down there.”

Gordy’s turn to tease her.

The first time they hiked the Frick trail together, Mel had sworn she could see the Starbucks from the lookout. Not because she actually could, though she did follow the highway with her finger to a spot that was surely a decent guess. It was amazing, dizzying really, to see the entire valley from that vantage point, lush with the greens of summer. Her universe normally fit neatly inside a rectangle of Astroturf.

Granted, she was in a weird place. So much was in flux and none of it in her control. There was her scholarship to Truman, Phoebe’s knee injury, whether or not Coach would be coming back to West Essex, whether or not she would be team captain. Mel was haunted by how she’d let Coach down. His lead scorer unable to put up a single point. Not just in the championship game, either. Mel didn’t score in their last two regular-season games. That she’d played well in the off-season for her club team coaches was no consolation. Actually, it made Mel feel worse.

Hooking up with Gordy gave Mel a way out of her own head. When they were kissing, she thought only of kissing. It was a huge relief to let go. After all, how could things fall back into place with her holding on so tightly to the pieces?

And now, just as she’d hoped, they have. Pretty much.

“Mel? You still there?”

“Yes.”

“Just for the record, I’m happy for you. Last night … I’ve never heard you sound so unsure of yourself. I mean, you’re—”

“Ooh. Hey, Gordy?” Mel bites her lip. “That’s my mom on the other line.”

“Right.”

Something in his voice tells Mel that Gordy knows she’s lying. Mel likes him. She really does. But the ache that’s appeared in Mel’s chest only makes her clearheaded about what she needs to do. So, with a finger already hovering over the red circle, she ends the call with a purposefully cool and detached “Bye.”

Mel hops off the curb and hurries inside.

Phoebe sits at a table, lips around her straw, draining her usual—a Grande iced mocha, no whip. Mel’s usual—a Grande iced mocha, extra whip—is in front of an empty chair. Phoebe’s staring at her phone, dragging her finger down the screen, the same steady stroke, over and over again.

“Everything okay, Phoebs?”

“Yup.” Phoebe turns her phone over, screen side down. “You?”

Mel tucks her hands inside her sweater cuffs and pulls her cup greedily toward her. She takes a sip. Perfectly sweet. “Never better.”

---

Back at home, Mel finds Psych-Up party prep in full swing. A cleaning crew is spread out across the house, vacuuming stripes into the carpet, cleaning windows, fluffing pillows. The caterers have arrived and are stacking three different sizes of white china plates. Outside, the pool guy is lying on his belly, testing the pH in a little beaker.

Her parents spared no expense. Why would they, with so much to celebrate? Their daughter got a full ride to Truman. No matter the outcome of this season, Mr. and Mrs. Gingrich are certain they’ve already won.

There are plenty of other success stories. Most of her senior teammates have already committed to top schools. Jenny Puglisi is headed to Monroe College, Summer Ackerman to DCU. The rest are still weighing their options.

The only senior who hasn’t received a single offer yet is Phoebe.

Mel always knew that two scholarships to Truman would be a long shot, even before Phoebe got hurt. But Phoebe’s worked so, so hard to come back after her injury. Landing a spot on a college team has to happen for her. And Mel is ready to do whatever she can to help Phoebe shine. Fingers crossed, they will at least end up playing in the same division next year. It will be totally surreal for her and Phoebe to be on the same field wearing different jerseys. But the secret truth is that they could never really be against each other. Not in their hearts.

Mel flips through the mail on the kitchen island. Even though she committed to Truman a month ago, she still gets university brochures from schools who aren’t targeting her for field hockey. But it’s the new September issue of Vogue that catches Mel’s eye, a glossy behemoth, addressed to her mom. She slips it underneath her arm and heads upstairs.

Mel finds her varsity jacket laid out on her bed, back from the dry cleaner and sheathed in plastic, a C in blocky font newly sewn onto her sleeve. She tiptoes over, sits carefully next to it, and snakes her hand under the plastic. Thousands of soft, delicate white loops, like a brand-new fluffy towel.

Coach years ago let it slip to Mel that when the time came, the captain’s C would be hers. Mel understood that to mean immediately after the championship game of her junior season, as it had been for the previous captains. Knowing the honor was coming to her ahead of time didn’t take anything away from Mel’s excitement about it. Only shifted it by a few seconds, to right after Coach would call her forward to stand in front of the entire team and give a little speech about her, listing the qualities he felt made her the most deserving.

Would Coach try to surprise her with some new compliment? Or would he say the sorts of things he’d already told her privately? Either way, Mel hoped she wouldn’t blush too badly.

Never in a million years did she imagine her junior season ending with the seniors crying in a huddle. Or Phoebe using her stick like a crutch to hobble over to the trainer’s table. Ali never even made it back into the locker room. Apparently, she walked straight off the field and onto the bus.

Mel lowered her head and watched as pinpricks of blood speckled through her sports bra. Turf rash from a desperate dive she’d made in the final seconds of the match for a ball that had been stolen off her stick. She knew it hurt, but she felt only the shock that she would not turn this around. That she would have no more chances to pull something off and save the day. It was over.

All the compliments she’d been imagining Coach might pay her evaporated. She suddenly had no idea what he thought of her. Her performance in these last three games like an eraser rubbed over her, exposing her for a fluke. Or, worse, a fraud.

And yet, when Coach finally came in to address them, Mel still glanced up, hopeful and hungry.

He said, “I want everyone on the bus in five minutes,” and then left. Without so much as a glance in Mel’s direction.

Their team captain, Rose Tynam-Reed, stepped into Mel’s sight line with a look of disgust that made Mel pull out her ponytail so she could hide behind her hair.

What a horrible teammate she was. With all the hearts that were breaking around her, Mel even thinking about getting the C was the worst kind of betrayal.

She can see now that Coach withholding it from her was just. It hurt at the time, but isn’t that why they call it growing pains?

Anyway. It’s a new season now. Comeback time.

Mel tears away the plastic bag and slips her varsity jacket on, loving the weight of it, and flops on her bed, her feather pillows catching her in a puff.

This season will be Mel’s victory lap. This time she will deliver. For Phoebe, for Coach, for all the girls. There’s no other choice.

Her phone buzzes in the blankets. Another time her heart skips a beat.

Gordy: I’m having people over tonight. You should come.

Gordy: And before you accuse me of forgetting about your sleepover, you can bring the entire team.

Gordy: In fact, I looked up the field hockey calendar. The Wildcats’ season doesn’t officially begin until tomorrow’s scrimmage. So you can’t start ghosting me until then. Deal?

Gordy’s persistence makes her smile. Mel respects it. But she doesn’t text him back.