FRIDAY, AUGUST 26

9:02 P.M.

GRACE

Grace didn’t see Coach leave, but it’s obvious that he’s gone, because all the girls are changing into their bathing suits. Some, like Grace, are waiting for one of the bathrooms to change in privacy, while others strip down behind different pieces of furniture, modesty willingly traded for a chance to claim one of the novelty floats awaiting them in Mel’s swimming pool.

Grace is relieved that the overall mood is as buoyant. Since she wasn’t on varsity last year, she doesn’t take Coach’s gripes as personally as others might. But Grace had been in the stands for the state championship game to cheer the Wildcats on, which put her close enough to know exactly how badly it sucked.

That morning was brutally cold and the forecast warned it would only get colder, maybe even snow, so Grace dressed for warmth rather than Wildcat team spirit. A pair of thick tights underneath the only jeans she owned that didn’t have holes, two sets of socks, her scuffed white Doc Martens boots, two T-shirts, an itchy lemon cardigan sweater that was warm despite its state of partial unraveling, her grandfather’s black wool peacoat that weighed about ten pounds, a shearling-lined striped hat with dorky ear flaps, and a pair of mismatched mittens.

The sky pressed down with thick one-dimensional grayness as Chuck drove Grace over to the high school. He took the turns fast, making up for the time Grace had spent coaxing him out of bed, then to find his keys, then something to scrape the frost off the windshield. But she wasn’t late. If Chuck was her ride, Grace always padded the clock.

The JV team had planned to meet at the high school at nine thirty to surprise the Wildcats by decorating the varsity team bus and cheering them as they boarded and departed for the state university’s field. Grace was a minute early by those plans, but found she was still the last of her JV teammates to arrive. And that the varsity team bus was already decked out. Windows soaped with paw prints, giant letters cut from construction paper and taped to the body, empty cans tied to the back bumper with blue and white ribbons. Her JV teammates were cleaning up what looked like the remains of a breakfast tailgate. Crushing empty donut boxes, pouring out half-full hot chocolates that had gone cold.

“Do you want me to stick around?” Chuck asked gently. “Or I could take you to the game. I’m not doing anything today.”

“One of the girls will drive me,” she assured her brother, with no clue who that might be. But Grace was so embarrassed, she just wanted him to go.

She did not call her teammates out for purposefully excluding her. The way to survive was to swallow their drips of venom until you were immune. So Grace acted like she’d been the one who’d gotten the time wrong. She complimented their work—the bus did look awesome—and found ways to involve herself, checking the knots on the streamers and strings. There was one donut left, a jelly that another girl had tasted and put back. Grace ate around the bite mark.

Then the girls formed two lines stretching from the bus to the doors of the West Essex athletic wing and stood at attention like sentry knights in the cold. When the Wildcats emerged, the JV team whooped and hollered, clapping mittened hands together, cheering each player’s name and jersey number, someone’s phone blasting “We Are the Champions.”

The varsity players kept their heads low and their earbuds tucked in as they walked this gauntlet, but they still smiled and some even blushed. Like embarrassed big sisters who love you even when you make a complete ass of yourself.

The only player who didn’t look up was Kearson.

Grace did manage to score a ride to the game. She didn’t bother asking, just squeezed into the way, way back of a minivan and rode next to her teammate’s kid sister.

At the state university field, JV rushed to claim a section of bleachers directly behind the Wildcats’ team bench. Though there was already a nice crowd to watch the game, and it continued to fill in, the stadium was so big that the place felt empty. Still, the JV girls were fizzing with anticipation. They hardly ever got to see the varsity team play because they were on opposite schedules—home games when varsity was away, and vice versa. And this game held a significance far beyond anything they’d personally experienced. Even though they had finished their season respectably the week before, with a shutout against Shaler Township to an almost full home field crowd, JV was essentially just practice, a chance to sharpen their skills, learn how their teammates played, scope out the competition. Whether JV won or lost was almost an afterthought.

The Wildcats hardly got off a shot in the first half. Mel and Phoebe struggled to slip back into their rhythm. No one was worried. Even though varsity had lost the last two regular-season games. And Phoebe wasn’t in tip-top form. It was still unimaginable they’d lose to Oak Knolls.

After halftime, things started to come apart for the Wildcats but it fused the JV together. The Wildcats were making stupid mistakes and playing sloppily. The JV team had been boisterous throughout but now they screamed their throats raw. They wanted their enthusiasm to smooth whatever was cracking. They wanted their belief in the varsity girls to make them believe in themselves. As the clock ticked down, they abandoned their hopes for an outright win, and prayed the game would remain scoreless and go into overtime.

And then, with just two minutes to go, Darlene Maguire scored on Ali.

The JV girls clung to one another. It took a second to absorb the shock, but Grace and her fellow teammates still applauded Ali’s efforts—she’d gotten a finger on it.

When Darlene scored again not a minute later, the JV girls were far less forgiving. Grace heard them cattily pointing out how Ali had barely moved. Marissa even said, “What the eff? Did Ali have a stroke out there or something?”

At the end of every game, all the players on the Wildcats jog down to the end of the field, pick up their goalie, and walk off the field together. It’s a sign of unity. But after the final whistle, no one went to get Ali.

Granted, there was a lot of commotion. Senior girls crying. The team trainer running out to help Phoebe off the field. Mel, sinking to her knees in front of the scoreboard. Still, Ali glanced around for her teammates, dazed at first, then disbelieving. And Grace, despite her distance from the field, felt a familiar sting.

The JV girls glumly shuffled up the bleacher stairs and toward the exit, evaporated adrenaline now exposing them to the frigid temperature. Grace went the opposite direction, fighting the flow of the departing crowd down to the entrance of the players tunnel. There, she quietly, respectfully wished “Good game” to all the Wildcats on their way to the locker rooms, okay that her voice was drowned out by Oak Knolls well-wishers who vastly outnumbered her. But when Ali finally came through, hobbling in her bulky pads, Grace cupped her hands and shouted, to ensure it wouldn’t be.

Coach was last off the field and the only one who looked up at the sound of Grace’s voice. She briefly thought she saw Coach cringe before he disappeared into the tunnel, though at the time, Grace blamed the cold. After all, the snow flurries had just begun to fall.

Except tonight, in the August heat, he’d done it again. This time, during his speech, the one and only time his eyes had landed on her.

“Grace!”

Ali, in a strapless floral bathing suit, beckons Grace across the backyard, over to where Mel is in the middle of a pre-swim pep talk with the rest of the Wildcats.

“Listen. I know that Coach’s speech was a bit of a surprise tonight. But … I mean …” Mel shrugs. “That’s his style, you know? He likes to keep us on our toes. And all he really cares about is what happens on the field when it’s game time.”

Grace feels herself nodding in agreement. It is a comfort. A place where Grace knows without a doubt she’ll measure up.

“But it’s okay. We’re okay. And tomorrow we’re going to show Coach, and Oak Knolls, that the girls on this team know exactly who we are.”

From off to the side, a streak of a voice. “We are the fucking Wildcats!” Phoebe races through them and cannonballs into the pool to the cheers of the team.

Grace hasn’t gone swimming much this summer. Once at her uncle’s Fourth of July barbecue. A few dips in the lake at Kissawa. The pool in Mel’s backyard has a diving board and also a hot tub just off the stairs leading to the shallow end. Grace would love to dive in but she is afraid her blue hair color might run, so she twists it up in a bun at the tippy top of her head, then lowers herself into the bubbling hot tub. The water is searing but it feels so good on her sore muscles.

Kearson approaches and unfurls her towel. Her bikini is cute. Pink gingham. Grace watches Kearson slide in with her, though she doesn’t exactly join her. Without a word, Kearson leans back and closes her eyes.

Though she wasn’t overtly mean like some of the other JV girls, Kearson never made much of an effort to be nice to Grace either. But Grace knows tonight is about coming together. They are teammates again, but in a new way.

Grace closes her eyes too and clears her throat. “Congrats on making the team.”

“Thanks, Grace,” Kearson says. “You too.”

Grace waits to see if Kearson will volley the conversation back. She listens to the gurgle of the jets, the pulse of the music, the splashes and squeals of the other girls in the pool. Eventually, she peeks to see if Kearson is there. She is. Eyes still closed. Relaxing. So Grace closes hers again too and tries to do the same. This was a friendly enough start but there’s no rush. They have an entire season to warm up to each other.

“I’m sorry, Grace.”

Grace sits up. “For what?”

“I never thanked you for the cookies you made me last season.”

Quinn came up with the idea that the JV girls should each pick a varsity Wildcat and bake them a special championship treat on the last school day before the big game. The treats could go in pretty bags, or maybe an individual Tupperware container, but whatever it was should be decorated with the player’s last name and jersey number in cheery bubble letters. And include a handwritten note wishing them luck.

Almost immediately, the JV girls began to shout out the names of varsity players they wanted to bake for. The senior starters were picked first, claimed by the most popular girls. Grace was not given an option. Or rather, before she called out a name, it was suggested she take Kearson. None of Kearson’s friends apparently wanted her. They were jealous. And anyway, Grace heard whispers that Phoebe had been cleared to play, her recovery likely sped up by how badly Kearson sucked in the last two games.

But fine. Sure. Whatever.

Grace isn’t much of a baker, so she bought a roll of premade cookie dough. They came out of the oven looking okay, but Grace left them to cool on the baking sheet, and by the time she chipped them off, the bottoms were black.

She put the cookies in a bag on the Friday before the game. At first she didn’t bother including a handwritten note. It wasn’t like they were close. But before tucking them into Kearson’s locker, she ripped out a piece of notebook paper and quickly scribbled down a quote. Serena Williams.

A champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall.

“Oh. I’m glad you liked them.”

“Don’t get me wrong. They tasted awful. But I was really grateful.” Kearson smiles shyly. “So grateful that I ate them all anyway.”

“Well … that makes me happy and also sad. But mostly happy.”

Mel walks around the backyard addressing the different clusters of girls. Eventually she makes her way over to the hot tub and bends down. “Hey, it’s getting late. Coach wants lights-out by ten o’clock.”

Grace and Kearson lift themselves out of the water. Mel hands them their towels. They follow the rest of the team back into Mel’s house. The caterers have taken the food and serving dishes away. In the clean kitchen, the lights are off except for one over the sink and a scented candle flickering on the counter. Mel’s parents must have gone to bed.

The finished basement is cooler than any other room in the house, windowless and holding the central air. It’s borderline frigid. Grace breaks out in goose bumps as she peels off her bathing suit, changes into her Ramones T-shirt and the bike shorts, and grabs her toothbrush.

The fight for sink space becomes a little game. The girls, like sisters in a too-small house, box each other out to wash their faces and brush their teeth. Phoebe teases a junior for using kids’ toothpaste, which Grace defends, because she used the same kind and remembers it being hella delicious, and several girls commiserate that toothpaste companies don’t make fun flavors for adults. Ali rushes in, desperate to pee, no privacy needed, which prompts Phoebe to tell everyone a story about how, after getting stuck behind an accident on the highway, they forced the bus driver to pull over on the shoulder and the whole team lined up and peed in the weeds.

Mel suddenly barges in. “One of the girls on Oak Knolls just posted a video and tagged a bunch of us in the comments.”

Everyone is pretty pissed, but Phoebe is incensed. She spits, wipes her mouth with her arm. “You’re fucking kidding me.” She storms out.

“Who was it?” Ali shouts after them and rips off a piece of toilet paper so hard that it sends the roll spinning. “Who posted the video?”

The team gathers into the main room of the finished basement and crowds around Mel’s phone. A bunch of girls shout that they can’t see, so Mel shouts back, “Okay, okay,” and mirrors her phone to the television.

It’s Darlene Maguire’s page.

The room falls silent. Mel presses play.

First, music. A snippet of “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie.

Then a crudely edited slideshow. Pictures of newspaper articles, college acceptance letters. Then a video of championship game footage taken from the local cable channel broadcast and edited down into a Boomerang. Darlene scoring on Ali over and over and over again while Ali remains motionless.

Mel reaches out and gives Ali’s shoulder a tender squeeze. Ali doesn’t take her eyes off the television.

The video ends with the entire Oak Knolls team on their home field with the state championship trophy and a white bulldog.

Grace tunes into a whispered conversation behind her.

“I hate Oak Knolls but that bulldog is cute.”

“I heard their coach never lets him inside. Just trots him around at games like a prop.”

“Someone should call animal control. That’s cruel.”

Oak Knolls waves at the camera. At the Wildcats.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow. You’re only a day away!

Mel quickly disconnects her phone before the video begins replaying.

“You okay?” Phoebe asks Ali.

“Yup,” Ali says too quick, too focused on unfurling her sleeping bag.

Phoebe isn’t quite buying Ali’s answer, but instead of pressing her, she turns to the rest of the girls and announces, “Tomorrow we’ll wipe those shit-eating grins off their faces.”

Two senior players open up the couch into a full-sized bed already made with sheets and tightly tucked blankets. They climb on and a third girl squeezes in the middle, but when a fourth tries to fit, she immediately slips off the end, which makes the whole room crack up laughing.

The rest of the girls unfurl their bedding—sleeping bags, comforters brought from home—onto the plush carpet.

Kearson waves Grace over. “Grace! There’s room over here!”

Mel tiptoes over the bodies, spare pillows tucked under each arm. “Did you forget a pillow, Grace?” She tosses one over.

Grace tries to hand it back. “This kind of hair dye sometimes rubs off.”

“It’s fine. My mom has a million pillowcases.”

She takes her dress and wraps it over top of the pillow, just in case.

At two minutes before ten Mel turns off the lights. Grace wonders if Mel will sleep upstairs in her own bed. But no, she finds space next to Phoebe.

A comedic round of “Good night” goes from head to head to head. Lots of giggles at first, then a bit of shushing.

Grace settles into her spot in the corner. The AC vent is nearby, with its whispers of cold wind. It’s crazy to think of all that crammed into a single day, both physically and emotionally. Grace lets her head sink into the pillow.

Just as she hoped, Grace has finally found her place. Her people. Her pack.