“Look around you. You used to ski. We’re not that far from the mountains, so you’ll be able to enjoy winter sports here. And, there’s hiking and biking and boating. Get to know the place. You might like it.” She looked at her watch. “I need to get home.” She stood, signaling the end of their conversation.
She was silent as Evan drove her home, anxious to check in on Cece.
The third soccer game of the new season was under way and the girls on Cecelia’s team were down by three goals.
“Please let me in, Coach,” she pleaded. “I can do it.”
“Your mother doesn’t want you playing the whole game, Cecelia, and you were in during the first half. You heard what she said.”
Cecelia sat on the bench, swinging her legs back and forth, angry with her mother, not sure what to say to her coach. She tried again. “But I ran up and down the field at every one of our practices and I was fine. My leg’s fine. Look, you can’t even tell which one got broke!” She stretched her legs in front of her. “They’re just the same. Ask Sam. We’ve been practicing and she said I could—I want to play and I’m all rested—from sitting out so long.”
The coach looked at his watch.“Okay. We’ve only got five more minutes. Go on in.” He blew his whistle and signaled to the ref, asking for a substitution. “Miranda. Come sit down. Cecelia, you go in for her.”
She ran out and took her position. When play resumed, she headed for the ball, intercepted it and moved it down the field. Sam ran near her, ready to assist.
“Go, Cecelia!”A deep voice cheered her from the sidelines.
Marcus’ voice. She looked up. There he was, standing off to the side, near the center of the field. Closer to her team’s goal, her mother was standing next to the really tall man who had come to their house. When the referee blew his whistle, Cecelia concentrated on the game, approached the ball and kicked it toward Sam, who sent it back in her direction, closer to the sidelines. She was almost in front of her mother when she heard Marcus’ voice again. She frowned and refused to look in his direction, even though part of her thrilled that he was cheering for her. She wished things were like they were before … before she’d seen him in her mother’s bed.
She kicked the ball toward Sam and slowed to catch her breath, as her best friend angled the ball into the goal to cheering from the sidelines. When she looked at her mother, she was still speaking to the tall man, not paying attention to the game.
Marcus waved in her direction, and began clapping, his hands high in the air. “Good job, Cecelia!”
The next time she looked, her mother was moving away from the field, her head down, as if concentrating on what the tall man walking with her was saying. Before she went into the building, her mother looked back in her direction, but why did she leave when the game wasn’t even over?
“Cece—here it comes!” Sam yelled.
She looked back in time to see the ball speeding toward her. She intercepted, sent it back down the field toward the goal, and ran after it. When Sam returned it to her, just like they had practiced, she kicked it hard. It sailed into the air and flew just past the outstretched fingers of the goalie. Another score!
“Way to go, Cecelia!” Marcus’ voice carried above the others.
She grinned and looked in his direction. He smiled at her, but then she reminded herself that she didn’t want to like him anymore. Not after that sleepover with her mother, even if Marcus did like her soccer shots and it was fun talking about the books she liked—the books they had read together, especially when she was in the hospital and after. She forced herself to look away from him. He had made her mother cry that day in her office. And now he seemed to be following her.
“Good game, girls—time to touch hands,” her coach said.
Cecelia said good-bye to Sam and trotted in the direction of her mother’s office.She entered the building, absentmindedly touching the top of Shakespeare’s shiny cap. Her mother’s door was open, but she wasn’t there. She heard her voice farther down the hall and followed the sound.
Amanda continued exchanging words with Evan, their voices getting louder. “Evan, my class is my class. You can’t simply barge in and take over. When I invited you to come in, it was as a guest, not as the person in charge.”
“So, what did it hurt? I got the students interested in what I’m doing. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“As a matter of fact, no. I wanted them to be interested in what your work represents. That goes much farther than what you, as an individual writer, accomplish.” She backed away from him and found herself trapped next to the far wall of his office as he looked down at her. His eyes seemed to study her face and her upper body, one hand on either side of her shoulders.