"Yeah, tell him we're driving off with some guy we just met. That way no one will worry."
Cami didn't answer as she walked into the gas station. I stretched out my legs as I waited for her, avoiding a pile of CDs lying on the Hyundai's floor.
Daniel turned to look at me. "Fredrick came up with some really good jokes for you. Hey, how many jockettes does it take to plan a road trip?"
I leaned back against the car seat. "As if my day hasn't been long enough already."
"Two less than they started out with." Daniel laughed, then turned back around. "That was my favorite one."
Cami came back to the car to ask Daniel if he had a mobile phone. He did. She left that number with the gas station guy, and then called Frederick to thank him. At least she said it was to thank him; I think she was still worried Daniel might be an escaped criminal who prowled gas stations looking for victims, and she wanted to talk to Frederick just to make double sure it was safe to get in the car with Daniel.
Finally she got in the backseat and handed me the phone so I could talk to Frederick while Daniel drove. Frederick still hadn't gotten hold of Coach Melbourne's number, but he had tracked down the mother of one of our teammates' mobile phone number. She was on her way to Basha High and told him she would relay the message to the coach as soon as she saw her. Then Frederick made me listen to jockette jokes.
"Why did the jockette cross the road?
To chase down the car that just left her.
How many jockettes does it take to change a lightbulb?
Who knows? They can't count."
"Very funny," I told him. "How many chess players does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"
"I don't know."
"Neither do I, because no one ever watches chess players, because it's a boring game."
"Only to the uninitiated," he said. "I'll teach you how to play, and then you'll know what real competition is."
I glanced at Daniel and his surfer-boy hair. "Sure, you can teach me. Come to think of it, chess might be a lot of fun."
I said good-bye to Frederick and handed the phone back to Daniel with a smile. "You'll be staying to watch us play our game, won't you?"
He shrugged and smiled back at me. "I guess I could stay for a while."
"Great. I mean, I'm sure the coach, and the team, and my family will want to thank you for driving us all the way to Basha High. And by the way, if you see a five-year-old boy running around the bleachers and being obnoxious—that's Cami's little brother."
Daniel tilted his head. He had dimples and an adorable cleft in his chin. "You're not at all what I expected Frederick's friend to be like."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it's just that Frederick's so . . . um . . . I mean, Frederick is a great guy, and everything . . . I just didn't think . . ." Daniel blushed, ran a hand through his hair, and stared straight ahead at the road again. "Never mind."
"No, tell me."
"Really, just forget I said anything." Daniel kept staring at the road, and I leaned back in the seat, wondering if I'd been complimented or not.
Daniel tapped a finger against the steering wheel. "You and Frederick aren't going out, are you?"
"No. We're just friends."
"Good," Daniel said.
And then I smiled. I'd been complimented.
We talked about Frederick, chess tournaments—which I suddenly found fascinating—and basketball. Daniel played some, but mostly he ran track. I found that fascinating too.
When we were half an hour away from Chandler, his phone rang. He answered it, then turned it over to me. It was Coach Melbourne, her voice coming between breaths of re lief. "Where are you? Are you okay? Do you realize you nearly gave me a heart attack?"
"We're fine. We're about twenty miles outside of Chandler, and blame Ashley and Erica for the heart attack. They left us at the gas station on purpose."
Cami held out her hand as though she wanted to take the phone and add her own commentary, but I ignored her. I wanted to hear Coach Melbourne screaming at Ashley and Erica myself.
"Ashley already told me what happened," Coach Melbourne said. "She thought you switched cars to ride with Lucy. She told her mother you were with them, but the Sim-monses didn't know anything about it, and so we only just found out you'd been left. Really, Josie, you girls should have stayed by the cars instead of dawdling around the gas station."
I clutched the phone harder. "We weren't dawdling. They tricked us into being left. Ashley told us you said everyone had to use the restroom, and then Erica told us to wait for Mikala, when Mikala wasn't even in the bathroom."
"I'm sure it was just a mistake, Josie."
I gripped the phone so hard I probably permanently indented my fingerprints into the plastic. "How could it be a mistake when we never said we were riding with the Sim-monses?"
There was a pause. "You didn't talk to Lucy about going in her car?"
"No," I said, and then remembered I had spoken to Lucy in the parking lot. "I just told her I'd go by her car for a cookie."
"Well, Ashley must have misheard and assumed you were switching cars. Of course she should have double-checked, but you two should have stayed with the group instead of going off by yourselves."
"We didn't—" I started to say, but Coach cut me off.
"Look, this has been a bad trip all around, and I'm sorry you got left. We all are. If you could see how upset Ashley is about this, you'd know she didn't do it on purpose."
Yeah, I bet she was upset—upset we'd found a ride and wouldn't miss the game after all. But I wasn't going to be able to convince Coach Melbourne about her true intentions. I just had to be satisfied that Ashley's plan hadn't worked—and in fact had backfired in a way she'd never intended. For at least a little while, Cami and I were on speaking terms. I wondered if it would last, or if we'd soon be back to the prickly emptiness that popped up whenever we were together now.
I said good-bye to the coach and hung up, then handed the phone back to Daniel.
Cami leaned over the seat toward me. "Are Ashley and Erica going to be thrown off the team?"
"They told Coach Melbourne it was all a misunderstanding."
Cami grunted in disbelief. "And she believed them? She couldn't be that naive."
"Apparently she could be."
Cami sat back in her seat with a thump. "I sang Celine Dion songs to strangers at a gas station. Ashley and Erica have to have some sort of payback for this."
"A big payback," I agreed. "What should we do?"
"I can't think of anything horrible enough." Cami licked her lips. Her eyes narrowed. "Give me a little time, and I'll come up with something, though."
For a moment I tried to think of possible revenge scenarios, but I couldn't come up with anything that wouldn't get me suspended from the team.
I turned to Daniel. "What would you do?"
Daniel slid his fingers down the steering wheel. He didn't say anything for a minute, and I didn't think he'd answer at all. Then he said, "Do you know why I win at chess a lot?"
"Why?" I asked.
"I don't try to pay back people."
"What?" I said.
"If you're worried about retaliating against someone, you get caught up in the wrong game and lose sight of your goal. You have to decide which battle you want to win, and concentrate on that."
I ran my hand across the faded upholstery and felt the hum of the car on the road. "You don't think we should do anything to the girls who left us at a gas station?"
Cami humphed again from the backseat. "Well, now I know why I'm not any good at chess."
Daniel shook his head and gave a shrug. "I'm just saying it's better to think about things with your mind, not your emotions. If you react emotionally, you're likely to do something you'll regret later."
Like, say, telling the guy your best friend likes that she's a kleptomaniac.
Neither Cami nor I said anything for a couple of minutes, and I knew she was thinking about us.
Everything we'd done lately, we'd done wrong.
Cami reached over the seat and picked up Daniel's MapQuest directions to the school. She studied them, then glanced at the clock on the dashboard. "We'll miss warm-ups, but hopefully we'll get there by game time."
What she meant was, "We'll be there when Coach Melbourne picks someone to play with Rebecca."
It had been such a competition between us, and now suddenly her name, just the thought of Rebecca, made me feel uncomfortable. I had been trying for MVP to bother Cami, and now it didn't seem worth it.
"It better not be Erica or Ashley," Cami muttered.
I tilted the Slurpee cup and watched the coins clang to the other side. "I hope Rebecca tells us what playing in the WNBA is like. That's all I really wanted to ask her. You know, whether basketball is still fun, or whether all the pressure turns it into work. Maybe you're always worried about being cut, or traded, or getting a lousy review in the sports section. Maybe the whole team goes back to the locker room and cries after they lose."
"Somehow I can't see Lisa Leslie crying."
"You're probably right. You know more about the players than I do."
It was a weak apology, and yet I hoped she knew what I meant anyway.
Fourteen
Cami
It was easy to tell when we'd reached Basha High. The parking lot was full of cars, a couple of them news vans.
Rebecca was here.
My parents and Josie's parents were waiting for us in front of the school. My parents were calm about the whole thing. They just gave me a hug, said they'd been worried, then patted my shoulder and told me to go dress down. Mrs. Caraway burst into tears, hugged Josie like it was her last day on earth, and swore she'd never let anyone else drive her anywhere again. She also said she would have a talk with Mrs. Holt, because as an adult it was Mrs. Holt's responsibility to make sure no one got stranded in the desert, and heaven knew what could have happened to us—we could have died—and if Mrs. Holt didn't have enough sense to make sure everyone was in a car, she shouldn't be allowed to drive students anywhere, and Mrs. Caraway was going to tell her so, and then after that, Mrs. Caraway was going to tell the same thing to Coach Melbourne and the school district.
Which almost made me feel sorry for Mrs. Holt, but not quite.
Inside the Basha locker room our clothes were waiting in our duffel bags. The rest of the girls were standing in a semicircle in front of Coach Melbourne, getting a last-minute pep talk.
I hurried and changed, my heart beating fast and my fingers suddenly clumsy. Rebecca was probably out in the auditorium. How could anyone sit still and listen to the coach when Rebecca Lobo was somewhere near? She would meet us all. I knew she'd come and say hi to the team. Even though I knew this, had known it for months, I still didn't know what to say to her. What did you say to someone whose image had been plastered all over your bedroom walls for years? I wanted to stick out from the other three hundred people she would see today. I wanted her to remember me.
Josie finished changing before me and sat down behind the rest of the girls. I finally got my shoelaces to behave and joined her.
" . . . so the important thing is that you represent your school well and have a good time. That's what playing basketball is all about." Coach Melbourne shifted the basketball from one arm to the other. "Now before I tell you who gets to play with Rebecca, I want you to know what a difficult decision it was. We've got a great team, and every one of you deserves it. You keep playing the way you are, and one day Rebecca may be asking you for your autograph." The coach gave a little laugh then, and probably we should have joined in, but we were all too nervous for laughter. "I could only choose one of you, though, so I chose the player who consistently, seriously, gives it her all every day. There are higher scorers and more visible team leaders, but there's one player whose extra effort affects our game on every level. She's an example to all of us. I chose Cami."
Coach Melbourne started clapping for me, and the other girls joined in, even Ashley, who looked like she wanted to cry. I took deep breaths, afraid in a moment everything would dissolve and I'd wake up in the front seat of the Holts' Honda with an impression of the car door on my face and find out every good thing that had happened this afternoon was just a dream.
Josie was talking to me again, and now this—I got to play with Rebecca Lobo. I turned to Josie, wanting to hug her, but she was just clapping calmly like everyone else, and I wasn't sure whether she was happy for me, or whether she wanted to cry, like Ashley, and was just doing a better job of hiding it. She hadn't won, after all. I had.
"Now let's get out there and play a good game!" Coach Melbourne said, then lifted her hand in the signal for us to yell, "Go, Sanchez!"
We gave our team shout and got to our feet to leave the locker room. I took hold of Josie's arm. We only had a few more moments before we got carried away in the events of the game. "You're the high-scoring player," I told her. "You're the best on the team. You deserve to play with Rebecca. I'm going to ask Coach Melbourne to choose you instead."
Josie's head jerked backward. "What? Are you crazy? She picked you."
"Yeah, but . . . " The other girls were going out the door. I knew we should follow them, but I still held on to Josie's arm. "When you wanted Ethan, I wasn't a friend to you. I need to be a friend to you now. I want you to play with Rebecca."
Josie blinked at me and spoke slowly. "No. When you had Ethan and I didn't, I wasn't a friend to you. I need to be a friend to you now. You earned the chance to play with Rebecca fair and square."
I hugged her then, all the hurt and doubt draining away. I was so happy to have her back.
"We're friends," I said.
"Friends," she agreed.
We went out to the auditorium, and started the game. To my credit, I did a good job of paying attention to the ball, as opposed to staring into the audience to see if Rebecca was watching me. I wanted to play the best game I had ever played. I wanted to sail across the court with the ball.
At halftime we were down by two points, but I didn't care. The team took seats on the sidelines while Rebecca stood at the podium, decked out in warm-up pants, a Connecticut Sun T-shirt, and Nikes. She gave a short speech about the importance of girls' sports to our health and esteem. She looked confident and at ease, like it didn't even make her nervous to speak while there were cameras right in front of her.
I agreed with everything she talked about, and couldn't remember a thing she said after it left her mouth. She looked like a movie star, like an angel—a really tall angel—and it seemed amazing she was actually in the same room with me. I was going to play with her. I was going to touch the same ball she touched.
"Now I'd like to do a little demonstration, and I need a helper from each team." She stepped down from the podium, and the coach motioned for me to get up.
"It's your time, Cami."
Next to me, Josie patted my back. "Don't trip."
But I wasn't worried about that. I jogged out onto the court feeling like I could fly. Cameras flashed all around me. I heard Caroline's voice somewhere from the stands yell, "Wahooo, Cami!" I was going to have to work with her on her sports cheers.
One of the Basha team members joined me out on the court, and we walked the last few steps up to Rebecca. She smiled at us, and I noticed she was prettier in real life.
"Ready to play, girls?"
We nodded.
"Don't show me up and make me look bad." I knew she was joking, trying to set us at ease.
"There's no way you could ever look bad," I said, and she gave me an extra smile.
"I like you already, kid."
Rebecca spoke to the audience, told them that we would demonstrate the layup, the jump shot, the free throw, and the three-man weave. It was all for show, really, since anyone who cared about basketball already knew these things, and those who didn't weren't likely to remember it just because of tonight. Still, I felt so important out on the court with her, running drills, pa
ssing the ball back and forth. All eyes, and several news cameras, were on us.
After she demonstrated the free throw, she threw the ball to me and said, "Your turn."
I held the ball in my hands, trying to be one with it. I am the ball.
Of course, telling myself I was one with the ball had never really worked before, so I held the ball close to my face and tried to send it psychic thoughts. "You like me. You want to go in the basket for me, just like you always do for Josie."
But I knew that wouldn't work either. I would make or miss the shot according to my own skill.
I aimed and flung the ball toward the basket, not breathing as it soared toward the backboard. It hit right above the hoop and dropped into the basket.
I breathed. I listened to the audience applause, and from the sidelines I saw Josie cheering for me.
Josie
A lot of people don't live up to your expectations when you meet them, but Rebecca did. She seemed happy to see us and to talk to us, even though we were a just a bunch of teenagers.
After her demonstration, the girl from Basha's team went back to the sidelines, but Cami paused there on the basketball court and said something to Rebecca—probably telling Rebecca what a fan she was and how she was naming her firstborn child Rebecca even if it was a boy. And Rebecca took the time to talk back to her. (Probably telling her not to name her son Rebecca unless she wanted to see the kid beat up at recess every day.) For a couple of minutes the two of them talked out there on the court while the audience sat watching and waiting for the game to start. I bet most celebrities would have brushed off a kid who's trying to start a conversation in the middle of a full auditorium, but Rebecca didn't.
The news vans all packed up and left after Rebecca's demonstration, but she stayed for the entire game. Chandler was a tough team to play, especially since Ashley and Erica sat on the bench the entire night.
Which just went to show you Coach Melbourne wasn't as naive as we thought.
Any other day we probably would have lost to Chandler, but I had so much energy. Cami and I were back in our rhythm. I made basket after basket. By the end of the game Chandler had two guards constantly on me, and my game total was still fifteen points. When the ending buzzer rang, we'd won, forty-six to forty-three.