A low voice groans.
As the four of us turn around, it isn’t only Brandon in the doorway. Pro league Commissioner Starkowsky, his daughter Elyse, and several other team officials stand with their mouths agape.
The commish, shielding his daughter’s eyes, starts yelling.
We hastily make apologies. This was not the plan.
Elyse wiggles out of her father’s grasp. “Dad, I’ve been in and out of locker rooms for almost thirty years. I’ve seen?—”
Starky’s face turns purple. “Boys, you are excused,” he blusters to us.
It all happens in a split second, but we flee from the lounge, dispersing like kids caught ringing the neighbor’s doorbell and running.
In the chaos, one of the guys elbows my nose, leaving it bloody and bruised. I could be mad, but this is what I signed on for—I’ll always take one for the team. They’re my only family.
I can run a ball down the field with no problem, but it’s harder to keep trying to outrun the past, and I’ve taken more than a knock to the nose to survive that.
3
MAGGIE
As I walk a few blocks from the bus stop to the small apartment I rent, I can’t ignore the nearly ever-present feeling of failure that only grows as the minutes pass. Being normal is a lot harder than they make it look on TV.
I rush upstairs, beckoned by the promise of cool, crisp air conditioning. Instead, what may as well be a furnace from the bowels of the earth’s molten center blasts me. I check the thermostat and it registers forty-five degrees, then climbs by threes up to ninety-nine before descending. I adjust the controls and cycle the thing, yet the telltale hum of the AC unit clicking on doesn’t come. I start poking the buttons, begging the thing to register the intense heat.
“Please, please. I just need my core temperature to drop to a manageable level. Meltdown imminent.”
Getting hotter by the second, I stab the buttons, but the air conditioner continues to rebel as if someone woke up this morning and decided to make me as miserable as possible.
“Whoever you are, what did I ever do to you?” I whisper, my mouth so dry from the heat, it’s like I’ve been chewing on cotton balls.
Using the wall to keep upright, I slump to the bathroom and barely turn the shower dial to keep it as cold as possible. Despite my need to cool down, I yelp when I get in as the water splashes me, and not because of the spindly spider in the corner of the shower stall—I cannot reach it, so we agreed that if I don’t get a broom to try to squish it and risk missing, it won’t wait for me to turn my back and drop onto my head.
At last, relief comes and I let the water chill me to the bone. I wish I could say all my troubles and cares from the day wash down the drain along with the strange scent of the fountain water, but the frustration and humiliation cling to me.
Putting on a loose T-shirt and shorts, I slouch to the kitchen and take out an emergency box of cake mix. Usually, I bake from scratch, but it’s too hot to do anything, including, I decide, to turn on the oven. I open the fridge, but I’m out of eggs anyway. Figures. I could try an applesauce substitute, but maybe cake is not in the cards.
Plus, I can’t go to the market and risk being recognized for what’s been quickly titled the “Cinderella Spill” by social media influencers. Nor should I spend money on eggs when my bank sent me a notification yesterday that I dipped below the five-hundred-dollar threshold for their free-from-fees account.
I have three hundred ninety-eight dollars, two coupons for a free round of putt-putt, and one lonely heart to my name.
I drop onto an overturned crate that held my cookbooks before I put them on the counter. It also doubles as a stepstool, recycling container, and in a pinch, a laundry basket. With my elbows resting on my knees, I survey the space. I’ve lived here for about twelve months and have hardly unpacked. Only a calendar hangs on the wall. Not that I have many belongings, anyway.
Over the years, I’ve moved a lot, and each time I gave away or discarded more of my possessions—roommates, charities, and friends are usually happy to take things off my hands, especiallyin the beginning when most of it came with a designer label. Though I could really go for my Bruiser’s hoodie right now because it’s like a security blanket, but I’m sweltering again, and at risk of combusting.
After my last move, I managed to get everything I own into a regular-sized car. The frameless futon mattress was a tight squeeze, but I folded that thing like a taco and shoved it in the backseat, just like I would fit one stuffed with carnitas into my mouth.
When my friend Etta Jo had seen what little I possessed, she’d worn a look of concern, as if to suggest that I’m fixing to disappear. She’s not entirely wrong.
Let me clarify—I don’t want to disappear per se. I just want my identity to be completely my own and not come with attachments or expectations, nor do I want to be my parents’ meal ticket.
Is that too much to ask? According to my mother and father, yes. Then again, I rarely talk to them these days.
Thankfully, growing up, Etta Jo was only allowed to watch non-secular programming and Declan lived in Ireland, so neither of my closest friends knows my dirty little secret.
The last time I was officially recognized in public was three years ago. I was at the supermarket, and a guy wearing a kimono, and nothing else, plopped a bag of cat food in his shopping cart and said, “You’re Honey Holiday from Friends of the Family.”
Thankfully, I don’t particularly look like I did when I was a kid, but as they say, the internet is forever. Same goes for popular, award-winning TV series.
