Fowl Play (Tuft Swallow)

44. Kodi

CHAPTER 44

It’s 11:30am on a Sunday, and instead of getting diner food Doordashed to me in my pajamas, I’m dolled up in a dress and strappy blue sandals that Lily had to let me borrow for cooking Sunday dinner with my mother.

Linda Gander doesn’t believe in lazing about in pj’s. She doesn’t believe in wearing anything less formal than a sundress and wedges on the Lord’s Day: even if you’ve just re-injured a chronic knee strain.

I guess I don’t look awful. It’s not that I hate dressing up, I just hate being forced to dress up. In my universe, I want to be ready to tag into a game of flag football at a moment’s notice, and skirts don’t typically play nice with my active lifestyle. I remember the first time I learned that.

Mom had gotten me a brand new white-and-pink gingham party dress with a flared skirt and a big, pink organza bow that tied around the waist, and shining white patent leather Mary Janes for a Church potluck. She spent over an hour that morning taming my unruly, blonde hair into pigtails and curling them into tight ringlets, hairsprayed so stiff that the ends of the tails whipped around and stabbed my cheeks. She insisted the stylist at the salon cut bangs into my hair the week before, so I had to squint in order for my eyebrows to show.

As soon as Sunday School let out, the boys sprinted out into the open lawn outside the fellowship hall and broke out into a game of kickball. Of course, I ran out to follow them.

It had rained the night before. By the time the final notes of the postlude were ringing through the lobby and the adults spilled out of the sanctuary, all of us kids were covered head-to-toe in mud. The straps of my shoes had ripped beyond repair when the third baseman tripped me halfway through my home run, but I’d managed to slide the rest of the way home in the rain-slicked soil, unraveling my organza ribbon to shreds in my wake.

Mom was furious. I smile at the memory.

She let me wear pants to Church after that.

I have to maneuver the crutches a little to get the doorbell, but it’s only a few seconds before Mom throws open the front door and greets me in her immaculate tea-length skirt, cap-sleeved blouse and apron.

“Kodi, honey, there you are! So sorry to hear about the news.”

I flinch. “Yeah, the loss is hitting all of us pretty hard.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that. I meant…” She trails off, her cheeks going slightly pink as she looks me up and down. “Didn’t you see?”

“See what?”

“Today’s…” Mom hesitates, and I know that can only mean one thing.

She’s an avid follower of all of the town gossip, but she absolutely hates the name of The Nosy Pecker. She used to call it “the paper,” until Dad got angry with her one day for confusing it with the actual newspaper that we got delivered each morning.

I can feel my shoulders tensing, even as I edge my way back into the kitchen/dining room, where I’m certain there will be a fresh copy waiting for me.

Past Lover Revealed: Ex Flexes Past Sex at Big Tech’s Sports Complex!

Since Dr. Gosling first arrived here in our storied town, his romantic exploits has been a topic of interest among our eligible men and women. This Pecker was the first to break the news of the Gosling’s break from his former nestmate, and the one to break his blossoming romance with our own Kodi Gander of the Tuft Swallow Mighty Swallows. But this is the first we’ve heard of the good doctor having a kink for Captains...

This little birdie overheard trash talk between Captain Gander and our chief rival Spitz Hollow’s team captain Zeke Chopra, that revealed that the new chiropractor’s ex is none other than Chopra himself! The sower of our discontent, and the mastermind behind Tuft Swallow’s devastating loss yesterday at the new Spitz Hollow Sports Complex!

Perhaps someone should inform our Captain of his fraternization with the enemy before it is too late, and it distracts her from yet another championship.

Tears spring to my eyes. Mom, of course, misreading me like she always does, puts an arm around my shoulder.

“Oh honey, I’m so sorry you had to find out like this.”

I shrug off her patronizing touch. “That’s not what I’m upset about, mom.” My hands are shaking as they clutch the incriminating document, forming wrinkles in its thin paper. Of course they’d make a big deal out of this. And of course they’d make it seem like I’m so helpless, so distracted, that I wouldn’t even be able to figure out the meaning of Zeke’s taunts.

Not only am I still the town failure in their eyes, but I’m dragging everyone else down with me. The team. Our record. And worst of all, Brian.

The person I was trying to save from all of this.

“Did you know? About his…past?” She hisses the last word, implying a whole host of assumptions and connotations that make my stomach twist. Of course, she’d be appalled and upset by my dating someone outside of typical conventions. She was always the one to bat away any questions of my own sexuality back in high school. Telling anyone at church who gave me the side eye that I was just a late bloomer, that my love of sports was a phase, that one day I’d grow into the lovely woman she knew I was deep inside and settle down with a nice, Christian boy…

“You mean his present bisexuality? Yes, Mom. I have known the whole time. Everyone has known. This is not news.”

She presses her hand to her chest and purses her lips, as if not really accepting any of those words as having meaning. “I meant about his ex.”

I fidget a little. Yes, hovers on the tip of my tongue, wanting to thrust it forward like a dagger out of my mouth. That was the whole reason we started pretending to date in the first place.

And in that moment, the true weight of us lying to the town about our relationship presses down on my shoulders like lead. The image of the foundation of us, of Brian and me, that I have in my head starts to teeter.

Do I really want to tell my parents how we started dating? The story of how we met? With me convincing him to date me so he didn’t instantly get ostracized by the town, so I could use him to heal from my injury?

I’m so embarrassed by it now. Especially because it makes it all feel so cheap.

I like Brian, more than I’ve ever liked anyone, and yet we started this whole relationship as an act. A farce.

And what’s more, the initial terms of our agreement–keeping Brian safe from the town gossip mill–were something I couldn’t even stick to as a real girlfriend. He held up his end of the bargain, but I…

The crutches dig into my armpits, which are still flexing uncomfortably as the paper condenses into a smaller ball in my hands. The frustration and shame must radiate off my body in waves, because Mom tries to console me with a hug.

“Oh, Kodi…”

“Ugh, stop it!” I shriek, pushing her and her pity away from me. “Yes, I knew. That’s not why I’m upset. I could never be upset with Brian about something like that.”

The hurt on Mom’s face twists into confusion. “Then what are you crying about?”

“Crying?” I mutter. I swipe at my face, surprised to see that the tears that threatened earlier are now spilling down my cheeks. More anger knocks at the dam inside. “This is too much. I can’t do this today.”

“Honey, stop–” Mom starts, but I’m already swinging myself out the door.

Right now, I need to be far away from Tuft Swallow.