Chapter Two Summer
Chapter Two
Summer
“There must be something you can do.” I follow behind my mother as she carries a laundry basket down the hallway in our house.
“We’ve been through this, honey.” She steps into the bathroom and sets the basket on the floor. “You know if there were any way to keep you at Oakley with your friends senior year, I would have already done it.”
The compassionate expression on her face makes a sliver of guilt wrap around the anger consuming me. I already knew that was true. She’s always had my back. Always.
But…
“Isn’t there someone we can appeal to? Maybe if we just asked the schools for some sort of leniency? The Frost Lake girls don’t want me there any more than I want to be there.”
When she finishes with the towels, Mom grabs the laundry basket and rests it on one hip. With her free hand, she reaches out and cups my cheek. Her thumb slides along my face. It’s comforting in a way I don’t want right now. It feels like giving up.
“I’m sorry.”
“It isn’t your fault,” I mutter. Aside from picking out this house twenty years ago, she didn’t do anything. Stupid school boundary laws. We’ve always been right on the line. Our block and everything to the east was in the Oakley school district and everything west part of Frost Lake.
Until now. They redrew the district maps and the line moved, placing us in Frost Lake. There is only one other house that was impacted. Across the street, a little boy is starting school this year, so at least he isn’t being moved after spending the past twelve years at Oakley.
“My friends are all there, Kevin, my team.” My voice is a whine, frustration bleeding into every word. “This is so unfair.”
My mother’s hand falls away and her look of sympathy morphs into something more like steely determination.
She isn’t a big fan of wallowing. Her life hasn’t been easy.
She once told me she didn’t have time to sit around and feel sorry for herself when things were tough.
Which I guess is true. She works two jobs to provide for our family, takes care of Dad when he’s having a rough spell, plus maintains the house, the yard, and everything else Silas and I need.
Knowing that makes me appreciate her so much, even now in my frustration, but it doesn’t solve my problem.
“Those Frost Lake girls hate me,” I say, following her out of the bathroom.
This time she turns into my room and sets the basket on my bed. I take a seat next to it and grab my soccer ball off my pillow. The worn leather is a comfort under my palms.
“They don’t even know you,” she says after emptying the contents of her laundry basket into tidy stacks beside me.
“Yeah, well, they don’t want to know me. I’m the enemy.”
Her eyes, the same hazel color as my own, spark with amusement, silently calling me on my dramatics. But she didn’t see the way those girls looked at me today. I am the enemy to them.
A knot forms in the pit of my stomach as acceptance, or at least acknowledgment, washes over me.
I’m switching schools senior year. Everything that I was excited about for my final year at Oakley is now gone.
No first day of school with Charlotte and Jill.
No going to dances and football games with Kevin.
And no run at state with the team I’ve known and played with all through school.
There’s nothing to do about this shitty turn of events and no one to save me. Like it or not, this is what’s happening.
I hate it.
“You can only do what you can do. Keep your chin up and work hard, like you’ve always done.” It’s advice she’s given me countless times over the year. No-nonsense, tough, slay your own dragons—that’s the Lindsey family motto.
I nod my agreement and feel my stomach muscles relax the tiniest bit.
Her words soothe me more than the truth of them.
I know it won’t be that easy, but I have twenty-four hours before I have to face the girls on the soccer team again.
Practices start tomorrow and then school in two weeks.
The scrimmage was a prequel to what it’ll be like (awful), but at least for the rest of today, I can pretend nothing has changed.
“Now.” Mom straightens with the empty basket on her hip. “It’s your turn to unload the dishwasher.”
My face scrunches up.
“Don’t give me that,” she says as she heads for the door. “And shower too. This room smells like a locker room.”
* * *
“Hi! I’m sorry I’m late.” I tie the black apron around my waist as I step behind the concession stand at the Frost Lake Country Club.
I’ve worked here for the past two years.
During the school year only a few times a week, less during soccer season, but it’s basically my home away from home during the summer.
It helps that my best friend, Charlotte, works here with me.
“It’s okay.” Charlotte hands a kid a red Popsicle with a smile and then turns to me. “I had a hunch you might be running behind today.”
“Why’s that?”
“First day with the Frost Lake girls,” she says with an expression that adds duh. “Were they awful? Did you spend all afternoon plotting revenge and lost track of time, or did they hold you hostage so they could haze you?”
I snort a laugh. Leave it to Charlotte to pull me out of the funk I’ve been in all day. “Neither. Mom had me doing chores. I barely had time for plotting and scheming.”
“That Momma Lindsey is a genius. Keeping you distracted so you don’t get into any trouble.”
I grunt my begrudging agreement. Although I think it was more necessity than anything else. Dad’s had a tough week.
“You didn’t answer my first question. Were they awful?”
“Pretty much.”
I can still picture my new teammates’ faces as I walked out onto the field. Their look was a mixture of shock and outrage. I think they thought I was there to mess with them. Like it was some elaborate prank that I dreamed up with my friends at Oakley. I wish.
Coach Bradley knew I was coming. My old coach contacted her on my behalf to explain the situation, but it was clear she hadn’t shared it with the team until I walked onto the field.
“I’m sorry.” Charlotte steps over to me and wraps me in a tight hug.
She’s four inches shorter than me and tiny, but she squeezes me like a big, burly man.
All annoyance, as well as the air in my lungs, leaves in a whoosh.
We’ve been inseparable since second grade.
Her hugs are her superpower and I’ve never needed one more than now.
“It’ll be okay,” I say with more belief than I truly feel. “Right?”
“Right.” Her voice sounds more convinced than mine.
Our boss appears at the front of the concession before Charlotte can reassure me further.
Brent gives us a forced, tight smile. He’s worked here as long as I have.
He graduated from Oakley two years ago, but he acts like he’s way older and more mature than us.
Then again, I once saw him doing a keg stand at a party, so I’m not fooled on the mature part.
“Jackie needs one of you in the restaurant tonight,” he says.
Charlotte and I share a disappointed frown. The best part of this job is working together.
“I can do it,” Charlotte offers, but I know she’s only trying to do me a favor. She hates working in the restaurant. We both do.
“No, I’ve got it.” I take a deep breath that lifts my shoulders and let it out slowly. I’m already having a shit day, no reason to ruin hers too.
“Are you sure?” she asks.
“Whoever is going, decide quickly. They’re slammed tonight.” He looks down at his cell phone as he waits for us to make a decision.
“It’ll keep my mind from plotting and scheming,” I tell Charlotte. “Plus the tips will be nice.”
Brent looks up long enough to confirm we’ve reached a decision and then nods. “I’ll let Jackie know.”
Charlotte groans as soon as he’s gone. “I was looking forward to catching up tonight.”
“I promise to fill you in soon.”
“You’re still coming over Sunday night to help me and Jill pick out first-day outfits, right?”
It’s a punch to the gut after the day I’ve had to add another item to my list of things I won’t do with my friends this year.
Oakley starts a week before Frost Lake, so while they’re preparing to go back and do all the things we talked about for the past three years, I have to sit by and watch. “Of course.”
“Good.” Relief smooths out her features, and she smiles.
Inside the restaurant, I have a moment of regret when I step into the kitchen.
Instantly, the frantic movements of everyone working has my pulse rate increasing, and I don’t feel at all prepared for this level of chaos tonight.
I grab a notebook and pen. The club refuses to buy tablets so we can input orders at the table and instead has one very old and unreliable computer just outside the kitchen.
“Hi.” Jackie smiles when she spots me. “Thank you. Thank you.”
Her gratitude makes it hard to hold on to my annoyance that I won’t get to chat with Charlotte all night.
“No problem. Where do you want me?” I force myself to think of the tips. I can buy new cleats and add to my college fund.
“Section two. Tables five and six are almost finished, seven has drinks but hasn’t ordered, and eight was just seated.”
“Does eight have waters yet?”
“No. Group of four.”
“Got it.” I move to grab glasses and fill them with water. As I walk across the restaurant, I scan my tables to find them as Jackie described.
I go to eight first. Four people are seated at the corner table.
A stylish woman with dark-blond hair sits next to a man, presumably her husband by the way she smiles at him, with thick, dark hair, peppered with gray.
They’re both dressed in what Charlotte calls country club casual, him in a starched white polo and her in a modest pink dress with pearls.