Chapter 5
Chapter Five
NASH
JANUARY
“Ow! Why’d you throw it so hard,” cries Daly as we beam her with volleyballs after her pass didn’t end up in the trashcan we’re using as a target. She’s still peeking out from behind her arms in case a rogue ball comes her way. Her curly dark hair flows over her shoulder in loose ringlets.
“Why did you miss?” Lauren asks. Her straight brown hair is the direct opposite of Daly’s curls.
“Like it’s so easy.” She motions at her to come over and take her turn at what’s supposed to be our friendly icebreaker game.
Megan had seen a video online where a player tries to pass the ball into a trashcan, and if they miss, the rest of the team throws balls at them.
I don’t know how that’s anyone’s idea of fun, but I wasn’t about to be a naysayer on the first day of practice.
I breathe a sigh of relief as Lauren goes to take her turn.
I still have time before I have to go. It’s not that I can’t do it.
I’m just afraid of getting nervous and missing in front of everyone.
I pick up my ball as Lauren gets into a ready stance.
After Lauren goes, Coach calls to us, ending our game and relieving me of having to take my turn.
We run over and circle up around her. Standing there, ready to lead us all into a new battle is Ms. Stephanie Etlinger, a pillar of the volleyball community.
Earning Olympic medals in both indoor and beach volleyball in the late nineties, since then she’s been the coach for the women’s Olympic volleyball team.
I have no idea how Houston managed to snag her for our first season in a newborn league, but I’m hyped that she’s here.
“Ladies, welcome to the first practice of the Houston Moons!” We all cheer.
“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you all what an honor and privilege it is to be a part of the inaugural season of the Professional Volleyball Federation.
I hope all of you are up to the gigantic task of bringing this league to life.
” We nod, hanging on her every word. “As we get warmed up and start our drills for the day, I want everyone to be patient with one another. This is a star-studded group, and it might take some time for everyone to gel. I don’t expect that relationships will form instantly, but it does have to be before our first game against New Orleans in two weeks.
” She looks at all of us in turn, a glint in her eye.
“Lastly, I hope you kept up your conditioning during your break.” I groan and turn to look at Temi, who’s standing next to me with a ghostly look on her face because, like me, I’m sure she didn’t do one ounce of conditioning.
I’m so happy she’s here with me, though.
The chances of us having been on the same team in Italy and becoming friends?
Slim. The chances of us leaving that team at the same time to come play on this exact team? Infinitesimal.
Coach blows her whistle. “Everybody, three lines for the belly drill. Let’s hustle up!”
Hell yeah. My favorite.
We all jog to one side of the court behind the out of bounds line, splitting into three lines.
I’m in the first group to go, so I step up and get on my belly facing away from the net, making sure my hands are on the line.
I’m in the back-right, Daly is next to me in the middle-back, and Danica is on her right.
I remember when I was little and just learning how to play volleyball, we would do this drill facing forward, and my coach would bounce the ball real high, giving us plenty of time to get underneath it.
But I’m a career pro now, and Coach pounds down balls at us like the adults we are.
She slaps the ball with her hands one time, our signal to start moving, and I clamber to my feet, turning around at the same time.
The ball comes launching our way kind of in between me and Daly.
In the split second I open my mouth, waving Daly away with the quick flick of my hand, I say, “I go.” I put my arms out quickly, backing up to make sure the ball doesn’t hit me in the face.
One of the first things I learned in this sport is when to cover your face, but I don’t want to do that here in our first practice.
I want the women around me to know that I’m in it to win it, no matter how tough we have to play.
If it hits me in the face, I want someone to play the second ball right off of it.
I recover in time, making the perfect pass to where Simin stands in the setter position.
We head to the back of the line, our turn successfully completed.
While we stand and wait, we cheer on our teammates and help them read the ball as it comes.
The next ball Coach hits goes sailing. “Deep! Deep,” I call to Temi, and she shuffles back, getting in a better position.
When I was in Italy, it was soothing to have similar movements and drills as I did in college. That familiarity with the sport I love were the only thing keeping me sane in those first few months.
One Sunday, maybe two weeks after I arrived in Italy and after all the awe of having a new place to explore had worn off, I woke up with a hollow feeling in my chest. Like everything that kept my soul buoyed had been sucked out.
I grabbed my phone to call my mom, but quickly realized it was the middle of the night at home.
Suddenly, the full weight of being alone in a foreign country threatened to knock me flat and not let me up.
For the first time I realized that I was alone on this continent.
I looked at Wyatt’s contact for only a split second before dialing.
He answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Hi,” I breathed. Through the phone he sounded like he could have been next to me, not a cellular connection in what seemed like a million miles away. I instantly felt myself unclench a little. “Isn’t it like three o’clock in the morning there?”
“You called.” The way he said it sounded like there was no other option besides picking up. My heart had been hurting before he answered, but when I heard his voice so steady and sure, it made it melt a little.
“I miss home.”
I heard him roll over, and I couldn’t help but wonder if his hair was already ruffled by his pillow.
“Home Texas or home Wisconsin?” That’s a fair question.
I spent my whole life until college in Houston, but the last four years before leaving the States, I spent basically all my time in Wisconsin. Most of it with him.
I loved every second.
“Both. I guess that’s why my homesickness is so bad.” More sheets rustled and it made me wonder if he turned on a light?
“Did I ever tell you about my high school summer job?”
“No. I thought you worked on your family’s farm.”
I could hear the nod in his voice as he talked. “I did, but farm chores weren’t paid. It was just expected. If I wanted to have spending money, I had to work a job on top of that.”
“What did you do in a town that small?” I think about my hometown of Poblocki and its one stoplight. “Did you work at the Pig Wig?” Every time, I got a kick out of the nickname for the local grocery store.
“Nah, not there. For two years I was the mower at the town cemetery. I would go out on Saturday mornings and push the lawn mower around the headstones.”
“That’s so creepy.”
I could practically see the shrug he would give me if we were face to face.
“It was honestly kind of peaceful. Almost never hotter than eighty degrees, and when I got thirsty, I drank out of the well.” He paused for effect.
“Looking back on it, drinking water from a ground well, surrounded by dead people, maybe wasn’t my best idea.
But hey, it didn’t kill me.” I laughed out loud.
The kind that bubbled in your chest first before spilling from your lips.
I hadn’t laughed like that since I left. “Maybe that cured all your ailments?”
I smile just to myself. “You know, I think it did. Tell me another?”
“Pa insisted Henry and I learn how to drive in that same cemetery. I asked him why and he told me that if we wrecked the car and died, at least they wouldn’t have to take us very far.”
“That does sound like Charlie,” I laughed.
“He’s not one to pull any punches.”
I glanced at the clock on my phone. It was about time to be getting up, which meant I’d kept Wyatt up long enough. “I should probably let you get back to sleep.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I had known you were homesick anyway.”
“Well, you fixed it for now. Thank you,” I whispered, because it felt like if I spoke too loud, it would disturb the peacefulness of the morning here and the middle of the night there.
“Anytime, Nash,” he replied, and we hung up, the kiss our unspoken vow that was never mentioned.
For the rest of that day, I carried the warmth of that conversation around in my chest. My memories of Wyatt and Wisconsin and college. It was exactly the kind of story he would tell me when we were driving out to visit his parents, or sharing a shake at Kopp’s.
The whistle blows and knocks me out of my reverie.
Even though Coach spends the rest of practice running us into the ground, I can’t help the little smile I carry from remembering that call.
It might have been the first time, but it certainly wasn’t the last time I called him at an ungodly hour, just needing to hear his familiar voice in that moment.
We return to the locker room hours later, decimated. I did not, in fact, keep up my conditioning during the off season. “I can’t believe we had to run that suicide four times,” I complain as I strip off my practice jersey.
“I know. Every single time it was someone different not making the cut,” replies Lauren, already dragging her street clothes out of her bag.
Danica pipes up, “It was me at least once, so I’m sorry for that.”
A chorus of ‘all good’s’ ring out.
We might be a new team made up of a mishmash of players from around the world, but we all speak one common language—volleyball.
We got our asses ran into the ground today, obviously, but I liked what I saw.
Danica has an uncanny feeling for adapting when her set is too close to the net.
She never panicked for one second. I’ve never seen a libero—a team’s best passer and scrappiest player—chase down a shanked pass she would physically not be able to get as hard as Simin did today.
I look around me and all I see are possibilities and endless talent.
Almost instantly, the homesickness is gone—because I am finally home.