Chapter 9
Nine
KANE
Footnote vanishes behind a building that looks older than California.
One second, I’m close enough to grab the strap of her backpack.
The next, a tour guide is blocking the hallway with a red flag, twenty parents are staring at me, and Sandy has slipped through another door.
By the time I reach the courtyard, she’s gone.
Rain runs down the back of my neck. Ivy covers three walls. Every path leads beneath another stone archway.
“Unbelievable.”
I check the nearest entrance.
Locked.
The next opens into a silent reading room filled with people who turn toward me like breathing too loudly could get me expelled.
No Footnote.
I return to the courtyard and scan the upper windows.
Nothing.
She didn’t outrun me.
She knew where to disappear.
That irritates me almost as much as everything she said in class.
Your right shoulder turns before you make the read.
You don’t trust the left-side finish.
The stats are hiding it.
I rub a hand over my face.
She has thick glasses, frizzy hair, and boots better suited for drinking cocoa than crossing campus in a storm. She looks like she spends Friday nights correcting punctuation in library books.
Yet she broke down my game in less than two minutes.
Not generally either.
She named the possessions.
The defenses.
The exact point where my mechanics shift.
Then she looked at me like I was the one who didn’t understand basketball.
My phone buzzes.
Eli: Film in ten. You alive?
I type back while heading toward the athletic complex.
Unfortunately.
His response comes before I clear the archway.
Vale update?
I shove the phone into my pocket.
Wrong obsession.
* * *
Coach runs the Cal game first.
The lights are off in the film room. Twelve players sit across three rows while the projector freezes my body halfway through a left-side drive.
My right shoulder is already turning.
I stare at the screen.
Coach draws a circle around the weak-side defender.
“What do you see, Haverhill?”
Footnote’s voice answers in my head.
You decide where you’re escaping before the trap closes.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees.
“I showed him the ball too early.”
Coach clicks the remote.
The play continues.
I reject the screen, take two dribbles left, gather near the foul line, then bring the ball across my chest. The defender strips it.
“Why?” Coach asks.
“I saw the help.”
“You knew the help was coming.”
“I didn’t trust the finish.”
The words leave before I can stop them.
Coach pauses.
“So trust it.”
He moves to the next clip.
Same drive.
Different opponent.
Same mistake.
I feel Eli look at me from the seat beside mine.
The staff has mentioned the turnovers. Coach has talked about staying patient, keeping the dribble alive, and reading the second defender.
No one said it like she did.
Your left hand isn’t the problem.
Your trust is.
Coach advances the film.
“March teams will study this. Clean it up now, or they’ll build an entire defensive plan around it.”
A strange chill runs across my shoulders.
Sandy said the same thing.
Almost word for word.
At practice, I drive left until my legs feel heavy.
The first attempt ends with me bringing the ball back to my right hand.
Coach blows the whistle.
“Again.”
I reset at the wing.
Eli closes out. I attack his top foot, keep the dribble low, and force myself to stay left when the help arrives.
My body wants to gather.
I don’t.
One more dribble.
Long step.
I use my shoulder to protect the ball and finish high off the glass.
Clean.
Eli catches it as it falls through.
“You look surprised.”
“Check it.”
He bounces the ball back.
I do it again.
This time, he shades harder toward my right. I stay left, let the second defender commit, then drop the pass to our center.
Easy finish.
Coach points at me.
“That. Quit escaping the play before it develops.”
Bookworm again.
The one with the giant glasses who lied about her name, crashed the mixer, spilled food across my shirt, and disappeared into an ivy maze.
I take the ball out of the net.
“How’d you know I was doing that?” Eli asks.
“What?”
“Film this morning. You named the trust issue before Coach did.”
“I watched the tape.”
Eli studies me.
I fire the ball at his chest.
“Play defense.”
He catches it with a grin.
“Someone’s touchy.”
Eli lives two doors down and majors in computer science, which means everyone on the team treats him like campus IT.
Printer breaks?
Eli.
Phone freezes?
Eli.
Someone forgets a password and refuses to admit it?
Eli.
He’s sitting at his desk after practice with three monitors glowing when I walk into his room.
He doesn’t turn around.
“No.”
“I haven’t asked anything.”
“You only come in here without knocking when you want something illegal.”
“It’s not illegal.”
“That didn’t help.”
I drop into the chair near his bed.
“I need you to find someone.”
He swivels around.
His grin starts slowly.
“Stella?”
“No.”
“Vale?”
“No.”
“Krista?”
“I know where Krista is.”
“In somebody else’s bed?”
“Probably.”
“Healthy.”
I point at his keyboard. “Freshman girl. Dark hair. Big tortoiseshell glasses. Lives somewhere on the old side of campus.”
Eli blinks.
Then his face lights up.
“Granny Glasses?”
“Don’t call her that.”
“You called her that.”
“I changed it.”
“To what?”
“Bookworm.”
He leans back and folds his arms.
“This is incredible.”
“What?”
“Haverhill’s descent.”
“I’m not descending.”
“Cortez to Krista to Bookworm.”
“There was no Cortez.”
“Tell that to your personality for the last year.”
“Can you find her or not?”
Eli picks up his phone.
“I need to document this moment.”
I reach for it.
He pulls it away.
“Our projected first-round point guard is hunting a girl in Uggs who smells like old books.”
“She doesn’t smell like old books.”
He lifts one eyebrow.
I remember rain, lip gloss, and the faint clean scent that caught me when I leaned over her desk.
“I don’t know what she smells like.”
“Sure.”
“This isn’t about that.”
“What is it about?”
“She knows basketball.”
“So do millions of people.”
“She knows my game.”
“Fans study you.”
“She isn’t a fan.”
“How can you tell?”
“She looked disgusted when she found out I played.”
Eli stares at me.
“That’s what hooked you?”
“Nothing hooked me.”
“She rejected you at the beach, humiliated you in class, and made you chase her across campus.”
“I wasn’t chasing her.”
“You followed her through a tour group.”
“I needed an answer.”
“You need therapy.”
I throw one of his socks at him.
He catches it before it reaches his face.
Fast hands for a backup guard.
“What’s her name?” he asks.
“Sandy.”
“Last name?”
“She didn’t give me one.”
“Dorm?”
“I told you. Old campus.”
“Major?”
“No idea.”
“Social handle?”
“If I had that, I wouldn’t be here.”
He cracks his knuckles and turns toward the monitors.
“What exactly do you expect me to do?”
“Search.”
“For every freshman named Sandy who owns glasses?”
“You’re the computer guy.”
“That is not how computers work.”
“Make them work better.”
He laughs under his breath but opens a student directory.
I stand behind him.
The search returns eleven Sandras, four Cassandras, and three people whose last names begin with Sandy.
None of the photos match.
Eli clicks through public social accounts next.
One Sandy has pink hair.
Another plays lacrosse.
A third is a graduate student with two children.
He points at the screen.
“This one has glasses.”
“She’s forty.”
“You’re being picky.”
“Bookworm is eighteen.”
“Nineteen?”
“Freshman.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“Keep looking.”
Ten minutes later, we have nothing.
No photos.
No tagged posts.
No obvious freshman named Sandy living in Briar, Hawthorne, or any of the older dorms.
Eli turns around.
“She gave you a fake name.”
“She shook my hand.”
“People can lie while touching you.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
I glare at him.
He smiles.
“Maybe her name is Bookworm.”
“She’s in my seminar. I’ll find out next class.”
“Then why are we doing this?”
Because next class is two days away.
Because she saw a weakness our opponents are starting to exploit.
Because her fingers touched mine over a pencil, and something sharp traveled straight up my arm.
Annoyance.
That’s all it was.
I was angry. She was angry. The room was cold.
Electricity doesn’t mean anything.
Neither does the way her eyes looked bigger behind those frames or how her lashes touched the lenses when she glanced down.
The lip bite was probably concentration.
It wasn’t for me.
I have spent years surrounded by women who know exactly how to look at a basketball player. Krista could turn one glance into an invitation. Stella could hold eye contact until the rest of the room disappeared.
Bookworm looked at me like she wanted to diagnose a disease.
Somehow, it worked.
Eli snaps his fingers in front of my face.
“You left the building.”
“I’m thinking.”
“About her mouth?”
“No.”
He grins.
I shove away from his desk.
“I’m losing focus. That’s the problem.”
“Your season is going great.”
“My reads aren’t.”
“You fixed them today.”
“Because she pointed it out.”
Eli’s humor fades a little.
“What did she say?”
I explain the shoulder turn. The early gather. The way I abandon the left-hand finish when help arrives.
He listens without interrupting.
When I finish, he swivels toward his laptop and pulls up the latest game.
We watch three possessions.
“Okay,” he says. “That’s freaky.”
“Exactly.”
“She could’ve heard it from someone.”
“Who?”
“A trainer. Assistant coach. Scout.”
“She barely knew my sport at the mixer.”
“Maybe that was an act.”
“Why?”
“To mess with you.”
“That’s worse.”
Eli looks at me.
“You like her.”
“I don’t know her.”
“That has never stopped anyone.”
“She’s irritating.”
“You like irritating.”
“She lied about her name.”
“You’re searching campus databases for her. Neither of you is behaving normally.”
“I need to know how she spotted it.”
“Ask her Thursday.”
“I plan to.”
He closes the video.
“And after she tells you?”
“I fix my game.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“No kissing Bookworm against an ivy wall?”
I stare at him.
The image arrives too quickly.
Her hood pushed back.
Those glasses slightly crooked.
My hand around the curve of her waist beneath that oversized sweatshirt.
Her mouth losing the dry little smirk when I—
I grab the nearest basketball and throw it at Eli’s head.
He ducks.
The ball hits the wall.
“Too slow,” he says, laughing.
“I need to get my head out of my ass.”
“Probably.”
“My season matters. The draft matters.”
“Agreed.”
“I’m not getting distracted by some fussy librarian.”
“Definitely not.”
“She’s not even my type.”
“Your type just left wearing track spikes.”
“Krista was never my type.”
“Your type chose Vale.”
That shuts the room down.
Eli’s smile fades.
He knows he pushed too far.
I pick up the basketball and spin it between my hands.
“Bookworm is information. Nothing else.”
“Right.”
“I find out what she knows, then I’m done.”
“Absolutely.”
“Quit agreeing like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you think I’m full of shit.”
Eli turns back toward his computer.
“I think you chased a girl through the rain, searched every Sandy at Stanford, and nearly took my head off because I mentioned kissing her.”
I open his door.
He calls after me.
“See you at Bookworm’s wedding.”
I flip him off without turning around.
Back in my room, I pull up the seminar portal.
Professor Aldridge hasn’t posted the roster.
I check the discussion board.
No introductions.
No profile pictures.
Nothing that helps.
My phone lights up with another post of Stella and Vale.
This one is a video from the airport. His hand rests at the base of her spine while she laughs at something outside the frame.
I scroll past it.
For once, the sight doesn’t tear open the same wound.
My attention returns to the blank search bar.
Sandy Stanford freshman
No results worth opening.
I type:
Sandy glasses Stanford archaeology
Nothing.
I delete the search before anyone can ever find it in my history.
Then I open the game film.
Left drive.
Early gather.
Right shoulder turn.
Bookworm’s voice returns.
You decide where you’re escaping before the trap closes.
I freeze the frame.
She didn’t only understand the play.
She understood why I made the mistake.
That is what bothers me.
Most people watch what I do and see highlights, turnovers, numbers, or money.
She saw the hesitation beneath it.
I lean back and stare at the ceiling.
Thursday feels too far away.
For someone who claims she wants nothing to do with athletes, Bookworm has buried herself inside my game.
Now I need to know how deep she can see.