Chapter 9 #4
Oh no. This was worse than regular mail. When you had to sign something, it was bad news. I stayed quiet behind the potato chip display.
“Emily!” Martha called. “She’s in aisle two,” she told the driver. Traitor.
“Here,” I admitted, standing up. Might as well face it.
He handed me a box. “Sign here.”
“What did you get?” Martha bustled over.
I had no idea. We slit open the box, and inside there was another box with a new phone. “What is this?” I asked in amazement.
“It’s a cellular phone,” Martha explained.
I plugged it in, turned it on, and saw that it had service. There were already text messages. From Luke’s number.
Put me in as your 1st contact. xo Luke
PS I’ve got this one. You don’t need to worry about paying me back. All right?
I hugged the phone to me.
Me Thank you, Luke! I feel a lot better having this. Have a good trip. xo Emily [in case he was wondering who was writing him back]
Then I texted Tara too, and told her I was rejoining the land of technology.
Diego brought the kids to swim practice from school, but I wanted to be there too.
It wasn’t that far a bike ride, and now that the rain had stopped, it wouldn’t be that bad.
I left the NGS and got to the Aquatic Center a few minutes after practice had started.
I gave Charlie a secret wave when he looked into the bleachers. His cap was on crooked.
I was super anxious about seeing Coach Sean. I had no idea what had gone on after my crazy conversation with Annie in the car ride after Roy’s, and to be honest, I had avoided thinking about it. But Coach Sean wasn’t on the pool deck—instead, the assistant coach, Charlotte, was leading the drills.
“Emily!”
Annie climbed up the bleachers to me, and engulfed me in a huge hug. “I’ve been thinking so much about you!” she said into my shoulder. “How are you doing?” She squeezed hard. “How is your arm?”
“I’m fine.” I patted her back awkwardly.
“Can we go for a run? Are you up for it?”
Well, I was already dressed in workout clothes from my bike ride. “Um, sure.”
We walked to the track and started running laps. I secretly checked my new phone. Luke must still have been in the air.
“So, just to fill you in on the backstory behind the team email, we had an emergency board meeting last Friday and fired Coach Sean,” Annie said, then commented, “Oops! I forgot to start my running app. How long do you think we’ve been going?”
I stopped dead. “What? What did you say?”
“I forgot to start my running app, but it’s been only two or three minutes, right?”
“No, the other part, about Coach Sean.”
“Oh, that,” she said, unconcerned. “Well, I drew up his contract, and he doesn’t have any grounds to contest it. Michigan is an at-will state for employment. Let’s keep running!”
My legs stared to move mechanically. “Annie, can you explain this a little more? I feel like I’m missing pieces. He’s fired? You fired him?”
She tightened her ponytail. “No, the Board decided to fire him. But I’m the only attorney, so yes, I wrote the actual letter.
I guess I did fire him! We don’t need cause to do it, but he did lie to and manipulate a member of our team, and threaten the swim career of a seven-year-old child. I’d say that’s cause to get fired!”
We ran another lap. I was so confused. “You’re a lawyer?”
Annie continued. “So after Pepperdine I went to Boalt Hall up at Cal. I don’t practice anymore, because I’m so busy now, but before I had Mackie I did a lot of corporate stuff for my dad.
Anyway,” she blew a big breath, “he’s fired.
But why don’t you know that? Aren’t you reading the team Weekly Emails?
There’s so much important info in them!”
I was still dumbfounded. “Coach Sean is fired. Coach Charlotte is taking over. The Board fired him because of me?” And Annie was an attorney? What? My head was spinning.
“Well,” she hedged, “not just because of you. Actually there were a few other things. I guess he had been having an affair with a parent.” She glanced around, then whispered, “Kyra! Can you believe it?” I could totally believe it, the skank.
“Also, there had been some accusations of favoritism. Some parents were complaining—” she lowered her voice again “—that Board members’ kids were getting special treatment.
” I thought of Macdara, DQ-ing the relay.
“Charlotte is the head coach until we can complete a more thorough search. But she might end up with the job. I really like her!”
“Annie, hang on. Why did Sean do that to us? Why would he single Charlie and me out like that?”
Annie shook her head. “I don’t know. We had him come in on Saturday, and talked to him and let him go at the end. He wouldn’t explain, just got really angry! But he didn’t deny anything, either. Are you happy?”
Was I happy that someone lost his job, partially because of me? Not really. “I didn’t mean for him to get fired,” I said.
“Emily, please! If he was going to lie to you, and kick Charlie off the team, and mess around with parents, we can’t have a coach like that!
I just kept running. Annie started talking about Milos, and her latest strategy to reel him back in. I was in a state of disbelief. What the heck was going on? I guessed I should have kept up with the Weekly Emails.
When we got back to the pool deck, Charlotte was motioning all the swimmers and parents over.
“I just want to say, I’m really happy to have the opportunity to coach these guys,” she said to the crowd.
“We’ll be keeping basically the same workouts for a while, and then I’ll gradually make some changes.
I hope you’ll come to me with any questions, or problems, and I’m definitely open to suggestions.
” Ysabel with a Y raised her hand. “I mean reasonable suggestions,” Charlotte continued.
‘We will still be swimming ten 100s on the 1:30.” Ysabel with a Y’s hand came down.
“Pal, guess what I got?” I asked, as Charlie dried off to put on some clothes. I showed him my new phone.
“Emmy, that’s sweet!” He took it from me and typed wildly. “There’s a ton of memory on this one for games!”
“Great,” I said. He had a tendency to become catatonic in front of video games of any variety. “How was practice with Charlotte?”
“I like her,” Charlie said. “She’s a good coach.” Easy enough.
We walked out to the parking lot. I had been texting Mike from my new phone, asking him how Cassie was, and if he could come to get us. There had been no answer, and there was no green Jeep with a major dent in the door waiting for us.
I sighed, and looked around. Well, we had the bike. “Charlie, put on this helmet. You sit on the seat, and I’m going to pedal.”
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
Luke I’m finally in London. Flight delayed on the runway in NYC.
Me More fun in NY?
Luke Exactly
Me We’re heading home from practice. Thanks again for this awesome phone. Charlie loves it too.
Luke I’ll call you tomorrow. I miss you.
Me I miss you too. xo
I looked up to see Charlie eyeing me impatiently. “I’m coming! Hop on.”
We took a few turns around the parking lot to get our balance, then headed out to the highway.
We had made it about half a mile down the road when I heard honking.
Then, out of nowhere, a car ran onto the shoulder right behind us.
I swerved into the gravel and Charlie and I went flying, with him landing on top of my back when I hit the grass and weeds by the side of the road.
I heard an ominous crunch as the car continued forward over my bike.
Oh no. Charlie and I lay there, stunned for a moment.
“Oh no! I’m so sorry, oh my gosh, are you hurt?”
I shook my head, which I was fortunate not to have slammed into the pavement. “Charlie, are you ok?” I demanded.
He was sniffling. “I’m ok. I hurt my hands a little when I skidded. I just got scared.”
“Did you hit your head? Does your neck hurt?” I checked his helmet for damage and helped him to his feet.
“I’m ok, Emmy!”
I turned in fury at the driver of the BMW SUV. “Annie! What were you doing? You could have killed us!”
“I’m so sorry! Do I need to take you to the hospital?”
Macdara hung her head out of the back window, eyes enormous. “Mommy, did you hurt them? Uncle Luke is going to kill you!”
I limped over to check on the bike. It was mangled. Great. “No, Macdara, we’re fine. We don’t need to go to the hospital. Annie, you can’t drive so close to bikers!” I was furious. “You demolished my bike!”
“I was trying to pull behind you to ask if you needed a ride. I’m so sorry! She’s right, Luke is going to kill me. He was getting on my case on Sunday about driving more carefully! I just misjudged the distance, a little.”
“Yeah, a little!” I pushed the broken bike with my foot and rubbed my elbow. I was going to have a major bruise. “Well, now my bike is destroyed, so you have to give us a ride. But I’ll drive!”
I put what was left of the bike in the back, then we used the stash of chlorine-free wet wipes with organic aloe vera in Annie’s car to clean ourselves up a little, and I checked Charlie over more carefully.
We seemed to have escaped serious injury, and my new phone had also survived without a scratch.
“I’ll get you a new bike,” Annie offered.
“Thank you, but you can’t fix this just by buying something.” Well, not totally. “Annie, you have to be more careful,” I admonished her. “We could have been really hurt.”
“I know! It’s like things just come up out of nowhere!”
Things like bikers. That was great. Then I had a sudden inspiration. “Are you really not able to see? Do you need glasses?”
“I only need them for seeing far. And for seeing up close, sometimes.”
“She has her phone turned up to a special font for people with visual impairments,” Macdara commented from the back seat.
I looked at Annie. “Seriously? And you’re myopic, too? Are those sunglasses prescription?”
She fiddled nervously with them. “No.”