Nantucket Blue - By Leila Howland Page 0,2

Whatever? Ugh. Why don’t clever comebacks ever come to me in the moment? They only come later, when I’m in the shower or about to fall asleep, or stopped at a stop sign alone in my mom’s Honda Civic, without a witness. Then the comebacks crackle in my brain like static electricity on freshly dried socks.

I touched my lip with my tongue. Please don’t be a fat lip, I thought. Not tonight. Rumors were circulating about a party at Chris’s house, a party where Jay would be. We’d so carefully laid the groundwork for a kiss at Joey Rivera’s. I was determined to get one before Jay took off for Nantucket for the summer.

“You okay, Cricket?” Jules said from her position a few feet away. I nodded and stood, dusting off my knees, the crevices of which were packed with mashed grass. I tentatively put weight on my leg. It hurt, but I was going to be okay. The crowd clapped.

“Hey, Nora,” Jules said in a stage whisper, “I heard you did some laundry at Joey’s house. I’m curious, how many loads did he have?” Nora whipped around, speechless. I covered my swelling mouth with my hand.

“Damn,” the goalie muttered under her breath.

Jules just raised her eyebrows, unblinking. Jules had so many comebacks on the tip of her tongue it was a wonder she could close her mouth. Where, I wondered, did she get the balls?

Miss Kang arrived with an ice pack and the first-aid kit.

“Are you all right?” she asked. I nodded, aware of the little granules of dirt in my teeth.

“I’m really sorry,” Nora said in a syrupy voice.

“Four meters, sixteen,” the ref said. Nora retreated to the twelve-meter mark.

Miss Kang tilted her head sympathetically. “You want to come out of the game, Thompson?”

“No way,” I said, even though my lip and shin were both throbbing.

“That’s the spirit.” She looked at the clock. “Fifteen seconds. Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to go left, jag right like hell, and pop it in the lower pocket.” She turned to the ref and nodded, then jogged backward off the field, smiling at me until she faced forward and strode to the sideline, her short black ponytail sticking straight out from the back of her head. I love Miss Kang.

“Yellow ball,” the ref said. “Find your hash mark, number four.” I did this, nodding at Jules as if to pass. The whistle blew. I cradled the ball, jogging calmly to the left before springing right, straight across the goal, snapping my stick so fast I heard the whoosh. It bounced high just as the goalie slid low, and the ball skimmed the upper-left corner of the net. It was downright elegant.

“Yes,” I said, jumping in the air to high-five Jules. Arti Rai picked me up and swung me around. Miss Kang had dropped her clipboard and was running toward us with her hands raised in triumph. I’d scored my third goal of the game and won the first championship for Rosewood School for Girls in ten years.

“Good game, good game, good game.” Our teams filed past each other in a single line. From ten bodies away, Nora bore holes in me with her eyes.

Nora. She’d been given all the raw materials for an enchanted high school existence: a pretty face, a body that just wouldn’t quit, athletic ability, genuine confidence, her very own yellow Volkswagen bug with a bud vase on the dash. And that raspy voice that oozed sex, that was like a cherry on top, like finding a ten-dollar bill in jeans you haven’t worn in a month. But she didn’t know how to manage the attention that came with being popular. Obviously, in order to be popular, you need to be the kind of person to whom attention is naturally given. But then you have to manage it.

Nora’s downhill journey started last summer when she’d had sex with Paul Duke, a real garbage can, as Jules said, but a popular one. He was known to hide in closets while his friends made out with girls, then jump out once the girl had her pants off. After he had sex with Nora, he’d told everyone the color of her pubic hair (“burnt sienna”) and imitated the moans she’d supposedly made in a three-minute comical opera, whose crescendo was aped by underclassmen after they scored ice hockey goals.

In an effort to get back at Paul, she had sex with Matt Baldwin without him even being her boyfriend. Matt