Chapter 10: Part 10 - Saturday

Part 10 — Saturday 

It was Saturday and the day of my party (and I’ve never been more nervous about anything in my life). I still hadn’t recovered from the photo (that my mom insisted on showing me and sharing with Jessie’s mom). I didn’t put that on my Insta, and I made sure my mom didn’t put it on her socials too!!

Everything was set at my house and, most importantly, Jessie had said she was definitely coming, so I wouldn’t be completely alone. A few of the other girls on the team said they were coming as well, but most of them sort of shrugged and said they might swing by. Just as well we decided to keep it small.

My dad had strung a few of our old football nets along the corridor and I had personally taken down every photo that identified me as anything other than Ella Stevenson. I’d hung some old soccer team shirts in their places, so no one would notice anything was missing. Anna had agreed to stay in her room for the duration and my dad said he would ‘make himself scarce’. With that, I was just waiting for the first guests to arrive. 

The first car wasn’t Jessie’s. I was so panicked. It was this girl Sue-Ellen. She was our goalkeeper and really tall and thin. I think her parents were from China or Korea (it’s awful that I don’t know!!). We’d barely said two words to each other before today, but she was wearing an Alyssa Naeher shirt though, so at least we had something to talk about. I'm a big Red Stars fan. 

Second to arrive was Natalie and Erica. I knew them a little better and we set up a mini-game on the lawn. Slowly, all my guests began to arrive, until there were nine of us. Except the one I most wanted to be there. 

‘She’s not coming,’ I kept saying to myself. ‘She knows about it. The mistake. About me!’

Sure, I was all smiles and, “Pass me the ball!” on the outside. But inside I was falling down a hill onto spikes made of glass. 

It’s funny, isn’t it? How we can be dying on the outside but keep it altogether inside. Hold on to holding on. At least until there’s no one else around. Then we can go to pieces in peace. 

It was nearly an hour into my allotted 3 hour party when Jessie’s white SUV pulled up outside the house. Her mom was driving, so at least I didn’t have to deal with her drunken, foul-mouthed father. I’d almost given up on Jessie coming. But I knew that everything would be just fine once she got out of the—

—Oh. My. God. What was that she was wearing?!

I looked involuntarily at the other girls (who had come, to my great surprise and pleasure as a variety of female footballers). And then I looked at Jessie. She was surrounded, from her neck to her knees in a giant, round football. Complete with white hexagons and black pentagons. She’d come as the ball. 

Everyone stopped what they were doing when she rolled out of the SUV and waddled awkwardly over to the front lawn. 

“Hiya!” I said, beaming. It didn’t matter that she looked really — what was the word? ‘funny’, ‘silly’, ‘round’? — I was just happy she was here. 

“You do know this is a soccer idols party, right?” Natalie challenged, a little less than playfully. 

“Yeah. But you can’t play soccer without the ball,” Jessie returned, forcing a grin into the side of her mouth and letting her voice inject some humor into the situation. She was deflecting. I’ve done it myself. And one thing was for certain: she needed my help. 

“Well, if you think about it,” I broke in, “the ball is the biggest unsung star of all time. Can’t score goals without the ball!” I added, and swung a pretend kick at the edge of Jessie’s costume. 

She flinched and jumped backwards, the smile she had forced into her lips cracking like so many glass spikes at the bottom of a hill. 

The other girls, who had begun to gather out of what looked like a deadly mix of curiosity and pity, melted away, wearing those same ‘Sometimes she’s late…’ looks on their faces. There was something they weren’t telling me in those three-dotted ellipses. Something they were leaving out about why Jessie was sometimes late. I could only guess at the reasons. But they all knew. It was obvious. As obvious as their silence and averted gazes. No one said another word all day about Jessie’s unusual choice of costume. 

*

I watched Jessie carefully for the next hour or so. We chatted on and off, but she never wanted to get into anything more casual than the party, our friends, jokes and forced smiles. 

She didn’t play with the rest of us. Every time someone suggested it, she’d gesture to her round costume in a jokingly defeated sort of way. 

‘I can’t run in this!’ she seemed to say. 

No one questioned her, but the curtains in my sister’s bedroom window (that overlooked the front yard) twitched more than once at Jessie’s refusals, I noticed. 

I watched Jessie for a while, which is incredibly difficult to do at your own party. Everyone expects you to be the center of attention, but I’ve always been more comfortable at the edges. And the more I watched Jessie, for all her skill and dominance on the soccer field, the more I felt she was the same shy edge-hugging wallflower that I was. It took me a full five minutes of watching her pick up food and pretend to talk to people, then put it down uneaten and move off without a word, before I finally worked up the courage to corner her, just one on one.

“Is everything okay?” I asked as my mom disappeared into the kitchen to light the candles on my cake (like, what am I, Mom, 8?!). 

Jessie looked far away. Like her eyes were heavy. She kept trying to lift them up — wanting to, maybe even — but her lids were leaden. Like they were wearing something too heavy for her. 

“Everything’s fine,” she lied. Then, seeing that I wasn’t buying it, followed up with, “I’m just tired from the tryouts last night.”

She’d gotten in, of course. The state team. She’d be their star player too, I didn’t doubt. Maybe she was going all the way to nationals like her mom had said. I wondered if that meant I’d spend more or less time with her. 

“Okay,” I replied, even though it was clear I wasn’t in the least bit okay. Then I added, “Sorry about before. About kicking you.”

“Oh no!” she said, smiling. “It’s okay. You didn’t. I’m just a bit sore from the state tryouts. I think I pulled a muscle or something. My dad can probably get it out.”

“Your dad?!” I asked, a lot louder than I intended to. 

“Uh-huh,” she replied without skipping a beat. “He gives great massages.”

I felt like my jaw had just come uncoupled from my skull. 

When Jessie saw the way I was looking at her, she looked away. Then down. Then back at me quickly and flashed the old Jessie smile. 

“He trained as a physio back in college,” she added without me even asking. “A sports physiotherapist,” she clarified. 

“So—” I began, unsure of where I was going or if I even still possessed the power of speech, “—he gives — like — sportsmassages?”

“Uh-huh,” Jessie grunted again. Then quickly added, “Is there cake? I’m getting cake.” It was a deflection. Another deflection. I was starting to think Jessie should play in goal, like Alyssa Naeher at the Red Stars. She could keep any attack out. 

Despite the awkwardness of what had just passed between Jessie and me, when my mom came in with a big cake with 15 candles on it and when the singing started up, I kind of wished I’d chosen a big, round costume I could hide in. Everyone sang along, of course. I wanted to die a little inside. Fortunately, the ordeal-by-candle-fire didn’t last long, and my mom disappeared right back into the kitchen again afterwards to grab plates and cut cake. 

I took the opportunity to talk to Sue-Ellen (turns out her family is from Hong Kong, but she was born right here in the USA). 

“Is Jessie alright?” I opened. It seemed like nice, safe territory. 

“Jessie’s—” she searched for the words to finish that sentence, finally settling on, —weird sometimes!”

I decided to dive right into it. 

“Like when she’s late from school?” I asked. 

Sue-Ellen nodded, noncommittally.

“Have you guys been friends for long?” I asked, hoping to establish how well she knew Jessie before I worked around to what I really wanted to know. The reply nearly floored me. 

“Oh, we’re not friends,” Sue-Ellen declared casually, popping a piece of chicken into her mouth. When she noticed my silence, she turned and added, “Jessie’s kind of a high maintenance friend.“

I wondered what she meant by that. 

I was about to ask her, when I saw him. Across the road from my house. Wearing a cowboy hat and straddling his bike like it was a rusty stallion. Bobby Brandon. I hadn’t invited him. I hadn’t even told him that I was having a party. One of the other girls must have let it slip. One of the other girls must have told him where I lived too. Or he followed their car on his (t)rusty steed. 

He wasn’t doing anything. Just standing there, legs either side of the frame, and staring at us. 

“You should go over there and talk to him,” Sue-Ellen offered suddenly. 

The noise made me jump. The hard intrusion of it, what it suggested, the fact that I had been lost in my own little world of wondering what the heck Bobby Brandon would be doing at my party. 

He must have seen us looking at him, because he put his finger and his thumb to the hat he was wearing and tipped it at us. 

“That guy’s creepy,” I replied to her. 

“He’s not creepy,” she replied, deriding the idea. “He’s just… Bobby.”

I had to remind myself that she had known Bobby a lot longer than I did. 

“I didn’t invite him,” I told Sue-Ellen, suddenly becoming aware that we were leaning in towards each other and whispering conspiratorially. 

“I think he lives around here,” she replied, coolly. 

Great. Just what I need. A stalker. 

“Who wants caaaake?” my mom’s voice cut through the stillness between me and my bike-riding admirer. 

I looked back to smile at her and shout that I wanted some. 

When I looked back, Bobby was already pedaling away.