Thread of Hope

THIRTY-FOUR

Kelly Rundles showed up a few minutes later, dressed sharply in a navy pant suit and carrying a giant bag of basketballs over her shoulder.

I asked her if she’d heard anything from Meredith and her mood took a nose dive.

“No.” Her mouth puckered like she’d bit into a lemon. “Why are you asking me that right now?”

I told her.

“Shit,” she muttered. “We need her tonight.”

Her concern was different than mine. I was thinking about all the things that might be going on with Meredith. Kelly, as any coach would, was thinking about the game.

She un-puckered her lips and shrugged her shoulders. “Oh well. If she’s not here, she’s not here. Nothing we can do about it. Still gotta play the game.”

Again, she was smart. She wasn’t going to fret over something she couldn’t control and she certainly wouldn’t show any frustration over it to the other girls.

Stricker came in through the doors at the other end of the hall, his jaw tight and his cheeks sucked in.

“Recorded as absent,” he said. “Even if she shows, she can’t play.”

“Okay,” Kelly said.

“I’m sorry, Kelly,” Stricker said, shaking his head. “Nothing I can do.”

She set the bag of balls down. “Not your fault. She knows the rules. So do the other girls. We’ll be fine.”

But they weren’t.

The girls were rattled in the locker room as soon as Kelly mentioned that Meredith wouldn’t be playing. Eyes wide, they began to fidget and I could see the anxiety take hold.

Except for Megan. She just stared at her hands and shook her head

They carried the anxiety out on the floor with them. They were disoriented, out of sync, unable to do what they’d been prepared to do. They missed open shots, threw the ball away, missed defensive assignments. Kelly yelled, screamed, pleaded, all to no avail. I sat there, helpless and mute.

Episcopal, smelling blood early, went ahead and cut open a gaping wound in the Coronado team. They won by thirty two points.

Kelly kept her post game speech short, all of the girls hanging their heads, the collective disappointment clouding the room like the smoke after a brushfire. There was no point in getting on them. They knew they had come out and tanked. Their own knowledge of the failure was far more effective than anything she could’ve told them.

She turned to me in the hallway after we’d stepped out of the locker room. “You going to look for her?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Wouldn’t finding her help your case with Chuck?”

“I don’t know. She won’t talk to me so far. And it’s not like her father is a fan of mine. Not my business.”

She perched her hands on her hips, her elbows forming sharp angles at her sides. “I think you should look for her.”

“No offense, but I’m not here to save your program.”

She squinted at me for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah, it is,” I said, not believing her. “You didn’t ask me a single question about her well-being. After I told you about her absence, you went right into game mode. And you’re still in it. You want her back so that you don’t rack up any more thirty-point losses, not because she might be in any kind of trouble.”

She stared at me for a long time, then picked up the bag of balls and slung them over her shoulder. “Fuck you, Tyler. It’s my job to win games, but I care about those girls, too. My job tonight wasn’t to work them up into a frenzy over a missing friend, it was to get them to put that aside and play basketball. What should I have done?”

I didn't answer.

She raised both of her eyebrows. “Tell me. What should I have done? Had them hold hands in a circle and talk about how much they missed Meredith?” She let the eyebrows come down and shook her head. “Don’t act like you understand me. I don’t care if she ever plays again. I said you should find her because it’s the right thing to do and you would seem to know how to do it.”

She adjusted the bag on her shoulder. “That’s the only reason and fuck you for thinking otherwise.”