Disclaimer: This is an original work of fiction. These characters belong to me, as well as their lives. Do not steal them from me.
Thanks. Enjoy.
~~~
Knock. Knock-Knock.
"Oh, Hell no." I grumble, pulling my head off of my pillow. I glance at my cell phone on my bedside table. It's Monday, and 6:30 a.m. Oh Hell no.
It's my job to answer the door in the mornings because my bedroom is closest to it. My parents always claim that they can't hear when someone knocks on it, but I think they're full of shit.
Knock-Knock-Knock.
"God! All right, I'm coming!" I say as I wrench myself out of bed.
I get to the door and open it to find Emily standing on the other side. She looks incredibly tired and annoyed. I imagine I look the same, only shorter.
"Hey Emily. What can I do for you?" I yawn.
She rubs her eyes as she replies. "My stepdad was wondering if you could take me to school? I don't have my own car, and he and my mom both need one."
"Uh, yeah, sure." She starts to walk away, but I'm not done, so I grab her arm before she goes too far. "But listen, I don't drive. I usually walk."
"Walk?"
"Yeah. It's only a mile to school."
"A mile. Nice," she smiles. "So what time should I be ready?"
"Come back in an hour. We'll leave then." I say, scratching the back of my head.
"Cool," she replies. "Oh, and August?"
I pause in the middle of closing the door. "Yeah?"
"Nice bedhead." She gives me a tired thumbs-up and walks away.
"I'm glad someone likes it," I mumble as I retreat again to my room.
~~~
Fourty five minutes later, I'm listening to Ed Sheeran and trying for the third time to flatten my hair.
For other girls, this is an easier thing to do- just pull out the flat iron, get it done. But I have a pixie cut, my hair only an inch or two long at the most, and it just isn't that simple. It takes a lot of time to get right. And I just am not getting there.
"Screw this," I mutter. I get some gel on my hands from the small tub in my mirror cabinet and rub it all over, making other bits stand straight up like the rebellious ones in the back.
Perfect. Now Emily won't be the only one whose hair attracts stares today.
Two days have passed since Emily and my first cups of tea, and I am beginning to worry about how she's going to fit in at our school. Not only is she as tall as half of our basketball team with hair as bright as their penalty lights, she's going to request to try out for our 'men' only baseball team...and she's an open lesbian.
To say the least, Emily has major lady balls.
I hadn't explained to her on Saturday about how I wasn't out of the closet yet, not to anyone but her. And especially not to my parents.
But as I'm standing at the counter in my kitchen sipping on a milky cup of breakfast tea on our first morning of school together, I'm starting to wonder if telling her anything was a good idea. I hardly know Emily- what if she makes friends with other people and tells them? What if my secret gets out? As I'm quietly having a panic attack over this, I hear Emily knock on the front door again.
"Come in!" I call to her. She does.
I'm taking the bottom third of my mug in as large gulps as I can as she walks in, and she chokes me. I'm sure it wasn't on purpose, but she's wearing a skirt that hasn't seen a knee in its existence, and her hair is down, with a ribbon braided in to part of it.
"Damn," I say, wiping tea off of my chin. "You look nice."
"Thanks," she smiles. I'm pretty sure she could drive a nail into a wall just by smiling at it.
"But you know that you can't wear something that short at our school," I say, motioning to her skirt and finishing my tea.
"Oh, I know," she says offhandedly. "But no one knows that I know."
"Ah. I see what you did there." I reach out my fist so she can pound it.
She obliges, and gets distracted by my tea collection.
"Holy shit, August," she says as she paws through the large shoebox. "How much tea does one person need?"
"Twenty three different flavors.Ten have fruit inspired flavors, eight are just tea leaves. Five have caffiene, three are specifically meant to be cold. One induces sleep, and one clears sinuses."
"Damn. Do you share with your parents?"
"I rarely share with anyone. This is all I really spend my personal money on."
"Why?"
"Better to be deprived of food for three days than tea for one," I say simply as I shrug and put the lid back on my collection and slide it back into its cupboard.
"Who said that?"
"It's a Chinese proverb," I beckon her toward the door, grabbing my school stuff in the process.
As we walk past the shops on Main street- which is on my route to school- we catch our reflections in their big picture windows. Next to my knee-length shorts and Vans, Emily's outfit looks just a little- well- attention-seeking.
She whistles, long and low.
"Well," I say, trying to put a positive light on this mistake she knowingly made. "At least you'll know why everyone is staring at you."
"Yeah," she says, smiling slightly and looking sideways at me. "Usually it's the hair."
I'm just going to pretend that I don't think she's catching onto my thing for redheads.
"Besides," she continues as I lead her down the road toward the school, "I'm going to request to try out for the baseball team today, and I thought I may as well give them a bit of a show."
I laugh, hitching my backpack up higher on my shoulder.
"What?" she asks, laughing as well.
"You're a sick woman, but I like your style."
~~~
I'm only a little sorry that she and I don't have any classes together- with how straightforward she was with me about her sexuality, the last thing I need is to be the girl that's showing the new lesbian to all of her classes.
So I get the entire day to think on her. To worry about her. To worry about us.
When the final bell rings, I go to the flagpole and lean up against it, waiting for her. I promised that I would take her to the baseball diamond as soon as practice started so that she could ask to try out, and this is where we agreed to meet. As my classmates all file out of the door, some wave to me, but most don't bother. It's a small enough school that we all know each other, but I don't really have a niche here. I hold my own, and that's fine by me.
"August!" I hear Emily coming before I see her, and that's only because she's coming up from behind me: there's kind of no way in hell that anyone could miss her hair in a crowd.
"Hey you." I smile and unhitch myself from the flagpole. "Ready to blow their minds on the diamond?"
"God, I've been ready. I'm more than ready. Let's go." She laughs as we walk across the campus toward her impending athletic doom.
"So," I begin, "How did everything go with your... get up?" I ask, using the term that my deep-south-and-proud-of-it father would have.
"No one said anything about it."
"Nothing?"
"Not a damn thing," she says with that same michevious smile from this morning, "So I think I'll keep doing it until someone does say something."
"Oh yeah," I comment, "That's a great plan. Really solid. That'll make everyone just love you."
"You really think so?" She's playing dumb, so I play along.
"Of course. All of the girls in our school love to see people get away with shit that they can't."
"Who doesn't?"
"Crazy people. That's who."
We reach the diamond, and practice is in full swing. The guys are all decked out in their gear and doing drills. Slowly, one, then another, gets distracted in our general direction. Oh, who do I think I'm kidding? Emily's general direction.
The coach (Coach Van- he is called this by everyone, athlete or not, on the field or in the classroom) is getting annoyed with his players.
"Come on, men! Pick up the pace on those drills!" He yells at them, anxious about the tournament they'll be playing in a month and a half. Then he sees us. "Oh, for God's sake! They're girls. Haven't you knuckleheads ever seen a girl before?"
He walks over to us. "Ladies."
"Coach Van." I nod. I've never been a fan of this man, and I don't imagine I ever will be.
"What can I help you with?"
Emily plants her feet shoulder width apart and sticks out her hand for him to shake. "Hello, sir. My name's Emily Turner, and I'd like to try out for you."
He shakes her hand and says, "Hello, Emily. But I'm afraid I can't help you with that. I only do baseball- you want to talk to Coach Rose. The softball diamond is just on the other side- over there." He points with his thumb over his shoulder.
"Thank you, Coach, but I don't play softball."
He's confused now. "Then what do you play? I told you, I only do baseball."
"I play baseball, sir."
The players are all listening now, and some of them are looking at each other, snickering.
"Do you?" His eyebrows are raised.
"Yes, sir."
"Well, we don't have girls playing baseball here. We have a softball team for the girls. I'm the coach here, and I say you need to go find Coach Rose and talk to her about trying out." He turns to leave, and Emily looks a fine mix of pissed off and sad. It gets under my skin, so I stop him.
"Actually, sir, if I may interject?" I interrupt, using my most intelligent sounding voice, "When there is a team readily offered for both sexes in a sport- like, say, the men's basketball team and the ladies' basketball team- the coach of the team may not allow members of the opposite sex to try out. But when there are not two separate-sex teams for a team sport- like in football, cheerleading, or say, baseball- the coach of said team is required by law to let anyone, of either sex, try out."
"But we have a softball team for the girls," he says, clearly annoyed.
"No, sir, you have a softball team that is usually played by girls, and a baseball team that is usually played by boys. They are considered separate sports, as well as teams."
He's pausing to think for a moment. I can practically see the cogs in his machine-like brain turning. Slowly.
I don't want to wait for him to finish processing, so I speed it up a bit.
"That means, sir, that if you don't let Emily try out for the team, you could face sexual discrimination charges."
He's looking uncomfortable. I think I got him.
"Yes," Emily agrees, "And my stepfather is a lawyer."
I didn't know that.
Emily shoots me a look that clearly means "later."
That one really gets Coach Van, so he relents. "Okay, girlie. I'll let you try out," He sighs. "What makes you think you could play for us?"
"I played on an all-star exclusive team in New York before I moved here."
"Nice!" I hear one of the boys exclaim from the infield.
"Any special skills we could use?" Coach continues.
"I've got a mean curve ball, and I'm a switch pitcher."
His eyebrows go up. "I've never had one of those before."
He motions her to follow him inside the gate, and I go to sit down on the close-up parent bleachers.
"All right, kid. Show me us what you've got." He says. She's beaming. "Did you bring your own gear?"
"Just my own mitt, sir."
"Good," he says, then steps back and actually looks at her. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather do this when you're dressed appropriately?"
She looks him dead in the eye, unshaken. "No, sir. I have shorts on under my skirt."
"All right." He hands her a ball and pushes her toward the pitcher's mound. "Give me four pitches. One plain with each hand and then a curve ball with each hand."
"Yes, sir."
The boy playing umpire pulls his face mask down and goes back into his squat, ready to catch.
"Whenever you're ready," he calls to Emily.
She doesn't respond. She's focusing, holding the ball in the mitt for a moment before the quickest, biggest wind-up I've ever seen.
I don't even see the ball as it shoots toward home base, but I do see the umpire almost fall backwards with the effort of grabbing onto that much momentum. All of the boys on the feild corous a nice "ooh" and give each other looks that mean they agree with me- this is going to be a good show.
"Shit," I hear the umpire curse as he shakes his head. He throws the ball back and signals to her to throw it again.
He's more ready for the second pitch, but it still almost floors him. On the third pitch- a curve ball with her left hand- he catches it easily, but even I could see that no player up to bat would think he could hit that.
The team is beginning to grow uneasy- she's too good.
The fourth pitch goes exactly the same.
The comes in from the mound and Coach Van approaches her. "All right, that was decent." Decent isn't as awarding as the word I would use, but he can call her 'decent' if it gets her on the team.
"How are you at hitting, girl?"
"Fair, sir."
"How quick can you round the bases?"
"Pretty fast, sir."
"Show me."
He points to Kyle Johnson, the usual pitcher, and motions him to the mound. He hands her a bat and a batting helmet.
"Hit the best that you can and go as far as you can on the bases."
"Yes, sir."
Kyle gives his biggest wind-up and lets rip an amazing fast ball.
For a second, it's frozen in front of Emily, and I see her biting her bottom lip and watching the ball come.
Then she hits a home run- straight out of the park.
She rounds the bases just as fast as any of the boys to the sound of them all cussing and cheering, and lands lightly on home, looking at Coach Van expectantly.
He is about to speak when he is interrupted by one of the outfielders "Sign her up, Coach!" A general call of agreement comes from all of the players, and Coach Van silences them all with a look.
"Miss Turner, you are an exceptional athelete. You would be nothing but an asset to our team," he begins, "But we really don't have room for one more member of the team."
"Oh, come on, Coach!" yells one of the boys in exasperation. The others all join in, not believing what they're hearing.
I'm on my feet as well. Did he not just see what we all saw? She knocked a 200 pound boy on his ass just by pitching at him, and then hit a home run! He's insane. There's no other excuse.
"For that reason-" He gets cut off by more of his players. "Shut up!" He yells at them. "I'll make you do your drills over three times tomorrow if you don't let me talk! For that reason, Miss Turner, I am going to make you an alternate on the team."
She's smiling so widely that I think the ends of her grin are touching in the back. "Thank you, sir."
"You will come to every practice we have after school and on the weekends. You will be properly dressed, and you will do every drill the team does. You will come with us to every one of our games fully dressed out. If you work hard enough and one of these-" he motions to the boys standing on the field, smiling like idiots and high-fiving each other "-gentlemen- isn't cutting it, you will replace him. Understood?"
"Yes, Coach. Thank you so much." She shook his hand, and went to leave, but he didn't let go of her hand just yet.
He motioned to the rest of the team to come in to home base, and they all jogged in.
"Before Miss Turner leaves for now, I think I should make it abundantly clear. We are now a co-ed team. Gentlemen- lady- there will be no going into the other's locker room unless everyone is decent, and there will be absolutely no dating. Clear?"
There was a mumbled assent between the boys and Emily, but Coach Van wasn't satisfied.
"I said, 'IS. THAT. CLEAR?'" He yelled at them.
"YES COACH," they all yelled back.
"Good," said the Coach.
"Coach, I should tell you now," began Emily.
Oh God. Here she goes.
"There won't be any trouble with me dating a teammate."
"Got a boyfriend up north or something?"
"No, sir. I'm a lesbian."
"Holy shit." One of the basemen let slip.
~~~
Question for comments: What do you think about Emily being a part of the team?
Comment, Vote, and Fan- should you so desire.
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