CJ Boots, As Is

CHAPTER ONE

I back out of the locker room and aim my flip-flops at the door with the exit sign. This is a big mistake. There’s still time to escape before my new teammates spot me. My knees are shaking, which is ridiculous. I’m a field hockey player, or at least I was. I swallow hard and grasp the silver letter charms dangling from a chain around my neck, four mismatched letters spelling the words ‘As Is,’ a phrase I learned from Dad in the antiques business. It means ‘buyer beware, item damaged.’ My pounding heart slows. The letters don’t match, aren’t the same size or style, but I appreciate the imperfection, this flawed, physical meme parading across my chest. I haven’t taken the necklace off in ten months, not since my brother died.   

Attending Sevenoaks Academy is my kick start, I remind myself, although I had some second thoughts when Dad dropped me off this morning. The eight-hundred-acre campus nestled in Connecticut’s northwestern hills seemed to spring up out of nowhere looking just like Hogwarts. Without the magic. The letters on my necklace bite into my palm and sweat coats my upper lip. I edge toward the trash can in the lobby in case I hurl. I shouldn’t have eaten Dad’s Blue Egg Special this morning. The bacon is sizzling all over again in my gut.    

Shit, the team captain just spotted me. Too late to change my mind now.   

I step through the doorway, my eyes glued on Mace Plimpton strolling toward me, my new teammates parting before her like she’s a float in her own victory parade. Her green-and-white practice uniform is pristine, no sweat, no grass stains. I crank up my head to take all five-feet-eleven inches in. Her knotted blonde hair, flopping back and forth on top of her head like a stunned buff Orpington adds an additional three inches to her height. She flashes a fake smile. That same smile adorned the effusive “Welcome to the Oaks” text and selfie she sent me two weeks earlier. “From the Field Hockey Team!” she exclaimed. Except the pic was just her grinning face and no one else on the team.   

I consider hocking a loogie right here in the locker room. Isn’t that how I’m supposed to act? I’m the local yokel, the Elverson Hills-billy, the Four-Heifer. My former teammates at the public school warned me those were the names I’d be called at Sevenoaks behind my back. I can jog home in forty minutes. There’s still plenty of time for me to trap and skin a squirrel for lunch. I tell myself to smile at Mace and walk toward her, but my feet are rooted like a burr plant covered in bristles.   

“Welcome to Sevenoaks, Caroline.” Mace finally speaks. It was worth the wait, her voice low, thick, and throaty like she just swallowed the gunk at the bottom of a bottle of Kombucha tea. Her eyes land on my flip-flops and her lips prune. I do have a gnarly big toenail, purplish-black, cock-eyed, impossible to miss. It’s an old friend, a symbol of happier times. I slammed my toe against the turf scoring the most important goal of my life. Only to have that life take a brutal smackdown that left me hanging by a thread like my nail.  

Mace’s critical brown eyes spring back up, take in my ponytail pulled tight, every strand slicked back the way I like it. I’m an athlete, not a cheerleader. It’s part of my game face—my ‘tude—that tells opponents just because I’m short, don’t think you can tread on me.     

“Coming to Sevenoaks must be a big change for you, Caroline, from public school.” Her tone said, pubic school. “Coach Rouse asked me to help you through this transition.” Like I’m changing my gender or something. There’s that fake smile again. Coach Rouse must think I’ve never used indoor plumbing. The same Coach Rouse—the Crypt Master, I call him, and assistant field hockey coach and admissions counselor—who sent me a letter six weeks ago out of the blue offering me an academic scholarship. He said I’d caught his eye at a College Contact Showcase two summers ago.   

I force my face muscles to relax. I can’t afford to alienate the captain before I’ve met the rest of the team. It’s suck-up-or-sink time.  

“That’s nice of you, Mace. I’m good right now, thanks. I can’t wait to meet the team.” I shimmy my shoulders in fake anticipation.  

“And they can’t wait to meet you.” Her face prunes, like I’m roadkill they’ll be forced to dribble around. Then she arches her overly tweezed eyebrows and peers down her nose saying, “Coach Rouse has made it clear what’s expected of you?”

I frown, crinkle my nose. “Umm, yeah. To help the team win a New England Championship.” Why do I feel as though I should put a question mark after that statement?

“Yes, and…” like she’s coaxing a reluctant toddler to eat Brussel sprouts.

I panic. The Championship is the goal. “The team has a winning—no, an undefeated—season?”

“Yes, and…”

I throw out my hands. If I’d eaten a Brussel sprout, now is when I’d spit it at her.

Her eyes narrow down to icy little slits. “You back me up and make me look good. Clear?”

My stomach flips mini cartwheels. I also notice there’s no one standing within earshot of us. Some of our teammates might object. “Okay,” I respond hesitantly.

I’ll sort this out in practice later. Maybe I’m misunderstanding her.

“Good. I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.” Her tone becomes brusque. “Our first practice is at 9:30. Lunch is at noon. Second practice from two to five. Make sure you put on sunscreen. You look like you fry in the sun. At five o’clock,” she swipes her hands together, “you can go home.”

Just like that. The Four-Heifer dismissed.  

I get it. Coach Rouse made my status clear during my interview. I’m a senior day student, the only nonboarder on the team, bussed in and out every day like a prisoner on a work detail. Dad and I met Coach Rouse at his home office, a gray-shingled house with a dock on the Housatonic River just off Cantrell Lane, the main campus road. Coach Rouse, tall, thin, stern, gray-skinned, and splotchy like his shingles, was a big talker, said he could make my dream of full-ride, Division One happen. Those were words I wanted to hear.   

So, here I am. My new start. So why do I feel dirty, my armpit sweat glands working OT?

Mace spins and trots away. I finally relax my grip on my necklace and pull out my cellphone, text three words to my boyfriend Durf. “Ugh. Save me!”   

I imagine my Durf’s tanned, freckled face, his curly, untamable brown hair, his muscled shoulders rippling under his T-shirt as he perches on the tailgate of his white Durfee Feed Store delivery truck. His boot tongues flap open beneath his jeans because he never ties the upper laces. He’ll slide off his leather work gloves, swipe at the sweat on his nose, and grin—exposing straight white teeth—as he reads my text.   

I try not to think about our goodbye kiss last night, and of course, fail. My knees wobble for all the right reasons as I feel Durf’s arms around me again, his skin smelling of sweet-feed, hay, and the barbecued ribs we ate for dinner. He kissed me as though it would have to last twenty-four days, not twenty-four hours. Durf is afraid some rich Sevenoaks snot will steal my heart. Pete Durfee, Durf for short, needn’t worry. No one at this school could make a hay wagon, an old horse blanket, and a Yeti cooler filled with White Claws seem as glamorous as a yacht.   

Durf texts me right back. “On my way, riding four-wheeler. Jump on. Not slowing down for you, girl.”    

I smile, put my phone away as another teammate springs up in front of me, a lopsided grin on her angular face. “Hi, C.J. Welcome to Sevenoaks. I’m Annie McQueen.” Annie is small and wiry like me, but the resemblance ends there. Where I have a heart-shaped face, round cheeks, brown eyes, and dark brows, she has bleached white hair cut very short with a pink stripe, and brilliant light blue eyes. Her face is angular with prominent cheekbones, and I wonder when she broke her nose, the aquiline bridge having a pronounced sideways V. It makes her look tough. “It’s nice to meet you. Coach Rouse sent your game video around. You’re good! We really need you on the team.”   

I like Annie already. And some of my unease melts away.  

She grabs my arm and drags me into the bright, green-and-white-tiled locker room. The pungent odor of disinfectant makes my eyes water. She elbows a path through our teammates, jabs both index fingers into her mouth, and whistles a sharp, piercing blast. “Listen up, everybody. This is C.J. Boots!”   

I loosen my jaw, twiddle my fingers, and plaster on my best fake smile as my new teammates whirl around me.   

“Welcome to Sevenoaks!” several say, tapping me on the back. Most seem friendly.

*This is a work in progress, with hopes of being published soon.