Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do? (45 page)

“But, hey, that's not fair. I mean, you'll call in favor of your own team.”

“If you don't trust us, lend us some of your squad to call too.”

There was discussion about this, then six of the Harry Truman players came forward, and Mikey mixed everybody up and distributed them around the courts. She gave her instruction again: “If it's not clearly out, if there's any doubt, call it in.”

“But hey, what if it might be out?”

“If you're not sure, it's not.”

“Who're you, the tennis mafia?”

Mikey liked that idea, but before she could think of a good response, Coach Sandy came storming up.

“Have you permanently unplugged your memory banks, Elsinger?” Coach Sandy asked. “Off the courts. Now. And take your little friends with you.”

Mikey would never have just ignored her. That would have been rude, and Mikey wasn't out to be rude. She was out to be rebellious, maybe, or disobedient; or you could put it
another way and say she was out to ensure fair play. You could say that there were just two different points of view here. But that didn't mean Mikey couldn't be polite. So she turned around to face the coach and answer her. “No.”

Then she turned back to her work. “Ira, take the far line of court two, and you”—pointing at an Asian girl with very short dark hair and sweatpants under her tennis shorts—“take the sidelines and the service line.”

“I'm warning you, Mikey,” Coach Sandy said.

Mikey turned around to respond politely, “I know.”

“Your choice,” the coach said, and stormed off back the way she had come, towards the gym.

Mikey figured it wouldn't be all that long before Mr. Robredo was out there, and she wondered how that conversation would go, because he was big enough to lift her up bodily and carry her off if he wanted to.

Or, she thought, picturing it, he could just crowd her off, stepping closer, driving her like cattle. In which case she would have to run, run around the courts, and he would have to run after her if he wanted to catch her.

She had no good guess about how fast he was.

But that would seriously disrupt the games, which was the opposite of what she wanted to do. She hoped that when Mr. Robredo got there, the conversation would give her a clue about what to say, how to behave. Because she didn't have any ideas of her own. Meanwhile, she hustled over to the court where Mark Jacobs was playing singles.

“Good to see you guys back here,” he greeted them. “Are you ready?” he asked his opponent. “Are all of you ready?” he asked the linespeople. “Then, let's do it. You spin your racket, I'm calling up.”

The racket showed down, so Mark got in place to receive the first serve. The match had begun.

When Margalo and Hadrian arrived at the courts after rehearsal, four games were still in progress.

Mikey was calling the lines on Court One, a girls' singles game. Margalo went over to the players' bench to ask about scores, but instead, looking around, realizing, she asked, “Where's Coach Sandy?”

The two boys and one girl sitting there didn't take their eyes off the court in front of them. “Dunno. She went off a while ago. Move, will you? I can't see.”

Hadrian had taken advantage of the change of sides to offer his services and Margalo's to Mikey, who just pointed to Court Four and said, “When they have a changeover.” But those doubles players didn't want the lines called. “We're fine, we're in the groove,” they said. So Margalo and Hadrian went to sit on the second row of bleachers and watch as the sets were played out.

One court after another emptied its players and line callers out, and people milled around, watching whatever games were still in progress. Mr. Robredo arrived for the end of the match, showing administrative interest in the
sports program, introducing himself to the coach of the opposing team and standing beside her to watch the final game of the final set, with Mikey, Ira, and two strangers calling the lines. At the end, “Good game,” Mr. Robredo said, then turned to the players sitting on the bleachers to say, “Good playing, everyone. Thanks for the match,” he said, shaking the hand of the opposing coach, and then—putting a hand out to grab Mikey's shoulder as she tried to get past him, going fast, as if he wasn't there—“I want to talk to you.”

“Absolutely,” Mikey said. “In a minute,” she said, and turned to finish her own job, telling everybody, “Good work.”

Mr. Robredo added his thanks, then told them, “You will be doing this for our last two home matches, won't you? I'm counting on it.” At the expressions on their faces,
Trapped!
he warned, “Otherwise it would look like you had some hidden agenda here. Is there a hidden agenda?”

They shook their heads No, they wouldn't think of it. Sure, they'd call the last two home matches.

“I've been thinking, it probably should be the responsibility of the tennis squad to call lines. As of next year,” Mr. Robredo added.

Margalo had moved closer to Mikey, showing solidarity. Hadrian had stayed back, showing insecurity. Hadrian wasn't accustomed to dealing confrontationally with the authorities. But he didn't scurry off, Margalo noticed, which she noticed
the other tennis players and linespeople doing now, gathering up sweaters and knapsacks.

“Mikey,” said Mr. Robredo. He sounded disappointed but calm. “I told you.”

Mikey nodded.

“I should not, however, be surprised,” he continued. “And I'm not.”

Mikey nodded again.

“I want you to show up for practice on Monday,” he said then. “Ready to play, will you do that?”

“All right,” Mikey said, “but—”

“No questions,” Mr. Robredo said.

Mikey stopped talking.

“You're lucky I'm not suspending you,” he reminded her.

Mikey didn't nod.

And Mr. Robredo—after waiting briefly for a reaction—asked her, “How many weeks is it?”

This was unexpected. Mikey hesitated, then, “Six,” she told him. “As of Monday.”

“That's thirty days,” Mr. Robredo said.

“Yes,” Mikey agreed.

Margalo was having a pretty good time watching this conversation. She was having a pretty hard time not laughing.

“Although,” Mr. Robredo said thoughtfully, “if you factor in that the last week is only four days because one is an in-service day for teachers so they can get their exams corrected and final grades calculated, and if you remember
that there are three exam days and that attendance on the final day of school is optional, for those who want to find out right away what grades they're getting—Adjusting for that, it's effectively only five weeks as of Monday. Which is twenty-five days. How are you handling Memorial Day?” With that question he turned on his heel and strode away.

O
n Monday, Mikey and Margalo finished quickly with Louis, praised his work—which was, in fact, perfectly acceptable—and then negotiated a Wednesday deadline for his next assignments. Louis fled the library feeling as if he had won a great victory and maybe even pulled the wool over their eyes. “You think you're so smart but you're not as smart as you think,” was his parting blow.

They didn't try to contradict him and have the last word. They had their own purpose for Louis, which came under the heading of They Said It Couldn't Be Done. “Do you think he'll pass these courses?” Margalo asked Mikey.

“If he doesn't pass Math he'll hear from me. I don't know about English.”

“Miss Marshall is being generous, letting him make up
assignments from the fall and winter. I tried to warn her not to expect him to thank her.”

“How about answering the question?” Mikey asked.

“Well, yes, he could pass English. He
should
.”

They were satisfied and entirely pleased with themselves as they went outside to eat lunch in the sunlight. Most of the school felt the same way that early May day, so all the tables were occupied, and the wall, too. They had to sit cross-legged on a cement sidewalk, sandwiches and fruit, cookies and cake, boxes of juice and milk set out on paper napkins in front of them.

“This is week six,” Mikey announced. “Day thirty. It's really getting on down there. According to the way Mr. Robredo counts”—she liked remembering this—“it's actually week five. Day twenty-five. Actually, day twenty-four, because of Memorial Day.”

“He's right, you know. Exam period isn't like school.” Margalo was having peanut-butter-and-jelly for about the twelfth straight day, and she was pretty tired of it.

“I brought you a piece of cake.” Mikey passed over a thick wedge of chocolate cake with chocolate icing and a pink candy rose.

“Is this a birthday cake?”

“It was Katherine's birthday Saturday.”

“She had a party? Why didn't you ask me?”

“You were baby-sitting.”

“You could have asked anyway.”

“There were balloons and hats, even though it was only us.” Mikey had an entirely thick sandwich, thick slices of wheat bread with thick slabs of white cheese and chunky golden chutney. “Presents, too. The boys each gave her a water pistol.”

“She wanted two water pistols?”

“No,
they
did. We gave her an electric juicer, one of the small ones, for orange juice and grapefruit juice. She always drinks juice at breakfast and now she can have really fresh juice, which is always better than packaged.”

“That's not an awfully personal present for your fiancée,” Margalo observed.

“I think Dad has something else. Something private. Maybe a watch?”

Margalo gave Mikey the beady eye,
Who do you think you are deceiving?
then she made her countersuggestion. “A nightgown.” Something in Mikey's face made her counter-countersuggest, “Probably a watch, that's a traditional important gift, or maybe books she'll like. A cookbook?”

“I
know
they're doing it,” Mikey said. “Having sex. I'm not stupid, I just—I think it's private to them.”

Margalo wouldn't quarrel about that. “Agreed. One hundred percent agreed. And I don't want them speculating about
my
private life either.”

“You don't have one, do you?”

“Sooner or later we probably will,” Margalo said. “We're not entirely abnormal.”

“I don't think we're abnormal at all. I think we're what normal should be. We're what normal
is.
It's everybody else that's getting it wrong.”

Margalo gathered up her papers, crumpled them into a ball, dropped them into her paper bag. “Maybe. But everybody thinks it's us that's wrong.” She rose to her feet.

Mikey got up too. “But what do
they
know? They think school is going to last all the rest of our lives.
They'll
be surprised.”

On that cheerful thought they went to the girls' bathroom, before the afternoon classes started. Most of the stalls were empty this late into lunch. But Ronnie and a couple of friends were occupying the mirrors, applying lipstick and mascara and combs. When Mikey and Margalo emerged from their stalls, only Ronnie was left. “I wanted to say . . . ,” she started, then stopped, distracted.

They waited. She was giving herself a final check in the mirror, and something about her mouth wasn't right apparently. When she saw them in the mirror watching her, she smiled,
I know,
and said, “Uncle Eddie told my father that Louis got a C on a makeup Math test, and Louis told him—told Uncle Eddie, that's his father—that he'd pass English, easy.”

Margalo corrected both errors at the same time. “Not easily.”

“Which is really great,” Ronnie said. “You really . . . you really helped me, and my whole family, too. So I was wondering”—a final lifting of hair to resettle it onto her shoulders
finished the job, and she turned around to face them—“how I could repay you. So I was thinking, I might be able to—Would you like me to get you a couple of dates for the prom?”

“The prom?”

“
Your
prom?”

“The Senior
prom?”

Ronnie smiled and nodded, the queen tendering a favor to her loyal knights.

“That's crazy!”

“What's wrong with you?”

Ronnie's smile faded and her nodding ceased.

Then, “No!” Mikey cried, and, “No,” said Margalo equally emphatically, although she did add, “But thank you anyway.”

Mikey had more to say. “That's the worst idea you've had as long as I've known you, Ronnie Caselli, and it's been a while. It's been a while and it includes some real stinkers.”

“You don't have to start insulting—” Ronnie said. “All right,” she said, and swung away from the mirror, huffing out of the room. But she stopped with the door open to tell them, “It wasn't going to be easy, you know.”