Fat Angie (18 page)

Coach Laden blew her whistle. All the other girls jogged onto the court. Stacy Ann glared as she walked past Fat Angie. The ball that had sealed the deal rolled to the edge of the court, where KC stood holding her phone in snapshot mode.

“Let’s go, Angie,” said Coach Laden.

The moment — time — froze between the girls. Fat Angie and KC exchanged super-dramatic-longing looks. KC’s was laced with a harder, you-really-betrayed-me-so-I’m-not-revealing-my-heart look. At least, that was what Fat Angie chose to believe about their exchange.

KC pocketed her cell and disappeared around the corner.

Fat Angie dropped her head back, exhaled heavy breaths, and moved in with the rest of the girls.

“Just a reminder, ladies,” said Coach Laden. “Varsity has two spots and the next hour and a half determines who walks out with them.”

Fat Angie salivated at the yellow-and-blue jerseys with gentle white trim dangling from Coach Laden’s hand. She was perplexed by such a reaction without an association to food.

“OK. Let’s warm up.” Coach Laden blew her whistle and the clock started.

Coach Laden pushed the girls from drill to drill, testing agility, endurance, and hunger.

Fat Angie repeated in her headache-wracked brain, “Don’t quit. Don’t ever quit.”

Her sister had said,
“Remember, you have to follow through. No matter what Mom or anyone says. The only thing in your way is you. And me. Ha!”

“More, Angie. Let’s go,” said Coach Laden, startling her.

And so Fat Angie did — go. Again, and again. Her muscles ached. Her legs shook when she did crosscourt defensive slides, but she pushed onward. Imagining her sister cheering her on.

Stacy Ann unleashed the b-ball beast inside her. Her defense was impeccable.

Fat Angie outshot every girl on the court but Stacy Ann.

Coach Laden blew the whistle and the girls limped forward, barely standing. Two jerseys hung over Coach Laden’s broad shoulders.

“Who thinks she is the best player out here?” asked Coach Laden.

Fat Angie felt no need to chime in on that question. Two girls in the front raised their hands confidently. They had played quite well. Very well, as a matter of fact.

“You two can leave,” said Coach Laden.

Confused, the girls held their footing.

“Seriously. Leave the court. You’re not team players.”

One of the girls, clearly a box-dyed blond, said, “Come on, Stacy Ann.”

Stacy Ann was not one to follow the sheep.

“Stacy Ann?” said Coach Laden.

“I’ll catch you later,” Stacy Ann said to the girl.

“Chicken shit,” said one of them, as the two left the court.

“Who out here thinks they would be great for JV this year?” said Coach Laden.

A group of hands went up. That group did not include Stacy Ann or Fat Angie. Actually, Fat Angie very much wanted to throw her hand up, but her sister would not have. Her sister would not have quit.

“You two think you’re varsity material?” Coach Laden asked, addressing Stacy Ann and Fat Angie.

“I can play hard,” said Stacy Ann.

Coach Laden’s attention veered to Fat Angie, who had her head unconfidently down. “Angie?”

“Um . . .” Fat Angie said. “I can . . .”

This was her moment. Everything she had been working for came down to whatever she would say next.

Stacy Ann half-laughed.

The tension swelled in Fat Angie’s head. The process of counting numbers as a coping device in no way felt accessible.

“I can . . .” said Fat Angie.

They were all waiting. Fat Angie was waiting. She closed her eyes, and in that quiet she could hear her sister’s voice.

“I can follow through,” Fat Angie said, almost surprised the words were coming out of her mouth. “I won’t quit.”

There they were. Stacy Ann and Fat Angie. Mortal enemies vying for a chance to play on the state-ranked team to beat.

“That’s good,” said Coach Laden, handing Fat Angie a jersey. “Don’t ever quit.”

Fat Angie stretched out her sweaty hand. A varsity jersey — a varsity jersey, freshman year! A varsity jersey freshman year like her sister. She was like her sister! She pressed the yellow-and-blue fabric against her chest. Then —

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” And Fat Angie did a little jump-in-place happy dance.

Stacy Ann and the rest of the hopefuls stared at Coach Laden.

“Um . . .” said Fat Angie, feeling the awkwardness in her behavior.
“Yesss.”

Coach Laden held out the other jersey for Stacy Ann and said, “You play on this team
like
you’re on a team or I’ll bench you all season.”

Stacy Ann nodded.

“The rest of you are JV,” said Coach Laden. “Meet with Coach Grates in his office. Good job, everyone.”

The girls peeled off for the locker room. Stacy Ann glared at Fat Angie. “This doesn’t change anything, Fatso. You’ll bench it all season.”

“You know what you are?” said Fat Angie.

“Please, Fat Angie. Tell me. What am I?”

Fat Angie’s face constricted as she pondered the question. She was not exactly sure but it was extremely unpleasant. That much was a fact.

“You’re a freak,” said Stacy Ann, resuming her strut for the locker room.

Fat Angie stood there. The court was empty.

She held out the jersey and gulped.

Forty-two. The number on the jersey was forty-two.

It was her sister’s number. It was her sister’s jersey. Fat Angie poked her arms and head through and stood there awaiting some magical transformation.

She was, of course, still Fat Angie. Fat Angie in a state-winning final-basket-at-the-buzzer jersey. And that had currency.

Re-creating the winning state play, Fat Angie air-dribbled. Her eyes imagined defenders. She passed right, set a screen, pivoted, and pulled out — way out. The ball whipped back to her. She dribbled, whipped it left, eyed the clock, then — right hand in the air. The ball met her palm. Full stop. Straight up, and everything fell away — the defenders, the crowd.

Release.

Buzzer!

Whoosh!

“Forty-two,” the crowd had chanted. Over and over, her sister’s number had filled the gymnasium.

Right then, there was no crowd. There was no state final. There was Fat Angie. Fat Angie in her sister’s jersey, which fit surprisingly better than she could have imagined.

Fat Angie was number forty-two now.

Fat Angie hunched over her sushi takeout. Every ounce of joy regarding her spot on the William Anders High School varsity squad was squashed by an obligatory dinner at the dining-room table with her couldn’t-be-bothered mother and Wang.

Fat Angie squeezed the cloth napkin in her lap into a wrinkled ugly thing.

Wang leaned back in his chair and smeared wasabi across his plate.

Her mother poured a second glass of wine. An unusually large glass.

The moment sucked the absolute life out of Fat Angie. She wanted to scream but knew it would be perceived as acting out.

“Eat your sushi,” said her mother.

Fat Angie did not like uncooked fish.

Fat Angie did not like uncooked anything that should have been cooked.

Fat Angie did like the noodles but her mother had portion-controlled her carbs to three-fourths of a cup.

Wang sat forward, swirling noodles on his fork. He looked up for only a moment at his sullen sister, who was still wearing the smelly
HORNETS’ NEST
T-shirt.

“I, um . . .” said Fat Angie. “I made the varsity team today.”

Fat Angie clung to the jersey from beneath the table. Awaiting some reaction from her mother, who sipped her wine.

“Mom . . .” Fat Angie said.

“Did you call your therapist today?”

“I made the varsity basketball team,” Fat Angie said. “I sent you a text.”

“I’m not cold, Angie,” said her mother. “I know you think I am. I’m not particularly proud of how I handled last night. That’s not the point.”

“What’s the point then?” Wang said, deadpan. He shook his head and slipped iBuds into his ears.

Fat Angie held up the jersey. It was a showstopper of a moment. That jersey had not been in their house since the day after the state finals. Wang fixed his eyes on the jersey. There seemed to have been the slightest break in Connie’s otherwise disconnected behavior. Fat Angie’s lips formed a smile that puffed up to beautiful cheeks.

“I made the team,” Angie repeated. “I did it.”

“Return it tomorrow,” her mother said.

“What?”

Her mother reached for her cell. “You got that out of pity. You need to learn to live in reality.”

“Why are you — can’t you just — this
is
reality. I really mean I made it on my own,” Fat Angie said.

Her mother tapped the number two on her phone. Otherwise known as speed dial to Fat Angie’s therapist.

“I’m not going to let you manipulate me,” her mother said.

“How am I —”

“Hello, I need to speak to Dr. Conrad,” Connie said. “Well, then I need to leave a message for him. Yes, it is an emergency. Do people generally call after hours to discuss the mundane?”

“You don’t share things with my mother,”
Angie had said to the therapist.
“She can’t really be bothered with the truth.”

“Have you tried to communicate with her?”

“I don’t have unlimited text messaging.”

The therapist had made a note:
Issues of abandonment from father’s stroke.

Her mother hung up the phone. “Your therapist is going to call back on your cell, and when he does, don’t you eat through my money with your ‘ums.’”

Fat Angie studied her mother splitting a piece of yellowtail with a few aggressive chopstick maneuvers. “I’m so tired of this, Angie. I don’t even know who you are.”

“Can you cut her a little slack, Mom?” said Wang. “Or does that just crush your schedule?”

“So the two of you are now joined by disliking me?”

“You just want us to sit here and accept you not being around and Dad not being around and act like we’re . . . a fucking Rockwell picture or something,” Wang said. “Whatev. That’s jank.”

Fat Angie watched the standoff between her mother and Wang intensify with an exchange of looks.

“I brought you to this country to give you a better life and —”

“You mean
Dad
brought me here. Then
you
wouldn’t let me go with him because you’re petty.”

Their mother heaved a heavy breath and raised her glass of wine to him. “You’re baiting me. You’re acting out. Your therapist has made that much clear.”

“I bet he has,” Wang said, under his breath.

“Excuse me?” said his mother.

Wang kicked back from the table. “You decide to stop being petty, I’ll gladly pack out. Until then, don’t act like we’re so stupid. Angie and I know you’re banging my therapist.”

“Sit down!” said his mother, shooting out of her seat.

He shook his head, his expression engaged in a serious smirk. “
You
sit down,” Wang said.

He jetted upstairs. The grinding of death-metal guitars blasted from his stereo.

“Why?” asked her mother. “Why. Can’t. Both of you. Just.
Try,
Angie?”

“Try what?” asked Fat Angie.

“To accept reality,” said her mother. “To
be
in reality.”

“You mean
your
reality,” Fat Angie said, glaring.

“Don’t ever feel the freedom to look at me like that, Angie.”

Fat Angie closed her eyes and silently counted in her head. Unaware that the numbers began to rip from her chapped lips. Chant-like.

“The numbers will calm you,”
the therapist had said.
“You will feel —”

The slap of her mother’s hand on the table startled Fat Angie. The wine spilled, rolling to the table edge, drip-smacking on the cream carpet. It would most definitely leave a stain.

“Damn it!” her mother said, sopping up the spill with her overpriced off-white napkin.

Her mother looked so much smaller on the floor, where she feverishly pressed the wounded carpet. The napkin did its best to minimize the injury.

“What?” her mother said.

“Nothing.”

“Then quit staring like you’ve never seen someone clean up a mess. Why do you have to act so incredibly
special
?”

A speedball of anger shot from head to heel. Angie broke for the stairs. She passed Wang’s obnoxiously loud music and went into her room. She dug into her backpack and pulled out the crumpled picture of her and KC Romance deep in smoochfest. She cut out the picture and forced it to fit within the confines of the plastic photo holder in her Velcro wallet. She dropped her head forward. The stretch of her neck felt great.

Her cell phone beeped. She flipped it open.

Mom’s such a bitch. Wang had attached his signature skull and crossbones to the message.

She sighed.

She started to text back.

She stopped. She could not trust Wang even though he had just called their mother out. He had all the traits and history of a turncoat.

Fat Angie jammed into a pair of jeans that did not fit quite as tightly as she would have expected and crawled out her bedroom window. With shaky muscles, she worked her way down the tree. Just above the dining-room window her sneaker slipped. Her heart revved into turbo pump. She pressed against the tree for absolute dear life. In spite of her being less than eight feet from the ground. Steadying herself, she watched her mother power through documents. The dining room emanated that gold glow common in cheesy made-for-T V Christmas movies. Fat Angie waited for some sign of the person who once was her mother. Not the angry kamikaze pilot-pod person who had taken over her mother when her sister had joined the armed forces.