Stop the Presses! (13 page)

“It's soooo hot in Texas!”

“It's soooo hot in Texas!”

Alex and Ava Sackett blurted out the same words at the same time. They did this a lot. Their mom always said it was a twin thing.

“If someone handed me a pair of scissors right now, I'd chop off my entire ponytail,” said Ava.

“Then I suppose it's a good thing the scissors are still packed in a box somewhere,” sighed their mother.

Alex rolled her eyes. “Must you always speak in such hyperbole, Ava?” She bumped her sister over a fraction of an inch. “Don't hog the fan. And don't even kid about chopping off your perfect, gorgeous curls!”

The two girls were sitting on the floor,
sprawled against the wall of their new living room, sharing a single, not-very-large fan.

“Who's kidding?” Ava replied, bumping her sister back. “
You
have perfect, gorgeous curls. My hair is just a giant pain.”

“What are you talking about?” Alex asked indignantly. “We have the exact same hair!”

As she spoke, Alex patted her own hair as if to make sure it was still there. It was, of course—piled into a topknot that was both stylish and practical in the scorching heat. Ava's chocolate-brown curls, on the other hand, were gathered into a messy ponytail. Loose strands had escaped and were plastered to her neck, making her even hotter. Ava couldn't help but notice that Alex's hair had stayed put on top of her head and wasn't stuck to her neck.

“Girls, it's too hot to bicker,” said Mrs. Sackett. She'd given up trying to unpack the kitchen and was splayed in the one chair not stacked with boxes and other junk. She lifted the already-melting, ice-filled bag from the top of her head and applied it to the sides of her neck, like she was dabbing herself with perfume. “I'm sure your father will have the AC up
and running any minute now.”

From the office, Alex and Ava's older brother, Tommy, let loose a triumphant cry. He appeared in the doorway holding a second fan above his head, like a wide receiver who'd just scored the winning touchdown. “Found it!” he said, shoving a box out of the way to plug it in. He, too, slumped to the floor to bask in the flowing air, which rippled his own brown curls.

Ava got tired of jockeying for space in front of the fan. She stood up and drifted lazily over to the window, which looked out over the backyard. Beyond the fence was the backyard of the house on the next block in their development, and beyond that, a vast, treeless landscape, flat as an ocean, all browns, grays, and gray-greens. The colors in Texas were very different from the lush darker greens of their backyard outside of Boston.

Across the room she could see through the doorway into the kitchen, where their Australian shepherd, Moxy, lay on her side, panting. The kitchen floor was probably the coolest surface in the house, but that wasn't
saying much. Moxy looked at Ava, the whites of her eyes visible as she gazed upward, as if asking Ava to explain what on earth had happened to the Sackett family. One day they were in Massachusetts, with a backyard full of squirrels to chase and lavish garden beds to dig up, and the next they were in dry, barren Texas, where it was too hot for any self-respecting dog to even
consider
chasing after a squirrel.

Suddenly there was a groan and a whir and then a
whoosh
, and the air conditioner started up. All four of them cheered. Almost immediately, cool air began flowing through the house.

“Thank goodness,” said their mom.

“Here comes Daddy,” said Alex, as they heard footsteps bounding through the kitchen.

Coach Mike Sackett stepped over Moxy and joined his family in the living room. The air-conditioner repairman followed behind him.

“Much appreciated, Bill,” said their father to the repairman, shaking his hand.

Bill saluted. “No problem, Coach,” he said. “I'm sure y'all will get used to the Texas heat eventually. Must be quite a change from where
you folks came from.”

Coach nodded. “We'll get used to it, and everything else,” he said, leading the man toward the front door.

“Practice start tomorrow?” Bill asked.

“Yes sir, it sure does.”

“Team look okay?”

Coach chuckled. “We're young. It's going to be a rebuilding year, but I have high hopes for the boys,” he said.

Bill hovered in the doorway, not yet ready to leave. “So what's your strategy against Culver City, Coach? I was talking to some of the guys at the shop, and they were saying Culver's got more size this year. You'll probably want to spread the field, right?”

Coach patted him on the back and guided him out the front door. “That makes sense. I appreciate the perspective,” he said, and waved the man out.

“Another football fan!” said Mrs. Sackett with a little laugh as Coach shut the door. “There seem to be a lot of them in Ashland!”

Coach grinned. “It's just the culture,” he said. “Lots of die-hard football types. It was
the same way when I was growing up around here. Everyone in Ashland pays attention to the Ashland Tigers. It's a nice, close-knit community, Laur. You'll see. I'm going to watch some film.”

“Ooh! What film are you going to watch, Daddy? Can I watch with you?” asked Alex, who had paused in the doorway.

Now it was Ava's turn to look at her sister in exasperation.

Coach grinned at Alex. “Not
a
film, honey. Just ‘
film
.' In this case, footage of last year's squad, so I can get a better sense of the strengths and weaknesses of our returners.”

Alex pouted. “Oh, right. Never mind.” She headed upstairs.

Alone with her mother in the room, Ava moved over to the window again and stared moodily outside.

Mrs. Sackett softly cleared her throat. “Anything wrong, pumpkin?”

Ava shrugged. “Nah. It's just . . . different here. I'll get used to it. I guess I miss my old room. And—my friends and stuff.”

“Have you heard from Charlie?” asked her
mother gently, not probing.

Ava nodded and swallowed. “Yeah. I think we're good. I guess he's really excited about football this year—he's been practicing a lot.”

Charlie was her best friend back in Massachusetts. Alex was better friends with Charlie's twin, Isabel. Ava and Charlie had been inseparable since T-ball days. Their moms had met at a group for mothers of twins when all the kids were babies, and they had remained good friends. But in the past year, things had been . . . different between her and Charlie. He'd suddenly blushed practically every time she said anything to him. Pass the ketchup, please. Blush. Want to have a catch? Blush. That kind of thing. Well, maybe it was his red hair. Redheaded people blushed easily.

With a heavy sigh, her mom picked up a box marked
KITCHEN STUFF
. “It's hard for all of us, Ave,” she said.

Ava looked at her in surprise. She'd been so busy wallowing in her own self-pity, she hadn't thought about this being hard on her mom.
But,
Ava reflected,
it must be
. Her mom
had been really happy back where they used to live. She'd taught art at the local elementary school. She'd had her own friends. A garden.

“Dad is under a lot of pressure as the new coach, and Tommy as a player, too.” Ava's mom broke into her thoughts. “At least you and your sister have each other. That's a really special thing.”

Ava grimaced. She missed her sister, too. She missed the way they used to hang out together, to take Moxy for walks together, to wash up at the side-by-side sinks in their old bathroom every night. Now they tended to go to bed at different times, and the new bathroom only had one sink. Alex was monopolizing it; she spent what seemed like hours in there with the door closed, experimenting with different hairstyles.

“It seems like we're more different than ever. She's so ‘go, go, go!' right now.”

“Honey, that's just your sister's way of dealing with all these changes,” Mrs. Sackett said. “I know she's been a little . . . intense lately, but she'll be calmer once we've all settled in. You know she feels better when
she's working on some sort of project—picking up in Texas where she left off in Boston is her new project.”

Ava thought about this. Her mom was right—Alex didn't like change. When she was five, she had thrown a fit when their mom started buying a different brand of peanut butter.

“But you know she needs you to pull her nose out of her planner once in a while,” Mrs. Sackett joked.

Ava thought about what her mom said as she climbed into bed. She was just drifting off to sleep when her phone vibrated.

It was Charlie.

Hey, what up? All good in Texas?

You wearing cowboy boots and

a ten-gallon hat yet?

Ha. As if. I'm just trying

not to roast to death.

It was over 100 degrees

again today.

Whoa. You need to find a pool.

Yeah, I think there's one

pretty close to here. We haven't

had time to look for it, though.

How's practice going?

Doesn't start for three weeks.

We're not on the crazy

Texan schedule, remember?

Ha ha.

Oh right. Ha ha.

Ha ha. Well, CU L8ter.

CU L8ter.

Ava read and reread Charlie's texts. Her first-ever potential crush now lived 1,983 miles away.

And her twin sister was sleeping a whole room away. Sigh. Both felt worlds apart.