The Mockingbirds (4 page)

“From four years ago?”

“When you get a captain’s key, you keep it for life.”

“Where’s your key, since you’re captain next year?”

“I get it in a ceremony at the end of the year.”

“Of course. Anyway, why don’t we just meet here?”

“Captains’ Room is quiet. Plus it’s reserved for soccer right now, so no one else can use it.”

“But she’s not the Themis soccer captain.”

“She
was
a captain. She supersedes current captains if she wants use of the Captains’ Room.”

“Yet another thing about jocks that makes no sense,” I say as I toss last night’s tainted wardrobe into my laundry bag and pull on my robe. “I’m going to shower first,” I say, and walk to the bathroom.

I turn the water all the way up, hotter than usual. The near-boiling water stings my skin, but I don’t step away. I stand under the showerhead, close my eyes, and picture the reddish-pink splotches that must be forming on my skin. I lift my face to the hot stream, letting the water pelt my face. Then I turn around, feeling the burn of the heat on my hair, my back, my legs. Several rounds of shampoo and soap later, I am done and I am red.

I return to our room, pull on fresh clothes, and administer the fastest blow-dry I can manage as T.S. fidgets, eager to be on our way. I twist my mostly dry hair in a ponytail and pull on a cap. One look in the mirror tells me I resemble something close to a lobster, but that’s far better than the way I looked before.

“C’mon. Let’s go before the hallways get crowded and everyone wants to chat,” she says.

“I really don’t want to run into Carter. He could be at the athletic complex.”

“There’s no water polo practice today.”

“So? He could be like you, practicing on off days.”

“One, if he were like me, I’d know him better. Two, the pool is in a separate building, so let’s go,” she says, opening the door.

“I don’t want to see Natalie. She was at the track field earlier. She saw me walking back to my room and obviously knows something is up. She was all snarky and
nice clothes, Alex
.”

“Natalie Moretti?” T.S. scoffs, shutting the door behind us.

“Yeah, the Amazon.”

“She’s just a track girl. So what?”

“You disparage other female athletes now?” I ask as we head down the back stairwell, though T.S. sometimes does. She has her own caste system for all the athletes, all the teams. Don’t get her started on it; she can go on all day and night.

“Well, track is just sheer speed. Soccer, that takes speed and skill and finesse.”

Like I said…

“Speaking of soccer,” I begin, “let’s get back to why we’re meeting my sister. Why did you call her? Why is she coming? Why are we meeting in secret?”

“We’re not meeting in secret,” T.S. insists as she pushes open the back door and a blast of cold air hits us.

“I would have to say meeting in the Captains’ Room is pretty secretive. What’s the deal, T.S.?” I’m half-tempted to use her real name, but a promise is a promise.

“There’s no deal,” she says crisply.

“Then why is this so urgent?”

“Let’s talk about other stuff right now,” T.S. says as we walk across the quad to the gymnasium. “Like our spring project. I think I know what I’m going to do mine on.”

I relent, knowing I’ve lost this battle. “What are you going to do yours on?” I ask as we pass McGregor Hall.

“Stereotypes. I did a blog post on it. I even talked to Casey about it last night.”

“About your blog?”

“About doing my spring project on stereotypes. Whether there is any truth to them. When we can lean on them, when we can’t.”

“And your conclusion?”

“I think they’re based on something. They start with something that maybe is a kernel of truth or was a kernel of truth at some point. Then they take on lives of their own.”

I picture a stereotype rising up out of bed, stretching its arms, arching its back, becoming bigger than itself, like a growth, a wart.

“Like your stereotypes about track girls. So what does Casey think? Is there something to them?” I ask as my hands grow colder and I push them into my pockets, wishing I’d brought gloves.

T.S. shakes her head. “Nope, she says stereotypes are wrong. She says they lead to irreparable harm. I say they are based in truth and we need to understand the truth, but sometimes break through them. So I choose to
respectfully
disagree with Casey.”

“Aren’t we all just so polite,” I remark.

“What are you going to do yours on?” she asks me, as if she doesn’t already know.

“You know! We’ve talked about it before.”

“I was teasing. I know you’ve been planning it since you started freshman year,” T.S. says.

She’s right. I have been planning to do my project on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the love of my freaking life. “Ode to Joy,” the most famous part from the fourth movement, is the first piece of music I ever learned to play. That music is a part of me and I’m sure I would die without it. I would play it on an accordion, on a cheap little recorder, if those were the only options. I would whistle it if all instruments on earth were smashed.

The great irony is Beethoven slapped all pianists in the face with the Ninth Symphony. There’s not even a part for the piano in it. Trumpets, oboes, they get their glory days in the greatest symphony ever written, but not piano. But then along came the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, who transcribed Beethoven’s work for piano. I have a crush on Franz Liszt for that alone. So naturally I’ll do my spring project on the Ninth Symphony. But as we near the gymnasium, I
feel something like dirt in my mouth thinking of the notes in “Ode to Joy.” Because suddenly the song,
my song,
reminds me of Carter. I can hear it playing in his room.

“You like this song, don’t you?”

“Hmm…?” I ask sleepily
.

“You said earlier it’s your favorite piece of music ever written. I have it on my iPod—you know, from the
Die Hard
sound track. I want to play it for you.”

I don’t say anything, just lean against the wall, then I’m sinking down. I hear it, the first note, E
.

I can taste more dirt now, picturing his Al Green moves, his pickup-artist tricks, trying to get laid using my German composer. And it worked. I guess I’m that easy. One snippet of Beethoven and I’m spread out on a bed for the first time. Thanks, Ludwig. You’re a pal.

T.S. pulls open the door to the athletic complex and I lower my head, not wanting to see Natalie or any of the other track girls.

“You’re with me,” T.S. says calmly. “Don’t worry about Natalie or anyone.”

“What, am I your bitch or something? They don’t touch another jock’s property?” I ask as a girl with socks up to her knees ducks into the nearby locker room.

“Athletes’ code,” T.S. says with a wink. “Besides, she knows I could kick her ass.”

“Yeah right.”

We walk down a long hallway past coaches’ offices and supply closets and metal shelves of basketballs. At the end
is a door bearing what looks like a coat of arms—a navy blue shield, in the middle an illustration of a ball and a unisex face looking proudly in the distance. I shake my head, bemused at such a display. The endowment for the athletic department must be pretty sizable. There’s a crisp sheet of paper taped under the shield with today’s schedule for the room with times and teams marked off.

T.S. raps twice, then says, “Forward here.”

The door opens, as if by magic, but on the other side is my sister.

Casey looks just like me. There’s no mistaking we’re sisters. We could almost be twins. She has brown hair like me, straight, but not silky straight, more like thick-hair straight. The kind you can twist around and pin up in a pile on your head. Her brown eyes are just regular brown, not chocolate, not caramel, not coffee-colored—just brown, like mine. She’s in her soccer clothes, but as usual she blow-dried her hair this morning for a half hour and looks as if she just stepped out of a salon.

“Hey, Alex. How are you doing?” she says to me, putting a hand on my back and leading me into the lair of the captains emeriti.

I shrug off her hand. “I’d be better without the cloak and dagger,” I say, looking around. The room is tiny, the size of a small office. But there are three chairs, a coffee machine, several mugs, a sink, a microwave, a half-pint fridge, a basket with shiny red apples, a tray with tea bags, and a series of cubbies along one wall, containing cleats, composition
books, uniforms, and changes of clothes. The walls are covered in plaques, awards, framed photos of teams.

“Besides,” I add pointedly, “why would I not be okay?”

Casey doesn’t answer. She crosses three feet or so to a high-backed leather chair. She doesn’t sit down, just rests her hand on the back of the chair. T.S. stands too, as if she’s waiting for a sign. I bet it’s some other part of the captains’ code. Do not sit until the captain sits. But I don’t need an invitation. I can pick my own chair in the captains’ inner sanctum, so I plop down in the chair next to Casey, pulling it a few inches away from hers, giving myself some distance.

“You think we can get some coffee here, or are these cups just for show?” I ask.

“We don’t have a Frappuccino maker,” Casey says playfully. “I’ll make you tea.”

“Just something strong, please,” I say.

Casey turns on the faucet, fills three mugs with water, and hands them to T.S., who puts them in the microwave. When the tea’s ready T.S. hands me mine first, then squeezes my shoulder gently. I don’t want to be touched, so I shirk away.

T.S. gives Casey a knowing look, like that’s how they expected me to react. Casey takes a sip of her tea, then sets her mug down on a small round end table.

“So what happened last night?” she asks, in the same tone she’d use to inquire if there was any ice cream left in the freezer.

“What happened?” I repeat.

She tries again. “Yeah, what happened last night?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“I’m your sister.”

“And that has something to do with last night how?”

“It’s cool. We can talk about something else. Did you see that girl in the hall with the knee sock? Total fashion faux—”

I cut her off. “Why are you two acting like this, like you have some weird secret you won’t even talk to me about?” It feels as if ants are all over me and I scratch my calf, like they’re crawling up it.

“There’s no secret,” Casey says.

I fold my arms against my chest.

Casey takes another drink, T.S. follows suit, and all three of us remain quiet. Then Casey makes her move.

“So, what was the deal with that guy?” she asks.

“That’s why I’m here? To tell you both about my first time?” I look to T.S. and kind of want to spit at her right now. “Thanks, T.S. I really appreciate you dragging me to the
Captains’ Room
for this. Next time why don’t you just take me to the caf so we can do it in front of the whole school? Everyone’s going to know soon enough anyway.”

“Alex, it’s not like that,” T.S. says.

I hold up a hand, my palm to her, and shake my head as I stand, move to the sink, and put my mug down next to it. I don’t look at them, just place my hands on the edge of the slim counter, grabbing it, pressing hard with my fingers, sending all the tension, all the bubbling anger in my body
into my hands. I could break this counter, I imagine, split it in two and watch it splinter under my hands. When I turn around, something inside me snaps.

“You want to know what happened? You guys really want to know? Fine. I’ll tell you. Here’s what happened. I met a guy, I had some drinks”—I direct this at T.S.—“that your
boyfriend
supplied. And then I had sex. Twice, evidently. So it was a stupid hookup. So I’m a slut. So what? Have I embarrassed you? Have I left some taint on your Captains’ Room?”

I stare hard at Casey now, who has conducted her fair share of experimentation in college. She has dated short guys, tall guys, chubby guys, jocks, nerds, blacks, Asians, Republicans, actors, even a couple of bisexuals, not to mention a girl here and there. “You’ve hooked up way more times than I have,” I continue, pointing a finger at her. I know all about her conquests. She’d told me the good, bad, and ugly during our summers in New Haven when we sat outside on coffee shop benches, drank our frothy concoctions, and played catch-up. “You’ve had sex with more people than I could count. So I don’t know why you’re acting as if it’s a big deal, like we have to sit down and have tea and whisper and pet my head like I’m a freaking wounded bird you found on the side of the road.”

I reach roughly for my mug, take a deep pull, like it’s whiskey in a flask, and then I bang my mug down. “I’m going,” I declare.

Casey stands up, places her hand on the countertop near
me, her right palm flat on the Formica. It’s some kind of therapist gesture, and I can’t stand it. I back away, against the wall, feeling the hard edges of the plaques digging into my spine.

“Leave. Me. Alone,” I say.

“No.”

“I mean it. Back away.”