Girls in Pants - Ann Brashares [30]
It’s different now. It’s all different, she was telling herself. But she was not sure her self was listening. Eric circled close to her, with the slightly bemused expression he had often worn around her two summers before. She followed him with her eyes.
The campers were gathering. They were supposed to all be between the ages of ten and fourteen, but the boys particularly were so varied it was almost comical. Some looked like little kids. Some looked nearly like grown men.
She saw Manny, assigned to be her trainer, whom she’d met during coaches’ meetings the day before. She waved to him and he waved back.
The boys’ director blew his whistle. Joe Warshaw. He’d played for the San José Earthquakes, a major claim to fame. Bridget jumped to her feet, shaking out her legs. This was exciting. She’d coached unofficially in Burgess, Alabama, the previous summer. She’d coached at clinics. She’d assisted the JV coach at school a bunch of times. But she’d never coached her own team before.
She knew her reputation preceded her. She’d already heard whispering behind her back at breakfast that morning. She was not only the youngest coach but also the only high school all-American this year.
She spent most of her life in places where her soccer accomplishments didn’t matter that much. Her friends weren’t athletes. They were as supportive as they could possibly be. All three of them had cried at her awards ceremony. But they didn’t understand what it meant—nor did she really want them to. She loved how much they loved her for everything else. Her dad, always preoccupied, thought being an all-American was basically comparable to making varsity. And her brother had come to a grand total of one of her games. But here it was like being a celebrity. These kids worshipped the things she’d accomplished. And Eric. He, of all people, knew what it meant.
She ended up at Eric’s side as the director called out the teams. Not entirely on purpose. He was the only one she knew. (How strangely she knew him.) And it was a perfectly natural place to stand.
It’s not like I’m going to do that again, she promised herself.
Sometimes when she thought of Eric, and now more powerfully when she saw him, she felt some achy nostalgia for her old self. For the dauntless, daring soul she used to be. There was something vaguely enchanted about that time. There were certain qualities you possessed carelessly. And you couldn’t retrieve them when they were gone. The very act of caring made them impossible to regain.
Not all of that spirit was gone. She still had it, but she had a more tempered version. That time with Eric in Baja had been both the height of that magic and its calamitous end. He had managed to inspire both.
She was a bit more fragile now. Or no. Maybe she was less fragile. Maybe she had come to terms with her injuries and knew how to protect them. She was more self-protective, that was true. But she was a girl without a mother. She had to protect herself.
Bridget had the sense that she was already popular among her constituency. The boys assigned to her made a big thing about it among themselves. As they gathered around her now, some looked boldly admiring and others just looked terrified. She had several capable, well-muscled kids. One of them, a blond, spoke English with an accent. For some reason, the face that drew her belonged to a broad-faced, freckled, sharp-featured kid with long, gangly legs and extremely large feet. He had a great face—all eagerness—but even just standing still made him look uncoordinated. He was going to be a project, she could tell.
While their teams put on their jerseys (Bridget’s team was sky blue), she found herself standing near Eric again. “You’re popular, aren’t you? I’ve never felt like such a letdown,” Eric said, laughing, and she was pleased if he meant what she thought he meant.
“So how’s it going?” she asked him coolly. She wanted him to know she was different now. “You look tan.”
“I just got back from two weeks in Mexico.”
Bridget felt her face strain.