Girls in Pants - Ann Brashares [83]
Thursday night, she found the Traveling Pants bundled up inside a Jiffy bag in her mail cubby with a note from Lena. She was in business.
Friday morning she got up at five. She was too preoccupied to sleep. She put on her team’s blue jersey. She brushed her hair and wore it down. As an afterthought she applied mascara and a little blue eye shadow. The color matched her eyes, her Pants, her mood, and her jersey. Team spirit and all.
She went outside to consult her notebook in the streams of first sunlight that crept across the ground. She was still stuck on Naughton. Everybody deserved a chance. Everybody had something to give.
In a fit of inspiration, she went to his cabin and woke him up. “Get dressed and meet me at the south field,” she told him. He had a hopeful look about him, which she suspected related to something other than soccer. “Naughty. Nothing like that. I need to figure out what to do with you.” He knew he was an unconventional player. If he didn’t, he should have.
When he got out on the field she ordered him into the goal. In one way, Eric had been right. Naughty’s deficits made him a terrible choice for goalie. But on the other hand, there was something about him….
“Ready?” she called lining up with the ball fifteen or so yards out from the goal. She kicked one straight at him, hard but not very hard. He moved away from it and fumbled the ball with his hands, allowing it into the box. His big feet weren’t good and his hands were worse. She wondered why he’d stuck with soccer since first grade, as he’d proudly told her that he had.
“Let’s try another one.” He threw her the ball and she stopped it neatly with her foot. She tried several more straight shots on goal. He couldn’t just stand there and catch a ball coming right at him. He felt the need to move. He screwed it up almost every time.
She decided to try out her theory. She stood farther back and gave herself a little room to run. She kicked the ball hard, sent it sailing right into the top left corner of the goal. She watched in amazement and also satisfaction as his body took off in the direction of the ball. He leaped high, and with arms outstretched, he caught it. “Wow. Nice,” she called out.
Inside she was screaming, but she didn’t want to make a big deal.
She sent him several more hard, angled shots and he pulled each of them down. He couldn’t tend goal when it meant just standing there. He couldn’t be given any time to think, or his mind sabotaged him completely. But he could move. He had a remarkable, almost spooky sense for where the ball was going to be, and the faster it came, the farther away it was, the more impressive his ability.
On her final shots, she actually challenged herself to get one past him. Only her last and finest shot made it into the goal.
She went over to him and shook his hand. She smacked him hard on the back. “Naughty, you have something. I don’t know what it is, but it is something.”
“You look amazing,” Tibby said, sitting across from Christina at the small table in their kitchen. Christina bowed her head modestly. She peeked proudly at her baby. It would appear that she felt amazing too.
“I am lucky, is what it is,” Christina said, hiking the baby up a little in her arms. “But Tibby, listen.” Christina cast her eyes at the closed door. “I wanted it to be just the two of us”—she paused and glanced at the baby—“well, the three of us—for a few minutes, because I wanted to ask you something. It’s kind of serious, and you don’t need to say yes and you don’t even need to answer right away.”
“Okay.” Tibby couldn’t help feeling a little nervous. “You aren’t going to ask me to be your labor coach again, are you?”
Christina snorted so loud in her laughter that the baby startled. “No. I promise.”
Tibby laughed too.
“Not that you weren’t everything I needed,” Christina said more seriously. “You were.” Her eyes looked perilously shiny, and Tibby felt her own eyes getting like that too.
“I wanted to ask if you would be the baby’s godmother.”
Tibby’s eyes widened.
“I know it sounds heavy, but it doesn