Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [16]
"My first coach told me I should forget tennis and take up hoverball."
"Why didn't you?"
"I guess because he made me mad."
This was surprising to her. Hobbes was such a quiet, meek boy that the thought that he could get mad would never have occurred to her. "Coach Cameron makes me mad, too. But she makes me feel like quitting."
"Quitting is easy. I didn't want to give old Epkowicz the satisfaction."
"I'm telling my mother this was it. I'm not going through this anymore." He regarded her solemnly. She felt uncomfortable under his scrutiny, as though he were judging her: she was taking the easy way out. Well, so what? If she never had to experience the disgrace she had felt today, she'd gladly take Hobbes Johnson's censure instead. She batted an errant lock of hair out of her eyes.
"Well, so long, Hobbes. Have a good lesson."
"If you'd ever like to hit some, let me know."
"Sure."
"Sometimes playing with kids your own age is better than working with the coach."
"You're probably right."
"How about tomorrow?"
The thought of being seen playing tennis with Hobbes Johnson was enough to make her toes curl under.
"I have piano tomorrow. And I have to help my mother with something." His earnest eyes gazed at her. She realized that Hobbes was accustomed to being rejected by his peers, and for a brief moment she considered accepting his offer. But then the vision of facing Emma North or Mary O'Connell and admitting she'd spent time with him overwhelmed her. "Sorry," she mumbled, and picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. "Maybe another time," he said mildly, and she nodded and walked away. What a terrible day this was turning into.
It didn't get better when she announced to her mother that she was quitting tennis. Her mother was a tall, gracious woman with curly brown hair-why did everybody have better hair than she did?-rich blue eyes, and a beautiful smile. When she was very young she used to do whatever she could to make her mother smile, because her face looked so happy when she did. Her mother wasn't smiling now. She sat in the breakfast room, listening quietly as Kathryn poured out her woeful tale. "I'm no good at it, and I hate it, and I'm never going to get better. I'm not doing it any more. It was embarrassing! Vulky Hobbes Johnson was there and I couldn't even hit the ball."
"Please don't call your friends vulky," murmured her mother. "He's not my friend. And it was horrible to have him see me be humiliated." She felt tears begin to sting her eyes again as she relived the awful experience. "I want to play Parrises Squares. I could be on the fourth-grade team, Mrs. Matsumoto said so. But even if I don't get on the team, I'm not going back to Coach Cameron, I don't care what you say!" The tears began spilling out of her eyes, and the pentup emotion of the day erupted, and she shuddered with great sobs.
Her dog, Bramble, a little wire-haired mutt, had been sitting quietly nearby, and now he became alarmed and came up to her, tail wagging, sticking his wet nose against her leg.
Her mother regarded her pensively, then held out her arms. "Come here, my angel."
Kathryn fled into her arms. There lay refuge; there lay comfort. She had been rocked in her mother's arms since she was born, and though she knew she was too old now, she still loved the feeling of haven. There, on her mother's lap, she was safe from the world; tears were dried, feelings were soothed, anxieties calmed. She was sure this would be the end of tennis lessons. Bramble, too, seemed to feel the crisis was over, and sat at the foot of the rocking chair, gazing up at the two with big dark eyes.
Her mother rocked her, and stroked her hair, and wiped her eyes, and murmured "There, there," the way she always did. But when Kathryn was calm again, her mother began talking.
"I know it's hard to struggle with learning a new skill. And no one likes to feel frustrated or humiliated. Anyone would be upset by feelings like that."