Chapter 1

Nicknames are pretty tough when you’re growing up. They can vary from nonsensical, to on the nose, and often can be pretty mean. Whether it was Pa-Tree-sha, Six-foot Patty, or the classic Beanpole, Patricia Walker’s nicknames always centered around her height. An early bloomer, she shot up to 5’5” by freshman year in High School and kept right on growing. With her family’s genetics she figured she’d probably end up reaching her nickname’s stature soon enough. Between classes, she bobbed above her classmates like bouy in the freshman sea. It made her very easy to spot which made the possibility of playing hooky less likely.

It also caught the eye of Ms. Melinta, the biology teacher and girls JV volleyball coach. It didn’t take much to get her to join the JV team, and she was instantly a starter. Awkward at first, Patty showed a lot of heart, and steadily improved technically.

Over the year, Tricia felt somewhat normal for the first time. Despite her penchant for being a bit of a spaz, with the girls of JV and varsity volleyball, she felt like a part of something. Little by little she felt herself growing into her own body. Sometimes she still felt gangly, but looking in the mirror, she started to see the statuesque woman with dirty blonde hair and curves developing.

“Oh my god, look who discovered a butt!” Alicia snarked taking a break from combing out her towel dried locks.

Tricia could have pruned her face at Ali, but she was too taken with the curve she was seeing in the mirror, “I know right,” she giggled, “I’m like Christina Columbus,” she planted an imaginary flag on her panty covered bottom, “I have discovered booty!”

Alicia rolled her eyes.

“Arr, I be a pirate hoarding that thar booty!”

“Okay, six FP, come on, get dressed, we have a victory celebration to go to and coach wants us to get together for another pep talk or something.”

“Didn’t we, like, win?”

“Ladies, quit yammering and let’s move,” Roshondra barked out. She was captain of the team, a sophomore, and absolutely going to be on Varsity next year. She was also strongly politically opinionated and very bossy.

Patricia complained, “But ... Butt”, she pointed at her booty and made puppy dog eyes.

Roshonda chuckled, “Put some jeans on that thang and move it.”

Patricia grinned and broke out into repetitive rendition, “I like to move it, move it!”

Alicia exclaimed, “Oh god not this again!”

The captain fixed her second afro puff and threatened, “Patty, if you get that song stuck in my head again there’s gonna be problems.”

Patty made a sour face at that, but stopped dancing and shaking her butt and grabbed her jeans. But it was so catchy, she decided it wouldn’t hurt to just whisper hum it to herself while she got dressed.

The girls met at the front of the locker room with Ms Melinta. Patricia was only halfway paying attention.

“ ... I’ll be gone for 4 weeks, which means I’m going to miss the rest of the season. But don’t worry, you’re going to be covered just fine. Especially since we’re doing so well this season because of all your hard work.”

“And the beanpole,” someone added and Ali and a couple other girls whooped and patted Patty on the shoulders.

Ms. Melinta smiled, “Yes, we’ve got some really talented women on this team - that makes us good. But technique, sweat, and love make is what makes us great. To that end, I want to introduce you to your interim coach, outside.”

They walked outside to reveal, “Mr. Klein. He’s an excellent volleyball coach, he’s coached the boys team at Central all the way to state, he’s got the technique, so make use of him. This is a brilliant opportunity. Any questions, ladies?”

It was a short moment, maybe a few seconds at most, but to Patricia Walker it felt like forever. Mr. Klein smiled, tall and handsome, with a thick head of hair that looked like something out of a primetime drama, and eyes that glinted mirth. For a moment, her heart leapt into her throat and she stopped humming or hearing any music. She saw him, Mister Klein.

Alicia raised her hand. “Go ahead Alicia,” Ms. Melinta called on her.

“What’s your name going to be when you get back?”

Ms. Melinta heaved a sigh, but it was a question she’d been expecting. “Yes, the rumors are true, this is going to be my honeymoon. When I get back, I’m going to be Mrs. Major.”

“Aww...” The girls cooed one by one into an avalanche of appreciation before they all surrounded her and hugged her.

Patty joined in the hug fest a tad late and still a little shook. She couldn’t say why Mr. Klein’s presence hit her so, but it had and she made sure to hide it as best she could. No, she wasn’t going to be a cliche, she promised herself. Schoolgirl with a crush? No, that wasn’t her.

Later on, in Alicia’s mom was giving the pair a ride home. Much to her mother’s chagrin Alicia jumped in the back to chat with Patricia about a variety of nonsense. Patricia’s mind was stuck on the new coach.

“Ali, do you think it’s, I dunno weird?”

“Chase and Joanne? No, I think their perf!”

“No, I mean, you know, having a guy coach. I mean, is he going to come into the locker room?”

“Eww, no!”

“That’d be weird right?”

“No way, he’ll just be out in the gym and besides, we still have Ms J,” she was the assistant coach from the varsity team who was going to help out with JV while Coach Melinta was out.

“Oh, right.”

“Are you kidding, if we had a coach who was going to be perving on us my mom would be freaking.”

“What was that honey?” her mom had on some podcast as was hardly paying attention.

“Just talking about the new coach, Mom.”

“Oh, okay. What do you think, do you like him?”

“Just met him, Mom.”

Patricia bit her lip. Ali always seemed so put upon by her mother. She wanted to ask if Ali thought he was cute. Of course doing so would make it obvious that she thought he was cute, except she didn’t think that he was cute, she was just curious if Ali thought ... She stayed quiet.

“You know what’s weird?” Ali perked up.

“What?”

“Check this out,” she grinned sharing her phone.

“Oh God is this another TraceItOut video? Am I going to hurl?”

“Just watch!”

TraceItOut was a YouTube star who made her mark doing gross challenges that even some of the boy stars wouldn’t touch. She gave a whole speech on being safe, and that a lot of viewers expressed concern that she wasn’t being safe. So today’s video was going to be all about safety. When she pulled out the Magnum condom, Patricia groan, “Are you serious? The condom challenge? Isn’t that like old now?”

“No, no, no, just watch.”

The young YouTube starlet managed to squeeze her fist into the condom. “Tada! See, now you’re ready for some safe fun, like this!”

“Ew ... Ow, how? Huh, okay, that’s odd. What?” Patricia watched in growing disgust and amazement as the girl fit her entire fist into her mouth wrapped in the condom and all. “Why are you even making me watch this?”

“I know right, she’s crazy!”

“But what does this even have to do with anything?!”

TraceItOut banged her elbow on the table in a struggle to get her fist out of her mouth. Her head bobbed in an obscene motion.

“She’s totally going to choke!”

“I know, it’s so badass!”

“Ugh!!”

“Like literally, I don’t even know why we’re friends, I mean not really, but really, what the eff was that?”

“She’s so boss.”

Ali’s mom yelled out from the front, “Can you girls keep it down, I’m trying to listen to-” she gave up and mumbled to herself, “really important current affairs that you all should probably know about by now.”

“Sorry mom!”

Back home, Patricia curled up in bed with her phone. Chase had a story up on snap, but mostly it was pics on insta. She made sure to give the likes and the heart-eyes, but her heart wasn’t in it. She thought about Mr. Klein. When he was their age, he was probably thinking about 9-11 and the Iraq war. Automatically, she looked him up on Facebook. A broad smile grew on her face as she saw his profile picture, Mr. Klein and his doggy standing by a creek. He had a big smile on his face and he and the dog were both drenched. Guess they’d been on a trail run gone amok. Her finger hovered over the add friend button. Would that be weird? She’d only just gotten the account last year and he’d be her first non-family adult friend. She chickened out and closed the laptop.

“Patricia Walker?” At their first practice, while the girls were doing b-s-s drills, the new coach was taking time and talking to each girl individually.

“It’s Patty, or six foot Patty, or Beanpole, or, you know whatever, really, I even go by sfp.”

He frowned, “Beanpole? You know I think I like Tricia for you. You okay with that?”

She nodded with a blush but he didn’t notice, since he was looking at his clipboard. He looked up, “That alright, Tricia?”

She smiled breathlessly, “Oh yeah, that’s fine.”

“Great, Mrs. Major left some notes, and I checked out some videos of the last few games, if you’re up to it I have some suggestions that’ll help you with the balance issues,” he looked up, “Are you willing?”

Her heart thumped. Even Alicia noticed her deer in the headlights look. “Oh god, you drip, don’t be so embarrassed. Of course she’s up for your suggestions, coach.”

Tricia stammered, then nodded.

“This isn’t to do in practice, but after, I want you doing a set of balance poses. It’s yoga, but don’t freak out, these should help you get started. I do this with all my boys who hit a real growth spurt. Sometimes the brain needs a little time to catch up to the body.” He gave her a smile and patted her on the shoulder then tore off a strip of paper with a series of weird names and phrases.

Mr. Klein really was a great resource. After getting to know the girls in the first practice, he turned into a total hardass. Those four weeks felt more like training camp than high school. In addition to the regular drills, bump drills, set drills, and spiking, he also had them doing intense plyometrics.

He called practice to a close sending most of the girls streaming into the locker room, but Patricia didn’t follow in. She picked up her phone and the sheet of paper underneath with the list of poses.

“Good practice today, Patricia.”

She smiled and nodded, “Thanks coach.”

He was already heading off when she realized it was just the two of them. She bit her lip as silly thoughts floated by of missed opportunities. Patty shook them off and focused back on the poses. She found images of a few of them and started trying them out, first with the simplest, Tree pose.