Chapter 51

August 21, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

[Written August 23]

Dad dropped us about 8:15 at the high school for practice. We said “hi” to Abby and Katie and by 8:20 the five of us were stretching, as were some of the other girls there. A couple minutes later, Civia joined us in stretching, during which we caught up, though we had spent Saturday with her.

At 8:30, sharp, Coach yelled, “Gather ‘round.” When everyone had gathered in front of her, she said, “I am Coach Virtanen, and prefer just ‘Coach.’ For those that don’t know, this is my first year coaching a high school team, although I have 15 years coaching girls’ soccer and was a midfielder in my youth. For the past eight years, I’ve been coaching the Elkton 12-15 premier team. Some of you I know, many of you I don’t.”

A few girls looked around quickly, perhaps trying to figure out who she knew.

“While I don’t know this team well, I did manage to catch all or most of four games last fall after I heard that the previous coach was moving to coach a college team. I am also now a PE instructor at the school, so you will all be seeing me frequently, even outside of soccer.

“The roster is limited to 25, which is a few more than I’m used to carrying, but I welcome those few extra players. I can see that we have a couple more than that here, so I’m afraid that a small number of you won’t make the cut. We’ll be spending the next two weeks plus figuring out who those girls are, unfortunately. I say ‘unfortunately,’ because despite some high schools in more-populous areas than Elkton having JV boys’ teams, there just aren’t enough girls playing the sport to justify, much less fill out, a girls’ JV team. I’ve certainly not heard of a high school with a JV girls’ soccer team.

“Ground rules. As soon as you arrive at practice, the first thing you will do is stretch, whether I’m here or not. After that, we’ll do warmups. I know that all teams do different things and this team probably did different things in previous years. However, I’m old and set in my ways and I’m the Coach, so, we’ll do it my way. This morning and for the next two or three mornings, I will have one of the girls that was on my premier team this year lead us in warmups, so you’ll know what to expect ... every day. After warmups, we’ll do a few laps, the number of which will change, occasionally.

“Today will be atypical and may well run longer than usual, as I need to learn various basic aspects about each of you, including what positions you have played and what position you want to play. Once we get warmups and laps out of the way, I’ll call roll – so I can know who is whom – and you’ll each tell me about positions. Also, please keep your focus on me or what you’re doing in practice here on this field. Please don’t get sucked into watching those studly boys on the next field during their third week of practice.”

There was some chuckling.

Coach then pointed at me, which I was expecting, saying, “Run them through warmups.”

I nodded, inhaled deeply and exhaled as I was stepping up by Coach, then explained what we were going to do.

After 15 minutes of warmups, Coach said, “Three laps. Don’t sprint, but don’t lollygag, either. Go.”

When we were all back by Coach and she had our attention, she said, “Liya, front and center.” When she got there, Coach said, “This is Liya Nadhi. She will be one of my assistants this season. Yes, she’s younger than most of you, but if she asks you or tells you to do something for me, you will obey her like she were me. She has not played soccer, but she’s been around it for quite a while. More importantly, she knows the sorts of things that I want and how I do things, as she was one of my assistants on the premier team this summer.”

The post-laps session had four interesting bits. The first was that Liya read off the list of names and filled in our answers on Coach’s form while Coach watched everyone and everything. Liya seemed to be memorizing girls’ names during the process. The second was that Coach did not introduce Civia as an assistant, and I suspected that I knew why. The third was when a very dark, very tall girl who was obviously young said that she was a goalie. Coach smiled when the girl said that she was 14 years old. The last was when Gracey answered the question about preferred position with an almost-casual “wing midfield or back line.” Though Coach was probably kicking herself for her reaction, she whipped her head around to look at Gracey in surprise.

After we got through the positions questioning, we did some passing drills, drills that were designed to give Coach some understanding of skill sets. Liya received all the passes as, one by one, each of us had to pass the ball to her from 15 yards away and we had to run through the process four times, once each for each side of each foot, all while Coach took notes. Some girls’ outside-foot passes from the non-dominant foot were somewhat pathetic. We did some shooting drills from various points on the field with the three goalie candidates splitting time in goal. Rhee and Heather showed off their pinpoint control with either foot from spots inside the penalty box, with Heather generating a few “oooh”s from other girls with her first outside-right shot, as the ball started to the left of the goal but curled enough to graze the left post on its way into the net. Rhee and Gracey both nailed line-drive rockets from a few yards outside the box, which also got some responses from watchers. Coach watched it all, with Liya at her side filling in boxes on Coach’s form.

I got questions from a couple girls while we were standing in line during the passing and shooting drills, both dealing with me leading warmups. I responded only that I had been on the premier team and was used to that. I knew that Coach had her reasons for doing things the way she was doing them.

At the end of practice, Coach had us gather again.

“Thank you, all of you, for putting up with what was a learning session for me. There will be many aspects of practice all week that will primarily be for me to learn the sorts of skill sets each of you has and I ask that you each do your best, no matter what sort of things I ask you to do. After this week, practice will become more like typical practices for my team. Once school starts, we will have a regular schedule of practice sessions, shooting drills one day, scrimmaging another, et cetera, until the season starts, after which, practice will be designed around upcoming games. From tomorrow, every practice day will start the same way: Stretches, warmups, laps, and rondo. Many of you may be unfamiliar with that last item, but we will start it tomorrow. As I am for warmups, I will be depending on girls from this summer’s premier team, along with a few conscripts from the high school team’s veterans to explain and demonstrate rondo.

“One of the things that I do differently from the way that many coaches coach is to use team members to teach skills to either a few other team members or the whole team. I apologize ahead of time because, at least in the near-term future, I’ll be using girls that I’ve coached recently to do such instruction, even though they are younger than most of you. Until I come to know the things that each of you do well, I will not know on whom to call as instructors.

“After tomorrow’s preliminaries, we will be scrimmaging for much of the day, although I will be moving girls from position to position and team to team. If any of you have questions that are relevant to the whole team, please ask them now, else wait until after practice and ask me one-on-one. I will entertain questions for about a half-hour after I call the end of practice. Because of work this week on the plumbing in the school in the vicinity of the girls’ team bathroom and showers, I’m afraid that you’re all going to have to go home stinky. I have been promised that the work will be done by the end of the week, so next week we can use the showers after practice. Now, are there any questions relevant to the whole team that absolutely need to get answered ... today?”

Once Coach called practice to an end, Abby asked, “Gracey, where’d you get that rocket? I’m not particularly surprised that Rhee found one, but I have to admit that I didn’t see you getting one. And what’s with midfield?”

“We’ve been working on rockets this weekend, and after Beth suggested it, I thought I’d like to try something new. Rondo has certainly helped me with my ball handling, so...”

“And there are three returning seniors at fullback,” Abby said with a grin.

“And there are three returning seniors at fullback,” Gracey repeated with a shrug and a smile.

Katie, who was standing with three other older girls, called to us.

“Hey, Beth, bring yourself and your friends here.” When the seven of us got there, she said, “Hope, Shameka, Kim, this is Beth Williams. Shameka, you didn’t come with us to their game. Beth is the captain of Coach Virtanen’s premier team. Beth and everyone, these are Hope Burley, Shameka Johnson, and Kim Shadoan. We’re four of the five seniors. Rachel, the other senior, had to get home. Since I don’t know everyone in this group, I hope that it’s okay with you girls if Beth introduces you all.”

Rhee and others nodded, so I said, “I’ll introduce the others in the order that I met them. This tall girl here is Rhee Devlin, who was our league’s leading scorer the past two years. Gracey García was our team’s starting right back this year, but since you seniors are in her way, she’s decided to try midfield. Abby Huber was our backup right back this year, but she’ll probably be starting there next year. You’ve already met Liya Nadhi. Heather Wilkerson is the cute little girl with blazing speed and was our starting right wing in the second half of our season. Last, but very, very far from least, is Civia Palecek, who is an up-and-coming striker.”

“So, Gracey,” Shameka said, “you played with Ann De Jong. What do you think of her? I’ve heard some scuttlebutt about her, but I’ve never seen her play.”

“You’ll probably see her play this year, as she’s at West. She is the very best fullback that I’ve ever played with. I learned an amazing amount from her about, as she says, how to be a fullback, not how to play fullback.”

Shameka nodded her head and said, “I like that: ‘How to be a fullback. I may have to steal that.”

There was much chuckling.

“But, what’s this about Abby starting at right ... Oh, Ann would have ... graduated, right? So, are you going to be filling her shoes?”

“I’ll probably be the center back, but her shoes may be bigger than my feet.”

Again, Shameka nodded.

“Good. That’s good,” she responded.

Katie said, “So, Beth, Civia ... is that right?” When we nodded, she continued with, “What is your story, Civia? I don’t recognize you, and Beth’s whole team was in the ice-cream parlor one day, so you probably weren’t on the team, particularly as I noticed that Beth specifically did not say anything about their team in connection with you.”

Civia looked at me with a bit of a pleading expression.

I replied, “Since Coach didn’t explain today, I feel that it’s not our place to do that. I think that I know what Coach is doing, but I’m not sure. However, given that we’ll be scrimmaging tomorrow, I would put a little money that she’ll explain about Civia tomorrow at the end of practice. I’m sorry, but I learned long ago that there are particular reasons for the things Coach does and the ways that she does them. As Gracey said about Ann, I say about Coach. She’s the best coach, by a long shot, that I’ve ever had. I would greatly appreciate all of you waiting until Coach explains and not spread the word that there’s something ‘odd’ about Civia’s presence.”

Katie shook her head in, seemingly, friendly exasperation, but smiled and said, “Okay. I won’t press it. Of course, now you’ve gotten me even more curious.” She looked at Civia, then said, “You can’t be the second coming of Alex Morgan, since she’s still alive and playing. Abby Wambach is also still alive.”

Civia blushed somewhat, then held her head high and responded, “I’d be very happy if I turned out anywhere near as good as Alex is or Abby was. Right now, I’d be happy to be as dominating as Rhee is.”

Rhee put her left arm around Civia’s shoulders and said, “I’d be happy if you looked to be more dominating than that ... and managed it in the next year or so.”

“I’ve seen you play,” Katie said with some incredulity. “I’m surprised you’d say something like that about her. You really think that she’ll get that good, that quickly?”

“I’ll be surprised and...” After a slight pause, she restarted with, “I’ll be surprised if she’s not better; and thanks for the compliment.”

The four seniors stared at Rhee and, nearly as a unit, shook their heads.

“I’m hungry,” Shameka said to the others, “so if you want a ride home, let’s go.” To us, she added, “See you all tomorrow. I’m looking forward to the Civia explanation.”

As we had set up with the Paleceks, Civia rode a bus with us from school to a stop by the park that houses our practice pitch; we walked to the Williams house from there. We went in through the back door to drop our shoes and gym bags in the mud room. Heather peeked into the garage, then began stripping.

“No one’s home,” she said into the shirt that she was taking off her head.

Civia looked at Heather, then at the rest of us, then back at Heather.

As Heather dropped her shorts and panty to the floor, Civia said, “You really like ... nudity. Don’t you, Heather?”

“Oh, yeah,” she answered as she removed the last vestiges of clothing, her socks.

The rest of us had begun working on catching up to Heather during the brief conversation. Once she’d gotten Heather’s answer, Civia shook her head, then began her own disrobing process. We threw the clothes into the washer, started it, then congregated in the kitchen.

“Showers or lunch first,” I asked.

“I’m really hungry, but I vote for quick showers,” responded Liya. “Practice wasn’t that active, so I don’t see the need to wash Rhee’s hair, so showers shouldn’t take that long.”

“Agreed,” Rhee said.

Since no one seemed to object, Liya ran the random-number generator, then said, “Downstairs, Gracey and Rhee, upstairs, Heather with Civia.”

Four of us trooped upstairs. While Liya turned on the shower heads, I emptied my bladder with an impatient Heather waiting to replace me on the toilet.

“You girls are ... I don’t know. You shower together, which I’ve come to understand ... and like, but using the toilet?”

“We draw the line at taking a dump; that’s not a public activity. Peeing? Meh,” Liya said. “We don’t think about it anymore. We don’t want to wig you out; we want you to be comfortable here. If you need it and don’t want to do it in ‘public,’ feel free to use the downstairs bathroom.”

Although I would not have been all that surprised had she gone downstairs, she gathered herself and said, “No, I want the comfort that you all have. I want the ... friendship that you all have. I’ve thought a lot about the level of friendship, trust that you all have with each other. I certainly have never had a good friend, but I’ve also never seen friendships like yours. It’s ... amazing. You work together so well. I ... I really want to be part of that.”

Liya looked up at me, so I took over.

“Why don’t we get showers done, then talk about this over lunch?”

I saw nods all around, so stepped into the shower. Liya followed me and the two of us began the Go5 routine. I saw Civia ask Heather something I could not hear, but when Heather waited for Civia, who sat on the toilet, I understood. Liya and I finished before the other two and we had towels waiting for them.

Rhee and Gracey had beaten us to the kitchen enough that they had sandwich makings out and were just tucking in when we arrived. I could hear the dryer, so one of them must have moved our laundry.

“I was wondering if I was going to have to call Search and Rescue,” Rhee said, a grin spread across her face.

“It was my fault,” Civia responded.

“No! It was no one’s ‘fault,’ Civia. Questions like that, discussions like that are important. While you may have been the cause, there is no blame to be apportioned, so don’t take any blame onto yourself for what was, at worst, a two-minute delay.”

I began explaining the cause of our slight delay in getting showers taken. Rhee gave me the “keep going” sign while she began making a sandwich for me; it was ready before I finished.

“Civia,” Gracey said, “you’re seeing the end result ... No, you’re seeing the current phase of our friendship, the basis of which – Beth and Rhee becoming my friends, then us adding Liya – began more than three years ago. We began sharing showers across the board only a couple months ago and the peeing thing began after that. We have all had to get over various mental hurdles to get to the relationships ... umm ... relationship that you see today. You have spent virtually your entire life by yourself, not having to even consider such outrageous aspects of relationships. We have been surprised, very pleasantly surprised, at how quickly your comfort level with various things is catching up with ours.

“Heather was the same way, at first, even though she was, probably, the catalyst for quite a bit of the closeness that you have had to ponder and accept. As Liya said, we want you to be comfortable with us; we don’t want to push you into doing something that makes you uncomfortable. However, in the past few months, we have become much more comfortable with each other than we had been. There are quite a few reasons for that, but one of them, one of the more important ones, is that we’ve spent more time together this summer as a foursome-then-fivesome than we did in the previous three years combined. Again, Heather may well have supplied the critical mass to get the reaction going. Even for us, one of us will occasionally look around, metaphorically...” Gracey waited to see if Civia needed an explanation, then continued with, “and be a bit amazed at how quickly we’ve changed together in some particular little way.

“I am the most conservative of us, but they’ve all tugged me along, not against my will, more like against my overly-conservative concerns ... fears, really. They would never pull me into doing something against my will, but they’re more-than-willing to get me to face my fears and realize that they were groundless. It has been a helluva turbulent ride, but I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

“We will never push you, but we may tug you a bit. We very much appreciate girls that know their minds, but even more, we appreciate girls that can rethink, examine from a different perspective, beliefs or habits that they might not previously have fully considered.

“Our relationship has become very much closer in three months, but we’re so comfortable, now, with each other, and you seem like such a good fit with us, that we may not consider various things we do from your perspective. Please, continue to let us know when we bump into something like this. Yes, we want you to be comfortable with us, but we want that comfort to be real, to be something of which you are sure, something you understand. We do not want to steamroll you into doing things the way we do them.”

Before Civia could respond, Liya said, “And right there you see one of the biggest changes of the past few months. Gracey is the one explaining how and why it is that we are so... [the mega-wattage smile came out to play] ... liberal in how we interact with each other ... and she used well over a hundred words to do it.”

There was much laughter, including from Gracey.

Civia looked around at each of us while her head slowly and shallowly nodded. The corners of her mouth began turning up. Her emphatic “Hey” set us back on our collective heels.

“You’re all naked. Where are your clothes?”

Heather, who was sitting next to the standing Civia, said, “I got this.”

She stood then enveloped Civia and squeezed her tightly.

“Girl! That was funny! You definitely fit with us. Pull up a chair and eat the sandwich that Rhee made you. You’ll need the energy as we have to plan how to take over the world!”

There was much laughter, particularly from Civia.

After we completed post-lunch cleanup, we were pondering what to do for the rest of the afternoon when Liya surprised us. Again.

“Now that we’re all clean and fed, I almost hate to suggest this, but I will, anyway. I think that we should go to the pitch and get some more practice in. This morning was not practice.”

“Liya’s right,” Heather agreed. “I’d like to continue to search for a rocket and we could teach Gracey some more ball-handling maneuvers.”

Ten minutes later, we were all dressed fully for practice and had all our cleats and three of our phones in a gym bag, particularly the all-important phone of Civia’s. We had balls in hand and were walking toward the pitch. There was a pick-up game in progress using the whole field, so we suffered a letdown.

“I don’t know if it’s worth going all the way to the game pitch; the same could be going on there,” said Gracey.

I have to get used to the new Liya, else I am in for many surprises.

“At least some of them are our age and they’re playing nine-on-nine full-field. Perhaps they’d let us ... or you guys play. I mean, it’s not their field.”

Right then, a shot went wide, and the ball came blasting at us. Rhee did not hesitate, but chested the ball up, let it drop to her feet, and one-touched it with her outside-right to the guy that had been in goal and had begun chasing after the ball. The guy’s eyes went wide, but not until he had already caught the ball that Rhee had kicked to him.

“Do you guys ... uh ... girls want to play?”

Again, Liya took the lead, saying, “Sure. Although I don’t play, the rest of us do.”

The guy took another few steps toward us and quietly said, “Follow my lead ... if you would, please.”

We looked around at each other. I nodded; Rhee and Heather followed suit. Civia and Gracey looked a bit uncertain but nodded.

“We’re in,” Rhee said, taking lead. “How are we going to do this? Do you want us to split up?”

“No, not at all. Please, if you would, follow my lead.”

“O-kay-y-y-y-y,” she answered.

“Come on, Victor. Quit flirting with the girls and let’s play.”

The guy, presumably Victor, turned and yelled back, “Hang on. Meet me at the center.” He turned back to us and said, “Come on.”

The seven of us trooped out to the centerline where the rest of the guys were either waiting or heading there.

“Hey, these girls want to play and if they joined us, we could play full teams.”

“But they’re ... Uh, do they know how to play? I mean, really play?”

“We always include kids coming in late, that’s the rule of the field. You know that.”

“But ... Uhh, if you want ‘em to play, you get ‘em all, and I’ll take Georgio, Seamus, and Julio.”

“Nah, man, that’s most of my best players. How ‘bout you take Georgio, Sammy, and Blade.”

“That’s most of your front line, dude. Why would you do that?”

“Hah! I bet even the little blonde girl could do better than Sammy.”

“Oh, you’re funny, dude. I could kick her ass.”