Chapter Seventeen

           In the morning, the thought of going to school literally gave Geri a headache. The fact that the left side of her face ached probably didn’t help. When she looked in the mirror, she grimaced. A ring of dark blue surrounded one side of her eye, spreading out across her cheek. At least her eye itself didn’t seem bothered. Another half-inch over and it would probably be red and swollen shut.

           “Since ya probably really do have a headache, I’ll call ya in,” Ganny told her, as they stood in the kitchen. “I thought ya were done with this fightin’ crap.”

           “Couldn’t be helped,” Geri mumbled.

           “Yeah, right. Sounds like a poor excuse. What’s your punishment?”

           “I don’t know. We haven’t been called into the office yet.”

           “Hmmm. Sounds like somebody’s afraid to make a fuss. Guess ya lucked out on this one.”

           “I don’t know. We might find out today.”

           “Well, I guess they’ll have to call ya or show up at the door for ya to find out. Here’s some Excedrin. Now go back to bed.”

           Geri took the pills and swallowed hard. Even her throat seemed to hurt for some reason.

           “I guess I ought to ground ya.”

           Geri took another drink of water and waited.

           “And then again, guess it wouldn’t do any good.”

           Geri forced a weak smile. But Ganny was still frowning at her.

           “What?” Geri asked, afraid to hear what she was thinking but knowing something more than a fight was troubling her.

           “The school will probably report this to the DHS. I’m still on probation with ya, ya know. They could still take ya away from me.”

           “That’s crazy!” Geri shrieked and then groaned at the pain it caused in her head. “It’s not your fault I’m an idiot.”

           “You’re livin’ with me.”

           “So! They wouldn’t do something so stupid.”

           Ganny’s silence made Geri’s anxiety increase. Then, she smiled and smoothed back Geri’s hair.

           “Go back to bed. It’s probably nothin’ to worry about.”

           Geri chewed the side of her lip, trying to get reassurance from Ganny’s tone and the stroke of her soft hand in her hair.

           “I got to go to the IGA. Warren will be here in a minute. I’ll call the school, tell them ya have a headache.”

           She picked up the phone and Geri reluctantly went back to her room.

           Coach Thorpe couldn’t report the fight, she thought. He just couldn’t. What would she do if she had to leave Ganny’s? The only answer she had was that she would run again. She knew that much.

           The phone rang a couple of times while Ganny was gone. Geri didn’t get up to answer it, but she listened and noticed that no one left a message. After several hang-ups, she went in the living room and looked at the phone. It rang again, and she picked it up.

“Geri?” It was Bird.

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“You idiot!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But what’s up?”

“Well, so far you’ve lucked out. Coach is walking around like a madman, but he hasn’t been in Mr. Renfro’s office yet. I don’t think he’s going to tell. Johnna looks like death warmed over with a bruise on her forehead the size—and shape—of your fist.”

“Shit.”

“The whole school seems to know about the fight, but they’re all keeping quiet about it.”

           “Somebody is bound to tell.”

           “I don’t know. It looks like we might make it through the day . . . and then we’re off to Stillwater. Nothing can be done after that!”

           “Let’s hope.”

           “You okay?”

           “Yeah.”

           “Skipper! I wish I had stayed home, too.”

           “Then who would call and report for me?”

           “Yeah, it’s nice to be needed,” Bird said sarcastically.

           “You know what I mean. You’re my right arm. My right side. . . . Only, you’re a little sore right now.”

           They both laughed.

           “Rest up,” Bird said. “I gotta go. Mrs. Martin thinks I’m in the bathroom, and she’s liable to come looking for me.”

           As soon as she put the phone down, it rang again. She didn’t pick it up but waited for the answering machine to come on. The gruffness of his voice startled her. He didn’t even say her name.

           We’re leaving at noon Thursday.  We’ll have a conference with Mr. Renfro on Monday. I don’t think I need to tell you that your team is counting on you. I am, too. So is Fishinghawk for that matter. Don’t let us down.

           The click was as loud as a passed ball missing its mark and hitting the wall.

           Her head still hurt and so did her stomach. She went back to bed and lay as still as possible and listened to the blood churning inside her. The sound was overpowering. How could the whole world not hear it? What would smother it?

           A sharp cramp zigzagged across her lower belly. She put her hand on her stomach and rolled over on her side, tears coming to her eyes. She hurt all over, and on the first days of her period, she bled heavily and felt sluggish. Cold wind whistled against the screen of the window beside her bed. And night fell.

* * *

           The rocks were interlaced with thin ice, which crackled under her feet. She moved carefully though it wasn’t slick. There wasn’t enough water and the ice was not widespread enough to make it slippery. On the deep side of the creek, the ice was only on the outer edges. In the middle the water was deep blue with an airy wisp of fog floating above the blue.

           She walked by this part of the creek and crossed where the water had slowed to a trickle and found the line of cedar trees. It had been almost a month since she had been here. It had never been this cold before either. She pulled her coat tighter around her and buttoned the topmost button which she usually left open.

           Behind her blue jays were waking up and calling to one another. One flew by and landed on a sycamore tree next to her. It did that bobbing call that sounded like a teakettle lid popping up over and over. She watched it for a while, wondering what it was thinking, wondering if that bobbing motion was keeping it warm. Maybe she should try it.

           Or maybe she should just turn around and walk back home. It wasn’t too late to forget this nonsense.

           A cow mooed in the distance. Soon people would be up and feeding the livestock. A distant light signaled the sun was on its way. But here beside the cedars and under the tangle of bare limbs of the sycamore, oak, and elm trees, it was still dark, dark as the water in its deepest part. Midnight blue.

           Sometimes she wished it didn’t mean so much to her. It was only a game. And in so many ways, it wasn’t. In so many ways, it was all she had. It was hers alone. She was so good at it because of her own strength of will. Her own determination had forced her to practice and practice hard every time she got a chance. To improve in every way possible. To not give up. To always give her best. She had done that. She alone.

           And now the biggest game of her life so far. It didn’t feel like just a game. Somehow she felt like everything she had ever done was riding on this game. Her whole life up to this point would be measured by how she did in this one game. She didn’t know why she felt this way. She wouldn’t let herself think it through because she was afraid of what she might discover if she thought about it too much.

           She did have a lot of other things in her life. Why did they fall by the wayside when it came to this. This need to perform. So, it was just a game, just a sport. And it was so much more.

           A sudden cramp made her moan. She bent forward and hugged her stomach, feeling the cramp spread across her lower belly and drops of blood flow out of her. She could just hear the noise her body was making as it adjusted to the cycle that had begun inside her. Without warning, she began to cry. It was helpless kind of crying, a realization that this was something she could not control. Each month her body would do this, and there was no control she had over it.

           Though she had no words for her feelings, she knew they had something to do with that loss of control, with being victimized, with losing. Losing. A detestable word. She never wanted to lose at anything, and that’s how she felt when the blood started.

           In her rational mind, she knew her body was doing what was natural and right. It needed to happen. She knew this. And her feelings were still there. What her mind knew didn’t reach her heart and soul.

           Everyone was counting on her. The team was counting on her to be at her best, to be fast like she always was, to score the points they needed, to put the free throws in at the eighty-two percent mark that she had been doing all season. Eighty-two percent. Coach was prodding her, giving her extra tips, always behind her, letting her know when she was lagging or distracted, letting her know when she could give just that two percent or five percent or ten percent more that she wasn’t quite giving yet.

           If she could stop the cramping and the blood flowing, she would have control. She would be free in her body again. She could make it do whatever she wanted. She would win.

           At the edge of the creek, the thin layer of ice cracked under the slightest pressure. She put her foot lightly against it and watched it break up and the pieces fall into the shallow water or rest against rocks jutting out. The gloves she normally kept in her pocket coat were not there, and she didn’t realize this until she was halfway to the creek. She put her hands to her mouth and blew on them and then jammed them into her pockets.

           The blue jay left its perch and flew over her head and disappeared in the cow pasture beyond the creek. She watched it go and then her attention returned to the water, her mind connecting the blue of the deep to the blue of the bird’s feathers. Freedom.

           She took a step forward, her foot smashing through the ice and into the water in one movement. The cold paralyzed her instantly, and she gasped with her other foot in mid-air, and then she focused on the blue and set the foot down into the water. Her heart already felt the coldness surrounding her toes and ankles. Already, she could barely feel her feet.

           Before she took another step, she unbuttoned her coat, her fingers shaking with shock and cold and threw it back on the bank. Instead of wrapping her arms around her body to protect against the chilly air, she put them out at her sides for balance. And took another step. And another.

           She couldn’t feel herself moving, wasn’t aware of her feet or her legs or her thighs now. But she knew she was moving because the deep blue was getting closer. When it reached her stomach, she would stop and let it surround her and enter her and become a part of her. She would let it . . .

           She placed the palm of one hand on top of the water and wondered at the paleness of her skin, beyond pale now, almost blue, the ethereal blue of the winter sky. The water was just below her navel, and she telegraphed a message to her legs to stop moving. She wasn’t sure they heard, wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Her body felt encased by the cold and ice.

           The sound of the water barely moving around her was like a lullaby sung to a dreamer in her final sleep.

Chapter Seventeen

 

            She dreamed of dribbling the basketball around the pot-bellied stove in the middle of the concrete floor. Church basement. Scratchy material covering her legs, hampering her movements. Fierce girls all around her. The sound of the ball against that floor like thunder coming in fast across the Oklahoma prairie.

            She dreamed she was an actor in a movie of her life.

FADE IN:

 

EXT. TREELINE BY A CREEK

 

Close-up of something green. As the camera moves back, we see it is a cedar tree. As the camera continues moving back, we see the entire tree-—one of several along a rocky creek bank. A redbird flies from the tree and disappears above the camera. The camera angles upward and we see the full moon in a cloudless winter sky.

 

INT. GERI’S BEDROOM – NIGHT

 

GERI, a teenage girl with disheveled blond hair, slumps on the end of the bed, staring into her hands. BIRD, GERI’s best friend, a Cherokee girl with her hair in a braid, stands at the window looking out.

 

BIRD

Where in the hell is she?

 

GERI

I can drive you home.

 

BIRD

You look like shit. You better just go to bed.

 

GERI

Yeah, okay, Mommy.

 

BIRD

Screw you.

 

(She pulls back the curtain, looking out.)

I’m gonna wait on the porch. Go to bed.

 

GERI

It’s freezing out there. I’ll get the keys.

 

BIRD

You’re still grounded.

 

GERI

Come on, idiot.

          (She walks to bedroom door and opens it.)

Granny won’t even know we were gone.

 

BIRD                              2

Don’t do anything stupid.

 

GERI

Hey, chick. I know how to drive. Granny sleeps

like a log. She won’t even—

 

BIRD

You know that’s not what I meant.

 

GERI

(She closes the door and leans against it.)

I should never have told you that story.

 

EXT. FRONT PORCH OF GERI’S HOUSE – FEW MINUTES LATER

 

Geri watches Bird and her Mom drive away. She shivers and rubs her arms, while walking across the porch and down the steps. Around the house, she kicks a watering can, rocks, dead flowerheads. When she enters the back yard, the flood light comes on and illuminates a circle between the house and barn. In the circle the dirt is worn in front of a basketball goal. Geri picks up a ball, dribbles and shoots, dribbles and shoots. Over and over. She doesn’t miss.

 

EXT. PARKING LOT AT HIGH SCHOOL – DAY

 

MIKE, a lanky Cherokee teenager wearing a brown suede jacket and jeans, leans against the passenger door of his truck. GERI stands a few feet away.

 

MIKE

Come on, Geri. I gotta work every Saturday til the end of time. This is the only one I got off.

 

GERI

I know. I just . . . I just gotta stay at home.

 

MIKE

Why?

 

GERI

I just don’t wanna go anywhere.

 

MIKE

Okay. Well, I’ll just come over to your house then. We can watch a movie or something.

 

GERI                              3

Granny wouldn’t like that.

 

MIKE

What do you mean? She likes me.

 

GERI

Oh I know that. Listen. I just need to think about some things.

 

MIKE

Are you breaking up with me?

              (Waiting impatiently in the silence)

Well, are you?

 

GERI

No. But I can’t think when I’m with you.

 

MIKE

Hey, that’s no problem.

 

GERI

You like ‘em dumb?

 

MIKE

Quit twisting everything I say.

 

GERI

Quit saying so much.

 

MIKE

Is this about the game?

 

GERI

In some ways. I have to stay . . . uh . . . focused, you know.

 

MIKE

It’s just a basketball game, Woman. It’s not life or death or the future of the universe.

 

GERI

How does it feel to have all the answers?

 

            In the basement dream, a girl waved to her. A girl with light brown hair, tall and slender, with a smile that reminded Geri of . . . Ganny. She waved to Geri from the other side of the basement. She faked a move that lost the girl guarding her, and she waved to Geri again. But she wasn’t waving to Geri. She was signaling for the ball. Throw her the ball. Throw her the ball.

            In another dream, she rode her bicycle into town and through it, past the high school and onto the county road that led to Morgan’s Cemetery. She was wearing striped socks, like the witch in the Wizard of Oz, and she was pedaling so fast she even passed a car.

            On the side of the road, she had to swerve around a van that was broken down. Inside it was Coach Thorpe and three girls from the basketball team . . and two of her foster fathers. They all wanted her help. Coach screamed her name. Why did everyone always want something from her? She rode on by.

            The dream ended when she got to the cemetery and rode in to the place where all her kinfolk were buried. She stood at the little grave with the lamb on the tombstone and traced Louise’s name, bits of concrete grit sticking to her fingertips.

 

INT. KITCHEN TABLE. LATE AFTERNOON.

 

GERI and GANNY sitting with full plates.

 

                   GERI

I can’t eat this much food before

a game. I won’t be able to get down

the court.

 

                   GANNY

Fiddlesticks. You need to eat to

build up your strength.

 

                   GERI

I can’t do it. I won’t be able to do

a jump shot with this humongous pork

chop in my stomach.

                  

GANNY

Girls shouldn’t be worryin’ about jump

shots anyway. You’re livin’ in my house

now, and you’ll eat regular meals,

whether you like it or not.

 

                   GERI

I don’t care about regular meals.

I care about winning this game.

 

                   GANNY

The day you start worryin’ too much

about some stupid game is the day

you make a really bad mistake.

 

                   GERI

You’re not talking about Louise,

are you? I’m not Louise.

 

            February in Oklahoma is unforgiving. The warm summer and fall, the false winter of December and January lull one into thinking that spring is next. The cold is over. Spring is coming. But it’s so easy to forget February, to fall into the pattern of warmth, to be lulled by it into dreaming that no chill can be powerful enough to stop you from doing whatever you want to do.