Already Gone Page 14

  I texted Gwen. Her date was going great, which was awesome, but I was so terribly bored. And I felt like a loser. When there was a knock on the door, I practically ran to see who it was.

  Dave was smiling his crooked smile when I opened the door. Mason had just told me we were friends. He wasn’t even flirting. And did I already mention that I was super bored?

  That’s why I invited Dave in for a movie. The movie kind of sucked, but we weren’t paying much attention to it anyway. I had forgotten what a great kisser Dave was. Someone hot and funny and talented liked me. I sent him home around ten, since my mom and Lacy could be back anytime, and I didn’t want them to see him. Okay, fine, I was hiding him.

  When I woke up Saturday, Lacy and Mom were already on their way out the door. Lacy looked amazing in a dark blue suit, and I took a good look at her. I realized Mom was right. She had impossibly high cheekbones and stormy grayish blue eyes. She was almost bony she was so thin, but she had a lovely face and a willowy, super model look. I felt like the Pillsbury Dough Boy by comparison.

  "Oh, hey," Lacy said when she saw me.

  "Hey yourself," I said, feeling strange still sporting my bed head and bunny pajamas while she actually had makeup on. "How'd your meet go yesterday?"

  "They call it a tournament for debate," she said, "not a meet. But it went okay, I guess. Drew and I are still debating today." She grabbed her laptop bag.

  Mom pulled me in for a hug and then kissed my forehead. "There are eggs in the fridge. I boiled some for you, and I made you a smoothie to put in the cooler for the middle of the meet."

  "Thanks, Mom. Good luck Lacy," I said. "Tell Drew I said hello."

  "I will. And good luck to you at your meet today. I'm sure you'll destroy all those other schools."

  I smiled. "Hey, you remembered it was a big meet."

  "Yep, an invitational." She ducked her head and followed Mom out the door.

  I put the boiled eggs and smoothie in a little ice-chest and made some scrambled eggs for breakfast. Then I grabbed my bag and headed for the school parking lot. I was one of the last people to arrive. Moby was sitting near the front of the bus. I slid onto the bench next to him. "Want to go over the roster?"

  "It's too late to change it since everything is seated."

  "I know," I said, "but just to make sure everyone knows their events."

  He shrugged. "Sure. It can't hurt."

  It was amazing how much he loosened up on the bus ride. The less I flirted, the more normal he got. By the time we reached Cypress Woods, he was smiling and so was I. It felt good.

  We warmed up in the same lane, and when he lapped me, I grabbed his foot. Instead of kicking me off and continuing on his way, he looked back at me and smiled. My heart executed a perfect flip turn.

  The rest of the meet went as well as it could possibly have gone. I thought we might struggle without Dave for the men's medley relay, but Adam really stepped up and came in with a time almost as good as Dave's in backstroke. He even managed to take third overall in the hundred back. With Adam stepping up, and Moby getting first in every single event he swam, we had a chance.

  A tall, blonde recruiter came to talk to Moby after the medley relay. I was standing just behind him, so I heard it all. "I was worried about you when I heard you'd moved in the middle of the season," the man said. "It's hard to switch teams and not lose momentum."

  Moby smiled. "Momentum is just mass and velocity. I have a lot of mass. A little thing like a move won't impact my velocity."

  "Smart too, huh? Well, University of Texas is very interested if you can repeat that medley performance. You wouldn't have to worry about a thing with us. We prioritize for our athletes, and we’re the best place you could be to prepare for the Olympics. They're only a little more than two years away, so it’s time to be thinking about them already."

  Moby nodded. "I know sir, and I really appreciate your interest."

  "I'll be watching." He turned to walk away.

  "Wait,” Moby said. “Mr. Deville, there's another swimmer you should be watching as well."

  "Oh?"

  Moby slung his arm around me. "Miss Vincent here is the best swimmer at this meet."

  "Other than you."

  Moby grinned. "Sure, other than me."

  "I'll keep my eye out," Mr. Deville said. "We’re always interested in recruiting good talent, and I take your recommendation seriously."

  After he walked off, Moby dropped his arm.

  "That was nice," I said. "Thanks."

  "He'd have noticed anyway," he said. "You’re an amazing swimmer." He looked at the board. "I'm up. Good luck on your fifty free, if I don't see you before then."

  He headed for the pool to do a few warm up laps before his individual medley and I couldn't take my eyes off his retreating back. I was definitely not sad to watch him go.

  He won, of course. First place in the individual medley, and then he pulled our team to first in the relay. No one else could even touch him.

  When it came time for my fifty free, I felt shaky and nervous. I always did, but this was worse. I saw Mr. Deville watching and I thought my heart might explode. I hadn't given much thought to college. Lacy had been working frantically on her applications since the Fall, but I hadn’t started yet. I figured I might take a class or two at Brazosport College next year, if I felt like it. I hadn't even considered a school like University of Texas. Austin seemed so far away.

  It probably happened because I was so nervous, but I hit the water weird and my goggles rolled back. I spit them out and yanked them down to my neck, but I'm sure it cost me. Every hundredth of a second matters in the fifty. I still managed to get second place. I hoped Moby hadn't been watching, but I knew Mr. Deville was.

  I did better in the hundred fly. My goggles stayed on, and I ignored the butterflies in my stomach and focused on my form. I got first place and Mr. Deville was smiling at me when I climbed out of the pool. Moby congratulated me when he saw me in the cool down pool.

  "Nicely done, Ms. Vincent."

  "Thanks, Mr. Moby."

  He quirked one eyebrow. "Do you know my last name?"

  I did. I just wasn't sure how to pronounce it. "It's on the event roster, duh."

  "Then say it."

  "Montcellier," I said. I pronounced it, "Mont-shell-yer." His face told me that was wrong. Which was his own stupid fault for having such a ridiculous name.

  "Well, Mr. Deville told me he's very interested in talking to you." Moby smiled. "Pretty exciting."

  "Yeah, it is."

  "Would you like to go to UT?" he asked.

  "Of course."

  "Where were you planning to go?" he asked.

  I shrugged. "I'm not sure. I hadn't thought much about it."

  His head turned slightly, like he hadn't heard me, maybe. Then they started calling for his heat.

  "Good luck," I said.

  "Thanks."

  He swam the entire five hundred free as a medley, just like last time, and that cocky jerk still beat everyone else by over ten seconds. It really wasn't fair. I sat there watching him, his body moving like a perfectly oiled machine, and I knew he was wrong for Lacy. How could she ever understand this? She never even came to my meets. She always had debate tournaments.

  I glanced up at the stands. Not many people came to watch swim meets, actually. The stands were pretty sparse, even at a huge meet like this. Except when I looked up there, familiar blue grey eyes met mine. Lacy sat at the very top of the bleachers. She was still wearing her blue suit skirt, but she had taken her jacket off. Her pearls, ivory silk shirt and high heels looked so out of place I almost laughed. She must’ve been melting. They kept it about ten degrees warmer in natatoriums than any normal building because of all the wet bodies getting in and out of pools. I should’ve waved to her, but she just smiled at me, so I smiled back.

  "Where's Mom?" I yelled.

  She tapped her head with her finger. "Headache," she mouthed back to me.

  I di
dn't bother asking her how her meet went. If she had won her heat, she wouldn't be here. Not this early. No point in making her say it out loud. Annie came up with a goggle malfunction then, and after that Coach needed me to help him record our points. We were doing so well, I could hardly believe it.

  When Moby won, I figured she'd come down and congratulate him, but she didn't. I looked back up at the bleachers, and I didn't see her there. Had she left?

  I didn't see Lacy again until it happened, I swear. I thought she had gone home. But after the final relay, when Moby's team took first, and Adam's team took third, Coach Collins and I calculated the points. We did it separately to make sure neither of us missed anything. We're both total crap with math. We came up with the same thing every time. I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised. Moby got first in two individual events and two relays. I got first in two relays and one individual event. Second in another. Adam did pretty well, and so did Vivian, second and third in their races.

  Still, Moby was shocked when he climbed out of the cool down pool and I told him we had scored third place overall.

  "You're kidding," he said. "No way!" He tossed me up in the air, and then swung me around. I couldn't help myself. Before he put me down, I leaned in and kissed him full on the mouth. I know I shouldn't have, and he pulled back and set me down right away, but it was too late. His mouth had tasted so good. All warm and minty, with just a hint of chlorine.

  "Sorry," I said.

  He wasn't even looking at me. Where else would he be looking? I followed his gaze up until I saw her. Her hair was pulled back, and her ivory blouse clung to her, but this time, all I could see was the expression on her face.

  Misery.

  Lacy was running down the steps so fast I was worried she'd twist her ankle, but she lived in heels and moved well in them.

  Moby took off after her. I tried to stop him. "Moby, wait."

  He turned back to me. "Hope, my name is Mason, not Moby. Mason. Try to remember that."

  Then he was gone.

  I should've been happy. We hadn't come in third in any big invitational ever. There was a recruiter interested in me from the University of Texas, and I’d just kissed Moby. But when I watched him leave this time, I wasn’t happy at all.

  I glanced back up into the stands and I realized Lacy and I weren’t the only ones who were upset. Dave was glaring at me from the bleachers on the other side. I hadn’t even realized he was here.

  Basically, Saturday was a terrible, miserable, awful day.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lacy

  Dr. Brasher is ready for me today when I reach his office. He has a little table set up, and the laptop is sitting on top of it, plugged in, with Word pulled up on the screen.

  "Wow, you're prepared."

  He nods. "It's unorthodox, but this is working for us. You’re opening up, and you're doing it in your own way. I think we're almost done."

  Thank gosh for that. I’m not sure how much more I have to say. I look at the blank page. It reminds me of a flow chart. I really wish I could just do one round, even observing. I could use a good clean flow right now, so clear, so uncomplicated.

  Instead, I force myself to write the bad parts. The parts I want to pretend never happened.

  * * *

  By the time I reached the tournament Friday morning, I hadn't slept in days. It wasn't a good way to start a tournament where I wanted to impress a Yale recruiter. Of course, neither was having my coach arrested for grand theft auto.

  Seriously. Check the records. You can't make this stuff up. Remember her fancy (did I say fancy? I meant crazy) boyfriend who bought her the mustang? Well, he didn't so much buy it, as take an extended test drive. Except, he told her he bought it for her, and she’s such a head case that she believed him. For the past few days she’d been driving around a brand new, stolen mustang, thinking that her young boyfriend loved her enough to buy her a fancy car. Our bus was just pulling up to the curb when the police car showed up. Lights, sirens, handcuffs, the works.

  Ms. Harris is lucky they didn't do a breathalyzer on her before they hauled her away. Then the school would probably have had to fire her on top of everything else. As it was, she got out the next day when they discovered her boyfriend was the real culprit and Ms. Harris was just your ordinary dupe. None of that helped us on Friday morning. In retrospect, it might have been better if we'd just thrown in the towel.

  Instead, Drew and I both called our parents. All we really needed was a sponsor, any adult sponsor. Drew's mom had a surgery that couldn’t be rescheduled, and her dad had some kind of plant emergency. My mom got every other Friday off, and after I called her, she convinced a friend to switch Fridays with her. I don’t know how she still got Fridays off with the number of sick days she used for her migraines, but she did. I wasn’t even surprised, because Mom always came through in a crisis.

  Mom was on her way back to the school to be our chaperone and fill-in coach when the Vice Principal showed up. Before we could leave for the tournament, Vice Principal Fayton had to come search all of our bags for drugs. Apparently drug use was getting more and more prevalent at our school. For me though, it was just a nuisance.

  “What’s with the random drug searches?” I asked, while Mrs. Fayton searched my bag. “Be careful with that.” I snatch my laptop from her. “It has my case on it.”

  She frowned. “Youth today think drugs are a joke. They’re not.”

  “I don’t think it’s a joke.” I widened my eyes at Drew, feeling a little validated for my position, even if Drew thought I was a loser for it.

  We made it to the tournament just in time for our first round, but we had to run to get there. I was huffing and puffing when we met our judge, and Drew’s cheeks were bright red. Not an auspicious start.

  "We're affirmative," Drew whispered. "What am I supposed to read?"

  I handed her a copy of the wind power plan I had modified at the last minute.

  "Not solar?" She didn't even ask about the anthropocentrism case. Wise move. I had read every scrap of analysis and back and forth discussion frantically, but hadn’t come up with a solution to the counter plan.

  "I won't give Todd the satisfaction."

  "Is he even here?" Drew asked.

  I shake my head. "I don't think so, but his school is. He'd hear."

  "Can't have that.” Drew rolled her eyes.

  "Oh, shut up."

  We managed to win our first round, barely. We won our second much easier, falling back into the groove we used to have. I spent all our prep time getting Drew ready for her speeches and I passed her short cards with prepped answers for cross-examination, so whenever a question I expected came up, she had an answer. She floundered through the others.

  Right after the second round, I got a text from good old Mr. Langston. HAROLD HAD A FAMILY EMERGENCY. HE FLEW HOME EARLY. SORRY TO MISS YOU. ALIEF KERR NEXT WEEK?

  I was crushed. I'd gotten into a fight with Mason, badgered Ms. Harris into signing us up, and then made my mom trade days at work and drive out to Clear Lake. All for nothing. And now, I had to decide whether to go to Lamar and get an easy few points next week so I could get to state, or whether to go to the harder meet to try and impress Mr. Langston’s friend.

  It did give me another week to figure out a solution on my case, and maybe if Mr. Langston’s friend sees me debating with Drew, Harold would see that I can basically carry any team on my own. Besides, Drew and I were doing well. Maybe we’d get the points we needed to qualify this weekend.

  YES, I texted back.

  SEE YOU THERE. He replied.

  I didn't bother to tell him I'd be with a different partner. I worried he might change his mind if he knew.

  After that, things went downhill. We lost our next round, but managed to win round four and qualify to return on Saturday morning. That night I slept almost eight hours for the first time since Tuesday. It felt amazing. The next morning, we managed to win our first round and make it to Quarters.
We lost in Semis, which was okay. We got another two points, bringing me up to eight with Drew, same as I already had with Mason. I tried not to think about him, but it didn't work very well. It was hard not to compare debating with him to today’s miserable mess.

  When we washed out, I looked at my watch. I could tell Mom was tired, but I felt strangely peaceful. We listened to music on the drive from Clear Lake back home, and dropped Drew off in Lake Jackson on our way.

  "How are you doing, kid?" my mom asked me once we were alone. "Holding up okay?"

  "I'm fine," I said. I was surprised to realize I meant it.

  "I've been worried about you." My mom's hands were at ten and two exactly. I thought about her life for a moment. She called in a favor to spend her day off judging at a debate tournament last minute. She never dated. She never went out. She was always there for me, and she tried to help her two very different daughters navigate school, activities and relationships.

  I didn't thank her enough.

  "I'm fine, Mom. I'm figuring things out. I'm sorry I've been so hard to live with lately."

  "You say it like the bad parts are past." She turned and smiled at me and the world felt a little lighter.

  I shrugged. "I guess maybe they are. For the past few days, ever since I found out Mason likes Hope, I guess I felt like I couldn't survive without him. Today Drew and I did okay, scored a few points, and I realized, I’ll be okay." I looked down at my hands. That sounded pretty silly, a declaration that I’d survive my crush liking someone else. “When Hope called me a drama queen it ticked me off, but maybe she’s right.”

  She shook her head. "Not at all. I felt that way after your father."

  I sighed. "That’s not helping. You were married to him and had two kids. Plus, he died. I barely know Mason, and I know that. I guess since I really liked him, and I knew he liked Hope, that somehow I conflated the two. If he liked Hope, he was choosing her, and I punished him by saying he couldn’t debate with me either. And that made me think I couldn’t win without him. Now that I've gone to a tournament on my own again, I realize I can do it, whatever needs to be done. Even if he and Hope get married and have kids, I'll just move on, you know, and keep kicking."