Cinderella Sidelined (18 page)

"Oh." I nod. "Yeah, that happened."
 

"You, um, you doing okay?"
 

"I'm fine," I tell him, and I really believe that's true.

"How is that possible? You guys were together for years."
 

"Sometimes, things are over before they end. I think that was the case with me and Blaine. We were great together for awhile, but people change and life changes, and now we're not a fit." I shrug. "Plus, he was cheating on me with a girl on the volleyball team, so that made it pretty easy."
 

Russ nods. "I heard, with Jasmine Porter. I don't know how they thought they weren't going to get caught."
 

"I could spend time thinking about it and wondering why and crying and screaming and wishing it wasn't true, but what's the point?" I shake my head. "Even if I still felt like Blaine and I were meant to be, how can we be when he didn't value me the way that one person is supposed to?"

"Gotta say, I'm impressed, Em," Russ says with a grin. "I wasn't expecting this."
 

"Thanks, I think."
 

"It's a good thing," he says, pushing open the door to the auditorium.
 

I'm about to respond when a shrill voice rings out from near the stage.

"Russ!" Lana practically screams his name. She stands a little taller when he walks in, then cuts her eyes over to me and they narrow ever so slightly. Wonder what that's about. "You're here! I got a phone call from Mary ten minutes ago. She's sick."
 

"Cool. I guess rehearsal is off for the day," he says without missing a beat. "Enjoy your Sundays, guys. Get some fresh air. Go for a hike."
 

"What?" Lana looks horrified. "Russ, are you crazy? You heard Mary on Friday. We're horrible." I notice she looks at me again. "We can still practice without her."

But Russ just waves his hand dismissively. "Nah. Let's grab a break. We're working hard."
 

"We had yesterday off!" Lana's practically wailing at this point, and I have to work to keep the smile off my face. "We don't need another vacation!"
 

"I have an idea," I pipe up, and about twenty heads swing in my direction. "What if we all go do something together? Like as a group? We're all here anyway."
 

"That's not rehearsing," Lana insists, at the same time Russ says, "That's a good idea. What'd you have in mind?"

"Not sure. Hiking probably isn't great for team-building." I snap my fingers and point at him. "I know! There are some sand volleyball courts at the park near my house. What if we go play a few games?"

"I like it."
 

"This is stupid," Lana says.
 

"Who's down?" Russ asks the rest of the cast, ignoring Lana's complaints.
 

A rumble goes up among the rest of the cast.
 

"Beats sitting in here arguing about how to run practice ourselves," one guy says, and others nod. "I'm in."
 

"Ditto."
 

"Just tell me how to get there," says another girl, and I glance over at Lana, this time not bothering to hide my triumphant smile.
 

She doesn't, as you might expect, look particularly happy.

"This is absurd," she mutters.

Russ lets everyone know how to get back to the park near my house and we agree to meet at the courts in thirty minutes.

"I'm so excited!" I say to him as I buckle myself into the passenger seat of his car. Dad had claimed he wanted my wrist to get stronger before he felt comfortable letting me drive again, so he'd dropped me off for play practice this morning.
 

"You gonna play?"

I glance down at my bum wrist, still so much skinnier than my other one, and I think about what Dr. Marsh said after he took the cast off, and let out a long, frustrated sigh.

"I can't."
 

"What? Come on, live a little."
 

I shake my head. "Dr. Marsh said it needs to get stronger still."
 

"Oh, what does he know?" Russ asks, but he's smiling. "You'll just have to referee."
 

"I think I can handle that."
 

"Think Lana's going to come?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Not a chance."
 

"What's her story, anyway? She was nice when I first met her but it's like she hates my guts all of a sudden."
 

Russ looks over at me. "Really? You can't figure it out?"

"I don't think I did anything to her."
 

"You're Miss Halpern," he says like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "You're new to acting and you stole her part. It was supposed to be the two of us as the leads and then you swooped in."
 

I bite down on my lower lip as I think about this. Suddenly Lana's aggravation with me doesn't seem that crazy.

"I had no idea."
 

Russ shrugs. "That's the life of an actor. She has to get over it, not you."

He drives from the school to my house like an old pro, not needing directions once, and brings the old beater to an idle at the curb. I jump out and hurry into the garage, grabbing my old volleyball bag filled with more balls, kneepads and equipment than you can imagine.

I toss the stuff into the backseat and give him the short instructions on how to find the park. When we pull up, five other cars are already in the parking lot and about a dozen people are hanging out just off to the side of the sand volleyball court.
 

"People actually showed up," I say.

"Well, yeah. What, you thought they'd blow us off?"
 

"Just figured people have better things to do with their Sundays and they'd realize it on the way out here."
 

"An afternoon of sand volleyball beats an afternoon sitting inside playing video games," he says, and I shrug, not convinced everyone thinks about that the way he does.

"Let's do this," I say happily, grabbing the bag out of the back. Russ takes it from me and we and walk over to the rest of the cast. Lana isn't with them.

And as I approach, I realize I only know one other person standing here by name.

That's probably not cool, considering how many hours I've spent in their company already.

"Emma!" A girl smiles warmly at me as I approach. "You got the stuff? We all just realized we don't have a volleyball, then figured you'd be the one to ask!"
 

Her friendly face makes me feel bad that I have absolutely no idea who she is. Not only does she know my name, but she knows about me and volleyball.

I used to love having people I don't know recognize me in the halls, like talking to me happened to be the highlight of their day, maybe even their week, but now it just makes me feel sort of gross.

"Got everything we need," I tell her. I'm holding a fast and furious debate in my head over whether or not I should ask her to remind me of her name. On one hand, I'd really like to know. On the other, how freakin' embarrassing is it to admit I'm clueless after seeing her almost everyday for an entire month?

"You wanna be a team captain, Amanda?" Russ asks her, and I quickly look at him just in time to see him wink at me.

Amanda smiles. "Deal. But I claim you for my side!" She glances at me. "You too, Emma."
 

Her kindness only makes me feel worse. "I'm sidelined today," I say, holding up my twig-like wrist. "Doctor's orders."
 

The rest of the group divides themselves into teams, and I notice that Russ makes a special effort to call everyone here by name at least once, which only confirms my suspicion that he realizes I don't know who they all are.

How he figured that one out, I'll probably never guess.

Once the teams are selected, they disperse to opposite sides of the court with eight people per side, two on each sideline. I climb up onto a bench facing the court and sit on the back of it, like a makeshift referee stand.

"Amanda, you guys can serve first," I decide, tossing the ball over to her.

She grins and excitedly runs to the back edge of the court. "Thanks!"
 

I watch as Amanda holds the volleyball in the palm of her left hand, makes a fist with her right, brings her arm back and swings at it.
 

The ball goes straight up into the air and lands harmlessly in the sand at her feet.

Her cheeks immediately color red and everyone kind of looks at each other, not sure if they should laugh or if someone should pick up the ball and toss it to the other side.

I glance over at Russ to see he's staring straight back at me. He
 
subtly jerks his head in Amanda's direction and I realize he wants me to do something about this.

"Oops," I say with a nervous little laugh, and I want to cringe. My voice is shaking and high-pitched and I sound like a kindergartner. "I used to do that all the time."
 

Amanda lets out a sigh of relief and it's like all the tension seeps out of the court and a few people laugh.

"Yeah, you won't be the only one to do that today I bet," a guy -- I think Russ called him John earlier -- says, and Amanda smiles bashfully at him.

"What I usually do is toss the ball in the air and whack it overhand, but that's pretty advanced," I admit. "But there's a way to avoid sending it into the air if you're gonna serve underhand. I did it the first couple years I played."

I walk over by Amanda as I explain.

"Are we about to get a volleyball lesson from the great Emma Thompson? To what do we owe this incredible honor?"
 

I swing my head around to face John, ready to tell him he doesn't have to pay attention if he doesn't want to, when I see the teasing glimmer in his eyes, and I take a deep breath, trying to remind myself that not everyone is going to be rude.

"This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, so you better listen up," I shoot back, and he grins. "Okay, so what you want to do is stick your left leg out with all your weight on your right foot." Amanda does as I tell her. "Good. Now, the key is to keep the ball in your left hand lower than your hips but also right in line with the hand you're gonna use to hit it."
 

"Like this?"
 

"Yep, perfect," I say, as I explain the rest of the proper posture for serving underhand.
 

Amanda -- and I notice a few other people in the group -- take a few practice swings without using the ball, and I point out what they're doing right and a few tweaks they could make to hopefully send an ace over the net.
 

"Great, okay, now try it for real with the ball."
 

"Hey, that's not fair!" John calls out from the other side of the net. He's shaking his head, but I'm sure he's kidding. "She already served. It should be our turn."

"Deal with it," I tell him as I walk back to my bench. "I'm the ref."
 

"I'm gonna take my complaints to the league office!"
 

"I'll wait to hear about it from them, then," I reply quickly. "Okay, Amanda, do your thing!"
 

She takes her time, lining up her body the way I showed her, and winds up her arm a few times before she squeezes her eyes shut and smacks the ball.

It sails up and over the net and it's more like a wounded duck than a missile, but it makes it to the other team, and that's all that counts right now.
 

She beams when she opens her eyes, then runs into position to return the spike John sends back over the net. The teams rally for a few possessions before one side hits the ball out of bounds, and the point goes to John's side.

But even though her team lost the point, Amanda's smile is wide as she skips to her new spot in the rotation.

And it's weird for me to watch this game as it's played just for fun, without worries about my stats or my form or the opponents or a college scholarship.

It's like I've been set free.

And I'm not hating the way it feels.

***

The rest of the game moves on somewhat uneventfully. John does, in fact, end up serving the ball into the ground, but I have my suspicions that it's on purpose to make Amanda feel better, and I make a mental note to find out what's going on between them.
 

And if there's nothing, to find out why.

"You know, you're not what I expected," Amanda says after the game is over and I'm guzzling water even though I'm not the one who was running around in the desert heat.

I look over at her and smile. "I'm not sure how to respond to that."
 

"I don't mean it in a bad way. It's just when we first found out you were going to be part of the play, he said you might need to warm up to us. But of course we knew who you were before that. And I gotta say, you didn't seem like the type who'd do the school play."
 

I screw the cap back onto my water bottle. "I wasn't."
 

Amanda giggles. "Yeah, but you still did it anyway, so you're good in my book."

"I'm still not sure how I even made the play to begin with," I admit.
 

She looks over at me with raised eyebrows and starts to speak. "Really? I thought you knew the story about how -- "

"Hey ladies!"
 

John suddenly appears in between us, slinging his arms over our shoulders and falling into stride with us.
 

"Great game," he says, and I glance at him but he's only looking at Amanda, who's blushing and fidgeting with her hands like she's not sure what to do with them, and I realize she's not going to respond.

"Yeah," I step in. "That was fun. We should do it again."
 

He reluctantly looks over at me and nods. "Even when the play's over."
 

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm hungry after that. Anyone down to grab some pizza?"

"I will," Amanda says.