Don’t even bother with an underhand, Josette said. Watch.
Josette set her pointy left foot forward, drew her right elbow back, like she was going to shoot an arrow. She smacked the taut, filthy, velvety ball around in her hand four times, then tossed the ball high overhead. As it fell, she skipped up and slammed it with the heel of her hand. It curved low and fast over the net, bounced down where you wouldn’t expect it.
Ace!
That’s her trademark, said Snow.
I wanna learn it.
Holy Jeez, said Josette, after Maggie tried to serve.
Maggie missed six times and when she connected the ball just dropped down feebly, didn’t even reach the net.
You gotta do push-ups if you want any power.
Drop down, gimme ten, yelled Snow.
Maggie did four.
This girl needs building up, said Snow.
Yeah, you need some upper body. Josette felt Maggie’s arm critically.
Coochy came outside.
Having your girl time? He mocked them, stepping back in a graceless pretend serve. When he turned to walk away, Snow served a killer to the back of his head. It must have hurt but he just kept walking. He was bulking up his neck to play football.
Two points, said Snow.
Josette popped the ball up on her toe and tucked it beneath her arm.
Beaning Coochy is two points, she said to Maggie. Just hitting him is one.
I wanna bean, said Maggie. Show me that serve again.
At home, Maggie checked in on her mother’s nap, waited at the bedroom door’s crack until she saw slight movement. Then she went out to the garage. The big door was open, the air blowing around some papers on the floor. Her father had the hood of the pickup propped up. He was changing the oil and air filters, draining out the sludgy residue.
Hey, said Maggie. Can I change schools?
No, said her father. But grown-ups always said no before they asked why.
Why? he asked. Because of LaRose?
I have to go to the same school as my brother, right? Also, other reasons. Kids at my school hate me.
That’s ridiculous, said Peter, though he knew it wasn’t.
There’s this girl Braelyn one year older, and her brother in LaRose’s old class, and his brother Jason, who’s older. That whole family hates me, plus their friends.
You never said anything before.
Maggie shrugged. I can handle it, that’s why. But I’d rather change schools.
So you want to go to reservation high school? He laughed. Even tougher there.
Dad, they have more afterschool programs now. Pluto’s a dead town. Our state’s so cheap. You know they’ll probably consolidate and we’ll be on the bus an hour more.
What she said was probably true, but Peter didn’t like to think that way, except he did think that way.
Reservation’s getting federal plus casino money.
Peter wiped his hands on an old red rag and closed the hood. He looked down at Maggie, a whippet, finely muscled, her intense stare.
Where’d you hear that?
I heard it from you, Dad.
Did I say our state was cheap? I wouldn’t say that. Plus, their casino’s in debt.
You said the farmers around this part of the state don’t have any money. You said there’s more money on the reservation these days. You said. .
Okay. That really isn’t true. I was, you know honey, I was frustrated.
Grown-ups always say that when they lose their temper.
Now you’re the expert on grown-ups.
Maggie knew it was time to shift strategy.
I can go there because of Mom. Descendancy status and everything. And, see, I wanna go to high school with Josette and Snow. Be on their team.
But you hate sports.
Not anymore. I like volleyball.
That’s not a sport, really.
Sometimes grown-ups didn’t get it. They remembered volleyball as a laid-back backyard barbecue pastime, or a gym requirement. They had no idea how fierce and cool the sport had become, how girls had taken it over. Maggie decided to change up on her dad again.
I can’t see Emmaline really keeping LaRose all the time.
Really?
If he goes to their school that’s a difference. A compromise. And if that’s the deal, I shouldn’t be left out. I should be going there. He should have all his family in one school.
There are tough kids at that school. Drinking. Drugs?
Drugs are everyplace. Plus, remember? I’m an outcast. I’m severely hated.
Now Peter laughed. Maggie couldn’t even pretend to pity herself. There wasn’t a whine in her. He was proud of her and she knew it.
Awww, Dad, come on. Snow and Josette have traditional values and all that. They’re A students. They’ll have my back. Plus their big brother Hollis. And there’s Coochy, I mean Willard. We should all be together, Dad. It would really help LaRose.
Peter kept wiping his hands. The cracks in his palm and the wrinkles in his knuckles absorbed the oil so his hands looked like ancient etchings of hands. His tired blue eyes rested sweetly on Maggie. He knew his daughter. He remembered the years of teacher conferences. The teachers were wrong. She was not disturbed. High-spirited. That was it. She was too high-spirited for their dull expectations of girls. So. Could things get any worse? Maybe she was right. Keeping LaRose was some kind of last-ditch test for Emmaline. Maybe allowing the kids from both families to go to one school would help Emmaline come out of it. Things would balance. Whatever happened, Snow and Josette had become like sisters to Maggie. They were half cousins. Cousins and sisters. It struck him that this was the first time since Dusty that Maggie had really wanted something, asked him to help her. So he said yes. And yes, he’d try with Nola.
OLD RUMMY. HE’S giving out hints again. See?
Father Travis watched the gray-skinned gray block of talking head. They were sitting out a morning of weird September heat at the Dead Custer.
It’s not supposed to be this hot, Romeo complained.
It is what it is, said Puffy.
Romeo hissed in exasperation. Everyone was saying It is what it is as though this was a wise saying. They would say it with a simple hand lift. To get off the hook, they would say it. They would say it when too lazy to finish a job. Or often when watching the news.
And it ain’t what it ain’t, said Romeo.
Father Travis didn’t register this comment. He just sweated, stoic, with a jar of Puffy’s special iced tea. Last night he’d entered the whirling energy, the black aperture, silence. Before the screams, he was suddenly with Emmaline, naked, their bodies moving and planing, slick with sweat. Father Travis rolled the cold jar across his forehead.
Romeo squinted at the TV, nodding.
There’s that clue. Chemical weapons. They showed some diagrams. Fuzzy gray recon pictures shot off a satellite.
They’re pulling together a case, he muttered.
Father Travis cocked his head and looked sideways at the shapes pictured on the screen. On 9/11 he had watched the Towers dissolve and thought, They’ve learned. After that, over and over, he’d sifted down in his dreams with the others, his body flayed by the acceleration of the building’s mass. He watched the news, flipping channels. It was like the barracks bombing never happened. Nobody made the connection. What was the connection? It hurt to think. He felt himself disintegrating. One night that September, he had gone off the wagon. He drank the bottle of single malt scotch an old friend from the Marines had sent to him. He’d stayed in bed the next morning — sick for the first time in his history as a priest. It had felt like the thing to do.
Hey Father, said Romeo. Can I ask you something?