Being Sloane Jacobs Page 18

  “Try,” I say quietly.

  “I just … lost it. I played like total crap. I don’t know what happened, but I couldn’t get myself in the right place. I missed passes, missed shots, kept getting checked. The other teams figured out that I was outmatched and totally routed me. Preyed on me like the runt of the litter.”

  I stay quiet. There’s a weird squirmy feeling in my stomach. The story sounds a little too familiar.

  “Practices got tougher, and I didn’t. Coach tried screaming at me; then he tried benching me. Midway through the season I was totally miserable. I was barely making it through classes. I figured it was only a matter of time before they pulled my scholarship, so I quit.” He exhales. “I told my parents I was injured but that I was staying up here to be involved with the team until I could play again,” he says. “But really I’ve been working in the bar, saving up some cash so I can take some classes again on my own. Hopefully figure out what to do now that hockey is over.”

  I realize, suddenly, that this is my chance to tell him the truth. He’ll understand. He’ll totally get it. And it’s not like he’s going to rat me out. I open my mouth to pour it all out, to tell him that my confidence is shot too. That I want to quit, that I’m not sure I can keep playing, and also that I’m not sure who I am without hockey. That right now, I’m hiding from the game completely.

  “That’s why I like being with you,” he says. He places his hand on top of mine. The zap of electricity that runs between us causes my heart to pound. “You remind me of the time when I loved to play. Watching you, and how much you love the game, inspires me. I’m starting to think maybe I could—I don’t know—get it back, somehow.”

  I slam my mouth shut. Looking into his eyes, I see the eleven-year-old kid who loved to play hockey. And I know he’s trying desperately to find that again—in me.

  I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t break him like that.

  So I force a smile onto my face. “You’ll get it back,” I say. “I promise.”

  CHAPTER 19

  SLOANE EMILY

  I never thought I’d be so excited to see a plate of cafeteria-grade spaghetti and meatballs. I stab my fork into the mound of pasta, twist for maximum spaghetti delivery, and stab a red hunk of meatball, too. Even though it’s the size of six bites, I cram the entire forkful into my mouth. And it is just as glorious as I imagined.

  I started off the day joining the black team, my scrimmage team for the rest of the summer, for a five-mile run. Then we had three straight hours of on-skates drills. After lunch, we played a full-length regulation scrimmage, which we capped with a half-hour endurance skate in what Coach Hannah laughably referred to as a “cooldown.” I burned off enough calories for an entire hockey team, plus their coaches, and now I’m starving. As soon as I got off the ice, I crammed Sloane Devon’s gear into her bag and made a beeline for the cafeteria.

  Did not pass Go, did not collect two hundred showers.

  “Damn, you smell.” Cameron, freshly showered and clad in a powder-blue tracksuit, drops into the seat next to me with a plate of spaghetti nearly as big as mine.

  “I do not!” I stab another meatball.

  “Yes, you do. You smell like your moldy old gear bag,” she says. “Seriously, wash that thing or replace it.”

  I reach down and grab a handful of my T-shirt, bringing it up to my nose. Okay, yeah. So maybe I’m not exactly fresh as a daisy.

  I can’t believe how much has changed in the past two weeks. When I first met Sloane Devon, I was horrified by the smell of her gear bag. And now I hardly notice.

  “Hey.” Matt’s massive frame overtakes me. “How was the scrimmage? Did you own the white team’s face?”

  I drop my shirt and smooth out the wrinkles, hoping he can’t smell eau de garbage can. His sweaty head tells me that he skipped a shower too, so hopefully he’s suffering from the same olfactory immunity I am.

  “I was okay,” I reply. Matt takes the seat beside me.

  “She was the queen of assists,” Cameron cuts in. She runs a crust of french bread through her marinara. “I’d say at least two of our four goals were thanks to her.”

  My dear-God-please-don’t-give-me-the-puck strategy is working like gangbusters. And one of those assists was directly to Melody, my teammate on black. I’ve found that helping her be the star on the ice actually gets her off my back even more than checking her into the boards, so that’s two for the price of one.

  Matt chatters on about his own scrimmage and how he scored the winning point for the blue team today. I’m watching his mouth move, but I’m only half listening. All I can think about is the kiss last night. Each time I relive it in my mind, I feel a chill start at my lower back and race up my spine until the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I’m grinning like a fool. And now he’s sitting next to me, despite the fact that I’m unshowered and totally disgusting.

  Matt ends a story about a red team player who was nearly ejected today for trying to start a fight. He shovels a giant bite of salad into his mouth, and I jump at the chance.

  “Wannawatchamovietonight?” I say it so fast it all comes out as one long, newly invented word (country of origin: Swoonistan; meaning: “to swoon so hard as to be rendered incapable of enunciation”).

  “I totally would,” Matt says, “but I’ve got a strategy session with the blue team tonight. We’re going to hit a pub up the road and talk about how we’re going to crush the red team tomorrow.”

  To save a little face after getting brutally rebuffed by the hottest guy I’ve ever seen, much less kissed, I turn to Cameron.

  “What about you? Lifetime movie marathon?”

  Matt groans, and so does Cameron.

  “I so want to, but I have to work on my summer reading tonight or I’m never going to finish. Whoever decided that Les Misérables was a great summer read can bite me.”

  “Can’t you just watch the movie?” Matt is apparently not as stellar a student as he is a hockey player.

  “Not if I want an A on my paper,” Cameron says. She pops the last bite of meatball into her mouth, then gathers up her plate and silverware. “Mrs. Best, aka the Beast, has, like, a sixth sense for people who didn’t read the book. She’ll string me up by my toes and force me to recite Beowulf in Middle English.”

  “Good luck,” I reply, although I sort of loved Les Misérables, the book and the musical. I did a long program two years ago to a symphonic arrangement of “I Dreamed a Dream.”

  Matt hoovers the last of his spaghetti and jumps up after her. “I gotta get going. I’m supposed to meet the guys in the lobby at seven.” He bends down, then stiffens and stands upright again.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “Well, I was gonna kiss you, but, um … I wasn’t sure if, you know, with all the people, so I … well, now I feel royally stupid. This was easier the other—”

  I stand up, rise to my toes, and plant a soft peck on his lips. Then it’s my turn to go stiff. I drop back down in my chair so hard I have to keep from wincing. I can’t believe I just did that. In front of everyone! Who am I?

  A smile spreads across Matt’s face. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely,” I say, trying to suppress a massive grin. My cheeks are already aching.

  He waves and saunters out of the room.

  Who am I? I’m Sloane Jacobs.

  “Holy crap, you tamed the white whale!” Cameron is staring at me openmouthed from across the table. Several other skaters are blatantly staring at me, and two girls in the corner are whispering behind their hands. “How did you do it?”

  “He said he’s changed,” I reply. And as I look at Cameron’s disbelieving face, my own belief wavers for a moment. Do people really change?

  Cameron just shrugs and gathers her things. “Nicely done, Captain Ahab.” She stands up. “I’m off to study. I’ll catch you later.”

  Left alone with my plate, I chow down on the rest of my spaghetti and manage to scarf seconds,
too.

  Back upstairs, I consider checking in across the hall to see what Melody is up to, but then I remember that while she high-fived me for the assist, the force of said high five took me off my skates. I don’t think we’re ready to be besties yet. So instead, I take out my phone and text the only other person I know in Canada.

  Wanna hang? Long time no see. —your doppelganger

  She texts me back to meet her on the McGill University quad. According to Google, it’s a fifteen-minute walk, and I take my time strolling through the streets. Even though school is out for the summer, when I get to McGill, the area is crowded with people having picnics, playing Frisbee in the fading light, and wandering along the paths and through the quad.

  I spot Sloane Devon on a bench and trot over to meet her. I haven’t seen her since that day two weeks ago when we switched places. She was already wearing my clothes, but she definitely still looked like herself.

  But now she looks different, like the mint-green cami and black capris she has on actually belong to her. She’s braided her long dark hair so it hangs over her left shoulder. She’s wearing my favorite black ballet flats with the white flowers embroidered on the toes. Suddenly I wish I’d attempted to pick out an actual outfit instead of throwing on a pair of cropped sweats and a GET IN THE GOAL tank top.

  “Holy crap, you look like a hobo,” she says. I can’t tell if she’s teasing me or not. “You’re in public, for God’s sake.”

  “Oh, shut up,” I say. “I’m embracing my inner jock.”

  “Hey, I never looked like that,” she says. I see her catch sight of her reflection in the plate-glass window. “Did I?”

  I notice her use of the past tense, but ignore it. “Good to see you.”

  “You too,” she says. “Care to wander?”

  “Yes, please,” I say. “My quads are burning from scrimmage.”

  “I thought you said hockey was easy. ‘All padded up like a crash-test dummy’ were the words I think you used.” She smirks.

  “I admit I might have been wrong,” I reply. And then, because I can’t help it: “What about you? Is morphing into an ice princess as easy as you expected?”

  She just shakes her head and smiles at me. “Let’s walk,” she says.

  CHAPTER 20

  SLOANE DEVON

  We make our way along the paths, past the windows of the McGill bookstore. They’re crammed with mannequins clad in red and white apparel: scarves, T-shirts, hoodies, sweatpants, all bearing the school’s logo and name. A headless bust in the corner sports a MCGILL HOCKEY T-shirt. I feel an odd sort of fluttering in my shoulders, like I’m missing something. Or someone.

  “So how’s camp?” Sloane asks.

  “Oh, you know. Just perfecting my double axel, working my way up to a triple,” I reply.

  She actually stumbles. “You pulled off a double in two weeks?” She practically screeches at me.

  I burst into laughter. “I can barely hang on to a single,” I say. “But I’m getting there. This guy named Andy’s helping me.”

  “Who’s Andy?” she asks. For the next few blocks, I fill her in on Andy and his theatrics. I worry she’s actually going to fall into the street when I tell her that he knows about our switch, and I have to swear up and down that he’s cool and won’t tell. When I tell her how he helped me dye my roommate pink, she seems slightly mollified, especially since she has heard of Ivy, the holy terror of the skate world.

  “So how did the whole scout thing go?” I ask. I’ve been dreading getting the full report. If she bombed it, I really have dug my own grave with this stunt. I haven’t yet decided whether that would be a blessing or not. “I never got a recap.”

  “It didn’t suck,” she says carefully. “Or more accurately, I didn’t suck. I mean, I don’t think I totally screwed up your future.” I know she means to be reassuring, but I feel sort of nauseated.

  “Like I give a crap about my future,” I say. When in doubt, act like it doesn’t matter. I try to laugh, but Sloane Emily gives me the side-eye.

  “I’m serious,” she says. “It turns out I’m a good team player. I’m good with assists.”

  “When Coach Butler gets that report, he’ll know something’s up. I never share the puck.”

  “People change.”

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “You changed,” she says, and then nudges me with a shoulder. “At least, your wardrobe did.”

  “A temporary glitch, I promise you,” I say. But my stomach knots up. When I get back to Philly, will everything just go back to the way it was? Hanging out with Dylan and his stupid friends, getting the tingles, getting benched? I think of Mom, too, and whether she’ll be the same. And if she isn’t—if she really does get sober—will she change in other ways too? Will she still come to my games and cheer me on in her Mama Jacobs T-shirt? Will we still go on crazy, impulsive adventures where we come home with a vintage sewing machine or a new dog? I don’t know what part of her is the alcohol and what part of her is, well, her. I don’t even know if I believe people can change.

  Then again, it sure seems like Sloane Emily’s different. When I first met her, she was wearing something with sequins on it, I think. There was definitely pink involved. I remember that her hair was all shiny and straight and smelled like the flower arrangements at my great-aunt Eleta’s funeral.

  I wonder what that girl would say to the girl who’s sitting across from me now. I’m pretty sure she’d lose her mind over Sloane’s still-wet-from-the-shower frizzy hair or her mismatched clothes.

  We wander for a little bit longer. Sloane Emily tells me about some guy at her camp, Matt. I don’t know him, but I can certainly picture him: an oafish, rich-kid hockey dude. Sloane Emily tells me he comes from Chestnut Hill. I saw their hockey team at a tournament once. It was like an army of blond guys named Sven, all in perfectly worn-in rugby shirts with Ray-Bans on top of their heads. He’s probably Sloane Emily’s dream guy.

  Nando’s face pops into my head, but I will his image away. I don’t want to talk about him—I’m not sure what I would say.

  We end up in front of a giant stone wall in the shape of a crest. It’s filled with red and white flowers to mimic the McGill shield. Sloane Emily takes a seat on the edge. I sit down next to her and pull my knees to my chest.

  “Oh, I have something for you,” she says, then reaches into her bag. She pulls out a stack of envelopes, maybe four or five held together by a paper clip, and holds them out to me. I take them carefully, like they’re something poisonous that might bite.

  The letters are addressed to me, care of Elite Hockey Camp. The return address is preprinted on the envelope in a soft blue ink. “Hope Springs Rehabilitation Center,” it says. There’s a little illustration of a babbling brook across the logo. Underneath the address, in black ink scrawled in familiar handwriting, is my mother’s name, Elena Jacobs. I blink at the words over and over, as if I’m looking through a viewfinder and eventually the image will change. I notice one whole seam is torn enough that I can make out a few lines written in my mother’s handwriting. I look up, frowning, at Sloane Emily.

  “I didn’t open it,” she says quickly. She looks nervous but is trying for a smile. “It looked like that when it got here.”

  “I don’t care,” I say, a chill creeping into my voice. I drop the whole stack into the black leather satchel that belongs to Sloane Emily—the bag I’m carrying around like it’s mine. It probably cost more than my mother’s stint in rehab.

  She’s still looking at me expectantly, as though she’s Oprah and expects me to pour my heart out to her.

  “If you ever want to talk or anything …,” she says.

  “I don’t.”

  She looks down at her nails, which now look just as bad as mine. “Families suck,” she says. “But at least your family’s trying.”

  “You don’t know anything about my family,” I say icily. She stares at me for a second, then checks her phone.

  “I should probabl
y be getting back,” she says just as coldly. “Early-morning run with the team.”

  “Good idea,” I reply. The final competition is only two nights away, which means Andy is scheduling more and more extra practices.

  On the walk home, my bag somehow feels heavy, as if the letters have added weight. I wrestle them out of my bag and stare at them, at the handwriting I’ve seen in countless birthday cards, permission slips, and notes in my lunch bag. Does she have an explanation? Is she sorry? Is she coming back? I want to know, but I’m afraid of what she’ll say.

  She took her time sending them. I think I’ll take my time opening them. Now I just need to figure out where to stash the letters so Ivy doesn’t find them, even if she goes on a little snooping adventure.

  If ever I needed a distraction, it’s now. I take a deep breath and scroll through my call log. Just hearing Nando’s voice will make me feel better. I dial his number and my heart skips when it rings. Once, twice—then the phone clicks abruptly over to voice mail. Huh, that’s weird. I try it again, and this time it only rings once before the voice mail picks up.

  Is he screening my call?

  As I round the corner to BSI, I’m surprised to see his car parked in front of the main building. At first I think maybe it’s wishful thinking or some kind of hallucination, but then I spot him: leaning back on the passenger-side door, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his worn-in jeans. With boots and a flannel shirt on, staring down at the curb, he looks sort of like some kind of modern cowboy. Just the sight of him makes me warm from the inside out.

  “Hey,” I say, a huge smile spreading across my face. “I was just calling you.”

  Nando pushes off from the side of the car. His face is completely blank, almost hard, and there’s no trace of any of the warmth from last night. He blinks a few times, glancing down at his brown boots, then back up at me.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “I know that yesterday may have—I don’t know—freaked you out or something. Maybe I shouldn’t have unloaded all my problems on you. But I figured you knew,” he says.