Lucy’s “Perfect” Summer (9 page)

“Eat lunch with me,” Rianna said close to Lucy’s ear.

“I usually eat with — ”

“Forget them.”

Rianna jerked her head toward the rest of the Select Team who were already gathered at a table, heads almost touching as they chattered. Lucy could guess the topic.

“I just want to talk to
you,
” Rianna said.

“I promised my — ”

“No, seriously.” Rianna got her face so close, Lucy could feel her hot breath. “We have to talk about this team. Over there.” She pointed to one of the cottonwood trees that bordered the soccer park and strode off toward it.

Lucy didn’t follow her. Rianna might think she was the boss of the team, but she wasn’t the boss of Lucy. She whipped around to head for her friends and almost plowed into J.J.

“Man, am I glad to see you,” she said. “You would not believe what’s going on. Come on — we’ll talk at the table.”

“I already told ’em you weren’t comin’.”

Lucy stopped, jaw unhinging. “Why?”

“What I told you.”

“I don’t care if the team makes fun of me,” Lucy said. She lowered her voice to a hiss and nodded toward the tree, where Rianna was running off two seven-year-olds. “Especially her.”

“Eat with your team,” J.J. said.

“I don’t want to. I want to be with you guys.” Her words grew thick. “My team doesn’t even know I’m not there.”

“So tell ’em.”

“I don’t get this.” Lucy stared hard at J.J. “You never care about people teasing you.”

“I care about ’em teasin’
you.”

His voice shot high on the “you,” and his face went the color of a tomato, and his Adam’s apple bobbed three times. He backed away, shaking his head, though Lucy knew better than to say anything else anyway.

“Don’t come,” he said, and slipped away through a clump of boys.

“Hey!” said that voice Lucy was sure she’d be hearing in her sleep.

“I gotta go!” Lucy called to her.

Then she ran to the restroom and slipped past two girls redoing their French braids in the mirrors and hid in a stall, staying there long after they finished whispering about how weird she was acting and left.
She
was the one who was weird? What about Rianna, who was behaving like she was the boss of her when Lucy couldn’t even remember her last name? What about J.J., who must have just had a personality transplant or something? How was she
supposed
to act when everybody else was going crazy?

She didn’t know, so she stayed in the stall until lunch time was over.

Coach Neely divided them into two teams that afternoon and had them play a practice game. Lucy said a major prayer of thanks that Rianna was her team’s goalie so she didn’t have to deal with her too much. At least when she was playing soccer, Rianna didn’t talk about anything else. The rest of the team, on the other hand . . .

Maybe it was the heat that made everybody cranky, but Lucy heard everything from Sarah telling Waverly she wanted to stuff the ball up Rianna’s nose, to Patricia muttering that flushing her down the toilet would be better. Coach Neely didn’t say anything, at least not about Rianna. She had plenty to say about how they were all talented individual athletes, but they needed to learn to play as a team.

Lucy
knew
how to play as a team. But maybe this wasn’t the team she was supposed to be on.

7

As soon as camp was over for the day, Lucy bolted for the car, only to slow down as she got closer and saw Dusty and the other girls piling in. They probably weren’t going to talk to her after she had ditched them at lunch. And what was
she
supposed to say to
them?

J.J. hadn’t told her what to do about that.

With a sigh that came all the way from her shoelaces, Lucy made her way to Carla Rosa’s SUV. Dusty was the only one who hadn’t gotten in, and she wrapped her arms around Lucy’s neck.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“About what?” Lucy said.

“You know — that your coach is making you eat with your team.”

As much as she hated long hugs, Lucy was glad Dusty was still holding onto her so she couldn’t see her eyes bugging out.

“We understand,” Dusty said.

Veronica poked her head out the window. “We know we’re your
real
friends.”

Carla Rosa joined her, cheeks nearly purple from the heat. “Guess what, though? You didn’t eat with them either. How come you didn’t eat?”

“Get in, girls,” Carla’s mom said from the driver’s seat. “Lucy, you didn’t have lunch today?”

“I wasn’t hungry,” Lucy said. And that was the truth. This whole thing was taking away her appetite.

It came back, though, after a ride back to Los Suenos with friend-voices, voices that weren’t Rianna’s. The cheesy aroma of Inez’s chili
rellenos
when she walked in the back door helped too. And knowing she was going to eat with Dad sealed it: she was starving for food and for the chance to tell him everything that was happening so he could help her sort it out. He was very cool that way, even if he’d never kicked a soccer ball in his life.

But when she rode the yellow Navajo rug to the kitchen after her shower, Mr. Auggy was at the table, eyeing the bubbling
rellenos
. Normally that would have made the evening perfect, but he had a book on the table next to him that said something on the cover about improving reading skills.

“Now there’s a look I haven’t seen in a while,” Coach Auggy said, smiling his small smile at her.

Dad pointed his face toward Lucy. “What look is that?”

“It’s the ‘I hate schoolwork in the summer’ look.” Lucy dropped into her chair. “No offense, Mr. Auggy.”

“None taken. But who said it had to be
work
? Or
school
, for that matter?”

“We’re going to ‘improve my reading skills.’ ” Lucy made quotation marks with her fingers the way Mora always did. “That sounds like schoolwork to me.”

“Let’s watch our tone, Luce,” Dad said.

“Sorry,” Lucy said. She didn’t add that after the day she’d had, she was doing well not to throw tortillas.

“Apology accepted.” Mr. Auggy took a bite of
rellenos
and closed his eyes. Inez’s cooking did require stopping and savoring, no matter what else was going on. “I know they serve this in heaven,” he said. “Okay, so, captain, which one of your cats is the most intellectual?”

“The most what?”

“If they were human kids, which one would do the best in school?”

Lucy picked a chili out with her fork. It was always best to test one before you took a whole mouthful. Inez sometimes forgot the Rooneys didn’t have hot-ready taste buds like the Herreras. Besides, that question required some thought.

“Definitely not Mudge,” she said finally. “He’d be more like the playground bully.”

Dad gave his sandpaper chuckle. “I’d have to agree with that.”

“And not Lolli. She’d be all girly and worried about her clothes and stuff.” She took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Probably not Artemis Hamm either. I bet she’d play soccer like me.”

“So that leaves what’s-his-nose.” Mr. Auggy nodded at Marmalade who was curled up in the chair next to Dad. “You think he’d be a good student?”

“Marmalade?” Dad laughed. “I think he’d sleep through all of his classes.”

But Lucy shook her head. “He hangs out with you all the time, Dad. That means he’s gotta be smart.”

Something soft passed over Dad’s face, like she’d just given him a homemade Father’s Day present he was going to keep forever.

“How come you want to know that anyway?” Lucy said to Mr. Auggy.

His small smile got bigger. “I thought you’d never ask. I found out about this program where they train dogs to go into schools and sit with kids while they read out loud to them.”

“O-kay,” Lucy said.

“Think about it. If you read to Marshmallow over there — ”

“Marmalade!”

“Is he going to say things like, ‘Dude, where did you learn to read?’ or ‘Uh, that’s
these
, not
those
’?”

Lucy shook her head.

“So if you’re reading him a story, about catnip or mice or whatever, and he just purrs in your lap, you’re going to feel pretty good about your audience, right?”

It would definitely be better than having Carla Rosa saying “Guess what? That was wrong” or Oscar pretending to snore. And who knew what the kids in middle school were going to say when she got all nervous and stumbled over words like rocks in the dark? Not a pretty thought.

“I figure a cat can be as good as a dog — ” Mr. Auggy said.

“Well, of
course
!”

“So I thought we’d try it. What would you like to start off with?”

Lucy blinked. “Are you serious? I get to pick what I want to read?”

“Sure. Right now it doesn’t matter so much
what
you read as
that
you read. A half hour a day.” Mr. Auggy nodded at Marmalade again. “You think you can get old Jelly Belly to sit still that long?”

“I definitely think he’s your man,” Dad said.

“I don’t know what to read, though,” Lucy said. “I’ve never exactly read for fun.”

“I thought as much.” Mr. Auggy reached under the boring looking book at his elbow and pulled out one with kids — hello! — playing soccer on the front.
The Everything Kids’ Soccer Book
. “You think Marmaduke would be interested in this?”

Lucy didn’t even correct him this time. She just took the book and held it reverently.

“What’s our topic?” Dad said.

“Soccer,” Lucy whispered.

“Why did I even have to ask?”

Dad was smiling, but his grin faded as he took a few bites from his plate. Lucy looked at Mr. Auggy. He was looking suddenly serious about his supper too.

“Okay,” Lucy said. “What’s the catch?”

“What makes you think there’s a catch?” Coach Auggy said.

“My champ is perceptive,” Dad said.

Lucy didn’t know what that was, but her stomach did a nervous flutter thing. She should have known it was too good to be true.

“There’s something else we want to talk to you about, Luce,” Dad said. “You know I went to the Town Council meeting last night — and we discussed the soccer field.”

Lucy put the book down and got up on one knee. “They’re going to fix it, aren’t they?”

“That’s one idea.”

“That’s the only idea!”

Dad looked as though the chili
rellenos
had gone sour.

“Some of the business owners in town have been approached again by the big corporation that wants to buy the field.” Mr. Auggy’s said. His small smile was now far away.

“The people that want to put a stupid mini-mart there?” Lucy said.

“They’ve talked to Felix Pasco and Mr. Benitez and Claudia and Gloria, saying they — the corporation — will put money into the the café and the grocery store and the flower shop and the beauty salon in exchange for their votes on the council to sell the field.”

Lucy got on
both
knees. “But they can’t do that, can they?”

Both Dad and Mr. Auggy nodded sadly.

“We just want you to know that some of them are considering changing their votes,” Dad said.

“What?” Lucy cried. “I thought they were proud of the team!”

“It isn’t that they’re not, but times are hard, Luce. People have to keep their businesses going or they can’t pay their bills.”

It looked to Lucy as if her Dad had a sudden pain. Mr. Auggy was trying to smile, but Lucy didn’t believe it was for real.

“Nothing has been decided yet,” Mr. Auggy said. “But we thought you should know what’s going on.”

“It’s something we have to pray about,” Dad said. “Things are changing, and we need to be ready.”

Nobody said anything for a minute, although Lucy’s silence was louder than anyone’s. She didn’t want ‘change’, and she had no intention of getting ready for it.