The Season (7 page)

“Did you like the lavender for the museum luncheon?” Mom asked a few weeks in, as I slumped in a chair. Margot and Julia and the salesgirl had gone off for the fortieth time that day.

“Mom, seriously, I'll wear anything you want. Please just make it stop.” The room was littered with shoe boxes, and dresses filled several large metal racks.

“You must have some opinion.”

“My opinion is that you and Dad are spending way too much money on all this.”

“You girls don't need to worry about that. Your grandmother left me a small trust specifically for your debut.”

“I don't think a small trust is gonna suffice,” I replied, but I knew my grandmother would have been tickled that her girls were blowing her cash on hats, gowns, purses, and heels.

Just then Margot appeared with a crushing armload of cocktail dresses. The salesgirl followed with a stack of shoe boxes so high and so precarious I thought the Cat in the Hat had arrived.

“Lucy, wait till you see the Versace!” Margot crowed. She somehow found room for the dresses on a rack and started rifling through them.

Mom jumped up.

I slumped deeper in the chair.

“Please, Megan, can't you skip this one game?” Mom begged me that evening. It was the night before Abby's party.

“Mom, the party doesn't even start till seven. That gives me three hours, which is forever for a low-maintenance girl like me.”

“But it's the kickoff to the entire season,” Mom badgered. “You never—”

“Get a second chance to make a first impression. I know. Trust me, it's going to be fine.”

The next afternoon I opened my locker and found my jersey, shorts, and socks neatly folded with my shin
guards on the top shelf. But no cleats, no sports bra, and no underwear on the bottom. Instead, someone had left a Victoria's Secret box.

I looked over my locker door and, sure enough, Cat and Lindsay and Mariah and Lachelle and half the others were watching, waiting for me to discover their latest “gift.” Since the tiara incident, I had been the victim of endless pranks. And they all knew today I was playing in an unusual doubleheader: starting striker against the Colorado State Rams in the afternoon, entitled fashionista at Abby's party that evening. I tore off the ribbon with a flourish, opened the box, and held up a pink satin push-up bra.

“Cute,” I said, modeling it over my T-shirt to cheers and clapping.

“We knew you didn't have one,” Cat said coyly.

“Actually, I do. In several colors.”

“No you don't!” Cat gasped.

“I do. I've even got the chicken cutlet things you put inside. And tonight, I'm using them. That's right, ladies, tonight, for the first time in my life, I'm gonna have”—I squeezed my boobs together and bent over—“cleavage!”

This brought on huge laughter, with some whistles thrown in.

“I'll let you borrow them if you want,” I offered to Cat.

“Ewww, hand-me-down boobs—no thank you,” Cat said.

“Just rinse them off!”

“Okay, let's stop talking about this now,” she said.

I smiled and realized that right now the other debs would already be deep into some serious primping—blowouts, massages, manicures. Mom and Julia were enjoying a spa day. I felt pretty certain I was the only deb strapping on shin guards right then.

Two hours later I bent over and adjusted those shin guards. We were now in the eighty-eighth minute, tied 3–3, and I had just earned a corner when, after a long run down the right side, a defender blocked my cross beyond the endline.

Strangely, though I'd run nonstop for an hour and a half, I wasn't particularly tired. My legs felt strong and my mind clear. Jogging toward the edge of the goal area, I glanced back, saw Mariah would take the corner kick, and was suddenly overcome by a slurring of time and a powerful out-of-body sensation. This had happened before and I knew then, with absolute certainty, that I was just seconds from scoring.

Giving myself over to the flow, I stopped above the penalty area with my back to Mariah. I felt the tug on my jersey as the CSU girl marked me—she was now between me and the ball. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and started to follow a low, imperceptible-except-to-me homing signal that I knew, just
knew
, would end with the ball in the net.

First, I threw the defender's hand off my jersey and took two quick steps toward midfield. I felt rather than saw her confusion as she wondered why I was moving away from the goal. Then I whirled and started a hard run on the
outside, toward the far post. She went with me, satisfied that she was still between me and the ball.

Stride for long stride we ran, then I planted hard and pivoted directly back toward Mariah. My defender tried to reverse course with me, but I picked her off with another girl and now I was free, running parallel to the goal mouth.

Mariah always hits the ball with a lot of pace, and I heard the
thunk
as she launched it, saw it rise into the air, curling over a defender's head. I kept running as it continued to curve gently toward the goal.

The goaltender, to my left, sensed danger and angled forward. The ball was just too high for another inside defender, who jumped but missed, and I took one more step and now the goalie bolted forward, alarm bells ringing. Too late, I knew, but she was determined to try and clear it.

I leapt as high as I could and cranked my shoulder and hips, storing kinetic energy like a twisted rubber band. The ball soared toward me, and I hovered, waiting for it to arrive. When it did I gave it a clean, crisp flick with my head, turning my face directly toward the goal. I caught the blur of gold from the goalie's jersey, saw the ball blast past her outstretched fist and into the white mesh, captured like an amberjack in a trawler's net. Then, with more than a little shock, I saw the goalie's fist. Having missed the ball entirely, her brick-sized clenched hand was now aimed at my very fragile and exposed face.

In that split second I remembered the day my high school
physics teacher took us outside to demonstrate Newton's second law: force equals mass times acceleration. We all put trash bags over our clothes and adjusted our goggles while he put a cantaloupe on a metal table beside two hammers. He first tapped the melon with a ball-peen hammer—nothing happened. Then he hit it harder and faster—more acceleration but still low mass—with the same hammer. It barely dented the surface. Then he took the sledgehammer—more mass—and he tapped the melon. It bulged but remained intact. Then we stood back, and with a mighty swing he crushed the cantaloupe with the sledgehammer, sending pulp and rind and juice across the assembled class.

I hadn't thought of it since, but staring at that fist it came rushing back and I realized that if force did indeed equal mass times acceleration, this was going to
hurt.

Seven

In Which Megan Finds the Best Defense Is a Good Offense

I SAT AT THE KITCHEN TABLE, A BAG OF FROZEN PEAS
pressed against my face.

“Let me see,” Mom said.

I removed the bag.

“Oh dear God.”

Her hand went to her mouth and she squeezed out another tear. Not exactly sure why she was crying, as I was the one who'd taken the heavy overhand right, but whatever—it was something to see. My right eye, purple and swollen half-shut, provided the centerpiece, but the entire right side of my face was puffy and mottled blue. The right side of my upper lip was so large it looked like I'd had a haphazard and badly aimed collagen injection, and it was bisected by a nasty split that still oozed blood, despite two very painful butterfly stitches tacked on by the trainers.

I pressed the frozen peas back on my face, more as
a kindness to Mom than for the healing effect. After two hours, whatever swelling could be prevented had been. Still, probably best not to remind her of that just now.

“Look on the bright side, Mom. I didn't lose any teeth,” I said through the bag.

“No jokes right now, please.” Mom emptied her glass of chardonnay, and refilled it.

Who was joking? If she'd hit me an inch lower I would have been in dental surgery right now.

“I don't know how I'm going to tell Camille,” she said, more to herself than me.

“Tell her what?”

“That you're not going,” Mom replied.

“Who said I'm not going?” I asked. Honestly, it hadn't actually occurred to me that a black eye and a probable concussion gave me a “Get Out of Debutante Jail” card for the evening, or I might not have been so quick to answer.

“Megan, you can't go to this party like . . .” She trailed off.

“Yes?” I offered, baiting the trap.

“Well. Like that.”

“Why not?”

“What will people say?”

Typical. While I was sweating the little things like keeping all of my teeth and if it was safe to go to sleep, Mom was focused on the more important issues of my appearance and how it would affect her socially.

“Oh, I'm going,” I said, suddenly feeling a rush of energy. I chucked the peas in the garbage can. They landed
with a satisfying thump. I stood and poured myself a glass of wine.

“Are you
sure
you feel well enough?”

“Never better,” I said, heading upstairs. “Besides, no sense in wasting the dress.” I took no small pleasure in the fact that I was now defying my mother by attending Abby's party.

Once upstairs in my room, however, I had to reckon with reality. My eye throbbed, my jaw ached, my lip was on fire, and a clutch of drummers had taken up residence in my right temple. Stef, the head trainer, had given me eight hundred milligrams of Tylenol, and then, as I left, a single Vicodin—just in case. I reckoned if hours of dancing and revelry didn't count as “just in case,” I didn't know what would, so I washed the pill down with chardonnay. Alcohol and pain medication: that should liven things up a bit.

In the large upstairs bathroom Julia sat in a director's chair facing the mirror. The theme of Abby's party was “Hollywood's Golden Age,” and Margot had channeled young Grace Kelly with simple, dramatic makeup that brought out Julia's classic features.

She let loose a single giant curler from Julia's hair, and it fell to one side in a beautiful curve. She brushed it vigorously until it glowed like warm honey, then cupped it with her hand and shellacked it.

“You look fantastic,” I told Julia.

“So do you,” she replied, eyeing me in the mirror.

“Right?” I said. We all laughed.

“
C'est le pied
,” Margot said to Julia, and then turned to me. To her credit she didn't flinch as she held out the chair. I sat. We looked at each other in the mirror.

I took a healthy swallow of wine and set the glass on the counter.

“Do what you can.”

The four of us sat in the living room, dressed and ready, in stony silence. Mom's anger at my condition, and my decision to go anyway, hung palpably in the air.

The doorbell rang.

“I'll get it,” I said, anxious to escape. I strolled in the general direction of the front door. For some reason, I couldn't feel my feet.

On the other side of the door would be my date, Hunter Carmichael. We had spoken a couple of times in the past week, but I had not met him in person. He was an attorney, apparently, in a downtown firm. I approached the door with a whiff of anticipation—after all, I wasn't against the idea of meeting someone, and on the phone he sounded gracious, if a bit nervous. Who wouldn't be?

I turned the doorknob and got my first look at Hunter Carmichael, dressed in a vintage black tuxedo, his hair slicked down with motor oil, boxed corsage in hand and smiling like a beaver. I instantly concluded that, while well-scrubbed and earnest, he wasn't my type—not by a country
mile.

“Megan?” he asked, and of course he also had his first look at me. I had turned my face to the good side, just a bit, to delay the shock.

“You must be Hunter.”

“So nice to . . . finally meet you.”

“Thanks.”

“You look . . .”

“I know,” I said, content to leave it at that.

He tried not to stare, but that proved impossible. Sad too, because from the one side I looked good. Margot had achieved more than I thought possible, and in my lavender dress, with my hair back in an elegant chignon, I was tolerably pretty—except for the train-wreck part.

Mom and Dad stood to greet Hunter, who glanced back at me one last time. I smiled sweetly.

“This is my mother, Lucy, my dad, Angus, and my sister, Julia. Mom, Dad, Julia—Hunter Carmichael.”

“Hunter,” Dad said.

“Sir.” They shook hands.

“So pleased to meet you,” Mom said, offering her hand.

“It's an honor to meet you, Mrs. McKnight,” Hunter purred. “And what a lovely dress.” He was laying it on thick as peat moss. Julia and I exchanged looks behind his back, as if to say, “Oh well.”

“Why thank you, Hunter,” Mom said, blushing slightly.

“Very nice to meet you too, Julia,” he said, turning.

He offered me the box he still held.

“I brought this for you.”

“How thoughtful,” I said.

“May I?” he asked.

“Of course.” He opened the box and his fingers shook slightly as he tied a gorgeous violet orchid on my wrist.

“It's lovely, Hunter. And the color goes perfectly with my face,” I said, without a trace of irony. Hunter tried to laugh, but it came out more like a late-stage tubercular cough.

“Hunter, would you care for a glass of wine, or . . . a drink?” Mom asked.

“No thank you.” He looked at me. “We should probably be going.”

“We should.”

Julia's date, Simon Lucas, arrived as we were leaving. Simon was Abby's older brother, and we had spent family vacations with him and Abby since we were all kids. Simon was the perfect escort—he was fun and funny, and as they were cousins, there was exactly zero romantic pressure.

“We'll be right behind you,” Dad said, waving from the front door.

Hunter gallantly held the door for me and in a supreme waste of resources two couples boarded two huge limos right next to each other, both headed for the exact same place. Securely seated inside, Hunter finally asked.

“Megan . . . what happened to you?”

“I was carjacked,” I replied drily. Hmm, was that the sauce or the pills
talking?

“It must have been gang-related,” he said, excited. “There was an article about this just the other day. The police have noticed a big uptick in carjackings in the metroplex. They said lots of these incidents are younger members out to ‘make their bones.'”

Make their bones?
I sighed. It was going to be a long evening.

The thirty-minute trip in to Dallas cemented my initial impression of Hunter Carmichael. Passably smart, too eager with a compliment, and not nearly as worldly as he imagined, he would do well in the sterile if rewarding corporate law world, which was his passion.

In that brief span I learned more than I ever hoped to about his firm, Kemper Dean, the sort that has little to do with practicing law and everything to do with the business of making money. Hunter was already plotting his ascent from slave to master. As he prattled I tried to feign interest, but this was not a strong suit.

Too bad he's not hot
, I thought, gazing out the window at the passing buildings,
because if there was ever a
night I might be reckless . . .

We exited the freeway, turned on Harry Hines Boulevard, and immediately stopped, becoming the caboose in a train of limos delivering guests to Brookline Country Club. Bumper to bumper we crept along until we finally entered
the gates. Built in the forties on the site of an old nursery, Brookline was the most beautiful club in town—an oasis where ancient Italian stone pines towered over long, low brick buildings draped in ivy. In the daytime it was shaded and calm—at night dramatic and cool. Tonight was beyond dramatic.

“Holy cow,” Hunter said. Indeed.

Up ahead swirling klieg lights fired shafts of light deep into the night sky. Under the portico, valets rushed forward to hold the doors as High Society clambered out while photographers, dressed in 1940s-style suits and armed with antique Speed Graphic cameras, swarmed the red carpet. Guests posed, teeth flashed, flashbulbs popped and fizzled. It could have been a movie premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre seventy years earlier.

With just a few cars left in front of us, I realized I would soon be out there under the hot lights. And in this corner . . . Rocky Marciano.

“It's so
exciting
.” Hunter leaned forward and gaped through the windshield.

Not the word I would have chosen.

“You know,” he said, turning to me with a toothy smile, “I worked the partners hard to be an escort to this season's parties.”

“Really? Why?”

“I'm in the market for a wife.”

“Seriously?” I asked, now unable to hide my disdain. “Aren't you a tad young?”

“I'm twenty-six—lots of people get married at my age. And debutante parties are a terrific way to meet educated, well-bred girls from the best families.”

“My dad talks about cows in much the same way,” I said.

“You know,” he went on, oblivious to my sarcasm, “some of the guys go through the deb announcement like it's a racing form. Rate the girls on their looks, try to pick the winners, stuff like that. But not me.” He caught my reaction and realized what he'd implied about my own looks, then hastily added, “I'm all about finding someone for the long haul. Getting married is a very big step on the way to making partner at a firm like Kemper Dean—it shows you're solid, committed.”

I had never met anyone with so many unromantic phrases in hand—
racing form? Long haul? Solid?
Marriage to Hunter sounded a lot like a life in trucking.