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  FOR ZAREEN

  HOW TO TRIUMPH LIKE A GIRL

  By Ada Limón

  I like the lady horses best,

  how they make it all look easy,

  like running 40 miles per hour

  is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.

  I like their lady horse swagger,

  after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!

  But mainly, let’s be honest, I like

  that they’re ladies. As if this big

  dangerous animal is also a part of me,

  that somewhere inside the delicate

  skin of my body, there pumps

  an 8-pound female horse heart,

  giant with power, heavy with blood.

  Don’t you want to believe it?

  Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see

  the huge genius machine

  that thinks, no, it knows,

  it’s going to come in first.

  It is tradition that the fifth and final day of tryouts for the Wildcats’ varsity girls field hockey team be the most grueling of all. Though, real talk? It’s not like the others were a walk in the park. Roughly half the girls arrive to the field with a vague sense of what’s coming. The rest show up clueless. But there’s no telling the two groups apart because—knowing or not—this is it. Today is everyone’s last chance.

  The girls mill around on the sidelines, taping up their sticks, their wrists, their ankles, cinching loose tank tops tight with little knots at their backs, rinsing out yesterday’s nasty from their mouth guards with squeeze bottles of icy water. It’s early enough that the air remains somewhat cool and the turf looks almost like real grass, with indifferent dewdrops clinging to blades of bright green plastic.

  Summer break is just about over. Come Monday, a new school year begins. There is much the girls could discuss—first-day outfits, class schedules, summer gossip—but not a lot of chitchat happens, because Coach doesn’t want chitchat. He wants focus. And there’s really no need for team bonding yet because there is no team. Every varsity spot is up for grabs. Even girls who lettered last year aren’t safe. Even the ones who bled to bring home a second-place trophy at states could be cut.

  Maybe should be cut.

  At eight o’clock, a velvety knell rings out from the upper school’s bell tower. With it, heads collectively swivel, ponytails swish. Every eye is on Coach as he pushes open the heavy metal doors of the athletic wing and stalks toward them, clipboard in the crook of his arm, a can of Red Bull in hand, a baseball hat pulled down low over his shaggy blond curls.

  Both the JV and freshman coaches nip at Coach’s heels. They are two much older and rounder versions of Coach, dads essentially, embarrassingly eager to assist him today. Dark wounds of sweat already bleed through their T-shirts.

  The girls need no instruction. They quickly circle up and begin to stretch, clapping a slow-and-steady pulse for each position change. As they press and lean through lingering soreness, they watch-but-don’t-watch Coach inspect his field. Trying to gauge his mood. Sense what he might be thinking. They get only reflections of their own longing in his mirrored sunglass lenses.

  Some girls spent the past summer secretly worried—rightfully so—that Coach would not be returning to West Essex this year. There is always the fear he will leave them for some better opportunity. He’s honestly too good to coach at the high school level, and especially a girls team. The very least they can do is win for him. Whether his decision to come back was because of them or in spite of them didn’t much matter. He came back. Thank God.

  Coach lifts a silver whistle to his lips.

  Warm-ups begin. Always the same circuit. A brisk mile run around the field’s perimeter. Then twenty-five push-ups. Then twenty-five crunches. Then twenty-five scissors. And lastly, a set of suicide sprints to lace the lines of the pitch.

  It is now 8:30 a.m. Their hearts warm with blood, lungs flush with oxygen, the girls fetch their sticks and listen for Coach to call a skill drill. They gamely hope he goes with Tic-Tac-Toe or maybe Slalom, something chill to start things off. Instead, he cups his hands and bellows, “Figure Eights!”

  This is the first sign they are in for it.

  The other two coaches rush to set up cones, dotting the field with one for each player. Then, at Coach’s next whistle, the girls hitch forward at their hips and begin pushing their orange balls with their stick blades in a tight, controlled infinity loop. Over and over they dance this twirl, eyes pinned on those orange balls to steady the spinning world, their abs and thighs and asses all fires stoked white-hot.

  Fifteen grueling minutes later, Coach blows his whistle. It takes the girls’ brains a few nauseating seconds to register they are no longer in motion.

  If this were any other day of varsity tryouts, the girls would now pause for a quick water break while Coach handed out mesh pinnies in either white or navy for a scrimmage. Scrimmages are how Coach works through a Rubik’s Cube of roster possibilities, swapping players in and out of potential lines and positions, whittling these forty or so hopefuls down to his final squad of twenty.

  Except today there will be no scrimmage.

  There never is on the final day of tryouts.

  Instead, the seniors drop their sticks and immediately set off on another mile run around the field’s perimeter, a thunder of tanned, toned legs. They are trailed by any juniors and sophomores who have endured this annual tradition before.

  It always takes the new girls a few seconds to realize what’s happening. Some are already chugging water, some have gone to their bags for a towel to wipe their sweat or—the brave ones—to sneak a discreet look at their phones. Once they do realize, they sprint off in a panic to catch up to the pack. This elicits a chuckle from the experienced girls, but then it’s right back to business. There are twenty-five more push-ups, twenty-five more crunches, twenty-five more scissors, and another set of suicide sprints to complete.

  It is 9:00 a.m.

  Another whistle. Coach calls for “Shuttle!” next.

  Groups of six girls quickly line up to sprint, receive, pass, sprint, receive, pass, sprint, receive, pass for fifteen minutes, until Coach’s next whistle starts the warm-ups over again, their third mile run, twenty-five more push-ups, twenty-five more crunches, twenty-five more scissors, and another set of suicide sprints.

  At nine thirty he calls out “Clover!” and the cycle begins anew.

  At ten, “Forehand Fades!”

  At ten thirty, “Snake!”

  They are ants scurrying under his magnifying glass. Every move examined, dissected. Coach shouts for them to keep their form, to increase their speed, to stay sharp, to dig deep. This despite the girls’ passes becoming sloppier, dragging as they grind on, the sun now searing high above them. The entire field gets unsettlingly quiet, save for the wooden slap of sticks against sticks, the pounding of cleats on turf, the groans of fatigue. And, of course, the trill of Coach’s unrelenting whistle.

  The girls give everything they’ve got, knowing Coach doesn’t ask of them what he doesn’t believe, deep down, they can deliver.

  So they deliver.

  That’s Coach’s magic.

  That’s why the Wildcats win, year after year after year. Waist-high trophies. Team pictures on the fr
ont page of the local newspaper. Invitations to play around the country. Full-ride scholarships to Ivy League universities.

  At eleven, “Chop Shots!”

  At eleven thirty, “Triangles!”

  Through portholes wiped in the fogged-up windows of the weight room, the varsity football players watch the girls, jaws hanging slack and stupefied. To them, and the student body at large, there’s something cultish and unsettling about the varsity girls field hockey team. Their devotion, their focus, their unquestioning commitment to Coach and to one another. For the duration of their season, their squad is impenetrable.

  It should be said that West Essex’s football team has not made it to states in over a decade. Their last championship banner hangs dusty and faded from the gymnasium rafters. Yet it never strikes the boys as odd that they still dominate the fall pep rally, always announced last by the principal. The boys don’t question if they’ve actually earned the bleacher-stomping applause that beckons them, dressed in their jerseys and jeans, to burst through banners of butcher paper. Their arms simply lift in V shapes at varying intervals, summoning the student body to their feet. A reflex.

  Boys default to kings. Their sovereign right to rule is never questioned.

  The football players wait to be noticed, eager for their gaze to have some kind of effect on the field hockey girls, preferably embarrassment. That the girls never do annoys them, and eventually, they retreat from the windows. A silent acknowledgment that this is one kingdom beyond their reach.

  This is why the field hockey girls would live on this field forever if they could. This blessed rectangle where their worth is wholly quantifiable, statistical, analytic black and white. How incredibly freeing it is to live a few hours each day where they don’t worry about being beautiful or sweet or modest or smart or funny or feminine. The only thing required of them here is to play their absolute best.

  And so, on this day, one girl always pukes.

  One girl always cries.

  One girl always falls.

  But they all keep going. Because being a Wildcat means everything.

  At noon Coach blows his whistle one final time. The girls—cheeks mottled, drenched in sweat, muscles twitching, stomachs sour, chests heaving—fall to their knees and look around at one another in awe. It seems almost cruel that not every girl who survived this will make the team.

  But that’s how it is. Winners and losers.

  They rise on wobbly legs, silently collect their belongings from the sidelines, and file from the field out to the paved cul-de-sac ringing the stately front of West Essex Upper School, turf cleats clicking atop the pavement. There, underneath the flag, they stand shoulder to shoulder, hearts paused in their chests, as Coach reads the names of his chosen ones.

  * * *

  In exactly twenty-four hours, this brand-new Wildcats team will take to the field for their first official scrimmage of the season, against the Oak Knolls Bulldogs. Scrimmages typically don’t mean shit, but it was Oak Knolls who beat them at states last year. It was the first time the Wildcats had lost a championship since Coach arrived at West Essex six years ago. And the girls would love nothing more than to start their new season by whooping some serious Bulldog ass. For Coach as much as for themselves.

  Maybe more.

  The newest members joining this team—plucked either from the JV squad, like Grace, or the freshman team, and one lucky eighth grader named Luci—are green, but their inexperience may well be an asset. The girls who played varsity last season each still nurse a secret wound, the thinnest of scabs capping a mountain of scar tissue. Mel, for not stepping up. Phoebe, for lying. Ali, for losing her head. Kearson, for treason.

  The only way the Wildcats will manage a win tomorrow is if all the varsity players—new and returning—come together and bond as a team. They must believe with their whole hearts that they’re in this together. Know without question that they’ll have one another’s backs until the final whistle. As Coach says, Team first, always.

  That’s why they lost last season. That’s what broke them.

  Luckily, there’s a tradition for this, too. A secret celebration that will take place tonight on this very field. It is the single facet of being a Wildcat that belongs entirely to the girls.

  At least, that’s how it used to be.

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 26

  12:27 P.M.

  LUCI

  Bite down as hard as you can.”

  Luci Capurro sinks her teeth into a perforated metal tray packed with pink clay. The overflow pushes through the tiny holes and streamers of orthodontic Play-Doh quickly fill the empty spaces inside her mouth. Luci gags, but thankfully the other girls—her new teammates—don’t notice.

  A celebration is brewing across the classroom.

  Desks are bulldozed into corners. A platter of still-warm bagels and tubs of cream cheese carried away. A cooler with mini bottles of orange juice dragged across the linoleum. Someone turns up the volume on a cell phone and drops it into an empty plastic Solo cup. The vibrating plastic warbles the lyrics incomprehensibly, but it was the song of this summer. Everyone already knows the words.

  As quickly as the dance floor appears it is filled by returning players. Luci identifies them as such by the varsity Wildcat gear they already possess. Dropped duffel bags from different regional tournaments. T-shirts boasting championships won before Luci moved to this town, boxy unisex styles snipped into more flattering silhouettes, like loose window dressings for their sport bras.

  Though damp with sweat, they happily drape themselves onto each other and dance, paw, pinch, prune, grind, hip check. They seem so much older. Practically a different species of girl. The intimacy between them makes Luci feel like a creeper for staring.

  But she is not the only one.

  A smaller group of girls stands pressed against a table of computers, the dim monitors a contrast to their bright, adoring smiles. They must be the new players promoted from last season’s freshman and JV teams, Luci decides. The veteran players shimmy over and take their hands. There is not a sneaker squeak of resistance. Even the shy ones close their eyes and dance.

  No one notices Luci. It is not a slight. Luci is the only incoming freshman—technically still an eighth grader until Monday—to have made varsity. She is grateful that the dental tech’s body mostly shields her from view, grateful she could point to the tray in her mouth if she were seen and beckoned to the dance floor. At this moment Luci doesn’t have the courage to join in the fun. It took every last drop she had to bring her this far.

  “And open.” The dental tech pokes inside her mouth with his bitter rubber-gloved hand, scooping out the excess clay with his fingers and then checking the fit. “Okay, Luci, this looks good. Go ahead and close again. No talking for five minutes while the mold sets.”

  The song ends but the girls continue the beat, drumming on desks and walls, stomping their feet on the floor. The tech rolls his eyes and flings his used gloves into the trash. No one notices or cares that he’s annoyed. The beat gets faster, building, blurring, until an impromptu cheer suddenly breaks out and nineteen teenage girls scream-sing the Wildcat fight song.

  Luci hasn’t memorized the words yet. It didn’t feel particularly pressing. She wasn’t making the team.

  What a difference an hour makes.

  Luci threads some stray wisps of hair behind her ears. Lowers her chin to her chest. Listens close.

  We are the Wildcats, the navy blue and white,

  We are the Wildcats, always ready for a fight!

  Luci needs to learn names, too. She’s picked up only a few. Not from any introductions or pleasantries but because the best players simply make themselves known.

  One, a senior named Phoebe, breaks the horizon of bobbing heads by hopping up on a classroom chair. Phoebe’s knee is double wrapped—an Ace bandage under a compression sleeve—and by her euphoric grin, you’d think she’d reached the summit of Everest. Phoebe reaches down into the crowd and starts pulling another
girl up with her.

  Mel. The Wildcats’ varsity team captain.

  Luci watches Mel try to gently wriggle free, but it is no use—Phoebe won’t let her go—so she relents. The two girls then deftly negotiate their small, shared platform, finding their balance, turning butt to butt so they both can fit, their toes cantilevered off the seat’s edge. Mel knots up her silky chestnut hair, lifts a fist, and punches the air with a cheerleader’s precision, her face beaming joy and hope and pride.

  Don’t mess with the Wildcats, we won’t accept defeat,

  For we are the Wildcats, and we just can’t be beat!

  Arms are thrown over shoulders, zipping the cluster into a tight, impenetrable spiral. They sing the last verse to one another.

  Three cheers for the Wildcats, your honor we’ll defend,

  ’Cause when you’re a Wildcat, you’re a Wildcat till the end!

  The chant fades like a summer firework and everyone exhales a breath collectively held for an entire week. The girls slowly untangle themselves from one another, though not before one last bit of tenderness. Squeezing each other’s hands, patting each other on the head, swatting a whip of ponytail.

  Even from across the classroom, Luci feels the warmth.

  Coach enters the room a moment later. He signals for Mel to follow him with a crooked finger. The other girls get busy straightening desks, resuming order.

  The dental tech checks his clipboard. “Grace Mosure! You’re up next!”

  Luci recognizes the girl who walks over. During most of the scrimmages, Grace played defense to Luci’s offense. Grace operated at one speed—full-throttle charge—and she was relentless in trying to strip Luci of the ball. Most intimidating were Grace’s eyes, wide and desperately hungry behind the metal cage of her face mask, like a stray dog’s. Now that the mask is off, Grace exudes a cooler, more relaxed vibe, though a faint pink ring remains etched in her skin from its suction.

  Grace hops up on a desk and pulls her mousy hair into a sprout of ponytail at the top of her head. After scribbling a signature down for the dental tech, she gently peels the tape back from the rims of her ears, exposing on each a ladder of tiny silver hoops climbing the cartilage.