Hannah Gersen - Home Field

“You mean how many miles did we run?” Lori asked.

“Yes, exactly. Whatever your coach told you to do.”

“She didn’t say much,” See-See said. “I think she was looking for another job already. She didn’t like it here.”

“She was from Bethesda,” Jessica said, as if this explained everything.

“Did you girls meet up during the summer?”

There was another nervous silence. Dean got the sense they weren’t really friends. It was the opposite of the football team, where the players had been together since elementary school.

“So you didn’t meet up,” he said. “You’re allowed to, you know — as long as it’s not with a coach.”

“I ran on my own,” See-See said.

“Me too,” Lori said. “I got up to twenty-five miles a week.”

“You were supposed to get to forty,” See-See said.

“Look who’s already captain!”

“No one got to forty,” Jessica said.

“ I did — and so did Aileen.”

“Okay, so it’s just the four of you tomorrow?” Dean said, interrupting. “There’s no chance that the others could be convinced to join us?”

They stopped talking abruptly.

“You’re coming with us to the meet?” See-See asked.

Dean had been using the word us in the spirit of friendliness, but for the first time, the girls were looking at him with hope. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked at him that way.

“Somebody should go with you,” he said. “It might as well be me.”

STEPHANIE STOOD IN her aunt’s kitchen, stirring fresh mint into a pitcher of iced tea, the way her mother used to do. Aunt Joelle’s house had that subtle farm stink, a putrid yet not unpleasant mix of manure, milk, and wet straw. Back at school, her dorm mates were probably getting ready for a night out, drinking shots of vodka or sipping from plastic cups filled almost to the brim with sugary red wine. The last time Stephanie had touched a drink was the night she and Mitchell cut her mother’s dress. Her new classmates probably all thought she was uptight, boring, antisocial. Actually, it was more likely that they hadn’t noticed her at all. Maybe this was the real reason she’d come home: to be seen again.

She brought the iced tea to the dining room table, which was set nicely, as if for a special guest, with a tablecloth, placemats, cloth napkins, and a bouquet of Queen Anne’s lace and bachelor’s buttons. An aluminum-foil-covered casserole of baked pork chops took pride of place in the center of the table, surrounded by smaller dishes of coleslaw, applesauce, potato salad, and Parker House rolls made from scratch. It was rich, heavy food, and Stephanie was hungry for it after three weeks of the salad bar at school. She always ate the quickest thing, not wanting to linger in the cafeteria.

Stephanie counted up the places. “Isn’t Grandma coming over?”

“It’s her bingo night,” Aunt Joelle said. “Don’t be offended, she’s addicted. I had the new pastor and his wife over last week and she still went. I couldn’t believe it.”

“Jesus Christ himself could be coming to dinner and she’d pick bingo,” Uncle Ed yelled from the living room.

“Ed, don’t say that. What’s wrong with you? It’s time for dinner. Turn off the TV and come sit. Dean, you too.”

Stephanie called out into the backyard, where Robbie and Bry and her cousins, Megan and Jenny, were playing on the steep hill that sloped up toward the dairy. Large limestone formations jutted out of it, steps and shelves to climb on. As a kid, Stephanie had always designated one rock as “hers” to arrange whatever treasures she’d unearthed: a smooth pebble, a turkey feather, or maybe something from the abandoned railroad tracks nearby — a piece of a rusted metal spike or old, cloudy glass.

“I swear you got taller since I left,” Stephanie said to Jenny, who gave her a bored eye roll, like she expected something more original from someone who wasn’t quite an adult yet. But Stephanie was genuinely shocked by the speed of her cousin’s growth spurt, which was giving her body no time to adjust as it suddenly lengthened. Her older sister, Megan, had entered adolescence more gracefully, easing into her adult body like a woman slipping into an expensive silk gown. Then again, Megan was going to be beautiful, and Jenny was not. It hadn’t become apparent until recently, when everything that had made Megan’s face a bit severe, as a child, came into focus to reveal a young woman with serene, widely spaced blue eyes. She had a small, elegantly shaped head, and she wore her dark hair pulled away from her face in what Stephanie’s mother used to call a “half ponytail,” but that seemed too casual a description for Megan’s shining hair.

Stephanie kept staring at Megan throughout the meal; she tried to be discreet but it was as if her gaze had gotten caught on her cousin’s face. She was halfway through her dinner before she figured out what kept pulling her back: Megan’s eyes were like her mother’s. The same color, the same intensity.

“So Dean,” Uncle Ed said. “Let me ask you something, now that you’re a running coach—”

“I’m not the coach. I’m just going to a meet tomorrow.”

“And dragging us along with you,” Stephanie said. It bugged her that her father had volunteered for a coaching gig on the weekend she was visiting. She couldn’t help thinking he’d done it on purpose.

“You don’t have to go,” her father said. “What was your question, Ed?”

Uncle Ed jumped on his cue, eager to dissolve the tension. Probably that was his role in this estrogen-rich household. “Since you’re a running coach, tell me: Do you really need to pay a lot for running shoes? Because Megan wants these air ponies—”

“Air Pegasus, ” Megan said.

“I’m sorry, but there’s no way a pair of shoes is worth sixty dollars,” Aunt Joelle said. “What’s wrong with your regular sneakers?”

Stephanie’s father turned to Megan. “I didn’t know you were a runner.”

Aunt Joelle stood up and began to clear the table. “There’s dessert.”

Stephanie noticed that her father was still looking at Megan. She wondered if he was picking up on the eye thing.

“How many miles are you running?” he asked.

Megan shrugged. “I run for an hour in the morning, before Mom starts school.”

“And you do that every day?”

“She’s worn out two pairs of Keds,” Uncle Ed said. “That’s why I’m wondering about these pony shoes.”

Aunt Joelle returned from the kitchen with a plate of brownies. “You’re paying for the brand when you buy those shoes. You might as well tape a fifty-dollar bill to the bottom of your foot.”

“Megan, you should run for our team.” Stephanie’s father was excited, leaning forward. “You could even run in tomorrow’s meet. We actually need another runner. There’s only four girls. You have to have five to score.”

“I would love that,” Megan said.

“You can’t,” Aunt Joelle said. “You’re not a student at the school.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Dean said. “I’ve had a couple football players who were homeschooled.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Aunt Joelle said. The dessert plates clinked against each other as she passed them out.

“But, Mom, I would learn good things. I would learn teamwork. And endurance.”

“You want to learn endurance? Jesus, wandering in the desert for forty days, being tempted by the devil. That’s endurance.”

Stephanie had to stifle a laugh. She didn’t know how her father kept a straight face. He was still so fixated on Megan.

“Joelle, with all due respect, I think this could be an opportunity—”