Wing Jones(52)

Eliza lives in a tractor factory out in Castleberry Hill, near the CNN Center. Or what was once a tractor factory but has now been converted into apartments. It doesn’t feel like a factory, but it doesn’t feel like an apartment either. It’s right next to the train tracks, and every time a train goes by the whole building rattles. The floors are concrete, and the ceilings are so high that I wonder how the hell they ever change their lightbulbs. Her family’s apartment unit is basically one giant room, the kitchen and living room and dining room all rolled into one, with two bedrooms and a bathroom tucked away in the back. The windows are so high they’re practically skylights. No one can see in and all we can see is the sky.

In the middle of all the open space is a grand piano. I’ve never seen a grand piano before, and I’ve definitely never seen one at someone’s house. There’s art painted directly onto the walls and there are beanbags in one corner. It is the most ridiculous and the most amazing home I’ve ever been to.

When Eliza and I arrive, she struts (Eliza never walks) straight up to the piano, sits down, and starts to play Christmas carols. Some of the other girls on the team, including Vanessa (who didn’t end up having a baby, not that she told me, but she’s here and a baby isn’t, so I think it’s safe to assume), are already there, and they crowd around the piano and sing.

Annie, wearing a Santa hat, sits next to Eliza, laughing that laugh that makes everyone else laugh too. She whispers something in Eliza’s ear and Eliza starts playing a different song, one that makes all the other girls clap their hands and belt as loud as they can. I want to crowd around the piano too, but it’s like they all have a part and they know the words, and I don’t.

Literally. I’ve never heard the Christmas song they’re all singing.

So I perch on one of the beanbags and try to bob my head along. It’s more of a pop song than a Christmas song. It feels a bit funny to be singing Christmas songs in January, but everyone else is loving it. Eliza’s eyes land on me and she stops playing abruptly. It takes a few moments for the girls to stop warbling along.

“Do you not know this one?”

I shake my head, embarrassed. But it’s more than that. I don’t know how to act here; I don’t know how to do anything but run in circles.

“How do you not know ‘All I Want for Christmas’?” Vanessa asks, but not unkindly, just genuinely curious. “It is all that’s on the radio, like, ever.”

I shrug. I don’t know how I don’t know. And that’s almost as embarrassing as the not knowing. I hate how they’re all staring at me. I wonder if this is a trick, a mean trick, like in that horror movie where they invite that girl to prom just to throw pig’s blood on her. I don’t think Eliza would do that, but then I didn’t think Heather Parker was going to dump a jug of sweet tea on me either.

“Well, get up here, you silly thing, and we’ll teach you,” says Eliza, grinning at me, asking me to trust her, and I’m filled with a certainty that this isn’t a trick, that Eliza really is my friend, and the certainty is so snug and warm, it’s like she’s wrapped me up in a fluffy blanket.

It doesn’t take long for me to learn the song. Soon I’m linking arms with the other girls and laughing so hard at one of Annie’s stories that I fall into a heap on the beanbags with Vanessa, Vanessa who was so unwelcoming to me, and now the two of us are curled up next to each other, clutching our sides and shaking with laughter. And I’ve been missing this and I didn’t know. Because I never had this with April. Never had this, not with Monica or Aaron or even Marcus.

Never been a part of something before.

Some of the other girls are drinking sparkling wine out of plastic Champagne flutes, but I don’t even try a sip of anything. Nobody pressures me. One of the girls gets out a deck of playing cards and they teach me to play a complicated game with hand slapping that I’ve never played. They say I need to learn all the card games before the training weekend in Hilton Head.

“What training weekend?” I ask.

“After the season officially kicks off and it gets warmer, Coach Kerry takes us all to Hilton Head and we camp out on the beach and run all day in the sand, and it’s hard as hell but amazing at the same time, especially because we can go cool off in the ocean, and it’s just the best weekend ever,” Vanessa gushes as she refills her plastic flute, bubbles spilling out over the top.

“It really is,” Eliza agrees, her arm around Annie’s waist. No one here seems surprised about the two of them. They must already know. No one seems bothered. I’m starting to get the feeling that team trumps everything else. Doesn’t matter who you’re into or what you look like or how much money your family has. I think someone could show up with two heads, but if they could run fast and joined the team, they’d get along just fine.

Most of us stay up till the sun rises, and only then, when the light is starting to stream in the big windows, do I grab a couple of the beanbags and make myself a little nest.

Eliza puts a blanket over me. “Good night, Wing. I’m glad you came.”

“Me too,” I say, and I hope she knows what I’m really saying is thank you for inviting me. Thank you for making me feel like I’m a part of the team.

Like I’m a part of something. Like I belong.