Beyond the Point(24)

“This can’t be normal,” Avery had whispered under her breath to Hannah on the flight back from Colorado last week, after they’d watched the varsity team lose to the Air Force Academy. In the last seconds of the game, Coach Jankovich had lost her cool, screaming maniacally at a referee. As punishment for the loss, the players were told to spend the flight back in silence.

“What if we all just quit?” Avery continued. “If we all quit at the same time, they’d have to fire her.”

Hannah just shook her head and went back to doing her calculus practice problems, hunched over her tiny airplane tray table.

The truth was, there was nothing normal about Coach Jankovich. Hannah had spent the season trying to understand the woman’s tactics, and the best she could come up with was that Coach Jankovich was simply scared of losing her job. As the first woman to ever hold the position of head women’s basketball coach at West Point, she had a lot on the line, Hannah knew. Coach Jankovich hadn’t shown her players a single moment of vulnerability—hadn’t once provided an inspirational quote or a pat on the back. Instead, it seemed that the only way Coach Jankovich maintained her confidence was by belittling her players and reminding them of her authority. She was paranoid, Hannah thought, the kind of coach who believed she could shame her players into greatness, as if having all of their flaws exposed would suddenly make the players feel motivated to improve.

Hannah wondered if Coach Jankovich had always been this way, or if she’d adopted some twisted militant coaching philosophy when she’d arrived at West Point, imagining that her boss, a three-star Army general, would expect her to be tough. But the hazing Hannah endured in the barracks felt more productive than what Coach Jankovich put them through. At least the upperclassmen acknowledged Hannah’s effort. At least they all laughed from time to time. Yes, the cadre in her company had broken her down, but were just as intent on building her up.

The only player who didn’t put her head in a trash can at last night’s practice was Avery, the second-string point guard from Pittsburgh. Early in the season, Avery had mentioned that she felt Coach Jankovich wouldn’t care if she quit. Hannah didn’t see that. Sure, Coach J was hard on them, and yes, splitting them into two teams was unexpected. But what else could they do? At least they got to play—even if it was just JV games.

But by the second semester of their plebe year, halfway through the basketball season, Hannah had started to notice that the harder Avery worked on the court, the harder Coach J worked to ignore her. Once, Hannah had literally watched the coach turn her back when Avery sank a three-point shot. Another time, when Avery recovered an impossible rebound in midair and threw it back into play before touching her feet out of bounds, Coach said nothing. It was strange. Neurotic, even.

Coach’s willful disdain for Avery and some of the other players had started to bother Hannah, if she was honest. She found herself worrying about Avery off the court too, the way a mother might worry over her rebellious daughter. Cadets savored stories like sweet and satisfying grapes plucked off of the vine of campus gossip. And with Avery, it seemed the harvest was plentiful.

“I heard she’s slept with ten guys. All upperclassmen.”

“I heard it was twelve.”

“No, it’s just one guy, but twelve times.”

“I heard they did it on the roof of the library.”

Hannah wasn’t one to indulge in gossip, but there were too many stories being passed around for all of them to be false. Clearly something had happened with someone, because when Lisa Johnson had confronted Avery about it in the locker room, she’d just grinned and put a single finger over her lips, and said, “Don’t ask, because I won’t tell.”

The whole exchange had made Hannah supremely uncomfortable. Did Avery really think that sleeping with some guy in the first few months of college was a good idea? Plus, if Avery was sneaking into an upperclassman’s dorm room at night, as the rumors alleged, she was putting her entire future at West Point in jeopardy, let alone her reputation. Last semester, a couple in Hannah’s company had been found making out behind closed doors, and they’d both been given a hundred hours of walking tours. For the next ten Saturdays, Hannah had watched them both walking back and forth along the concrete of cadet area, wearing full dress gray uniform, carrying their rifles against their shoulders—rain or shine. It was medieval punishment, all that walking. But it was better than the alternative, which was to be kicked out of the academy. It wasn’t that Hannah was a prude, but she worried that Avery wasn’t thinking clearly. Sooner or later, all those bad decisions would catch up to her. To Hannah, nothing was worth the risk of losing her Saturdays. After all, without her Saturdays, when would she get all of her homework done?

Cadet Arant had just read out the name Nesmith, bringing Hannah out of her thoughts—but as usual, there was no response. The professor paused. “Anyone seen Tim?”

The classroom door opened, and a tall, olive-skinned cadet hustled through, checking the clock to ensure he’d beat the buzzer, which he had, by mere seconds. Hannah sat up a little taller in her seat. Tim smiled, flashing a perfect row of white teeth to the class. He had one dimple in his right cheek.

“Sorry,” the cadet said. “No excuse, sir.”

“Isn’t that what you said yesterday, Nesmith?” a classmate called out.

“Take your seat,” Colonel Bennett said. “You’re playing with fire.”