People Like Us(12)
“Sure.”
I take a deep breath and gaze around campus. The sun has sunk just below the horizon, painting the Gothic architecture of the quad against a velvety blue background. The lights issuing from the lampposts that line the stone path are a soft glowing yellow, like jars filled with hundreds of fireflies gently swaying above us. “Would you ever consider taking a performance-enhancing drug?”
Tai runs her pale eyes over me with a trace of condescension. “Who wouldn’t? If you weren’t going to get caught, it’s no different from drinking coffee so you can study longer.”
My throat tightens and I try to conceal my anxiety. Her answer doesn’t bode well. “It’s a little different.”
“For example, meldonium, the drug Maria Sharapova got caught taking. It’s perfectly legal.”
“Not in the U.S.” I stick my hands in my pockets. I’ve forgotten how to act casual. Hands are the biggest obstacle. There’s nothing for them to do. It was the hardest part of picking up soccer. My reflex was to grab at the ball, protect my face, flail. Hands are too much a part of us. They give us away.
“It’s prescribed all the time in Russia. All it does is increase blood flow, which enhances your exercise capacity.”
“Yeah, but it’s banned for a reason. It gives you an advantage.”
She stops walking and faces me, unsmiling. “You’re not looking for advice.”
I sigh and look her in the eye. “What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing. I’m not having this conversation.” She begins walking away.
“You need to turn yourself in.”
She whirls around, her eyes wide as moons in the lamplight. “Excuse me?”
“Someone knows. They’re trying to blackmail me into doing it, and if you do it first, it’s going to make you look better.”
Her face turns white. “Look better? It’s a zero-tolerance policy. I’ll be expelled. I told you because I trusted you and I know you need to up your game, too. At first I thought you were asking me for help.”
My mouth feels like it’s made of the dry leaves we’re walking on. “No. I’m sorry.”
“Is this about Georgetown? I’ll call right now and turn them down. We’re not even up for the same sport, Kay. You get that, right?”
“It’s not about that. I’m telling you the truth.”
She shakes her head. “Wow. Kay, I know you’re threatened by success, but this is next level.”
“Or maybe you’re too scared of losing to compete fairly.” I can see a couple of people open their windows and I lower my voice. “I’m dead serious. Someone knows. How do you think I found out?”
“So name them.” She towers over me. “Otherwise, I know it’s you.”
I shake my head. “I’d tell you if I could, but they have something on me, too. Believe me when I say it’s bad. Please, Tai. If you turn yourself in, the school might be lenient.” There are all kinds of lies. There are self-preserving lies and anesthetic lies.
“If something happens to me, it’s on you,” she says, but there’s pleading in her voice.
I start walking again toward the dining hall. I know if she says one more thing, I’m going to burst into tears.
But then she says it.
“Fine. But, Kay? No matter what happens to me, you will leave Bates with no honors, no scholarship, and no future, and you’ll head right back to the hole in the ground you crawled out of before you got here. I can get thrown out and I’ll still be headed to the Ivies next year. But hey, maybe if you didn’t spend so much time borrowing my clothes and trying to get under Brie’s, you would actually be a threat.”
I turn slowly and face her, my thoughts running too quickly for me to catch one and process it. Say something. Say nothing. Ruin her. Forgive. “I am a threat,” I say quietly. She has no idea.
She continues advancing until our faces are inches apart. “Everyone has their own priorities. Mine are succeeding and making a name for myself. Yours are playing dress-up and not having sex.”
Gauntlet thrown.
* * *
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AT DINNER, THE entire dining hall is somber and no one talks much. Saturday evenings are always pretty quiet because most upperclasswomen get advance permission to eat off campus, but tonight almost everyone stays home in solidarity. Mrs. March, our housemother, has been crying all day judging by her beet-red face and bloodshot eyes. She sits quietly in a corner and picks at her food. I feel like I should go and say something to her, but I don’t know what there is to say. I’m not sure “I’m sorry for your loss” is appropriate, because it’s not quite her loss. The administration and staff are always saying Bates is a family, but we’re not really. We’re more like a team, but even that’s not completely true. We’re two teams. The faculty and staff are one team, and the students are another. From there it gets even more complicated, and I say this with the measured authority of a two-year team captain. Despite what coaches hammer into your head from the time you’re a toddler running frantically around a field kicking or swinging at air, not every team member is essential.
That’s why there are cuts. That’s why there are benches. That’s why the constant fear of failure looms over you throughout the season, and over the summer, too, in the off-season, in the preseason, in your sleep the night before a big game. Even as a team captain, knowing that bad decisions can sink you and you can be rendered inessential in the blink of an eye. Mistakes matter. Jessica may have been part of the student team. But I won’t feel her loss. I feel bad about that. More empty than bad.