Chapter 1
Unglory
My stomach roiled as the sickly-sweet smell of sugar filled the car. Usually, I liked ice cream as much as any other fourteen-year-old. But today, the thought of it made me want to puke. Wolfie slurped at the melting scoop around the edges of his cone.
Ugh.
“Twy?” Dad squinted at me through the rearview mirror. “First, you don’t want a treat. Now, you’re making that face. Again. Seriously . . . are you okay?”
I gripped the field hockey stick in my lap until my knuckles blanched. For someone who didn’t like to talk about his feelings, he sure seemed nosey about mine lately. This was the third time he’d asked me how I felt since we left Brain Freeze. Of course, I didn’t really feel fine. My stomach hadn’t felt right for a week, with random nausea spells seeming to strike out of nowhere. But there was absolutely no way I was about to admit that and risk being pulled from the summer field hockey tournament. I’d worked too hard, for too long. And too much was on the line. If I sat on the sidelines because of some stupid upset stomach, I’d never make varsity next year. Besides . . . this was our year to win. I could feel it in my bones.
“I’m fine, Dad.” I pretended to be engrossed by the oaks whizzing by on my favorite twisty bypass. Curtains of trees lined one side of the road, allowing an occasional view of a distant creek hidden beyond, and steep rock rose from the road in jagged crags on the other side. In the winter, icicles formed on the rock, thick and long like massive stalactites. When we were little, Dad did this funny voice every time we passed the icicles, yodeling as Icicle Bill for thirty hysterical seconds. I wished Icicle Bill were here now instead of Prying Dad.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Dad studying me in the rearview mirror.
“In the fall, this street will be gorgeous, don’t you think? With all those oranges and yellows . . .” I trailed off, as if deep in thought. I stole a glance at him to check if he bought it.
Dad raised one brow. I sighed.
“I just . . . I didn’t want to eat right before the game, okay? Sugar doesn’t sit well when I have to run.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed.
“Hey, Twy, know what?” Wolfie lapped the salted caramel now puddling between his fingers, completely oblivious to the weirdness in the car. “Eating ice cream can make your body temperature rise. Did you know that?”
I always marveled at the crazy facts my little brother tucked into his brain. Wolfie licked from the base of his palm all the way up to the top of the ice cream scoop. “Wait. It makes your body . . . warmer?” I asked.
“Mm-hmm. And did you know it takes twelve pounds of milk to make just one container of ice cream?”
I smirked. “But what size container?” For sure, that question would get him. No fifth grader committed that kind of information to memory. Not even . . .
“A gallon,” Wolfie said. “And did you know vanilla is the most popular flavor? I mean, whoever answered vanilla to that question never had salted caramel chocolate chunk, that’s for sure. Not that I don’t like vanilla, but it’s not even close to being the best flavor. Maybe it’s just the most popular because of cake.” His teeth crunched into the cone.
I tilted my head. “Because of . . . cake?”
Sugary bits flew from his mouth as he answered. “Yah. Caush eh goesh well wif vanilla.”
“Ewww . . . Wolfie! You’re spitting on me!”
“Wolfie! Please don’t get food in the car, or I’ll never let you eat in here again.” Despite Dad’s stern tone, Wolfie threw his head back and laughed silently, mouth wide open.
So gross.
My stomach spun again, and Mom’s words echoed through my mind: “Everything
happens for a reason, Twyla.” It had been five years since she’d died, but in that moment, it was like she was right there next to me, running her long, trim fingers through her slick, black hair, whispering into my ear. Mom loved mottos: You are what you eat. Be yourself—everyone else is already taken. Don’t sweat the small stuff. She had a million of them, but “everything happens for a reason” was her favorite.
Sometimes, it made a lot of sense to me. If you tripped, it was probably because you weren’t paying attention to the world around you. If you failed a test, maybe you needed to study harder. If it rained, the trees or the flowers probably needed the water. But then there were other times I couldn’t find a reason at all, no matter how hard I tried. Like, why was my friggin’ stomach bugging me so much lately?
Dad’s voice pulled me from my pensiveness. “Hey, guys, wanna hear a joke?” He grinned, and Wolfie and I exchanged a “here comes another bad Dad joke” glance.
“What’s brown and sticky?” Yup. Another bad Dad joke.
He didn’t wait for us to guess. “A stick.” He laughed. “Get it?” He turned the steering wheel with one hand and slapped his knee with the other.
Wolfie spit out even more cone through fits of giggles. Ugh.
My phone dinged.
EB: Where r u?
Emilia and I always met in the parking lot ten minutes before warm-up, walked to the field together, then claimed the left end of the bench for our water bottles. I checked the time: exactly twelve minutes before warm-up. My fingers tapped at the keyboard.
Me: Chill girl, pulling in now.
Our car rolled into the big, crowded parking lot. People carrying collapsible chairs and sun umbrellas trudged toward the fields in the distance, coolers and toddlers in tow. I peered up through the window and shaded my eyes. Cumulus clouds covered enough of the sky that I knew we wouldn’t roast too badly. Cumulus were my favorite. During the day, they provided the best shade. But when they floated in the sky at sunset, it looked almost like you could poke a stick through them, take a bite, and they’d melt on your tongue. But today, they just looked like cotton balls. Fluffy, beautiful, shade-casting cotton balls.
It was our last game before the summer tournament. We’d won every single one that summer, but some had been super close . . . and the Red Eagles were also undefeated. Whoever won today would get top seeding in the tournament. We’d not only have to play our best individual games, we couldn’t afford to be selfish. Everyone would have to be willing to pass.
Even Lindy.
Yeah. Like that’s gonna happen.
My mom used to quote basketball legend Michael Jordan. She’d say, “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” I frowned.
If you were here, you’d know what to say, I thought. Even to Lindy.
But Mom wasn’t here. Dad meant well, but he never knew how to handle girl drama. Anytime I tried to talk to him about stuff like that, he suddenly remembered some work obligation or had to go to the bathroom.
I ticked through a mental checklist, knee bouncing with each emphasized syllable.
Bubble ponytail. Check.
Shin guards. Check.
Blue sleeves. Check.
Mouth guard. Check.
Face shield. Check.
Stick. Check.
Rub my favorite snow globe for good luck.
Ohhhh . . . crap.
Emilia believed with everything in her that if I failed to rub my snow globe, we were sure to go down in a blaze of . . . whatever the opposite of glory is. Unglory? Yeah.
A blaze of unglory.
For as long as I could remember, Emilia had been driven by superstitious beliefs. When we were little, I’d thought it was just the way she’d been raised. In her house, crystals and gemstones hung from strings or sat in shiny white bowls on counters. Incense burned constantly, banishing negative energy. A variety of Native rituals had been a part of her family’s history for generations, passed down from her great-great-grandmother, the first shaman in their lineage. She’d died long ago, and the traditions
now belonged to Emilia’s mother, also a spiritual healer. But as I got older, I came to realize that superstition and spirituality were two very different things. Emilia’s mother knew more about medicinal herbs, reiki, and acupuncture than anyone I’d probably ever meet in my life. Her practice was based in things like love, gratitude, forgiveness, and compassion. Emilia’s superstitions, on the other hand, seemed to come from a place of fear. A desire to control things.
Like me, our other best friend, Anna, didn’t really buy into Emilia’s superstitions, but she and I also didn’t see any harm in playing along if they made Emilia feel better. After all, we each had our own quirks when it came to handling things—Anna preferred to quietly observe from a corner and chewed her nails, while I liked to research things ad nauseum. Maybe that’s why we’d always gotten along so well—I never questioned their quirks, and they never questioned mine.
Which, ultimately, was why I’d rubbed the snow globe before every game that summer. Every game except this one. Nausea had struck while doing my ponytail, and then Dad was yelling that we were going to be late.
Doubt nipped at my brain, but then reason sank in. No. I did not need a snow globe to win. I needed to play hard. And smart.
Dad scanned the lot until he saw an open spot by a sprawling oak. He always tried to find shade so the leather seats didn’t burn the backs of our legs when we got back in. The Kentucky sun didn’t blister us like Florida rays, but it could still be pretty fiery. I barely remembered the old ranch house we used to live in, before Mom had been recruited to Louisville as an exotic vet. She’d been good with horses, so the move made sense, and I knew exotics were her favorite. She’d studied at Busch Gardens, operating on lions and birthing baby giraffes. Her stories had mesmerized me. A picture still hung on the wall of Dad’s bedroom, with Mom all scrubbed in and grinning over an anesthetized gorilla. But even though she’d spent most of her post–Busch Gardens time with puppies, kitties, and horses, the truth was that she never turned away any animal that limped or slithered through her door. Snakes, squirrels, turtles . . . she’d helped them all.
The tires rolled up onto the lawn as shadows crawled from the front of the car into the back. When it stopped, sun shone on only the driver’s seat.
Typical Dad.
As soon as we got out, Emilia bolted toward our car. I smiled at the blondes
waving, princess-like, from the stands: Anna and her mother, Dr. Rose. Whenever anyone got injured, we knew we could always rely on Dr. Rose. Even though she was a kids’ brain doctor (or pediatric neurologist, if you want to get technical), she once braced someone’s broken wrist right there on the field with a folded newspaper, a towel, and an Ace bandage from her car. Ever since then, some of the teammates started calling her Dr. MacGyver, like the TV dude who always got out of a jam with whatever supplies he could find. But to me, she was still just Mama Rose.
Anna hopped down the stands and jogged our way.
Dad turned to me, hands outstretched, one palm up and one down. “Ready?”
A few of the girls from the varsity team wandered by, glancing our direction. I hesitated, wondering if they’d think our handshake was stupid.
Dad’s grin faded. “Oh. You don’t . . . Do you . . . Should we skip it this time . . . ?”
Conflicted, I dropped my eyes to the ground. “Maybe,” I mumbled. Dad withdrew his hands.
“Hey,” he said. I looked up.
“Go get ’em, Twilight.” He winked. I breathed a sigh of relief and winked back.
My parents started calling me “Twilight” when I became obsessed with the meaning of names and realized my name also meant my favorite time of day: That moment just after sunrise, or just before sunset, when the world glows in vibrant shades of orange, red, pink, and gold. That one brief moment when everything falls still but the croaking bullfrogs, the chirping crickets, and the whisper of the wind.
It’s magical.
I once googled the reason the sky seems to burst into flames at twilight, and I even learned a bit about “scattering”—how short wavelengths of light, like blues and violets, are more scattered by air molecules than other colors in the spectrum. Then, when the sun is low on the horizon and has to pass through more of the atmosphere, those same short wavelengths are scattered away from your eyes. But the other colors—the oranges, yellows, and reds—those can still be seen. At first, I wanted to learn as much as I could about the phenomenon . . . but something about decoding the beauty of that time of day felt wrong to me. So I closed my laptop and never looked back.
But of course, my name isn’t Twilight. It’s Twyla, like the dancer, Twyla Tharp. My parents met in college, when Dad was the pianist for all the soloists. He said Mom had the most angelic voice he’d ever heard . . . but it was when he first saw her dance that he knew he was a goner.
“She skimmed the floor like a dragonfly on water,” he’d say. His words always made her smile. “Light, airy, delicate, and yet . . . unpredictable.” Then they’d laugh.
I missed that laugh.
When I closed my eyes and listened hard, I could still hear it . . . tinkling like a soprano wind chime in the breeze. But the further we got from That Day . . . the more it seemed to fade.
The more she seemed to fade.
“Twy! You coming? It’s time, girl!” Emilia’s thick black ponytail bounced between her strong shoulders. Her stick cut back and forth through the grass, like she was dribbling past a defender. I envied the way her already-gorgeous skin bronzed in the summer.
Mine just freckled and burned, like Dad’s.
Anna trailed behind her, laughing. “No way you guys will lose with those kinds of moves, Em,” she said.
Emilia winked at ...
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