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American Treasuress

May

T he big yellow high-school bus thunders down the dirt road past the ranch, the chattering of teenagers just distantly audible. PROSPERITY HS, the boxy black lettering on its side reads.

The bus, affectionately called Old Yeller, has shuttled all the small-town kids into Prosperity for the past decade. Similarly to the bar we’d been at a week back, it is a relic of Eagle Rock and speaks volumes about just how isolated this place is.

Once Old Yeller is out of earshot, the ranch is silent save for the sounds of the animals behind me, cattle lowing and horses huffing. People know our Veracruz Ranch as some sort of oasis in the middle of the endless Oklahoma plains, an untouched space where we live off the land and ride our horses to get to the feed store or something, but I like to think it’s not much different from any other way of life. We’ve got our chores, our friends, our family dinners, and our community. All that’s changed is the context.

At least, that’s the way I’ll run things when the responsibility of the ranch eventually falls to me. It’s part of the reason I chose to study meteorology. The work will keep me at home, where I can have an eye on the ranch at all times.

I finish putting the feed out for the cows. Later, my dad will graze them – our cattle are pretty spoiled, to be honest – but for now, my job is done. I grab my backpack, toss it into my truck, and head to campus for my first class of the day. I wish I could take it all lightly, like it’s any other day of my college career, but I can’t. My hands are shaking when I clutch the steering wheel of my Ram. It’s the morning of my last college lacrosse season opener, and I’m not sure quite how to feel. After Coach had us doing Colt’s goal clinics for a week, honing the very skills I’d struggled with last year, I should probably be feeling more confident. But I can’t decide if this is an end, a beginning, or both.

My dreaded Instrumentation class takes place in the University of Oklahoma City’s Department of Meteorology. One of the newest buildings on the otherwise aged campus, the Meteorology Hub looms both tall and long, copious amounts of glass coupled with brick. I elbow my way through the double doors that lead directly down to the main lecture hall, already packed with just under eighty Meteorology students. Our programme is small but prestigious. We started with full lecture halls of two hundred plus freshmen, and in unfortunately typical STEM major fashion, have come down to fewer than a hundred seniors getting ready to graduate this coming spring. Like most science-based majors, rough weed-out classes, and later on, upperclassman research projects, are designed to thin out the crowd.

I toss my bag in front of me and push my seat in the third row with an overly dramatic squeak. At first, I think it’s the fact that I’ve come in rattling and thudding that causes a couple of people to glance my way.

But as I unzip the backpack and pull my laptop and tablet from the big pocket, stragglers from the row ahead of mine start to turn around with not-so-hidden looks that’d make you think I’d sprouted horns. What the hell?

Before I can even start to theorize about what’s going on, Dr Stearns starts the lecture with a curt, ‘Good morning,’ and the class starts scribbling down notes. I replay all my movements from the last twenty-four hours. What could I have done? Practice. Chores. Bar. Home. And now class. No room for committing any serious crimes.

I make it through Stearns’s monotone lecture before packing up my stuff at the end of the fifty minutes, hustling out of my row to avoid any more weird stares. Unfortunately, I’m not fast enough.

‘May!’ Hailey, one of the girls in my research lab team, rushes towards me. I have a great amount of respect for Hailey Marrero, who rightfully earned her nickname ‘Hailstorm’ by driving straight into an EF-2 tornado and capturing some sick data for the lab while she was at it. The look of surprise on Hailey’s face right now, though, doesn’t look to have anything to do with research. ‘I can’t believe it. You know, he’s basically a legend out here …’

‘Who?’ I feel my jaw go slack and my legs go numb as I start to register just what might be going on. ‘What?’

‘Girl, you did that,’ gushes Hailey. ‘You guys are so cute.’ She turns her phone my way, and my horror is pretty damn immediate.

On the screen is a shaky video clip from last night. Colt and I kick and step to ‘Copperhead Road’ and, as the dance ends, he holds his hands up, and we high-five. Except that our high-five turns into a moment. I don’t remember the elongated period for which our hands stay in one another’s, and I definitely don’t remember our eyes meeting the way they do in this video, but they must have, because it’s unmistakable. And clearly, to everyone else, the eye contact wasn’t the only thing that was unmistakable.

Unfortunate. The man could have chemistry with a plank of wood.

‘That’s not—’

‘Can’t wait to see him cheer you on at the game tonight!’ Hailey grins, waving as she walks around me to leave the lecture hall.

Oh, no.

It takes me a moment to get my bearings, but as soon as I do, I rush out of the Meteorology Hub and immediately call Jordan. This cannot be happening.

My heart thuds against my sternum. The dial tone drones. Pick up. Pick up.

There’s a crackle, and then my friend’s voice, no hi, no hello, just, ‘You didn’t tell me ?’

‘Jor, I swear , it’s nothing—’

‘Oh, girl, it sure looks like something, and I’m afraid the entire internet seems to think so.’ There’s a heavy pause before she speaks again. ‘You gotta talk to him, dude. This is going to blow back on him, too.’

‘On him ?’

‘May … you gotta understand. Whatever you’re feeling right now – pissed, confused – that’s probably also what he’s feeling. And as much as you don’t like the guy, it’s not fair to leave him to deal with that PR mess on his own. Y’all have to decide how you’ll take care of this.’

Jordan and her big mouth. Sadly, she’s as wise as she is yap-happy. I groan, tossing the phone in a pocket of my jacket and popping in an earbud while I walk to my next class. ‘He’s got PR people. This is gonna be my mess to clean up, not his.’

‘They’ll clean up the mess,’ says Jordan with a sigh, ‘but they definitely won’t clean up whatever feelings were obviously running loose in that video, May.’

‘You’re kidding me.’

‘I am not kidding.’ I can practically see my friend’s interventionist expression, eyes wide and brows raised in I-told-you-so , lips pursed. ‘We’ll debrief at practice. See you later, girl.’

‘See you.’ As I queue up my spring playlist, I try to tell myself this will blow over just like everything does in this flat, stormy state. Unfortunately, every attempted reassurance only makes me realize just how wrong I am, and how right Jordan is. We definitely need to talk.

The first words out of Colt’s mouth when I run into him before the game are, ‘Coach told me about your season.’

To be honest, that’s not what I expected to hear. I stop dead in my tracks in the hall of the dingy locker room built outside the field.

He clears his throat awkwardly and shifts the cones he’s holding to set out for warm-up from arm to arm. ‘She told me about last season. Your place on the team. The scholarship. Her looking to get you a spot on the MLL. All that stuff.’

I make a mental note to terrorize my coach about this later. For now, it’s damage control. The things that happened during my junior season were more than just a bad run. I’d rather it didn’t make the rounds. I’d really rather this guy had never found out. And as for the MLL … what Coach wants is one thing. What I want, I don’t even know. ‘How much did she tell you?’ I ask through gritted teeth.

‘Only that.’ He looks confused but plods on. ‘The thing is … May, I’m willing to do whatever you want to do about this.’ He gestures between the two of us. This . ‘Your career is the priority here. You know?’

I cough out a laugh. Suddenly I’m the priority, about five years too late. ‘The whole school won’t shut up about it. It’s spreading like wildfire. If your PR team can fix that, I’ll take it.’

I’m not sure if I hallucinate the tiny flash of disappointment in Colt’s eyes, but he gives me a curt nod. ‘They’ll be on it within the day. I’m sure of it.’

I walk the rest of the way to the locker room in silence, Colt striding off in the opposite direction with his cones. As I pull on my jersey and kilt, slap some kinesiology tape on my calves, and lace up my cleats, I ready my explanation to the team once the questions hit – ‘Someone took a video that got blown way out of context,’ I mentally repeat. I’m not ready to address it yet, and maybe that’s why I decide, in a move out of the normal, to haul my ass to the field a full half-hour before the team’s usual call time.

I grab my goggles and mouthguard and leave my hair in its loose ponytail for now; Brianna is the member of our team that does everyone’s matchday hairstyles. I shut the door to the lockers behind me and start the walk from the tunnels out to Chester Johnson Memorial Field.

I had prepared my speech to the team, but by the time I’ve reached the tunnel, I start to realize I won’t need it.

The bleachers, normally empty save for our bags during practices and small crowds during home games, are filling up fast. I’ve never seen the front rows as full as they are, and from the glimpse I get, plenty of phone cameras are out and at the ready, prepared to capture the source of all the lore that’s infected Okie campus.

‘Spreading like wildfire.’

Colt leans against the left wall of the tunnel, eyebrows raised, and brushes a stray lock of hair back with a dismissive hand. ‘That’s what you said, right? You weren’t kidding.’

I guess he also found time to change out of his usual shorts and sweatshirt. He wears the Riders coaching staff half-zip with a pair of well-ironed khaki pants. It’s a weird contrast to his usual frat-boy demeanour.

‘Guess I wasn’t.’ I tip my head towards the tunnel exit. ‘Better stay in here. They’re waiting for you outside. Might jump you if you’re not careful.’

‘Aww.’ The corner of his mouth tips up, etching a dimple in his cheek that stabs at a button in my chest I thought I’d long since destroyed. ‘You’d care if they jumped me.’

‘Yo!’ I’ve never been more grateful for Jordan when she barrels into the tunnel. I wish I was exaggerating, but the girl is quite literally bent over, out of breath, still in her street clothes.

‘I know you’re not playing in those jeans!’ I start to scold her, but she holds up a hand, the olive complexion of her face starting to go red.

‘Tell me whose parents are at this women’s lacrosse match?’ Jordan scrunches her eyebrows in confusion as she drops her duffel beside her sneakered feet, pointing a stubborn arm at the exit. ‘Look at that. That has to be the Harrisons. Serial lacrosse fans. You think they called all their friends or something? Never gave a shit about women’s, but here we are.’

‘I think it has an awful lot to do with the conversation we had earlier,’ I mutter, and widen my eyes at Jordan by way of a cue. She mouths an oh as her gaze shifts towards Colt, and another silent oh comes out.

My best friend tugs me aside, voice lowered to a whisper. ‘So. I take it we aren’t coming clean to the entire team right now, American Treasuress? You know we’ve never had a crowd like this in our lives. This is crazy, May. We couldn’t even dream of this.’

I glare at the stands, and when I peer at Colt, who’s now migrated towards the tunnel exit and is waving at the audience with his dumb, glowing smile, I make sure to add a little extra sting. ‘Peanut gallery’s full. That’s all we could ask for right now.’

‘Did you talk to him?’

‘Hmm.’ I clench my jaw. ‘It may not be happening this instant, but we’re shutting this down. He knows it.’