Page 37 of Spectacular Things

Black Ice

Cricket knows the name long before she plays against Sloane Jackson at a showcase in Rhode Island.

The Florida native, also a high school junior, is rumored to be the best goalkeeper in the country.

Even if she weren’t an impressive six feet tall and wearing a bright red goalkeeper’s jersey, Sloane has received enough national media attention and online fame for Cricket to recognize her during warm-ups.

Her celebrity has drawn an impressive crowd to Kingston.

Dozens of college scouts clutch their iPads as they watch the game between Cricket’s Stallions and Sloane’s Hurricanes.

Photographers from reputable news outlets steady their cameras while journalists take notes, jotting down questions to ask Sloane after the final whistle.

They want to capture her in print now to reference when she’s world-famous later.

At sixteen years old, Cricket is hardly immune to the proximity of such attention. All weekend, the hot edges of Sloane’s spotlight burn Cricket at an angle, distracting her from her role on the field.

“Focus on this play,” Liz says, appearing by the goalpost just in time for the first whistle. “Never mind the noise from the sidelines.”

But Cricket can’t shake off her nerves or the fact that everyone here thinks Sloane is the better keeper.

She gets so in her own head that she doesn’t even notice when her mom vanishes.

Sloane’s existence, her potential superiority in goal, consumes Cricket entirely as she allows questions to nag at her for all ninety minutes of the match.

Because what if she isn’t good enough? What if her best simply doesn’t measure up to Sloane’s best, and UCLA doesn’t offer her a scholarship?

What if she fails at the one thing she’s supposed to be good at, and her mom and sister sacrificed everything for nothing? Then what?

That afternoon, the Stallions lose to the Hurricanes, 1–0.

The match itself feels stilted, as if every player thinks a lens might be trained on them.

Cricket lets in the one goal of the game at the start of the second half.

Most of the match’s action, however, happens at the other end of the field, giving Sloane ample opportunities to demonstrate her talent.

After the final whistle, Cricket jogs to the bench disappointed in her performance.

An unfamiliar self-doubt persists on the long drive home, questions buzzing like mosquitoes in her ear: How many goalkeepers stand between her and the National Team?

Did any of those scouts notice her? Did all of them write her off after that goal?

As if to further punish herself, Cricket keeps replaying the shot she let in, which she could have blocked if she’d only—

“Stop thinking about it,” Mia says, interrupting Cricket’s spin cycle. “Everyone’s rusty after not playing together for a year.”

“But I played like shit.”

“It’s one weekend,” Mia says, trying for a nonchalance that immediately backfires.

“So you agree I played like shit.” Cricket’s chest constricts with terror as she awaits Mia’s response.

Her sister has given up so much, and Cricket has only just realized there is a chance, a sizable possibility, that she won’t be good enough.

That she already isn’t good enough and everyone has just been lying to her, feeling sorry for her because her mom is dead, which is exactly why she needs to carry her mother’s legacy between her shoulder blades, her last name and lucky number on the back of a National Team jersey someday.

But what if Cricket never makes it that far? What if her father was just a bad man, and she is just a mediocre keeper, and she fails to ever redeem her mother’s almosts with her own golden achievement?

“Actually, no,” Mia sighs. “I don’t think you played like shit.

” She flicks on her turn signal and wishes for the hundredth time that day, for the billionth time that week, that her mother were here to go on a Be Positive rant long enough to pacify Cricket.

“But if that’s what you think, I’m just reminding you it was one showcase. It doesn’t matter.”

“It all matters,” Cricket says, ramming the back of her head against the headrest. “I need to impress UCLA.” That’s another thing she realized while she was standing in goal, getting eaten alive by questions she couldn’t answer. UCLA is anything but a guarantee.

“Aren’t they already impressed?” Mia asks.

“Barely,” Cricket says, but Mia knows better.

Ever since June, Cricket has fielded interest from soccer coaches all over the country.

College recruiting is little more than a shameless wooing of talented players—coaches start with generic questionnaires to gauge interest and then eventually offer an all-expenses-paid trip to campus so prospective student athletes can meet the team, view the training facilities, and imagine their life at that school.

At sixteen years old, Cricket has never been in a romantic relationship, but she has most certainly been courted by college soccer recruiters. Except for Stanford, where Sloane plans to go, every top-tier program has reached out to Cricket.

“You’re our missing piece,” one coach declared over voicemail.

“We’re set up to go all the way this year,” another divulged in a handwritten letter. “We just need you.”

More than one coach has even DMed Cricket in a last-ditch effort to get her attention, and Mia almost feels sorry for those coaches because they have no chance. Cricket’s heart is set on UCLA—their mother’s would-be alma mater if not for Mia.

“I know they’re impressed,” Mia says. Without meaning to, because she is tired of driving and tired of this conversation, she makes a mistake: Mia exhales.

Cricket seizes on it. “What’s with the sigh?”

“Nothing.”

“No,” Cricket says, sitting up, alert, a dog with a fresh bone. “You know UCLA’s impressed but what?”

“You just need to play your game,” Mia concedes. “I don’t know how else to say it. You didn’t look relaxed out there today, or like you were having fun.”

“It was all those people there for Sloane,” Cricket admits, leaning her head against the passenger window.

She doesn’t confess that it is bigger than the rival goalkeeper or the gaggle of reporters.

Her entire life depends on hitting each of these upcoming milestones, one at a time but in rapid succession.

Because if she doesn’t clear the first hurdle of getting into UCLA, she can’t earn the starting spot there, and that means she can’t lead the Bruins to another NCAA championship, which brings more eyes and dollar signs to her name when she graduates and enters the NWSL draft.

The gauntlet continues from there. A long line of dominoes must fall in an unlikely, almost miraculous sequence for Cricket to ever make the National Team.

It’s damn near impossible but it’s her destiny.

Any other life path would be a forfeit, and yet, having seen the attention surrounding Sloane Jackson, Cricket is riddled with doubt about the reality of her dream.

“Don’t worry about Sloane,” Mia says, turning on the radio.

“I lost one of Mom’s red ribbons during warm-ups and then I let in that stupid goal,” Cricket mutters from the passenger seat. “So you know what that means?”

“What?”

“A third bad thing still has to happen today—bad things always happen in threes.”

“Not necessarily,” Mia argues, turning up the volume to drown out her sister.

“Mom said so.”

“Should we stop for ice cream?” Mia asks, changing lanes and switching topics. “We’re almost at the bridge.”

“Ooh, the bridge,” Cricket warbles with sarcasm. “A real cause for celebration.” She glares out the window and curses the swirling hail, sleet, and rain. “This weather is garbage.”

Elsewhere in the country, purple crocuses and other eager buds lend promises of spring, but Old Man Winter still reigns supreme in New England.

“The Hannaford bagger—the young one with the self-aware mullet—he told me we’re getting a snowstorm,” Mia says, a little too upbeat for Cricket’s liking.

“Something to look forward to,” Cricket huffs. “I can’t let in a goal like that ever again, even if I couldn’t feel my hands during the second half.” Cricket cracks her window and forces herself to count her breaths. If she doesn’t have soccer, she doesn’t have anything.

“Are you okay?” Mia asks.

“Carsick,” Cricket says. “You drive like Mom.”

They stop at a roadside creamery in their big winter coats. When they get out, Mia keeps the van running, the heat on full blast. Even so, by the time they return, Cricket’s sweaty hair crunches between her fingers, half frozen.

“I need to double down on my training,” she says, unsheathing her straw with her teeth.

“I’ve been taking it too easy if I want to be the best.” Buckling her seatbelt between sips of her strawberry milkshake, Cricket elaborates.

“Coach says he has a call scheduled with Teague, the head coach of the full National Team, not the Youth National Team, but, like, the actual full team.”

“About you?”

Cricket nods. “He said he’d put in a good word.”

“As he should,” Mia says, face reddening at the thought of him.

They cross the Piscataqua River Bridge and, upon reentering their state, pass the new blue sign in Kittery that says, “Maine: Welcome Home.” Underneath, in smaller lettering, the board honors the decades-old slogan, “The Way Life Should Be.”

Cricket scoffs as she stares at it. “That sign actually has icicles on it.”

“It’s March,” Mia says defensively. “What do you expect?”

“But this isn’t the way life should be. It’s why half my grade is going somewhere tropical over spring break.”

“You know Maine is why you’re as tough as you are, right?” Mia looks over. “It’s trained you just as much as Coach has.”

“First you drive like Mom and now you sound like her.”

“Thank you?”