Page 61 of Spectacular Things
Highlight Reel
Sitting alone in the back row of the Chicago Red Stars’ screening room, Cricket redoes her topknot and silently questions the purpose of a highlight reel.
Scrubbed clean of its context, the seeming effortlessness of each play feels adjacent to a lie.
It’s propaganda and it’s patronizing and it’s a complete waste of time.
A highlight reel serves the same purpose as a children’s bedtime story: to soften the edges of the real world so everyone can sleep at night.
The Chicago Red Stars did not make the NWSL playoffs. They finished in last place in the league. As commentators are quick to point out, the Chicago Red Stars went from first to worst. Just like Cricket.
What a godforsaken year. Ever since going pro, the work has felt like work.
Playing soccer has become a grind and the dream has warped into a never-ending obligation.
The sum dumped into Cricket’s checking account every other week doesn’t compensate for living such an isolated existence in the middle of the country.
Thanks to Instagram, Cricket knows that Yaz and her new girlfriend are spending their winter break in Maui while Cricket shivers alone in Chicago.
In the seven months since their breakup, Cricket has tried to go out more and date online.
This has only resulted in a substantial uptick in Cricket’s alcohol consumption and an equally clear decline in her confidence.
Yaz has forgotten all about Cricket, and apparently so has Teague.
The National Team coach has not invited her to join a training for such a long time that Cricket can’t even summon the energy to be disappointed about not getting called up for January Camp next month.
She’s just here, shivering alone in Chicago with nothing to show for her sacrifice but this losers’ highlight reel.
Finally, the lights come on, the team applauds their own unsuccessful effort, and the coaches wish everyone a happy holiday.
Cricket cleans out her locker and walks to her snow-covered car with a trash bag of gear in each hand.
Waiting for the defroster to kick in, Cricket calls the only person who might understand why she thinks a losing team is undeserving of a highlight reel.
“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Sloane says from the D.C.
Metro. The Washington Spirit have not only advanced to the playoffs but are ranked first in the NWSL.
“You think sending everybody home without any motivation would be a better idea? That a low-light reel would get them horny for circuit training in their stepdad’s basement? ”
Cricket laughs and the physical sensation feels odd in her throat. It’s been so long since she’s laughed. Entire weeks. “Yeah, maybe.”
“You’re sick,” Sloane says, and in the background, Cricket hears Sloane greeting someone with a dramatic mwah! “Okay, I gotta go,” Sloane says. “But if you need to escape the lovebirds over break, my trophy room is always available to you.”
That evening, as Cricket descends the Portland International Jetport escalator, she spots her sister standing in front of the taxidermied moose.
The sight of Mia cracks something open she’s bolted shut for months.
Cricket is halfway down the escalator when she finally allows her heart to give way to all the pressure, all the disappointment, and by the time she steps back on solid ground and into her sister’s arms, she is a blubbering mess.
Without a word, Mia pulls Cricket into a tight hug with no plan of letting go. “I’m so sorry about—everything.”
Cricket nods into Mia’s shoulder as more tears flow. It is everything. Her entire life—it’s either going down the tubes or already gone: Yaz. The Red Stars. The National Team.
They walk toward baggage claim and as they wait for Cricket’s luggage, Mia grabs her sister’s elbow. “I want to tell you something,” she says. “You’re doing everything right, okay?”
Cricket stares ahead, searching for a black suitcase with a Chicago Red Stars sticker on the front, a red ribbon tied on the handle.
“Listen to me,” Mia says with uncharacteristic force.
“What you’re trying to do is so, so hard.
If it were easy, everybody would do it, but to get where you want to go means enduring disappointment along the way.
Use it as motivation because you’re going to play for the National Team.
You’re going to do it, okay, Crick? And we’re going to help you in any way we can. ”
Cricket steps forward to retrieve her bag, but Mia knows her sister is paying attention from her set jaw, the focus in her eyes, so Mia keeps going, determined to get this out now.
“You are going to make that team because you’re extraordinary, Cricket, and just because it’s been a tough year, it doesn’t make you any less extraordinary.
It just means you’ve got to double down and fight, okay?
No matter what happens, double down, because you’re extraordinary and you’ve earned the extraordinary life you want. ”
Cricket silently wipes tears away. The sisters have always been close, but Mia has never given her a pep talk like this before, like she’s channeling Vince Lombardi. Cricket doesn’t trust herself to speak. Instead, she drapes her arm across Mia’s shoulders and touches Mia’s head with her own.
They emerge from the revolving doors of the jetport and there’s Oliver, pumping his fists in celebration of Cricket’s arrival.
She forgives his tone-deaf excitement because somewhere, buried deep, she’s happy to be back in Maine, too.
Or not exactly happy per se, but relieved.
Like the flu, absolute demoralization is best suffered from the comforts of home.
The sisters watch as Oliver darts across the street. He is exuberant as he runs toward them and then, upon seeing the wet trail of Cricket’s recent tears, visibly perplexed.
“Did you tell her?” he asks Mia, his mouth falling into a cartoonish droop.
Cricket looks at her sister. “Tell me what?”
As Mia struggles to remember the particular words she planned to say at this exact moment, she compulsively touches her stomach.
“Oh my God!” Cricket screams, because that touch says it all, and Cricket drops her suitcase to tackle Mia. Outside the jetport, surrounded by snow, they are yelling and laughing and shrieking and causing a scene because, after all this time, Mia is finally pregnant.
“I just reached the second trimester a few days ago,” Mia volunteers, and Cricket beams. Finally, some good news. Her sister is thirteen weeks pregnant and has never looked happier.
In the momvan, Mia hands Cricket the most recent ultrasound photo. Cricket rotates the picture clockwise, then counterclockwise, and swears she sees a penis.
“Well, that’s interesting,” Oliver says, “because the professionals told us it was a girl.” Cricket can barely take all this good news.
She hurls herself over the center console to kiss her sister’s stomach.
For good measure, she kisses Mia, and even Oliver.
After the year she just had, she never thought she would feel this happy again, but here sheis.
Before they’ve even left the airport parking lot, Cricket has reevaluated how she will spend her winter break.
“I’m going full Terminator,” she declares from the back seat. “No parties, no relationships, no alcohol, and no cheat days. I’m going to double down to get my extraordinary life. No excuses.”
“That’s right,” Mia says, turning around to grin at her.
“Let’s do it,” Oliver adds supportively. Mia plays “Get Low, Fly High” on repeat so it feels like Liz is in on their celebration and part of their plan.
As soon as they get home, Cricket chugs two glasses of water and stretches for a solid half hour to prepare for an early run the next day.
Mia’s pregnancy has not only surprised Cricket; it’s also inspired her.
The universe—and probably their mom—has reminded the Lowe sisters that anything can happen.
Cricket can’t control June Camp, or the National Team roster, or the Red Stars’ losing season, or Yaz—God, she misses Yaz—but Cricket can choose how she spends her time.
The minutes and the days that add up to her life belong to her, and so it’s on her to make them count.
When the alarm goes off the next morning, Cricket curses before rolling out of bed and layering up.
The weather app on her phone says it’s four degrees outside, but with the windchill, it feels like minus thirteen, and with the time difference it seems like four-thirty a.m. Cricket digs out her compression socks and puts new batteries in her old headlamp.
She dunks her fingers into the tub of Vaseline that Mia keeps by the front door, just like their mom did, and slathers the petroleum jelly not just on her lips but across her entire face to protect it from a wicked windburn.
“This is ridiculous,” she mutters as she laces up her sneakers, tired and resentful that she is back here, doing this, in the dark and all alone.
But then Cricket remembers what her sister said at the airport— You are extraordinary— so she reaches into the old milk crate for a pair of loathsome Yaktrax to stretch over her running shoes.
They are Mia’s and purple and particularly hideous, but she is done complaining. It’s time to grind.
Cricket is halfway down the block and praying the violent gusts of wind don’t knock down a tree branch or telephone pole that then kills her when she hears the familiar sound of the front door slamming shut.
Oliver’s voice cuts through the bluster as he calls her name, and when she turns around there he is, head-lamped and Yaktraxed and ready to run.
“Morning,” he grins, catching up to her.
“Morning,” Cricket responds, too stunned to ask what he’s doing, because since when did her still-groggy-at-the-ten-a.m.-game coach become a morning person?