She did not know yet that this small ordinary joy was about to be tested, and tested soon. The football team practiced on the field just beyond the gymnasium. And it was tradition, an old and unofficial one, for the cheer squad to run a joint drill with the team during the second week of the semester. It was meant to build camaraderie. Mostly it built hierarchy.
The players stood along the sideline in loose rows, some stretching, some talking. Most of them watching the cheerleaders warm up with the particular attention young men give to young women they have decided without asking belong to them somehow. Grant Sterling stood near the front, arms crossed, a slow smile on his face. Wade Holloway stood beside him. Cole a step behind, always a step behind.
“New girl,” Grant said loud enough for half the field to hear. “You’re the one from nowhere, right?” Joe turned toward the voice. She recognized him. Everyone on campus recognized him. His face was on a banner outside the student union. “I’m from Ohio,” she said simply.
A few players laughed, the easy laugh of people who already know what’s coming and enjoy the anticipation. “Ohio,” Grant repeated, like the word itself was funny. “That explains the shoes.” Joe looked down at her sneakers. They were plain white, a little worn at the toe. Nothing special. She had bought them with her own money, working weekend shifts at a diner the summer before college. “They work fine,” she said, and turned back toward her teammates, ready to keep warming up.
That should have been the end of it. In another world, on another day, it might have been. But Grant Sterling was not used to being the second-to-last word in a conversation. He stepped closer. “You know what I heard?” he said, his voice carrying now, pulling more eyes toward them. “I heard your dad was some kind of soldier. Died overseas or something.”
The field went quiet in that particular way a room goes quiet when everyone senses a line is about to be crossed and no one is brave enough to stop it. Joe’s spine straightened just slightly. Her voice when it came was even. “That’s right.” “That’s rough,” Grant said. And there was nothing rough in his tone at all. There was something closer to amusement. “Must be hard. Growing up broke, moving around. Dad gets shipped off, doesn’t come back. Real sad story.”
Wade laughed. Cole smiled at the ground. Something in Joe’s chest tightened, but her face did not change. She had learned long ago from a man who had taught soldiers twice her size how to control their breathing under fire that the first battle is always the one inside your own ribs. “Is there something you need?” Joe asked. “Or are you just talking?”
For a moment, something flickered across Grant’s face. Surprise, maybe. He was not used to being asked a direct question by someone he had decided in his own mind was beneath him. He recovered quickly. He always did. “I need you to understand something,” he said, stepping close enough now that Joe could smell the mint on his breath. “This isn’t Ohio. This is my school, my team. My squad if I want it to be. It’s not your squad.”