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breath. And there’s another thing.” She points to the girder eight floors up. “Those guys.” About ten workers hoist their hard hats at us.
    We start waving.
    “Stop that,” Coach scolds.
    “Don’t worry,” Mack says. “I’ll take care of that, too.”
    “But…” Debra Lester, a tenth grader, stands up. “We like that we have fans,” she says.
    “Yeah,” a couple of other voices chime in.
    Coach is fed up. “Okay, cancel that,” she says with a sigh. “Just the trash.”
    “No problem,” he says.
    Sensing his departure, we start clapping. I don’t know who started it, probably Frannie, but he stops to turn and bow and then he grins so wickedly behind Coach’s back that we laugh and hoot and whistle until she holds up her clipboard to signal it’s time to get on with practice. After all, our fans are here watching.
    That night, after dinner, I help with the dishes. My father fiddles with an old camera at the kitchen table while my mother stares at me suspiciously.
    “What’s that look for?” I ask.
    She smiles. “You haven’t done dishes since softball started.That’s all.”
    “I would. But you told me since I had practice every day that I could go straight to my room for homework.”
    She nods.
    “By the way, I met this girl at school. She’s a year older and she has her license. Her name is Rocky.”
    “Rocky?”
    “She offered to drive me home after practice. She’s in charge of her sister and brothers. Rocky has to drive them, too.”
    “She doesn’t mind adding you to the pack?” My mother glances at my father.
    “She didn’t say it was a problem.”
    “This girl’s doing this out of the goodness of her heart?” my father asks. “Out of left field, as it were?” He chuckles at his pun.
    “Dad.” I glance at him impatiently. “She wants to talk about softball. She used to play, but there’s too much else going on at home now.”
    There is some kind of over-my-shoulder secret nod of approval between my parents.
    “Okay,” my mom says. Simple as that.

By lunch on Friday, Frannie, Mo, and I are unanimous that Coach and Mack Elliot would be a perfect couple, even though we know next to nothing about either of them.
    “He’s just the right height,” Mo says.
    “He’s got the best name, too. And that curly hair.” Frannie sighs.
    “And good hands,” I add.
    “Like yours when you were trying to open the trailer door,” Frannie says.
    When I reenact my door-opening mishap for the third time, we laugh so hard we almost choke on our tuna melts.
    “It was one of those where you can’t tell if it swings in or out,” I say in my defense, making them laugh more.
    “What if she already has a boyfriend?” Mo interrupts earnestly.
    “What if
so what
?” Frannie says. “He has charisma. You can tell.”
    “She didn’t seem too happy about the practical joke,” I note.
    “No,” Mo agrees, shaking her head.
    “Come on, they’ll laugh about it one day. Y’all are such worry-warts,” Frannie says.
    “Speaking of which, are you worried about the lineup Coachis working on?” I ask.
    They look at me as if I’m crazy.
    “Ella, it’s not gonna affect us,” Mo says.
    My heart sinks. “You mean because we won’t be starting?”
    “
You
might be.” Mo always wants to say encouraging things.
    “It’s only the first game, Ella,” Frannie says. “And we’re not exactly Rocky O’Haras.”
    I look at her. “How do you know about her?”
    “How do
you
?” she fires back.
    “Well, I know she used to play.”
    “Yeah, she used to play. She used to be the best player we ever had,” Frannie says.
    “Then why isn’t she on the team anymore?”
    Frannie and Mo exchange looks. I raise my eyebrows to alert them that I’m ready for the long story.
    “It’s sort of because her mom died,” Mo says. “That was seventh grade. Her aunt helped her dad out, but then the aunt had her own family to take care of.”
    “How’d she die?” I whisper.
    “Cancer,”