Ally
"You grabbed the steering wheel as the ice resurfacer took off?" Elle asks, her voice heavy with disbelief.
In the chair we designated as the witness seat, Sun Hee nods with pretend wariness and probably very real confusion since Elle is not supposed to be cross-examining her.
"Is that a yes?" I mutter under my breath. Elle misses her cue, though, and stands, forgetting that all non-verbal responses have to be verbalized or it's not part of the appealable record. It's something we're specifically scored on in competitions. I hold my breath. Please tell me she's not going to approach without-
"Let me show you what you said in your deposition," Elle says and swishes her way across the fake courtroom floor.
Beside me, Miles groans. Elle whips around with a glare hot enough to make the papers in front of us burst into flames.
"What did I do wrong this time, Mr. Perfect?"
Miles rests his fists against the surface of the table, looking ready to spring out of his chair and launch himself at Elle. "How long do we have because that entire line of questioning is completely insane. Sun Hee is our client. We don't cross-examine our own client."
"Miles, she's new," I remind him. The last thing we need is for Elle to blow her top, too. In the four practices we've had since the semester started, these two have been at each other's throats, rendering the whole team tense and unhappy. Regionals are in the middle of March, right before Spring Break, and none of us is going to make it to the tournament at this rate. We'll have clawed each other to death well before then. It'll be our own version of the Valentine's Day Massacre.
The rest of our mock trial team shifts impatiently behind us. It's time to call it a night even though we achieved nothing productive.
I get to my feet. "We've been at this for two hours. Why don't we adjourn for tonight and we'll take it up again in two days?"
"Hopefully Elle will practice in those two days. Maybe read a few of our materials on how to conduct an examination?" Miles sneers.
Elle's response is predictably tart in return. "At least I actually bring some emotion to this dead room. Your opening was so monotone that five minutes felt like five years. Plus, do you have any clothes that don't scream tacky? Hand to God, I've seen mannequins at the Salvation Army tricked out in better clothes than you have on."
Miles blanches and turns ashy pale. Elle's good at dishing out insults like this. And Miles, a scholarship student like me, readily takes the bait. "If only you'd inherited some actual skill from your dad instead of just his wallet."
When Elle opens her mouth to deliver another cutting remark, I jump in. "All right. We don't need to snap at each other. I think we're tired, hungry, and just need a break. Elle, if you could, there's a set of sample questions in the original packet that show the difference between cross and direct. I can resend them to you via email if you want." Hell, I'd write the entire examination if she'd agree to memorize and read it, but any time I've hinted at offering help, she shuts me down. "Miles, Elle's new to this. We've got ten weeks, and I'm sure we're all going to make mistakes between now and the Regionals, so let's give each other room to make them. Patience." I give them both a smile.
Miles' a stellar attorney-in-training. He's sharp witted, quick on his feet, and can deliver a rousing argument. We need him. But we need Elle, too, because despite her inexperience, her tryout was the best we've seen since... well, our freshman year. Once Miles' blood stops roaring in his ears, he'll remember why we chose Elle in the first place.
I made out an extensive risk assessment spreadsheet-even factoring in that Elle was inexperienced -and Miles had agreed with every item on the list.
"Pack it up," I tell the rest of the crew, who gratefully shove their materials into their backpacks and scoot out of the borrowed classroom.
"Thanks," Sun Hee murmurs as she passes by the desks Miles and I pushed together to form our attorney table. "I was dying up there."
"No problem. You did well. You looked vulnerable and victimized. The judges will love you."
Our mock trial matches are judged by a panel of three individuals, usually attorneys in the community where the competition takes place. They score us on everything from correct courtroom procedure to witness demeanor and believability. After two straight years of losing in Regionals to Central, Miles and I were determined to field a winning team.
We recruited students from the theatre department to play our witnesses, and we were going to ask Devin, a Poli-Sci pre-law major to be our third attorney, but then Elle tried out and the closing argument she delivered in the tryouts nearly moved Mr. Conley to tears.
I pause while putting my things away. Is it possible my risk assessment toward Austin also includes incorrectly weighted items? Not all football players are horndogs. Elliot, one of Dallas' closest friends on the team, is seriously devoted to his girlfriend.
"You forget something?" Miles asks as he wrestles one of the desks back into position.
I look up in mild surprise. I'd forgotten where I was for a moment. "Nope. Let me help you with that." I have to get Austin Moon out of my head.
We finish tidying up the room, putting all the desks and chairs back into their uniform rows while Elle inspects her nails by the door. I try not to let that irritate me. Miles, on the other hand? He huffs and puffs and sighs the entire time, which is annoying in its own way.
Once we're done and I've worked up an unfortunate sweat under my button-down, Elle saunters over to run a finger along a desk.
"I think this isn't quite straight." She shoves it lightly with her hip.
Miles releases a growl from the back of his throat while I bite back a snarky retort. Taking a deep breath, I try again to play peacemaker.
"Did you need something, Elle?" I'm not sure why she's hanging around.
She shrugs, a delicate movement. Elle is very pretty. In fact, if she wasn't so intent on being an attorney, she'd have done a great job as our jaywalking victim who got struck by a car. "Not particularly. I was wondering, though, how it was decided that you'd be in charge, Edgar?"
I school my features into an impassive expression, not wanting her to know that I hate being called by my middle name. I've told her at least twice that I prefer to be called Ally, but since she continues to call me Edgar, my guess is she's trying to get every last dig in wherever she can. "I'm not in charge. Mr. Conley is." Mr. Conley is a local trial attorney who volunteers her time to train us.
"But you put the team together. You were the contact person on the sign-up sheet for this elective." She rubs her finger along the side of the desk, looking sweet and innocent, but I've spent two weeks with this girl and it's been long enough to realize that sweet and innocent is an act Elle adopts when she wants something.
"Miles lost his cellphone so it made sense for me to put mine on there while he was getting it replaced," I explain.
"That's convenient for you, isn't it?"
I glance over at Miles because I have no idea where she's going with this. Miles' expression is one of confusion, too.
"I don't know if I'd say it was convenient. I had to field a hundred calls and about a quarter of them were crank ones that asked me if the try out was for my ass."
Elle smirks. "You're still in charge. The others in the group listen to you."
"None of us is in charge. We're all working together toward the same goal. You told me last fall when you tried out that you wanted to join to help us defeat Central and hopefully go on and win Nationals," I remind her.
"See, that's why I'm worried."
"About what?" I shoulder my backpack, wishing I had escaped with the rest of the team, but that would mean leaving Miles and Elle alone, and I was afraid if that happened, only one would be alive for our next practice.
"I'm wondering whether we've assembled the right pieces for the team. You're good as an administrative point person. You know, signing us up, getting us the schedule, passing out the materials, but you really don't have the killer instinct a lawyer needs." Ouch. But her ability to accurately hit at all of our insecurities after just a short time means she'll be really good in competition, I remind myself.
I grit my teeth, but Miles has had enough. "Ally is the best attorney on our team."
She arches a perfectly shaped eyebrow. "If Edgar is so amazing, why isn't she doing either the opening or closing? Why am I, someone you say has no experience and no skill, delivering the closing? Isn't that the most important role of the whole team? We can hide the weak link between the two of us." She drags her eyes down Miles' perfectly fine outfit once again. "But if you don't dress better, no one is taking us seriously."
With that last arrow, she spins on her heel and walks away.
"I can buy a suit, but you can't buy class," Miles yells after her.
"Might want to brush up on your insults," Elle calls casually over her shoulder. "That one's older than your shoes."
"I got these shoes last year."
"From Goodwill?"
I step in front of Miles as he lunges toward the doorway Elle just exited.
"It's not worth it," I tell him.
Miles rages, pulling away from me and straightening his sweater in a huff. "Don't you care that she basically called you incompetent?"
I shift uncomfortably because, while Elle's words stung, I don't know if she was entirely wrong. I mean, I'm not incompetent, but isn't part of competence knowing your limits? "I thought you were sitting right beside me when I crashed and burned our freshman year?"
Miles clicks his tongue in sympathy. "It was a mistake. You froze. We've all had a similar experience once in our lives. When I was in eighth grade speech class, I couldn't get more than two words out in rebuttal."
"Miles?"
"Yeah?" He smiles brightly.
"You're not helping." I squeeze his shoulder. "I don't like the way she says it, but we both know where my skill set lies and it isn't with on-the-fly exposition needed for a good closing argument. And you hate doing rebuttals, so we needed a closer. We all agreed she was the best of everyone who tried out."
He makes a face. "You could do it if you wanted to."
"Then I guess my answer is I don't want to." I'd rather suffer a hundred insults than have to stand up and speak for ten minutes straight while everyone sitting in the audience picks apart every single word I've said wrong. Been there, done that, failed epically.
"You need to keep that bitch in check," Miles says. He pulls on his winter coat in sharp, exaggerated movements. He doesn't want me to miss that he's pissed off. As if it wasn't obvious. But, I suppose his dramatics are partly why he's so engaging.
"It'll be fine," I soothe. "Once she gets the hang of things, you'll be thrilled."
"She better," he says ominously.
"Or what?" I ask, losing my patience. "You'll quit?"
"Maybe." He sticks his nose in the air, looking every inch like Elle as he waltzes out the door. I should videotape him next time so he sees exactly how similar the two are. I want to throw a pencil at his head.
Between the stress of mock trial and the conundrum of Austin Moon, I'm going to worry myself into an early grave. Could one thing go my way? Just one?
I'm still worrying about both topics when I show up to my shift at Starbucks the next day. At least with mock trial, we have weeks of practice to work out the kinks. With Austin, I fear the only way to exorcise him is to move across the country and enter a nunnery. He's popping up in my dirty fantasies far too often. This morning I got up early because I feared if I stayed one more minute in bed, I'd call him and beg him to come over to help me work off some of my tension.
Which is why I'm thirty minutes early for work. I quickly discover this is a good thing, because a familiar figure is waiting for me when I walk in.
Dallas rises from his table and greets me with his trademark ladies' man grin.
"Hey, Ally."
I bustle over and give him a big hug. "When did you get back?"
"Just this morning."
Dallas and I, we're tied together by our family history. It's not pretty and, for a time there, the only people we had to lean on were each other. Besides my dad, Dallas is the one steady thing in my life, so even though I find him exasperating and a little too arrogant nowadays, I still care for the big lug.
"How's your dad?"
"Same old." The two have a rocky relationship but at least they talk, unlike my mom and me. Dallas claims the only reason his dad wants to connect now is because he thinks Dallas is going to be a rich NFL player. I don't think Dallas is entirely wrong. "Had some interviews with the local Miami stations. Kind of a 'hometown boy done good' sort of thing."
"You didn't grow up in Miami," I point out.
"Who cares? It was fun."
He is really loving the post-win attention. "I got to give my NFL Super Bowl picks. We talked about the draft."
"Was your dad there?"
"Yup. He was like a kid at Christmas."
I bet. "Everything else going well? No one gave you any shit for missing a week of classes?"
"Ally," Dallas chides. "I just won the National Championship. No one is giving me shit over anything."
"Good. Because I need to take advantage of your good mood."
"Sure. What do you need?"
"I'm getting kicked out of my apartment on Tuesday. Mind if I stay at your place? I can sleep on the sofa."
"No problem." His eyes warm up as he pulls out a small, wrapped gift. "Happy belated Christmas."
"You already gave me a present," I object. We exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve at my dad's house. Dad and I went in together to get Dallas a nice pair of sunglasses. He'd been complaining all fall that the ones he had were low rent and janky. The school supplies him with endless athletic gear, all the shoes he wants, and he got some sweet gifts for going to the bowl game the previous year, but not one pair of sunglasses.
Dallas gave me a pair of gold hoop earrings. I think his mom picked them out, but they were nice. I wish I had worn them today.
"I didn't pay for it, so it doesn't really count." Dallas' job is football, so he doesn't have a lot of extra cash around, which makes me really curious about the gift. I slide a fingernail under the tape and pop it open, careful not to tear the paper.
"Come on, Ally. It's just newspaper," he scolds.
"I can't help it." It's some old newspaper but it's still wrapping. As I lift off the paper, I gasp in surprise. It's a pair of cordless headphones-a very expensive pair. I know this because it was a selection in a catalog of items that one of the bowl sponsors was allowed to gift the players as a thank you for playing in the bowl. "Dallas, what is this?"
He grins. "I know you were saying how you hated wearing your headphones because the cords get tangled in your hair."
"You should have picked something for yourself." The generosity of this gift makes me uneasy. The echo of Piper's teasing voice tickles at the back of my brain. Besides, Dallas made that stupid pact up so he can keep you to himself. I'd scoffed at her then, but I don't feel so sure now.
"I did. I picked the same pair. The voucher was enough to get two pair."
"I thought you were getting a television." We actually discussed this. He showed me the brochure, pointed to the 42" flat screen, and said it would look great in his room. I agreed.
"There are plenty of guys with televisions in the house." He shrugs. "It's non-returnable, so don't make a big deal out of it, yeah?"
I can see he's uncomfortable, too, so I tuck the headphones away in my bag and lean over to kiss him on the cheek. Halfway there, I think better of it and reach over and squeeze his arm instead. "Thank you."
Dallas gives me a crooked grin as if he knows I changed my mind midflight, but thankfully he doesn't ask me about it. He's probably relieved. "So how's mock trial going?"
I take the change of subject and run with it. "It's not. We're sucking right now. That new girl, Elle, is killing us. I thought for sure that she'd have picked up on some trial procedures from her dad, but it's like she doesn't even know he is a lawyer. I feel like I've made a bargain with the devil. I can't handle her, and Miles is livid at nearly everything that comes out of her mouth."
"That bad, huh?"
"You have no idea."
"Send her over to the field house. We'll whip her into shape. Although..." Dallas trails off, looking momentarily troubled.
"Although what?" I prompt.
"Coach is acting kind of weird. I went in there to do a few sets before class and ran into him. He kind of mumbled hello into his hand and took off."
I make a sympathetic noise. Dallas has always complained that his relationship with Coach wasn't what he wished it could be. I told him that maybe he shouldn't sleep with the coach's daughter. Dallas brushed me off, saying that no one knew.
Given how many times I saw them together, and I don't even hang out at the Gas Station or where Dallas lives, I figured he was wrong, but Dallas is so darned hard-headed. You can't get him to change his mind once he's convinced he's right about something. Even if you shove all the facts in the world into his face, he'll still believe what he wants to believe.
"Coach probably doesn't know what to do with himself now that he can't yell at you guys to do push-ups."
"Is that what you think we do at practice?" he teases. "Endless amounts of push-ups?"
"Who knows? I ask you what you're doing during the season and the answer is always 'working out' or 'lifting.'"
"Fair enough," he grins. "What's been going on with you besides hating mock trial? You know, you are allowed to quit things you don't enjoy."
"You hate football sometimes, and I don't see you quitting."
Dallas raises an eyebrow. "I've never hated football."
"Yeah, well I don't hate mock trial either. I love it." I love putting the pieces of the puzzle together and drafting up the arguments and questions and answers. It's the extemporaneous speaking part I struggle with. "Even if I didn't love it, my scholarship depends on me being part of the team. And if I'm going to be part of the team, we're going to be good."
Dallas nods. One thing we both enjoy is winning, which is why the last couple of years have been kind of a downer for me. Maybe that's why I'm so interested in Austin Moon.
He's fun to be around and when I'm with him, I don't dwell on how crappy my mock trial is going or how I was forced to spend Christmas with my mother and her current boyfriend. He was the third guy she'd dated this year. I didn't realize how many over-forty single men there are out there. Although, my mother doesn't limit herself to single men. That'd be too silly.
So it isn't a great surprise that I find myself asking Dallas about Austin even though I know the topic will bring out a great deal of scowls and lectures. But his phone number is burning a hole in my head, and I'm afraid if I don't use it, I might suffer some permanent head trauma. "I ran into one of your teammates the other day. He was in here. You spreading the word about our great coffee?"
"Hell no. I keep this place a secret." Dallas looks almost serious, almost... pissed off that one of the football players has dared step foot into Starbucks. "Which one?"
As nonchalantly as possible, I say, "Austin Moon."
Saying his name out loud conjures up all the shivery feelings he roused in me. He was so much fun to talk with, and his offer to show me risks, to take all the risks so I could just go along for the ride... God, I want to test out his verbal skills. I hope I'm not blushing.
"That hound? I hope he didn't say anything to you. Moon can't walk by a vagina without wanting to test it out," Dallas says crudely.
"He did ask me out," I admit.
"And you turned him down, of course." He smiles. "I shouldn't worry. I know you can take care of yourself."
I ignore the compliment and latch on to the of course. "Of course? Why, of course?"
First Piper and Carrie and now Dallas? Am I that predictable? Actually, yes, I am that predictable. And that used to be okay. Why does it bother me now?
"Because there are rules, Ally. There's a locker room rule of no dating girlfriends or sisters."
"But I'm not either your girlfriend or your sister," I object.
"Close enough." He waves his hand as if semantics aren't important here, and I suppose Dallas and I have been friends for so long we are as close as brother and sister. "Besides, even if there wasn't a locker room rule, which there is, we made a deal."
"Would it really be a big deal if I broke it?" I don't know why I ask because I have no intention of using Austin's number, no matter how many times I've punched it into the keypad only to erase it. "Not that I want to," I say, not sure if my words are meant to reassure Dallas or myself. "I'm just asking out of curiosity."
"Absolutely," he says firmly with a frown on his face. "Because if you dated one of them, I'd have to kill them."
"Why? You always say you'd take a bullet for your teammates."
"Yeah, I would. But if one of them broke my best friend's heart? I'd be the one pulling the trigger." He leans forward. "How many times have I told you? The guys on the team are no good."
"They can't be all bad."
My lack of agreement only makes Dallas frown harder. "You're a nice girl. You don't hang out at the Gas Station and you're not a jersey chaser. You're not built for the one-night stands that these girls are looking for."
"There's nothing wrong with one-night stands. Nice girls do plenty of one-night stands," I object. "I've had them and they aren't any better or worse than sex in a long-term relationship."
Dallas winces. "Can we not talk about your sex life?"
If possible, his frown lines become even more prominent, which makes me laugh. "I love how you suddenly turn prudish when the subject is me having sex. I'm not a virgin."
"If you say so." He glowers, making me chuckle even more. "Look, Ally, just because the guys are good teammates doesn't make them good boyfriends. These guys get offered so much pussy that they don't know how to treat a girl right. They don't have to. They just need to whip their dick out and the girls are fighting to be the one to jump on it."
Now I'm wincing because that's an ugly picture of both the guys and the girls involved. But somehow I get the sense that Dallas is speaking from actual experience, so I feel even grodier. The thing is, Austin didn't come off that way. As he pointed out, he didn't play the football card when he so easily could have, when it had such good results in the past.
"Austin didn't seem like a dog. He was kind of nice."
Dallas snorts. "Yeah, he's real nice. Here, let me show you how nice he is to girls."
My heart lurches, because I don't like the disgust in Dallas' eyes. And I'm worried when he pulls out his phone. He scrolls through a #GatorsWin hashtag, and while there are pictures of the players celebrating a touchdown, there are also plenty of pictures showing Austin Moon kissing many, many, many girls. So many different ones I start to get dizzy. #GatorsWin clearly has more than one meaning to the Gators faithful.
"He's fully clothed," I point out, but it's a weak attempt to make what I'm seeing less... sleazy, I guess. But damn it, I didn't get a sleazy vibe from him at all. He didn't look at other girls in the restaurant even once. The waitress practically tried to rub her tits into his nose, but his attention was focused solely on me.
The picture of Austin constructed from my interaction with him is entirely different than the one that Dallas has painted, but truthfully, didn't I really believe, deep down, that Austin's interest in me was shallow and would last no longer than one night, maybe two? That's why he's got so many checkmarks in the risk column. I add another one there, just to be on the safe side.
Dallas tugs on a hank of my hair. "Stay away from Moon, Ally. Promise me that. I don't want to spend the off-season worrying about you."
"I will." The words sound unconvincing to me, but Dallas looks pacified.
Inwardly, I worry that I'll be breaking promises all over the place. To Dallas, and most importantly, to myself.
