“Okay, then,” Gus said.
“Okay,” Jack said.
“I hate it when you guys are right,” Teddy said.
“We know,” Cassie said. Then she told the boys to pick sides for home-run derby, she didn’t care what team she was on.
But she was batting first.
THIRTEEN
Cassie’s dad scheduled an extra practice on Monday night that he told Cassie wasn’t really going to be a practice at all. It was going to be a team meeting instead, he just wasn’t telling the rest of the girls beforehand.
“We need to get this thing with Kathleen and Sarah squared away,” he said, “so we can go forward as a team.”
“Kathleen’s the one who turned it into a thing,” Cassie said when they were in the car and on their way to Highland Park.
“I know.”
“And you know I believe Sarah,” Cassie said.
“You have made that abundantly clear, kiddo.”
“What about you?”
“Between you and me?” he said. “So do I.”
“But that means Kathleen is lying.”
“Know that, too.”
“I just don’t think Sarah has it in her to lie,” Cassie said. “I really don’t.”
“My job is finding a way to keep the peace without calling Kathleen out on her lie,” her dad said.
“Good luck with that,” Cassie said.
“Kathleen’s not a bad kid.”
“She’s still being an idiot.”
“She’s being a kid,” her dad said.
“You make it sound like the same thing?” Cassie asked.
“Only sometimes,” he said. “And not just with kids, by the way.”
She thought of the way Coach Anthony acted. “I hear you,” Cassie said to her dad.
“Now let’s hope the rest of the team does too,” her dad said.
They rode the rest of the way to the field with the inside of the car completely quiet.
When the whole team was there, Cassie’s dad told them to leave their gloves and bat bags at the bench, that they might do some soft-tossing later and a few fielding drills, but he’d really gathered them here to talk.
Chris Bennett walked the entire team out to left-center field, where all the action had taken place at the end of Saturday’s game. The players on the Red Sox arranged themselves in a circle around him.
“So,” he said, “we all know what happened in our first game, and I’m pretty sure that nobody is happy about the way things ended.”
Cassie looked around at her teammates. Her dad had their full attention. Sometimes Cassie saw a little bit of her dad in Jack, the way there was just something about his manner, the way he naturally presented himself, that made people pay attention to him when he was talking. Cassie knew because she felt it all the time, whether they were in the car on their way to practice, or at the dinner table, or when she and her dad were watching a ball game together.
“It’s not my intent,” he continued, “to go over the whole thing again, moment by moment. Because it’s a funny thing when things are happening in a moment. People can see them completely differently. When I was in college, I took this course on the movies, and one of the movies we studied was called Rashomon. It was actually Japanese. But the point of it was about this crime that was committed in the woods, and how four different people saw it four different ways.”
Cassie glanced across at Kathleen. She was glaring at Cassie’s dad, as if somehow she knew where this was going and she already didn’t like it.
“That’s what might have happened with Kathleen and Sarah,” he said. “And maybe the truth is just somewhere in between them, the way that softball was out here.”
Sarah was sitting next to Cassie. She hadn’t said a word to anybody, had barely looked at anybody, since she’d arrived at the field. For now, Cassie was just happy that Sarah had kept her part of their deal. She was here, even if she didn’t much look as if she wanted to be.
“But whatever happened,” Chris Bennett said, “we need to find a way to put it behind us before we can move forward as a group, and as a team.”
He slowly made a full circle, as a way of looking at every face.
“And I honestly believe that the only way for us to be able to do it is to clear the air right now,” he said. He stopped his turn and looked at Kathleen. “Kath,” he said, “is there anything you’d like to say to Sarah?”
There was no hesitation from her. None. And no change of expression.
“No.”
“Well,” Cassie’s dad said, “there’s something that I’d like you to say to her.”
Kathleen crossed her arms in front of her.
“What?” she said.
“I’d like you to apologize to Sarah for calling her a liar,” Chris Bennett said.
“Sorry, Mr. Bennett,” Kathleen said. “But I’m not doing that.”
Cassie turned slightly so she could see Sarah’s face. She wasn’t looking at Kathleen. She was looking at Cassie’s dad and had crossed her arms too. But with her it was almost as if she were hugging herself. She looked as if she were afraid in that moment that she might fly apart.
Kathleen said, “So you’re taking her side?”
She pointed at Sarah. And before Cassie’s dad could answer, Kathleen then pointed at Cassie and said, “And that must mean you are too, right?”
“This isn’t about Cassie,” Chris Bennett said. “This is between you and Sarah.”
“Oh, we all know this is about Cassie, too. Her and her new friend. Maybe I should push you to the ground, Cassie, to get in better with you.”
Keeping her voice calm, Cassie said, “Kathleen, when have you ever not been in good with me?”
“Well, if we’re so tight,” Kathleen said, “then who do you believe, me or her?”
There it was, right in the middle of the circle. And Cassie knew that whatever answer she was going to give wasn’t just about Kathleen and Sarah Milligan and a ball that had fallen between them. In this moment she was being asked a question about character. Her parents, both of them, had always told her that character was character
