The white flare of a television strobe paints the Mutant’s mask and for an instant, it’s as if the flesh were stripped to the bone of her face. There is a fluid darkness at the lower edge that makes Sam sick to his stomach. The illusion passes and he registers the bite of his own nails in his palms. She rolls her head and her coach, crouched over her, speaks to her.
Deanie’s fingers fumble toward the mask, trail along the edge. The crowd in the auditorium buzzes quietly, waiting to find out how bad it is.
Merrilee Constantine hovers near Deanie. She looks to be near tears.
“I’m going down there,” Sam mutters.
“Fuck you are,” Rick says, hand on Sam’s forearm.
Sam is still trying to absorb what has happened. A couple of minutes into the second quarter, the Mutant dove under Constantine to steal the ball, carried it to the floor in a scramble with Constantine and one of those six-foot Bricker guards and took Constantine’s elbow in the face. She was flat faster than the big soft tires on a Corvette.
She sits up slowly, with her coach supporting her, holding something to her nose. A bloody rag. It’s her nose she’s bumped, just her nose, Sam thinks. Not her face. The wound didn’t open. The faceguard worked. She leaves the floor, to the customary hand given the injured, and slumps in a chair with an ice pack on her face. Her mask is up on her skull and her tunic is splattered with dark blotches. Constantine stares after her, wringing her hands.
The Mutant lifts the ice pack and her eyes find Sam. She grins and then disappears behind the ice again. The AC stoops over her to stuff her nose with cotton balls.
She has succeeded in frustrating Constantine repeatedly in her favored fake-out and trapping her into two turnovers before the Bricker star adjusted her balance. Since then, it’s been a slugfest between the two girls’ teams, point answered by point, brilliant play on both sides that has kept them trading the lead the whole game.
It’s no surprise to see the Mutant yanking her mask down, going back into the game after the half. Sam groans. Watching is almost more than he can bear. He’s close enough to make out her swollen nose, with cotton visible in the nostrils. Her eye sockets are beginning to look bruised. He wishes they would swell up and close entirely so she could be taken out of the game.
As the Mutant comes back into the game, Constantine reaches out, touches her forearm and asks if she’s okay. She grins and laughs. Her teeth are bloody. Constantine blanches.
Every time Constantine makes a move, there’s the Mutant, blood leaking occasionally from her nose, her eyes blazing from their darkening sockets. She has to keep her mouth open; her breath must stink from the blood. Constantine falters, feints, tries everything and just can’t bring herself to be as aggressive as she needs to be. She shakes her head, calls time, tries to pull herself together, get some pump from her coach, and for a little while she gives the Mutant a run for her money.
Then Billie rips the ball away from Bricker’s center at the post and makes a long pass down the court to Deanie, who has drifted far from center court to make this play. Constantine has followed her and races to get between her and the net. When Deanie reaches up and collects the long pass and pivots on her, Constantine stumbles back in panic and sprawls on her tailbone, legs akimbo, her face crumbling. The crowd gasps as the Mutant’s shot sails to the net. Sam sees the dark droplets spraying Constantine’s tunic before the Mutant settles on the balls of her feet, her hand flying to cover her nose, blood gouting through her fingers.
As the Mutant leaves the game again, Constantine wipes at the drops on her white jersey. She looks rockier than the Mutant, who is sitting there under ice, making wisecracks to the AC. When the third quarter ends, Constantine is going through the motions and the Jandreau girls are hot. They put Greenspark ahead by six points. The Bricker players struggle to answer them. The center makes two points and Constantine is fouled and misses both her free throws. As the Bricker star turns away, wiping her palms and looking depressed, the Mutant comes back into the game. The look on Constantine’s face is so shocked and woeful, Sam feels sorry for the girl.
“Jesus, she’s scary,” Rick says of Deanie. “She comes back like Freddy Krueger. Fucking Freddy Krueger.” He looks at Sam with a new admiration in his eyes.
In the final three minutes of the game, Deanie Gauthier propels her team from a three-point deficit to a five-point lead. Faking out Bricker’s four-guard chase of the ball, Deanie passes it behind her to Melanie Jandreau, who bounces it to Billie Figueroa for a baseline jumper, four seconds before the buzzer. Constantine reclaims the ball and wings it the length of the court to bang the glass with the kiss of defeat. Greenspark’s band plows into “We Are the Champions” like a jetliner into a foggy mountainside.
As the kids on the bench erupt onto the floor, followed by the crowd, Constantine stands briefly alone, fingers spread on her hipbones, blinking back tears, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes. Her center lopes up and throws her arms around her and she bursts into tears.
The Mutant is lifted, laughing, to her teammates’ shoulder. Her nose is leaking again. She slides down into the maelstrom of people engaged in promiscuous hugging.
Sam watches from the emptying stands. He should be in the locker room with his teammates, changing up. This is her moment. He has to see it but he can’t join in. His presence on the court would take attention away from her.
The Mutant emerges from the mob on the floor and makes her
