She flashed her enthusiastic smile at me. “Oh, Vic, super if you can manage it.”
We’d ended the evening still in relative harmony, which was a mercy, but I still didn’t sleep well. I slipped out of Morrell’s place early this morning, while he was still asleep, so I could drive to my own home and give the dogs a long run before my day started: today would take me down to coach again at Bertha Palmer, and I had promised Josie Dorrado to talk to her mother after practice.
The dogs and I ran all the way down to Oak Street and back, about seven miles. All of us needed the workout, and I thought I was feeling a lot better until Mr. Contreras, my downstairs neighbor, told me I was looking seedy.
“Thought with Morrell coming home, you’d perk up, doll, but you’re looking worse than ever. Don’t go tearing off to your office now without eating a proper breakfast.”
I assured him I was fine, truly fine, now that Morrell was home and mending well, that my current overload was temporary until I found a real coach for the girls at Bertha Palmer.
“And whatcha doing about that, doll? You got anyone lined up?”
“I’ve put out a few feelers,” I said defensively. Besides meeting with Patrick Grobian at By-Smart, I had talked to the women I play Saturday pickup games with and to someone I know who runs a volunteer program for girls at the park district. So far, I’d come up empty, but if Billy the Kid could pry some bucks loose from Grampa one of my contacts might become more enthusiastic.
I fled the apartment before Mr. Contreras got himself revved into a high enough gear to keep me for another hour, promising over my shoulder that I’d eat breakfast, really. After all, my family motto is never skip a meal. Right underneath the Warshawski coat of arms—a knife and fork crossed over a dinner plate.
Privately, I was affronted at being told I looked bad. When I got into my car, I studied my face in the rearview mirror. Seedy, indeed: I was merely interestingly haggard, my lack of sleep making my cheekbones jut out like an anorexic runway model’s. In lieu of eight hours in bed, all I needed was a good concealer and some foundation, although not when I was going to spend two hours with sixteen teenagers on a basketball court.
“Morrell thinks I’m beautiful,” I grumbled out loud, even if Marcena Love is there in front of him right now, suave and perfectly groomed, probably had her makeup on just so when she commandeered the tank and headed for the border. I snapped my seat belt in hard enough to pinch my thumb, and made a rough U-turn into traffic. When I get my turn to hijack a tank, I’ll put on fresh lipstick, too.
I stopped at a diner for scrambled eggs, stopped at a coffee bar for a double espresso, and reached my office by ten. I concentrated on SEC filings and checked arrest records around the country for a man one of my clients was looking to hire. For the first time in a week, I actually managed to stay focused on my real work, completing three projects and even sending out the invoices.
I ruined my better mood by trying to phone Morrell while I waited at a light on Eighty-seventh Street and only reaching his answering machine. He had probably gone to the botanic gardens in Glencoe with Marcena; they’d talked about it last night. I had no problem with that whatsoever. It was great that he was feeling well enough to be up and about. But the idea added to the ferocity with which I stomped on Celine and April at the start of practice.
The team kept quiet for about five minutes, barring the usual jostling and the mutterings that they couldn’t do it, the exercises were too hard, Coach McFarlane never made them do this.
Celine, who seemed primed for mischief today, broke the silence by asking if I knew Romeo and Juliet. She was standing on her left leg and pulled her right leg straight over her head by the heel. She had extraordinary flexibility; even when she was driving me to the brink of pounding her, she could transfix me by the fluid beauty of her movements.
“You mean, the civil war that makes two star-crossed lovers take their life?” I said cautiously, wondering where this was going. “Not by heart.”
Celine momentarily lost her balance. “Huh?”
“Shakespeare. It’s how he describes Romeo and Juliet.”
“Yeah, it’s like a play, Celine,” Laetisha Vettel said. “If you ever came to English class, you’d a heard about it. Shakespeare, he lived like a thousand years ago, and wrote Romeo and Juliet up in a play before there was a movie. Before they even knew how to make movies.”
Josie Dorrado repeated the line. “‘Star-crossed lovers.’ That means even the stars in heaven wouldn’t help them.”
To my astonishment, April kicked her warningly in the leg. Josie blushed and started touching her toes with a ferocious energy.