FOURTEEN

Get your rear ends lower!” Lex clapped her hands to make the junior high girls pick up the pace of their drill.

She needed to hop to it and find an apartment. Something cheap.

“Lower!” She pointed at an eighth-grader who only crouched halfheartedly. The girl bent her knees and waist into a deeper crouch before exploding into a sprint to the next cone.

Lex needed to move fast. Dad’s house would sell quickly. But with the dismal housing market, could she find an apartment she could afford in only a few weeks?

“Move over for the girls behind you.” Lex signaled to a girl who stood panting at the end of the set of cones she’d just completed. She shifted out of the way as the next girl darted to the cone in a sprinting crouch, then straightened, also breathing heavily.

Now that she’d booted herself from the SPZ job, she needed to put more effort into another engineering position. The job listings on craigslist this morning hadn’t been encouraging.

“Bend your knees when you jump!” Lex slipped into the drill lineup and demonstrated with a deep squat before exploding up in a mock block. She then dropped to a defensive crouch and sprinted to the next cone. “You’re being slowpokes!” Lex straightened and clapped her hands again.

She had quit her job, and she’d soon be homeless. How could she even have time to think about getting a sponsor for this team – much less a boyfriend?

“You’re pushing them kinda hard today, aren’t you?” Vince, her assistant coach, leaned close and murmured low so the girls wouldn’t hear.

Lex moved away from his close proximity but absorbed his words. She sighed. Yeah, maybe she projected her frustrations on the team. She’d ease up -

She saw it happening and felt the pulse through her muscles as she tried to move in to prevent it. Her top hitter, Kathy, leaped into a blocking motion just as another girl sprinted toward her cone. As Kathy landed, her foot rolled off the other girl’s sneaker. A sickening crunch-pop echoed through the small gym.

At the sound, a blow of nausea hammered through Lex’s gut. It slowed her steps as she rushed to Kathy’s side. She didn’t want to look. What if the ankle lay twisted at a sickening angle? What if there was blood…?

Lex took a deep, harsh breath, tightening her jaw, her neck, her shoulders. She dropped beside Kathy and swatted away the girls crowding her.

Kathy heaved with sobs. The ankle hadn’t swollen yet, but it would look like a grapefruit in a few minutes. The shoe needed to come off before the swelling welded it to her foot.

“This is going to hurt, Kathy.” Lex untied her shoe, grabbed her heel to stabilize her foot, and tried to ease the sneaker off.

“Owowow! Stopstopstop!”

Lex slowed her movements but didn’t stop. Kathy wailed. Finally the shoe dropped to the ground.

Lex tried to hide her concern. Kathy didn’t usually complain about pain – she’d taken hard dives to the floor without a word. This was bad.

“Let’s get her to urgent care. I’ll drive.” Maybe she had only sprained her ankle. If the team lost another player of Kathy’s caliber, they’d get tromped in playoffs this summer.

“I’ll carry her.” Vince stepped in and squatted beside her. “Both arms around my neck… good. Ummph!”

Lex ran to get her purse and gear. Her cell phone rang. “Hello?”

She shouldered her gym bag with a grunt.

“Alexis Sakai?” A vaguely familiar woman’s voice.

“Yes.” Lex followed at Vince’s heels.

“This is Wendy Tran from SPZ Human Resources.”

They were calling her to turn her down? Well, it was nicer than an email.

“Lex, what about practice?” One of the girls tugged at her shirt.

“Vince isn’t going, just me. Finish the drill.”

The girl groaned but went back to report to the other players.

“Miss Sakai?”

“Sorry…” What had been the woman’s name? “You were saying?” Lex fumbled for her car keys and hustled to beat Vince and Kathy to her car.

“It is my pleasure to offer you a position in the SPZ college division.”

“What? ”

At that moment, Vince stumbled over the curb and Kathy let go of his neck. She bounced on the ground while he staggered onto one knee.

“Oh my gosh!” Lex rushed to Kathy.

“I’m so glad you’re pleased.” The SPZ HR woman sounded pleased herself.

“OW! OW OW OW OW OW!” Kathy clutched her ankle and rocked back and forth.

“Just hold it up.” Lex put a hand under Kathy’s thigh to keep the foot off the ground.

“Excuse me?” the HR woman asked.

“You said college division? – Kathy, honey, don’t squeeze your ankle – I never applied to the college division.”

“You didn’t? I have your application here and the offer letter from the director.”

“Sorry.” Vince knelt beside Kathy. “Let’s try this again.”

“No way!” Kathy tried to back up, but her heel bumped the ground, and she winced. “I don’t want to get dropped again.”

What was the woman’s name? Lex’s stupid memory. “Who gave you my application? Kathy, he won’t drop you again.”

“He will too!”

“I got it straight from the head of the department, Russell Davis.”

“Okay, Kathy, one, two, three, heave!” Lex clapped the phone closer to her ear. “Russell? Russell with the Stanford Indian on his briefbag?”

“Yes, that’s him.”

Whoa. Even with her skirt soaked with Pine-Sol and coffee decorating her shirt and who-knew-what on her hand? “What exactly is the position? Another receptionist? Put her right there, Vince.”

“You don’t know? It’s for Alumni Association Liason.”

“Oh.” Lex didn’t want to sound more ignorant, so she made her tone reflective and intelligent. She hoped.

“You’ll receive the offer letter tomorrow. Can you start work on Monday?”

“Yes!” That answer she knew. She climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Great. We’ll expect you at eight o’clock at the front desk, and we’ll take care of you from there.”

She was going to whoop Kin-Mun’s fanny this time.

Lex served the ball directly at the weakest passer, a tall front-row banger who would probably shank the ball. He did. It made for a frantic set, and the banger couldn’t get an effective hit.

Her team picked up the ball, and the setter ran a four that caught Kin-Mun’s defense by surprise.

Point.

She couldn’t resist doing a “laugh and point” at Kin-Mun on the other side of the net. They each had teams for this weekend tourna-ment – it was Kin-Mun versus Lex. That was all that mattered -bragging rights.

Two tall Caucasian men stood a few feet away. Both seemed to be staring intently at Lex.

What gives? She shrugged off an uncomfortable shiver as she served the next ball.

However, her serve went long, and the right wing passed the ball perfectly to the setter, who sent a perfect set to Kin-Mun, who made a perfect line shot. Side-out and point for his team.

Lex dropped to ready position. What would Kin-Mun’s serve be?

Probably a short floater.

Wait a minute, did that Caucasian guy just take a picture of her?

Lex shanked Kin-Mun’s deep, hard serve. Point, his team.

She ground her teeth together. She pounded a fist into her thigh, hoping the pain would make her focus.

Point. “Come on, guys, call your balls!”

Point. “Let’s pass! Come on!”

Point. “Double-block!”

Point. “Timeout!” Lex shifted onto one hip as she stood in the back row and waited for her team to gather around her. “What gives?”

One of her hitters eyed her. “You’re yelling a lot.”

“Am not! Er… Am not.” The two Caucasian guys were talking to each other, but peeking looks at her from time to time. They didn’t look at any other player. Lex was totally creeped out. “Let’s go, guys.

Let’s beat Kin-Mun – I mean, Kin-Mun’s team.”

Lex’s setter rolled her eyes.