“You know this isn’t about fashion, right?”

Pete's Vagina
83. Pads
by Erin Halfelven

It was Saturday, which should have meant peace.

No school. No practice. The team meeting at 2 p.m. might get canceled—or I could just ditch it. What were we going to talk about? The Wolfpack had forfeited at the half. There hadn’t been an official game on Friday. Lee probably had film of the first half, but I sure didn’t want to see it.

So, no expectations beyond maybe sleeping in, eating something bad for me, and pretending the universe had temporarily misplaced me.

Which, to be fair, it already had—at least part of me—a few weeks ago.

Instead, I woke up to the sound of Jordan at my door. A voiced, “Knock-knock!” then she burst in, a red-headed force of nature.

“Up,” she said, having given me barely enough time to seize the upper edge of the covers and pull them over my head.

“No,” I said, not moving.

“You’re going shopping.”

“I’m injured,” I said. A patent lie, but it was the first excuse I thought of.

“You’re fine.”

I wriggled, testing for some overlooked soreness. Maybe I’d broken a toe and hadn’t noticed yet. Maybe I could arrange to break a toe getting out of bed. “I could be injured later,” I offered.

From under the covers, I heard her yank the curtains open. I imagined sunlight flooding the room and squeezed my eyes shut.

“Mom says we’re leaving in an hour,” she announced.

I contemplated making a break for it. I could dash out the other door, into the laundry room, then out the back and around to my car. Jake would probably hide me. Or Lee… no. He’d already hinted once that he’d like to see me in a dress.

Also, I could hear Wug outside. If Jordan chased me, Wug would absolutely trip me. We’d played that game before.

I pulled the covers tighter, sulking. If you can’t trust your boyfriend or your dog….

“Where are we going, and for what?” I asked, already knowing.

“For clothes,” she said. “For television. For you. For the person who owns exactly one outfit, and it weighs twenty pounds and smells like a locker room.”

“It does not—”

I heard her raise an eyebrow.

“—okay, it does, but that’s not the point.”

The point, as far as I was concerned, was that I already had something to wear. Pads worked. Pads were honest. Pads didn’t lie about who I was or what I was doing there. Pads and my jersey number 17.

The TV people had said they wanted to see me in pads. Why did I need anything else?

Pads didn’t require me to think about things like… shape.

Or how I moved.

Or how people would look at me when I wasn’t behind a face mask.

“I’m not going,” I said.

“You are. Metrocenter is waiting.” She meant the big mall in north Phoenix.

I pulled the covers back to glare at her. “I have a team meeting at two,” I declared.

She smiled. “Coach called,” she said. “Canceled. Something about film getting delayed.”

I displayed my skepticism. It’s hard to look down your nose at someone standing over you.

“Mom took the call,” she said. “You can ask her.”

From the hallway, I heard Mom’s confirmation. “I did take the call, honey!”

Of course Mom was lurking nearby, parental backup for Jordan’s bullying. From farther down the hall, a giggle—Molly.

“Molly!” I called. “Run for help! Attempted kidnapping! Call the police!”

Molly squealed. “Gomo’s mom is taking us to the park!” Gomo was one of Molly’s little friends.

I sighed. “Have fun,” I called back. I didn’t call her a traitor, but I thought it. Besides, Molly got carsick on long rides. No use all of us being miserable.

And just like that, I realized I’d given up.

We were doing this.

I pulled a pillow over my face. “I hate all of you.”

“We love you too,” Jordan said brightly. “Now get up. We’re going to Phoenix.”

That got the pillow off my face.

“Phoenix?” I said. “That’s like… forever. A two-hour drive–”

“Hour and a half,” she countered.

I sat up, scowling. “Why Phoenix?”

“Because,” Mom said, appearing in the doorway, eyes bright with the energy of someone on a mission, “if you’re going to be on television, we are not buying you something from the feed store.”

“I like the feed store,” I said.

“You like the beef jerky,” Jordan said.

“That too.”

Mom ignored both of us. “Phoenix has options.”

“Sedona has options,” I said, grasping. “And it’s closer.” Almost in the opposite direction.

Jordan and Mom exchanged a look. “Distance, maybe,” Mom conceded. “But with those mountain roads, it takes longer.”

Uh oh. They had been thinking about this.

“We talked about Sedona,” Mom said carefully. “But you’re just trying to avoid Phoenix because that’s where we’re going tomorrow.”

“For the interview,” Jordan added.

“As if I could forget,” I muttered.

I considered diving back under the covers and simply ceasing to exist.

Instead, I tried logic.

“What exactly am I supposed to wear?” I asked. “A suit? A dress?” Just vocalizing the option made me scowl. “A—what? Something that says business casual halfback?”

“Yes,” Mom said immediately.

“No,” I said just as fast.

Jordan leaned against the doorframe, studying me. “You know this isn’t about fashion, right?”

“It absolutely is about fashion,” I said. Okay, I was getting desperate. What did I know about fashion?

“It’s about you not hiding,” she said.

I looked away.

That hit a little too close.

“I’m not hiding,” I said.

“You kind of are,” she said gently. “Pads, helmet, distance… it works on the field. Not so much on camera.”

“I’ll just… sit behind a desk,” I said weakly.

“You’re being interviewed, not anchoring the news.”

“I could anchor the news.”

“Pete.”

“What?”

She didn’t say anything for a second. Then, softer: “You don’t have to be anything you’re not. But you also don’t get to pretend this isn’t happening.”

I looked away. “That’s exactly what I want to do,” I said.

“I know.”

From the hall, Mom clapped her hands once. “Shoes. Teeth. Hair. Makeup for them who will wear it. We are leaving in forty-five minutes, whether you’re conscious or not.”

“I might not be,” I muttered.

We ended up in the car anyway.

Because of course we did.

I was in the back seat, slouched low, trying to become invisible to the entire state of Arizona.

Jordan was in the passenger seat, looking through a flyer from the mall. Mom was driving because if I drove, I’d pretend to get lost on the Beeline Highway. “We could still turn around,” I said. They ignored me, for a change.

The road stretched out ahead of us, long and sunburned and unavoidable.

Ninety minutes to Phoenix.

I thought about the pads in my room.

How simple they were.

How clear.

You put them on, and you knew who you were supposed to be. And the jersey with your number told everyone else.

Jordan glanced back at me. “Hey.”

“What?”

“You look like my pet duck died.”

“That’s a painful memory. Why bring it up?” It had been Jordan’s duck, but it was so cute and friendly. (And friendly counts when it’s the name of your town.) We all wept when Sheldon died. I wiped my eyes, just because of the memories, not the fact that Phoenix was getting closer.

“We’re not going to buy something you hate. Honest. You get to pick.”

I sniffed. Jordan gave up for the moment and went back to the brochure we’d all seen before. All about the food court and 67 stores under one roof with two movie theaters, a bowling alley, and an ice rink. An ice rink in Phoenix? Why not?

I leaned my head against the window, watching the desert slide by in dusty greens and browns.

I could’ve worn my pads forever, or at least to the end of the season. And tomorrow I’d be on TV for an interview. And no matter what I was wearing, someone would mention a certain fact, even sadder than a funeral for a duck.

Face it, making the tournament, even winning it, made no difference. I wouldn’t be playing football next year. But millions of people might be seeing me cry.