One of the Douglas coaches popped out of the group huddled around Ignacio and gestured frantically toward a waiting ambulance that spent each home game parked just inside the ballpark gates of the far end of the field. Accompanied by the low growl of a siren, the ambulance picked its way down the visiting team’s sidelines through clumps of stunned players from both teams. Two uniformed EMTs leaped from the ambulance. One brought out a stretcher while the other cut through the cluster of anxious onlookers.

All the while, that almost breathless silence lingered over the stricken crowd. Except for mindlessly shifting out of the way to let the ambulance or stretcher pass, no one moved or spoke. Working quickly but expertly, the medics covered Ignacio Ybarra with blankets and then eased him onto the stretcher. They were trying to be gentle. They were being gentle. Even so, that little movement elicited another gasp of pain that was more shriek than groan. The desperate sound caused Brianna O’Brien’s own knees to nearly buckle.

As the stretcher started toward the ambulance, the Douglas cheerleaders, still at the far end of the field, began leading a cheer to honor the injured player. Belatedly, the Bisbee squad joined in as fans from both towns stayed on their feet, offering encouragement.

“Well,” Cynthia Jean Howell whispered in Bree’s ear when the cheering ended, “with that damned quarterback out of the way, maybe we can finally do something about winning this game.”

Stunned, Bree wheeled around to face her. When it came time to elect the captain of the cheerleading squad, C.J. Howell had come in second. Not on the best of terms before that, Bree and C.J. were even less friendly now.

“Shut up, C.J.!” Bree whispered back. “He might hear you.”

C.J. shrugged. “So what?” she hissed. “Who cares if he does? Do you want to win this game or not?”

What happened next was strictly reflex. Bree’s right hand flashed out and connected with the other girl’s cheek. The resulting slap knocked C.J.’s heal sideways and left the plain imprint of an outspread palm on the carefully made-up contours of her narrow jaw.

As quickly as it happened, the other girls swooped in to separate them. “What’s the matter with you?” C.J. sputtered. “Are you crazy or what?”

“Didn’t you hear what happened?” Bree raged at the other girl. “That bone in his leg is shattered. What if he never walks again?”

“So?” C.J. returned, massaging the bright red skin of her cheek. “What business is it of yours? Besides, he’s from Douglas, isn’t he?”

“He may he from Douglas, but Ignacio Ybarra is a friend of mine. Don’t you forget it!”

“That’s your problem,” C.J. returned.

At that point Bree might have gone after C.J. again had not one of the other girls restrained her. “Come on, Bree. Leave her alone,’’

In response, Roxanne Brianna O’Brien simply turned her back and walked, striding purposefully away from her own bleachers and back toward the Bulldog side of the field. Bree’s best friend on the squad, sixteen-year-old Kim Young, hurried after her.

“Wait up, Bree. What are you doing?”

“I’m leaving.”

“You can’t ‘just walk out like this. It’s the middle of the game.”

“I don’t care.”

“Ms. Barker will have a fit. She may even throw you off the squad.”

“I don’t care it she does,” Bree replied grimly.

Kim stopped in her tracks and wavered hack and forth as if undecided about whether she should follow Bree or go back to where the others stood waiting. Being elected cheerleader at the beginning of her junior year was Kimberly Young’s sole claim to fame. She didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize hershaky standing as one of the movers and shakers in the B.H.S. student body, not only for this year but for her senior year as well.

Forced to choose, Kim reluctantly opted for ambition and social standing over friendship. Shaking her head, she turned her back on Bree and raced across the field to catch up with the other cheerleaders while a resolute Bree watched her briefly and then continued her own solitary walk down the sidelines.

Barbara Barker, the cheerleading sponsor, headed Bree off before she made it as far as the fifty-yard line. “Where are you going, Bree?”

“The hospital,” Bree answered.

“The hospital,” Ms. Barker echoed. “What’s the matter? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Bree said. “A friend of mine’s been hurt, and I’m going to check on him.”

As the loaded ambulance made its way down the field, and while the referees pondered what to do about the unnecessary roughness penalty they had called against Frankie Lefthault, the cheerleading sponsor reached out as if to stop Brianna’s headlong rush along the sidelines.

“Wait a minute, Bree. You know the rules. My girls aren’t allowed to walk off the field without permission in the middle of a game. If you go, I’ll have to kick you off the squad.”

“You can’t kick me off,” Brianna replied… “I already quit.”

From her seat on the fifty-yard line, Katherine O’Brien had observed the unfolding drama both on the field and off it. At football games, regardless of what was happening to the team, Katherine’s eyes seldom left her daughter. Watching the action through the fine pall of dust raised by hundreds of shuffling feet, Katherine hadn’t heard a word of the heated exchange between Bree and C.J. Howell, but she had witnessed the assault. With a gasp of surprise, she had seen Bree’s hand flash and slap the other girl’s cheek. As Bree stalked down the aisle Katherine O’Brien, like Barbara Barker, rose to intercept

“Where are you going?” David demanded, reaching out to stop his wife.

“There’s something the matter with Bree,” Katherine said. “She needs me.”

“Leave her be,” David O’Brien admonished, taking Katherine by the hand. “She has to learn to sort these things out by herself. You can’t always go flying to her rescue, you know.”

Fifty years of continuous self-effacement made it difficult for Katherine O’Brien to tolerate making a scene in public. In this however, the unmasked rage she had seen on her daughter’s face somehow stiffened her spine.

“I’ve got to go to her,” Katherine insisted, pulling her wrist free of her husband’s grasp. “I’ll be right back.”

She reached Bree’s side just in time to see her daughter pull away from Barbara Barker in much the same way Katherine herself had just broken free of David’s restraining hand. “Bree,” Katherine demanded, “what’s going on?”

“A friend of mine is hurt,” Bree replied. “As soon as I get out of this uniform, I’m going to the hospital to see if he’s all right.”

“You don’t want to do that,” Katherine said. “If you leave in the middle of the game, Ms. Barker may throw you off the squad.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Bree returned. “She already has.”

It was five o’clock on a Friday afternoon in June when Bree came into the kitchen. Even with the air-conditioning going full blast, the kitchen was hot compared to the rest of the house. Sweat rolled down Mrs. Vorevkin’s jowly cheeks as she stood bent over the kitchen sink, cleaning and chopping vegetables for the salad.

“I’m ready to go”

Olga turned and smiled at the young woman whose tan, lithe, and cheerful presence never failed to brighten any room she entered. “The cool chest is in the pantry,” Olga told her. “It’s all packed.” She put down her knife and dried both hands on her apron. “The soup is ready,” she added. “You should have some before you leave. Hot soup on a hot day will cool you off. Besides, it’s such a long drive. You should eat something besides sandwiches.”

Bree sniffed the air. Over the years, the O’Briens had gone through any number of cooks. Most of them hadn’t lasted because they couldn’t stand up to David O’Brien’s stringent demands for quality and impeccable service. Olga, however, had been with the O’Briens a little over three years. She was an excellent cook who had come to them, by some circuitous path, from a job with the U.S. embassy in Moscow with an unexplained stop-off in New Orleans along the way. During her three years’ tenure, she had developed a very loving friendship with this bright, golden-haired young woman who stood in her kitchen, waffling with indecision.