Chapter 1
This shot was going to be fabulous! Of course, many of the bodies in myviewfinder--allof them belonging to our high school football team--came as already, premade, just-add-flavoring fabulous. But aside from that, the sky was amazing--it lookedalmost painted--with the sun slicing horizontally through clouds. Muscular arms inevery shade fromwhite to dark brown shimmered with sweat. It was late August, hot and humid,a preseason practice. I knelt on the sideline, poised for a series of shots, aware that I was pushing my luck with Coach.Coach Siefert doesn't like girls, banned them from practices, and would have banned usfrom games if he could have. He considers "females" a major distraction; somaybe I should have been insulted that he allowed
me
to get as close as I did, as photographer for theschool paper.Of course, I dressed in a non distracting way. My dark, wavy hair, which fallsabout sixinches below my shoulders, is always braided or somehow tied down. I couldn'thave it blowingin front of the camera lens. And I wore the same kind of clothes to practice andgames: plainshirts, khakis pants, and athletic shoes. I love dressing girly, but on the job, I'ma professional. Soit seemed to me I had earned my right to kneel on the chalky sideline--okay,maybe I was edgingover it just a bit--to take the perfect shot.I pressed the toggle switch on my digital, frowned, and tried again. "Oh, no! Nooo!"A drained battery. How could I have let this happen? I looked over my shoulder to seewhere I'd left my equipment bag."Heads up! Heads up!" voices shouted.I heard the thunder of feet coming in my direction, but I knelt there like a lawnornament,glaring at my equipment. Suddenly, the camera was flying over my head. My butt landed first,then I was flat on my back. I saw the sky shining directly above me between thered helmet and
padded shoulders of the heap of body sprawled on top of me. The heap was breathing hard.Sandwiched between us was a football.The player on top of me casually rolled onto his back and stood up. He didn'tseem tonotice he'd landed on a body. All that padding, I guess, or he was just keepingthe focus thatCoach was always screaming about. I didn't blame him--I was focused onfinding our veryexpensive school camera. Spotting it just behind me, I picked it up and cradledit in my handslike a baby, praying it wasn't damaged."You okay?" Jared Wright hollered. I recognized his voice; as quarterback hecalled allthe plays. And he regularly called my sister."Sure," Flynn Delancy replied, tossing back the football he had just caught,grinning atthe defender who had failed to bring him down."Not you, you moron," Jared replied, and the rest of the team laughed."Hayley," hecalled to me, "are
you
okay?"Flynn looked back and seemed surprised to see me sitting on the ground. "Oh.Sorry!Sorry, buddy," he said, taking a few steps back, extending his hand, pulling meto my feet in asingle motion, like I was his teammate.Between the red of his helmet and the metal face mask, I glimpsed the famouseyes.Gray, but a gray that could turn mystical blue. Sometimes, they were the color of the night skywhen it first lightens to silver; at other times, they were a stormy ocean.How would I know this from shooting sports? Hey, I do close-ups! There isnothing thatgrabs your audience like a tight shot. And, actually, I photograph all kinds of schoolactivities--dances, concerts, fund-raisers, and everyday moments by the lockers.With a camerain my hand, I don't feel shy. It's not
me
everyone is looking at--it's the eye of thecamera; it's the people who they imagine will be admiring their photos. I like it that way.Usually.The glimpse of Flynn Delancy's eyes was no more than a glimpse, couldn't be,
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