RhondaWeasley.com

Title: The Softball Girl
Rating: PG
Summary: A pre-teenage tomboy named Jordan decides to she needs more female friends and joins the school’s softball team to get to know more girls. Only one girl becomes more special to her than the rest.
Notes:
Warning(s): If little girls developing feelings for other little girls instead of little boys offends you, don’t read.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Not intended to represent any real persons, places, events, or things. This story is copyright Dawn Kelley and all rights to these characters belong to me.

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There was really no reason for her to pay attention to Jordan. There was nothing truly stunning about Jordan, nothing that stood out. Jordan was a 12-year-old skinny African-American kid with dark skin and coarse hair kept in braids. But Jordan’s best friend, her other choice, was a boy named Jason Menendez. Jase, as he was called, was a pretty boy. His mom was Cuban and his dad was black. He had caramel skin and soft curly hair. The girls loved him. There was always some girl asking Jordan to pass a note to him. He got to be quite arrogant about his pretty boy looks. In fact, Jase paid more attention to his looks than Jordan did. Which was weird, because Jordan was the girl. And for that reason everything she was feeling for Katie was suppose to be wrong.

 

As Jordan sat in the cafeteria, with her friends Jase, Mark, and Harrison, she watched Katie walk in with her giggling girlfriends. Katie chanced a glance at their table, which sent the girl squad she was with into a fit of fresh giggles. Giggly girls were something Jordan found annoying. Katie grinned shyly among them and, thank god, didn’t giggle.

 

“Yo, Katie’s looking at you again,” Harrison said nudging Jase.

 

Jason kind of looked up and gave her a nod and her friends broke into a fresh chorus of giggling like idiots.

 

Katie was tall for her age and had skin like beautiful dark satin. At 12 (almost 13) she had already begun to develop and unlike the other girls, had real curves. She was on the middle school softball team and softball was the only time she ever saw her not dressed up in cute little skirts and knee socks. They went to a Private School, which had a uniform policy. But in just a year ago a mother lobbied for girls to have the option of wearing uniform pants as she liked the school, but she had a slightly overweight daughter who didn’t feel comfortable in dresses. The uniform policy was then revised to apply only to a color scheme. The uniform requirement was Khaki bottoms and blue shirts. Luckily, for her admirers, Katie seem to know she had excellent legs and was rarely seen wearing anything but the uniform skirt. But even sweating in her softball uniform, after a game, with her dark ebony hair pulled back into a ponytail, Jordan found Katie breathtaking.

 

In her head Jordan called her the ‘ebony princess’. She sometimes fantasized about being close to her. Nothing all that specific. Just erasing the gang of girls around her and being with her alone at random moments. Occasionally she dreamed of them holding hands, but she never allowed the fantasy to go any further… afraid of what it would reveal to her. And there was no one to talk about it with, not even Jase, who was her best friend in the world. Somehow she felt he wouldn’t understand this. Sure he liked girls too, but he was a boy. It was okay for him.

 

Jordan broke her eyes away from Katie when she took her seat. She had to try not to stare to hard or look to long at her. Jordan reminded herself that she wasn’t allowed to like her the way Jase and his guy friends did. So she told herself she didn’t. She told herself she admired her, wished she were a little more like her. And Jordan did wish she had her height, her long legs, her curves. But Jordan would have given up ever having those things, just to be around her for a little while.

 

“I was running behind her yesterday during gym and I could not keep my eyes off her butt,” 13 year old Mark said, his voice cutting into Jordan’s thoughts. “It’s like perfect, I just wanted to grab it and squeeze.”

 

“You’re gross!” Jordan interjected. She kind of hated it when they talked like that about Katie. She thought Katie deserved more respect than that. Of course the guys she called her friends took it as something else.

 

“Mark, we got a girl at the table,” 12 year old Harrison said, slapping him lightly upside the head. “Watch your mouth.”

 

Mark rubbed his head where Harrison had hit him. “Jordan ain’t no girl. She’s one of us.”

 

“I just don’t like hearing you talk that way about her,” Jordan explained.

 

“Well, if you want to talk about boys, find another table,” Mark said. “I don’t swing that way.”

 

“Leave her alone,” Jase told him.

 

“She knows I’m just kidding,” Mark responded.

 

Suddenly someone else entered the cafeteria on crutches.

 

“Yo, that’s Aaliyah,” Harrison said, pointing at the girl.

 

“Oh yeah, I didn’t tell you. Homegirl messed up her ankle, so she’s off the team.”

 

“There’s a spot open on the softball team?” Jordan asked hopefully.

 

“Yeah? Wish I was a girl, cause I’d total use it to get closer to Katie.”

 

“If you were a girl though, it wouldn’t exactly work the way you wanted to would it?”

 

“You right, you right.”

 

The guys laughed while Jordan took another glance at Katie, who was laughing about something with her girlfriends. Suddenly, Katie looked up. Jordan quickly looked away, but thought for just a moment she had caught her eye. She glanced around the cafeteria to distract herself and saw most of the cliques were all boy or all girl, unless there was a couple at the table. It had always been her and Jase and when Jase made other friends, they’d somehow become her friends. She half wondered if she was missing out on some sort of girl bonding experience. Would she fit in with them or feel as out of her element as she did with a table full of boys?

 

She didn’t feel out of place all the time. When he wasn’t showing off for the girls, Jordan and Jase connected on one very important thing – music. Everyday after school Jase and Jordan sat together in Jordan’s father’s studio, working on rhymes and experimenting with beats. Big J (Jordan’s dad) was their manager and had been since the age of six. Back then the kids had this cute factor working for them, but that was gone and they still didn’t have a record deal. Still, Big Jordan believed Little Jordan and Jason were destined to hit it big.

 

When she saw Katie, Jordan could care less about being ‘famous’, she just wanted Katie. She glanced back at Katie; deeply involved in conversation about some article in the magazine the girls had at the table. The softball team… maybe being around more girls could help her out, help her be a bit more normal.

 

 

 

The next day, Jordan picked up the form she need signed for softball. The girls looked oddly at her as she signed up. She was a tomboy, they knew, but none of them knew if she was any good at sports (one wasn’t a guarantee of the other, despite popular opinion). And the softball girls were their own little clique. She wasn’t supposed to invade it. She didn’t let the staring bother her.

 

As soon as she got home, Jordan walked down into the basement studio and found her dad in the booth working with Jase on the track they had been recording for the better part of the week.

 

“Hey, Little J, you’re here,” Big J said coming out to her.

 

“Yeah,” Jordan said. “We gonna finish this today?”

 

“Why?” her dad questioned.

 

“Because, tomorrow’s try-outs.”

 

“Try-outs?” her dad questioned. “For what?”

 

Jordan showed him the form for softball.

 

“I need a parent’s signature to participate,” Jordan said.

 

“Since when were you interested in softball?”

 

“Since today,” Jordan said, as Jase came out to join them.

 

“This is your dream, your after school activity, music,” Big J insisted. “You don’t have any time for this.”

 

“I still love music dad, but you’ve been trying to make us famous since we were little and we’re not yet. How long am I suppose to hold onto a dream that’s going nowhere?” Jordan said. “Besides, it’s not really my dream.”

 

“What are you talking about, you said…”

 

“I said I liked to rhyme. I do, its fun. It was never about the fame. I just pretended it was so you would actually pay me some attention.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“My mom had just died and I was forced to come live here with you and we barely knew each other. I just…  I wanted you to pay attention, but you didn’t. You loved music, so I learned to love it too.” Jordan yelled at him. “But I can’t keep living my life for that, dad. I want to try to do something else. I want to see what other potential is in me. Can you understand that?”

 

Big J took the form. “You know, I may not have known how to talk to you at first, but I always loved you.” He told her this as he signed the form. “So you just giving up on the music little J?”

 

“No dad, I still want to do music. I just want to find time for something else.” Jordan turned and left the basement studio. Jase followed her out, catching up with her in the kitchen.

 

“Jordan,” Jase said. “Softball?”

 

“Yeah, so,” Jordan said.

 

“You hate the majority of those softball chicks, why would you want to be on a team with them?”

 

“Who says I hate all of them?” Jordan replied.

 

“You said it, like last week, you was like, I hate them chicks, they think they all that.”

 

“That was like three girls on the whole team.”

 

“Four,” Jase pointed out.

 

“I don’t hate Katie!” Jordan yelled deffensively.

 

“Yeah right,” Jase said.

 

“I don’t,” Jordan told him. “It’s just her friends. Listen, everything I do is with guys and I live with a guy. Even this, i’s sports. Sort of a guy thing and it’s the closest I’ll get to hanging out with girls.”

 

“I thought we were beyond the boy-girl thing. We were just Jason and Jordan. That’s all that mattered.”

 

Just then Jase’s mom walked in. She came over almost every night. Jase’s father had passed away a couple years ago and somehow it had comforted her too cook for the 2 ‘half-families’ as she called them. Jordan and Jase had once joked about the possibility there parents were secretly dating, but neither of them really believed it.

 

“Well Jase,” Jordan began. “It’s kind of hard to avoid the boy-girl thing when you and your boys spend half our school day ogling girls.”

 

“Is that what this is about, you’re jealous I look at other girls?”

 

“I don’t care what girls you look at!!” Jordan exclaimed.

 

“You sure are shouting real loud for someone who doesn’t care,” Jase yelled back. “If you really didn’t care you wouldn’t have to shout.”

 

“Shut up!” She pushed him to the ground and turned and ran out the room.

 

“Moody women,” Jase said as he began to to get up.

 

 

Jase’s mother appeared in the bedroom of Jordan’s room. Jordan heard her, but didn’t say anything as she stood there. She knew she was proably on the verge of getting reprimanded by his mother for her behavior.

 

“Hey little woman,” Jason’s mom finally said.

 

“Hey,” Jordan replied.

 

“You and my son had quite the shouting match.” She she sat on the bed with her. Her warmth was comfortable to Jordan. She’d always liked Jase’s mother. When she met Jase it was sort-of like she got a mother again.

 

“He thinks me joining softball is about him,” Jordan explained. “Your son is conceited.”

 

“Is he now?”

 

“Yeah, but you know what?”

 

“What?”

 

“I half wish he was right. It would be a whole lot easier,” Jordan admitted.

 

“So there is someone?”

 

“I don’t know. I’m sort of confused about it. I like them, but I don’t know if they like me. And I don’t know if it’s a special kind of like, if that makes any sense. I just know I want to be around them all the time and they’ll never notice me at all if I keep blending with the boys. I’m sick of blending with the boys.”

 

“So, softball really isn’t about softball?”

 

“Not really. Is that bad?”

 

“No,” Mrs. Menendez told her. She wrapped an arm around Jordan. “School is about being social as much as it’s about book learning. Especially those extracurricular activities everyone talks about. All your friends don’t have to be Jase’s friends. It’s okay to branch out on your own.”

 

“Thanks.” Jordan gave her friend’s mother a hug.

 

“You sure you don’t like my son that way?”

 

“Eww,” Jordan said pulling away. “He’s like my brother.”

 

“Well that’s okay too. Brothers can turn out to be really special friends.”

 

Then she kissed her on her forehead and went to make dinner. Jordan felt a whole lot better about this whole softball thing. The problem was she hadn’t played ball all that much. She was good at catching and learned to hit the ball nine times out of ten, but she was no star player. Her only hope was that she was better than anyone else trying for a spot.

 

 

 

 

The next day, Jordan walked onto the field for tryouts. There was only one other girl there waiting to try out for Aaliyah’s open position. Katie was also there, warming up on the grass and alone for once. She waved at her. Having never spoken to her before, Jordan found this weird. Still she waved back. Taking this as an invitation to chat, she approached Katie.

 

“Aren’t you Jase’s friend?” Katie asked knowing full well she was.

 

She was obviously unable to think of another way to start the conversation. However, it wouldn’t have mattered what she said. Just hearing her voice had Jordan’s stomach all twisted in knots. There was something about the sweetness of her voice that made Jordan’s belly flip.

 

“Yeah, he’s my best friend,” Jordan managed to reply.

 

“Cool,” Katie said. “I mean…”

 

“You like him don’t you?” Jordan asked bluntly. She wanted the information out of the way.

 

“I don’t know.” Katie blushed. “All my friends think he’s cute and I guess he is.”

 

“If you’re wondering,” Jordan offered. “He likes you.”

 

“Really?” Katie said slightly excited. Her excitement died with the less-than-thrilled look on Jordan’s face. Jordan didn’t really want to talk about Jase right now, but if the subject kept the conversation going she really didn’t care about continuing it in that vein.

 

“We have a class together, me and you I mean.” Katie had caught on and was keen on changing the subject and Jordan was glad for it.

 

“I know, Algebra 2.”

 

“You never talk to me,” Katie said. “You hardly ever look at me. Is it because of Jase? Do you like him?”

 

“Ewwwwwwww!!” Jordan exclaimed. “He’s my brother really, not biological, but you know…. me and him… never happening. It’s just, with me and you, we don’t exactly travel in the same circles and, I’m also, kinda failing Algebra,” Jordan admitted. “So it’s best I kinda focus in there.” Jordan was actually rather good at math, but Katie (who sat right in front of her) often distracted her in this particular class.

 

“I could help. I’m totally getting an A in that class.”

 

“You like math?”

 

“Love it. Math just makes sense, you know. English, you can read a poem and interpret it twenty different ways. Geography, places get renamed, countries break up over time or come together. History is a story that keeps changing. But Math, it’s just simple.”

 

“Well, I’d be happy for the help.”

 

“So, my house, after tryouts.”

 

“That soon?” Jordan questioned quickly. “I mean sure,” Jordan said with a grin. Her heart was sailing. She couldn’t remember ever being happier.

 

 

 

 

Even though Jase was determined to stay mad at her for it, tryouts themselves didn’t go that bad. Katie was very encouraging. She patted her on the shoulder, shouted for her to do well, and said ‘good job’ at several points during try-outs. She wondered if it was all in the hope she would hook her up with Jase. At any rate, the other girls on the team (who showed up soon after Katie made her study date with Jordan) didn’t seem too pleased with it. And Jordan didn’t really care, it was great to have Katie on her side.

 

Jordan didn’t have top baseball skills, but she was crap at it either. Most summer family picnics were spent playing backyard baseball with the boys. She could hit the ball more often than not and caught the ball eighty percent of the time, but she was rubbish at pitching. Since Aaliyah was usually on 3rd base, not the pitcher (that was Katie) she felt she had a good shot at a spot on the team. There were only two other girls trying out. One of them was obviously in favor of pitching, but Katie’s spot wasn’t up for grabs and there was already a back-up pitcher. The other girl couldn’t hit the ball and had butterfingers when it came to catching. She wasn’t getting on.

 

When practice/tryouts were over, they all headed into the locker room. Several girls brushed rudely past Jordan as she headed in. She was so happy about her after-practice study session with Katie, she didn’t care about them.

 

“Hey Jordan,” Katie said as she tapped her shoulder.

 

Jordan looked at her and quickly looked away. She was clad only in her underwear and a very odd feeling had rushed through her body. Jordan’s stomach was really flip flopping now.

 

“Yeah,” Jordan finally said. Her reply had fought its way through a lump in her throat. “What you want?”

 

“Can we meet tomorrow, after school, I’m kind of exhausted,” Katie said.

 

“Sure,” Jordan said, focusing on anything but Katie.

 

“Great,” she said. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow in school, see you.”

 

She disappeared and Jordan began to breathe normally again. Now she wondered if she’d ever be able to look at Katie again without seeing her clad in underwear. True, a bikini wouldn’t have shown much more than she saw. Besides, she was a girl too, sort of (she didn’t exactly have a very womanly shape at the moment). But it had been quite a shock to see the girl she admired above all others only in her underpants. She hated thinking she was as bad as the guys.

 

 

The next day in school, Jase, Harrison, and Mark were shocked when Jordan ignored them altogether and walked up to a welcoming Katie, who promptly introduced her to her circle of friends. Katie’s friends weren’t too pleased with the new company, but as Jordan’s focus was on Katie she didn’t really care. The boys surprised carried on into lunch, when she bypassed their table to hang out with Katie, who also seemed set on ignoring the sneers from her friends about her new acquaintance.

 

It was at lunch that Katie asked her if she wanted to walk home together, so that they could see how behind she was in Algebra and try to get her back where she needed to be.

 

“So that’s what this is about?” one of Katie’s friends said as they sat at the table. She had introduced them all to Jordan that morning before school, but as none of them seemed very interested in being her friend she hadn’t really paid attention to the names.

 

“What do you mean Sasha?” Katie asked.

 

“I mean, that’s why you’re hanging out, you’re tutoring her,” Sasha replied.

 

“No, I mean I am helping her out, but Jordan’s cool. And she might be our new teammate, why not be nice?”

 

“Yeah, whatever,” Sasha replied rolling her eyes.

 

Jordan wanted to ask her what her problem was, but she didn’t want to make waves at the table. Not now, not when things were going so well with Katie. Suddenly, Jase came over. It didn’t escape Jordan’s attention that he had been glancing at the table for the better half of the lunch period. Sasha’s mood changed drastically as she said ‘Hi Jase.”

 

“Hey,” he said and turned to Jordan. “So we gonna work on that song after school.”

 

“No, I’m hanging out with Katie,” Jordan said.

 

“You mean getting tutored,” Sasha snickered. “She’s a little slow in Algebra you see.”

 

“Jordan?” Jase questioned, surprise. He knew Jordan was pretty much good at any type of math. She’d gotten him through most of his math classes up to that point. He started to say more, but Jordan cast him a look that shut him up.

 

“So,” Sasha said. “You rap.”

“Yeah, me and my girl here working on a new demo,” Jase replied, indicating Jordan.

 

“And by ‘your girl’ you mean,” Sash said fishing for information.

 

“My friend,” Jordan told her. “My best friend. At least I think we still friends.”

 

“You know ain’t my friend boy.”

 

Jase looked worried and then frowned, but Jordan smiled.

 

“You my brother, Jase, always,” Jordan finished.

 

Jordan raised her fist to him. He met her fist with his own in a quick dap and then went back to sit with Harrison and Mark.

 

“That’s my boy, conceited as hell, but still cool,” Jordan said looking at Katie. Katie smiled at Jordan.

 

“Damn girl,” Sasha said in the kindest voice she’d heard from her all day. “He’s so hot. How can you stand to be around all that without melting?”

 

“Cause I don’t think of Jason that way.”

 

“You crazy,” Sasha replied, surprisingly without sounding insulting. Seeing how close she was to Jason had turned Sasha around a lot.

 

The day seemed to pass quickly after lunch and before she knew it, she was walking home with Katie and her clique. The group broke off after a few blocks, as girls departed toward their own homes. There departures seem to come quickly and before she knew it, she was alone with Katie.

 

“So, you rap huh?” Katie questioned.

 

“A little,” Jordan replied.

 

“Can I hear one?”

 

“A freestyle?”

 

“Can you? Freestyle I mean?”

 

“I can try,” Jordan replied. She would have done anything to impress Katie.

 

Jordan thought for a moment and then started rhyming:

 

“I know this girl named Katie, she goes to my school.

And I hope she doesn’t think that I’m a fool.

Just cause I need a little help in this crazy class

But it’s really important that I not fail, but pass.

So if she helps me do this everything will be fine

And it no longer will be on my mind

the way she is all the time…“

 

Common sense suddenly flooded her brain with this verse “Umm, I better stop there.”

 

Katie looked at her awkwardly for a moment, obviously not sure how to react to the unfinished line.

 

“Sometimes you try to keep the rhyme going and dumb stuff comes out.”

 

“I think it was pretty good, I couldn’t rhyme stuff that fast off the top of my head,” Katie told her. She shot her that welcoming smile again and Jordan relaxed.

 

They had reached her door at that point, so conversation stopped. They went in her house and got comfortable at the kitchen table. The next couple hours were filed with equations and only equations. She was introduced to Katie’s mother midway through the study session when she came home from work. Staying for dinner was offered, but Jordan declined as she was expected home.

 

 

 

The next day at school, there was a table merge at lunch, resulting in a lot of flirting between Jordan’s guy friends and Katie’s girl clique. Jordan noticed that even though Jason was interested in striking up a conversation with Katie, Katie seemed more interested in talking to her and not just about equations (thankfully).

 

By the end of the week, Jordan found out she made the softball team and the girls were inviting her to hang out with them over the weekend. So Jordan spent Saturday with Katie and the girls at Sasha’s house. They ate popcorn and watched Bradd Pitt movies. The only one Jordan really liked was Fight Club, but the hanging out part of the evening wasn’t too bad. Until the girls got to talking about crushes and Jordan lied and said she didn’t have one.

 

The table merge in the cafeteria seemed to remain permanent when schools started up the next week. The adolescent flirting continued too. They had a couple of practices that week and Katie and Jordan had a couple of study session that weren’t as serious as there first. It ended in watching cartoons and music videos.

 

That Friday, Jordan had her first game. The boys came to cheer them on. Jase was especially kind. He was upset they had less time to devote to working in the studio, but liked any excuse to be near Katie. Even though, much to Jordan’s satisfaction, she wasn’t as interested in him as Sasha was. At any rate, Katie pulled off a couple of pitches that sealed the game for them in the last inning. The team went out for pizza after.

 

Jordan’s father hadn’t shown up to the game and it hurt her more that she wanted to admit. It was Katie who pulled the information out of her when she pulled her from sulking in the corner during their pizza celebration. Katie offered her ear and could tell it needed to be a private conversation. So they talked while Jordan walked Katie home. It was getting quite dark when they got to her house.

 

“Well, bye,” Jordan said when they reached her door.

 

“It’s kind of dark. My mom says young ladies shouldn’t walk alone in the dark. You want to come in and call your dad for a ride?”

 

“Not really,” Jordan replied.

 

“He’ll come next time I bet,” Katie told her. She took Jordan’s hand and walked her inside the house.

 

Jordan was pretty use to being in Katie’s house at that point. Katie sat down in the living room and Jordan went in the kitchen and made her call. She got his voicemail and left a message. Then she walked back into the living room and sat on the couch with Katie.

 

“My dad didn’t answer, I left him a message,” Jordan told her. “So where’s your mom?”

 

“My mom always goes to bed early on Friday’s. She’s exhausted from work,” Katie explained.

 

“I just realized I was kinda rude. Going on about my dad and your mom wasn’t there either.”

 

“She’s there when she can be.” Katie smiled and patted the seat beside her.

 

Jordan sat down beside Katie. For the first time in two weeks, conversation was not coming easy. Katie turned and looked at her, just stared at her for the longest time. Jordan was suddenly very tense and her stomach was doing those insane back flips again.

 

“You know, you’re really pretty. You should dress up more,” Katie told her.

 

“You think?” Jordan asked.

 

“Yeah, I love your dimples. When you smile, it’s like your whole face just lights up with it. I’m sure the guys would notice if you did your hair up a little nicer and, you know, maybe wore a skirt occasionally.”

 

“I don’t like skirts,” Jordan told her. “Beside, maybe I don’t want the boys to notice.”

 

“Don’t we all want the boys to notice?” Katie asked.

 

The question seemed seeped in confusion. Jordan studied her, carefully. Katie’s eyes seemed to be begging for a specific answer from Jordan, but there was only one answer she felt was suitable. Jordan leaned forward, slowly. Katie had plenty of time to back away, to get up, to protest, but she didn’t. She stayed still as Jordan lips touched her own.

 

When their lips made initial contact, they both froze. Now that she got this far, Jordan didn’t know quite what to do. She decided to just go with it. She had seen kissing afterall. She moved her lips against Katie’s, but Katie pushed her away.

 

“I’m sorry,” Jordan told her.

 

She started to stand up, but Katie grabbed her arm.

 

“Don’t leave yet.” Katie told her. “Was that okay? I mean us kissing.” Katie’s grip tightened. “I mean, that means, you know. Cause you’re not a boy.”

 

“I’m pretty close to one,” Jordan joked, trying to lighten the mood. “I mean I’m only missing the one little thing.”

 

“Don’t make me laugh,” Katie said fighting a grin. “If we kiss, what happens next?”

 

“I don’t know,” Jordan replied. “I never kissed anybody before.”

 

“Really? Me either,” Katie confessed. “Never thought my first would be a girl.”

 

Jordan sat back down. She met Katie’s eyes.

 

“Does it scare you that it was me?”

 

“A little.”

 

“I’m not upset it was you. I think, for awhile now, I’ve wanted it to be you.”

 

Katie smiled and then did something unexpected. She pulled her close and kissed her back. There lips tenderly and cautiously met again. Then they slowly learned to dance together. For now, at least, it felt okay to kiss alone in the dark.