Excerpt
Spectacular Things: Reese's Book Club
An Early Labor DayThe bridge is up.
Of course it is.
The bridge is up and the baby is coming.
“Maybe it’s a good sign?” Mia says from the passenger seat.
“Definitely,” Oliver agrees, shifting the car into park. “Back to how it all began.” He reaches over to touch Mia’s knee, but only briefly. It’s August and unbearably hot.
They sit. They wait. They sweat.
In the surrounding vehicles, tourists roll down their windows and hold up their phones to document the high drama of a drawbridge: how the road rises into a wave of asphalt that eclipses the sun.
“I should text Cricket,” Mia says, closing her eyes as the next contraction builds. “Right? I should text her?”
“Sure, if you want—”
“I’m not going to.” Mia leans forward and bows her head to ride out the pain. “She needs to focus.”
“So do you.”
“Worst-case scenario, we’ll stream the game on my phone.” Mia had a feeling this exact situation would occur: her labor coinciding with the Summer Olympics Gold Medal match between the U.S. Women’s National Team and the Netherlands.
Game day for both Lowe sisters.
Oliver drums his thumbs on the top of the steering wheel. “This feels longer than usual,” he says, looking past Mia and out toward the bay. “I don’t even see a boat.”
For summer people, the notion of a drawbridge is intrinsically romantic—an engineered nudge to slow down and enjoy the view. It’s why they come here. Because like Maine itself, the bridge serves as a reminder that this is The Way Life Should Be.
Locals running late, however, tell a different story. Especially this time of year, in the high season, when just one ship can delay hundreds of cars, thousands of start times, and, as of twenty minutes ago, at least one woman in labor, which, for Mia in this moment, begs the question, Is this the way life should be?
Finally, the drawbridge comes together like clasped hands and settles back down into one unified road. The arm of the barrier gate lifts. The bell rings. Oliver steps on the gas.
At the hospital, there is no bursting through doors or rushing down halls or screaming out for drugs. Instead, there is only a long but entirely civilized line to check in at the front desk of the maternity ward.
“It’s like an Apple Store,” Mia jokes nervously, trying to summon her sister’s sense of humor, strength, and capacity for pain. Cricket would be so good in this situation—her mind and body hammered into steel over decades of training. Cricket thrives on high stakes, loves high stakes, has made an entire career out of high stakes.
Mia, however, prefers reliable outcomes. She believes a surprise is called an upset for a reason: that a sudden change in expectations is indeed upsetting.
A nurse calls out her name. Oliver takes Mia’s hand and follows her lead. He squeezes her fingers as they walk past a room with a baby crying, and then he squeezes again when they hear a mother sobbing.
“Oh, thank God,” Mia says when they enter the delivery room, beaming at the sizable television mounted on the wall. Oliver grabs the remote and speeds through the channels until that familiar stretch of green consumes the screen.
“Big soccer fans?” the nurse asks, eyeing the husband and wife’s matching U.S. jerseys. Mia’s kit is stretched so tightly over her stomach that the nurse wonders if all that compression helped to induce labor and how, exactly, they’re going to get it off.
“My sister is one of the goalkeepers,” Mia volunteers just before doubling over. The contractions up until now have been relatively minor. But they are suddenly excruciating, walloping, and relentless. She doesn’t want to do this. She can’t do this, and she’s about to say so to Oliver, but then she hears her mother’s voice in her ear, reminding her, just as she always has: No pain, no gain.
Mia knows there is only one way to meet her baby, and it’s through this gauntlet of agony. She is a Lowe, not a quitter, and so Mia closes her eyes and channels her mother’s resilience, her sister’s stamina. She remembers to focus on this moment just as the nurse jabs an IV into her forearm.
“To be honest, I’m more of a hockey guy,” the nurse says, and then, recalling a provocative Super Bowl commercial that penetrated every corner of the globe, he looks at Mia with sudden intrigue. “So your sister knows Sloane Jackson?”
Competing for Hardware
Sometimes Cricket thinks of her adult life as driving as fast as she can while circling a full parking lot. You can’t force a spot to open up—you just have to put your head down, grind in your highest gear, and hope for fate to break your way.
Hidden from view in the mouth of the players’ tunnel, Cricket watches the Jumbotron as she shifts her weight from foot to foot. The thousands of children chanting in the stands look like little warriors, manic from soda, bug-eyed with adrenaline. The game hasn’t even started, but they’ve already smeared the flags painted on their cheeks and screamed their way to a second wind. Get up, get up, it’s coming, it’s coming—the young fans shove their hands in the air as The Wave goes around the stadium again and again and again.
Every step to get here has been a battle, but Cricket and the U.S. Women’s National Team have advanced to the Gold Medal match of the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Now they have ninety minutes to prove they are still the greatest women’s soccer squad in the world. Their reputation has been challenged before, criticized, dismissed, and kicked in the teeth multiple times over the years. They are not immune to the comments of sportscasters and cynics who say dynasties are destined to crumble.
In just a minute and right on cue, Cricket will enter the arena with the other “game changers,” which is what the coaches call reserve players, or substitutes, which is just a nicer term for dispensable backup. It’s what Cricket has always been on this team. When she crosses the field and heads for the sideline, the fans will clap but keep their eyes trained on the players’ tunnel. The starters, not the game changers, are why the fans are feral, waving their homemade posters for the TV cameras while gleefully straining their vocal cords.
“Game changers! Let’s go!”
Cricket jogs past the starters, who are lined up inside the tunnel and holding the hands of young kids in shiny red shorts that contrast nicely with the white U.S. uniforms. Locally sourced from nearby club teams, the children have been plucked from obscurity to represent the future faces of the Beautiful Game. Today is a day they will all remember, and several years from now, one of them will even cite this match as the reason why she chose to pursue a career in professional soccer.
Sloane Jackson stands at the front of the line. When Cricket runs by, she forces herself to say, “You got this.” Because the outcome of the game is more important than their mutual resentment. Because a win is a win and gold is gold. Even if they’re no longer friends.
The starting goalkeeper gives Cricket a solemn nod back, already deep into her own meditation and ignoring the small pigtailed girl holding her hand. Adrenaline bounces off the tunnel walls as the U.S. coaching staff claps and teammates yell, “LFG! Let’s f***ing go!” The starters stand shoulder to shoulder with their adversaries, the imposing Dutch, who bark their own encouragement, “Laten we gaan! Kom op!”
Taking the field with the other game changers, Cricket blinks in the bright lights and catches the sonic buzz of the fans. She’s actually, finally here. She’s made it. This is what her entire life has revolved around for as long as she can remember. Even if she’s just cheering from the bench with the other reserves, her presence proves what her mom always said: She’s a Lowe, not a quitter. And if she can make it this far, then it’s entirely possible that someday her time will come and her parking spot will open up.
Searching the stands, Cricket finds the designated Friends and Family section, full of familiar faces, even though none of them are her friends or family. Mia was too close to her due date to fly across the country. Like the team sports psychologist first encouraged her to do years ago, Cricket imagines she can see her sister up there. She waves, and Mia waves back.
A loud hissing surrounds the stadium and then a deafening KABOOM.
Fireworks dazzle overhead as the starting players emerge from the tunnel amid strobe lights, drones, and vuvuzelas. There’s a deafening uptick in screams as the fans identify the eleven worthy of taking the field in this Gold Medal match. As they have done for every game in this Olympics, thousands of fans start chanting the name that haunts Cricket in her dreams. To the same tune as they yell U-S-A, diehard National Team supporters profess their allegiance to SLOANE JACK-SON! SLOANE JACK-SON! Faces disappear behind phones to capture their queen in pixels.
