Lindsay drummed her fingers against the dresser as the phone rang. She was disappointed, though not surprised, that Janel wasn't picking up; after all, her last seven calls had also gone unanswered. Whatever uncommunicative mood had taken Janel, it was a long-lasting one.

The phone went to voicemail. "I'm not here, but my phone is. Weird, eh? Leave a message." Janel's voice sounded higher-pitched than usual, but Lindsay chalked it up to the same stress that kept her so secretive.

"Juan, don't you ever check your messages? Call me the hell back, or at least call someone back. I think your dad's gonna send the Wisconsin state troopers out for you if you don't call the house. We all miss you, you big dork, especially me." Lindsay hesitated, then ended the call. She knew that she didn't have to say what she had considered saying. Some things just didn't need to be said aloud; they were best left as undercurrent and subtext so that they wouldn't have to face up to the heavy emotional stuff.

"Coach, if I don't tell someone, I'm gonna explode."

"You can't afford to right now. The team doctors still haven't finished running the tests-"

"FUCK the tests! I can't hide this forever! It's not the kind of thing people aren't going to notice if I go back on the court. The only reason my folks aren't freaking out is 'cause I've been able to e-mail them, but I can't e-mail in my game. The girls are freaking out, and I think every Golden Gopher in the history of Minnesota basketball called my cell phone in the last month. I have to tell someone."

"And how are you going to explain... this?"

"I don't know... figured I'd try it out on Lindsay first, see what she had to say, then adjust."

"You want to reveal this to the point guard of a conference rival? I can't let you do that."

"Coach, she's been calling me every day, wanting to know what's wrong. I can't even talk to her because of what this did to my voice, and it's making me crazy. She can keep a secret, even if it's not gonna be much of a secret when I'm not on the floor. She's my best friend, Coach, and I don't like when she worries."

"Is she more than a friend?"

"What the hell business is it of yours, Coach?"

"Go talk to her. But don't tell anyone. On either account."

Lindsay's phone vibrated gently against her skin. She was on it in a heartbeat. "Yo."

"Hey, Whay."

"Juan! You're alive!"

"Kind of. I... I really don't want to talk about it over the phone. Can I swing by your place?"

"You mean when you guys come up here for the game?"

"No, I mean now. My injury doesn't let me practice, so I asked Coach if I could go up and see you, since you were calling so much you were almost illegal."

"You okay, Janel? You sound funny."

"It's part of the injury."

"How does a strained lower back throw off your voice?"

"I said I'll explain!" Janel was acutely aware that she sounded like a little kid in a snit, and she cringed as she imagined what Lindsay must think of her.

But Lindsay's voice was steady and calm when she replied, "Okay. I'll be glad to hear it. We've all been worried about you since you dropped out of sight. Even Taj brought it up- okay, so it was in the context of 'I can't wait to have that rookie for lunch'-"

"That's not something I'm worried about right now," Janel interrupted, hoping that she sounded like her cocky old self, hoping that Lindsay wouldn't notice how choked up she was getting and how weak she felt, hoping that she could keep using Lindsay as her anchor to get her through this.

"Are you crying?"

"Oh, come on, Whalen. I'm Shaq McCarville. I don't cry, I make other people cry for their mamas. What makes you think I'm crying?" Janel put up a bold front, even if Lindsay was right. "Look, I'm at the airport. As soon as the cab gets here, I'll come by. I can't talk anymore now." And before Lindsay could ask why, Janel hung up and buried her face in her hands. The room was full of mirrored surfaces and glass windows, and she didn't want to see herself in this condition. She hated feeling this weak and useless, this confused and broken. It wasn't natural.

The cab arrived. Janel climbed into the backseat, settled her duffle bag on her lap, and gave the driver directions. Wisely, he opted not to ask why she looked like she had been crying. The ride felt like an eternity, but for all that Janel wished it had been longer. This could easily be the hardest thing she would ever have to do in her life; too many emotions were already coming into play, and she knew that there would be more. Her career and possibly her sanity were at stake. But she would have to do it or have it done for her, and Lindsay meant enough to her that she wanted to be the bearer of her own bad tidings. So she rang the doorbell and waited anxiously.

Lindsay opened the door and let out a small scream. It was understandable, since Janel had done the same thing the first time she saw herself in the mirror. She knew what Lindsay was seeing: a distorted figure of a human being who was supposed to be over six feet tall but was compressed to five-foot-eight, Lindsay's height. For the first time in their lives, the two young women were on the same eye-level without any artifical aids. "What the hell..."

"That's what I said too," Janel said ruefully. "Can I come in, or are you gonna wave a cross in my face first?"

Lindsay shook herself and got out of the doorway. Janel stepped inside and sat down on the couch. "You're short!" Lindsay said accusingly.

"Only if you are, Whay," Janel shot back.

"What happened?"

"If Natalie Williams is ever about to sit on you, go the other way, okay?"

"Be serious!"

"I can't be serious about this 'cause if I am, I'm gonna be bouncing off the walls with the freaking out, so I have to be funny about it. Besides, I dunno what really happened. One minute I was banging in the post, then everything went black, and the next thing I thought I knew, the world grew six inches. 'Course, it didn't grow, I got squished. Dr. O'Brien says it's something called spinal compression. Most of the time it isn't this weird, but somethin' about the way it happened and the force involved and my bone density... I kinda tuned out there 'cause he wasn't saying anything about when it would get better."

Lindsay sat on the other end of the couch and put her arm over the back so that her hand was almost on Janel's shoulder. "Did he ever get around to saying when it would get better?"

"No one knows. Haven't been a lot of cases like me. I'm special."

"Yes, Juan, you're special," Lindsay agreed in a patronizing tone of voice.

"I still got muscles, Whalen, don't start something with me you can't finish. Seriously, though, most of the time it unhappens as soon as it happens, kinda like a rubber band, only bones and stuff. If it doesn't unhappen immediately, odds are it's not gonna unhappen. He said it was related to the way old people shrink when they get older. I just got it all at once."

"Are you gonna be okay?"

"As okay as I ever am. I'm gonna have to switch positions, obviously. Coach says with a year or two of working on my ballhandling, I could switch to point guard when Dawn retires."

Lindsay snickered. "A point guard with a power forward's moves, that's gonna go over well. Relax, you know I'm kidding. You'd make a kick-ass point guard eventually."

"Kick your ass my first time out, believe me. Nah, the one thing I'm fretting about is how my folks are gonna react. They've been so proud of having a big strong daughter... now they got a little strong daughter, and I dunno if that's gonna be the same."

"Five-eight isn't little. You can still look over most women's heads," Lindsay said with the experience of a woman who had spent her life since puberty being five-foot-eight. "Besides, they're your parents. They loved you the first time you were this height, they'll love you again. That's what parents do."

"Look at me, Lindsay! I look like some kinda freak! I'm all scrunched up and weird! You screamed like a girl when you saw me come in. You think anyone's gonna wanna claim this as their daughter?" Janel indicated herself with one sweeping hand gesture.

"I screamed 'cause you didn't give me any warning. They'll accept it. You have to trust them. Come on, who are you going to trust if you can't trust your parents?" Lindsay tilted her head as a thought came to her. She edged very slightly closer to Janel on the couch and asked, "Why did you come to me first? I mean, this is the kind of thing you talk to your family about first, isn't it?"

"You're the dress rehearsal. Once I get everything ironed out from your reactions, I'll tell the people who *really* matter." Had she been slightly more mature, she might not have stuck her tongue out at Lindsay. Had Lindsay had the maturity she claimed to have, she might not have returned the favor.

Janel's phone rang. "Oh, way to break up the moment we were having," she said sarcastically before picking up. "I'm not here, Shannon. You're just imagining me. How'd you get this number, anyway, I don't remember giving it to you. Lindsay, huh? Well, good thing I'm there, I can kick her ass. Next time you ask for someone's phone number make sure it's theirs, okay?" She disconnected and gave Lindsay a look that might be considered a glare by someone who didn't know either of them very well.

"And here I thought I was one of the people who really mattered," Lindsay joked.

"You give my phone number out to people, you stop being people who matter and start being people who need an ass-whipping."

"Looks like more than your spine got compressed. I didn't realize you were this angry all the time."

Janel growled and tackled Lindsay, the force of the impact sending them both to the floor. Fingers out, she proceeded to tickle Lindsay without mercy, using her bulk to keep Lindsay from shifting position enough to get her ticklish spots under cover. Lindsay struck back through her laughter and brushed her fingers against the back of Janel's neck. Janel shivered, and that was enough for Lindsay to extricate herself from the tangle. "And you call yourself a professional," she accused Janel with a grin.

"Least I got drafted higher than you did."

"Least my team doesn't suck."

"Least I don't live in the ass-end of nowhere."

"Least I don't wear orange tinfoil and call it a uniform."

"Hey, it's not always orange! We wear white at home, remember?" Janel laughed. "Thanks, Whay. I needed that like you wouldn't believe."

"So are you gonna call your folks? They deserve to know."

"Yes, mother. Nag. Bitch."

"Isn't that what you love about me?"

Janel didn't say anything to that, although several responses came to the tip of her tongue before she rejected them, and although Lindsay was expecting her to say something to a line that obvious. But whatever it was between them that they refused to define was no-man's-land, by mutual agreement; they could come as close as they wanted to mentioning it, but under no circumstances were they to talk about what it might be. What she eventually said was, "Okay, so now I know to give advance warning before I walk into a room with my bad sixty-eight-inch self. I can do that. It's not that hard. I think I should work on losing some weight, too, 'cause if my spine doesn't sping back up it's gonna be hard for me to get around; my knees already hurt like a motherfucker. You know what the toughest thing about this is gonna be, though?"

"What's that?"

"Having to ask J-Mo to get stuff off the high shelves for me. She's never gonna let me live it down."

"Hey, Dad. It's Janel. Yeah, I know I sound funny. I can explain. Sort of. Is Mom around? There's something real important I have to tell you guys... what? No, I didn't run off to Connecticut so I could elope with Lindsay! Who told you that? Come on, no matter who I was marrying I'd remember to invite you, I know you wouldn't freak out unless it was a murderer or something. Shannon's gonna get such an ass-whipping the next time I see her... sorry, I know you don't like me using that kind of language in front of Mom. But, uh, no, that's not what it's about. Yeah, I did run off to Connecticut so I could tell Lindsay somethin', but it's got nothing to do with her. You know that injury that pulled me out of the game? It's weirder than we all thought. Yeah. I'm kinda not six-two anymore..."