I sent two squads to the floor for an actual scrimmage. Marcena watched for a few minutes, then climbed up the rickety bleachers to my center’s boyfriend. He sat up straighter and at one point actually seemed to speak with real animation. This distracted Sancia so much that she muffed a routine pass and let the second team get an easy score.

“Head in the game, Sancia,” I barked in my best Coach McFarlane imitation, but I was still relieved when the reporter climbed down from the bleachers and ambled out of the gym: everyone got more focused on what was happening on the court.

Last night at dinner, when Marcena proposed coming with me this afternoon, I’d tried to talk her out of it. South Chicago is a long way from anywhere, and I warned her I couldn’t take a break to drive her downtown if she got bored.

Love had laughed. “I have a high boredom threshold. You know the series I’m doing for the Guardian on the America that Europeans don’t see? I have to start somewhere, and who could be more invisible than the girls you’re coaching? By your account, they’re never going to be Olympic stars or Nobel Prize winners, they come from rough neighborhoods, they have babies—”

“In other words, just like the girls in South London,” Morrell had interrupted. “I don’t think you’ve got a world-beating story there, Love.”

“But going down there might suggest a story,” she said. “Maybe a profile of an American detective returning to her roots. Everyone likes detective stories.”

“You could follow the team,” I agreed with fake enthusiasm. “It could be one of those tearjerkers where this bunch of girls who don’t have enough balls or uniforms comes together under my inspired leadership to be state champs. But, you know, practice goes on for two hours, and I have an appointment with a local business leader afterward. We’ll be in the armpit of the city—if you do get bored, there won’t be a lot for you to do.”

“I can always leave,” Love said.

“Onto the street with the highest murder rate in the city.”

She laughed again. “I’ve just come from Baghdad. I’ve covered Sarajevo, Rwanda, and Ramallah. I can’t imagine Chicago is more terrifying than any of those places.”

I’d agreed, of course: I had to. It was only because Love rubbed me the wrong way—because I was jealous, or insecure, or just a South Side street fighter with a chip on her shoulder—that I hadn’t wanted to bring her. If the team could get some print space, even overseas, maybe someone would pay attention to them and help in my quest to find a corporate sponsor.