Lupe and Selina Play Through the Storm

“No ponies allowed at this table, Selina. You are now a young lady, and I expect you to display your long brown curls upon your shoulders, especially when important guests visit and you are playing the part of hostess.” Papa insisted she fill in for Mama as the woman of the house. “It won’t always be this way, mija. You know your mama needs to take care of Grandma right now. She wishes she was here with us,” Papa explained.

It had been like this since Grandpa died and her family returned to Mexico to take over Fuentes Coffee. Why didn’t Grandma live in the big house, so Mama could come home? The older Selina got, the more she noticed the tension between Mama and Papa. Some family mysteries remained unresolved, including why they’d lived in the United States while she was a child and why she could play sports there but not in Mexico. When she first arrived back in Monterrey, she’d often wondered whatever became of her old coach, the woman they called Coach Lupe.

Two years ago, the girls at school watched the US Olympic Softball Team on a small television in the dormitory. The pitcher was named Lupe Lopez, and Selina thought she might be the coach she remembered. Playing international ball was beyond her imagination. Selina kept all the news clippings she could find about women in sports.

One day, she read the name Lupe Lopez in a newspaper headline about a school in California. Selina pieced together the news about Lupe and her job as the athletics director and women’s softball coach for the Waves at California State University, Long Beach, then immediately wrote a letter requesting an application to the school. After that, she told three lies.