Summer Ball (13 page)

“Suck-up,” Will said into his hand, like he was stifling a cough.

They glided across the water in the night, moving faster than Danny thought they would, still just hearing the slap of the paddles when Will piped down. Danny switched the paddle from side to side, feeling strong as he did.

Realizing something at the same time:

It was like they were out here in their own little world, apart from camp. He wasn't worried about anything, he wasn't mad at anybody, he wasn't all jammed up about what he'd decided to do before Tess called.

He would never say this out loud, certainly not to Will or Ty, not to Zach in a million years, but out here on Coffee Lake, Danny suddenly felt like he was floating.

Just then, Ty said, “There she is.”

Tess had told Danny she'd come out to the end of her uncle's dock and be carrying one of those supersize flashlights that you only used when you lost power.

He was maybe a hundred yards away from her.

Will asked if it was all right for him to give her a shout-out now. The only way somebody from Right Way would be able to hear was if they'd been followed.

“Knock yourself out,” Danny told him.

Will waved now and yelled, “Hilary Duff, is that you? Is it really you?”

“Hey!” Tess yelled back. Danny could see her flashlight bouncing up and down now as she did. “Hey, you guys!”

Will said to Danny, “Jump in anytime.”

Without either one of them saying anything about picking up the pace, Danny and Ty both started paddling faster.

“Just pull alongside the dock,” Tess said, “and I'll toss you a rope.”

Maybe thirty yards away now.

Now Danny couldn't help himself.

Or contain himself.

After all the bad parts, he'd come to the good parts, finally.

Tess.

He tapped Will on his shoulder, handed him his paddle, stood up in the back of the boat. Usually he was soooooo cool toward Tess when Will and Ty were around, never acting like he was too happy or excited to see her.

Not tonight.

He shouted “ConTessa44 Hewitt!” at the top of his voice, waving his arm like he was calling for somebody to pass him the ball.

Will was standing now, giving Danny room to take his seat. But Danny didn't want to sit in it, he wanted to stand on it, wanted to be the tallest one in the boat for just this one moment.

Wanted Tess to see him first.

There was just one small problem.

Just enough water from the splash of those paddles had gotten into the bottom of the boat on their way across the lake.

It meant that Danny's Barkley sneakers were just slick enough.

His right sneaker got up on the little benchlike seat, no problem. But his left one slipped like he'd hit a patch of ice. And since there was no rail for him to grab on to, nothing but the night air for him to grab on to, Danny felt himself falling.

Zach saw what was happening, tried to dive across and catch him, but it was too late.

Danny Walker went over the side of the guide canoe and into the cold water of Coffee Lake.

T
HE FIRST VOICE
D
ANNY HEARD AS HIS HEAD POPPED BACK ABOVE
the surface was Will Stoddard's. “No worries, Tess. Your hero has arrived.”

Ty reached over and helped Danny back into the boat, saying, “You know, when Will said to jump in anytime, I don't think this is what he had in mind.”

Everybody in the canoe laughed then. As foolish as Danny felt in front of Tess, like he was the entertainment at SeaWorld, he had to join in. They all kept laughing until they got the canoe to the side of Tess's dock and she tossed Ty the rope.

“You sure know how to make an entrance, Walker,” Tess said as she reached out to give him a hand.

“I think I might've held my tuck a little too long,” he said.

Tess waved her arms above her head like a crazy person, doing this spazzy puppet dance. “Is that what they call a tuck now in diving?” she said.

She was wearing the gray Warriors sweatshirt they'd given her as an honorary member of the team after they'd won the travel championship, jeans with holes in both knees and what looked to be new Puma sneakers. Danny could spot new sneakers even in the dark.

And he knew it didn't matter what she was wearing, here or anywhere, she always looked great to him.

He thought, she's the same old Tess.

And I'm a mess.

On the dock, Will told Danny he should look on the bright side, despite the way he'd been playing lately, especially for his new coach.

“See, you
can
hit the water if you fall out of a boat,” Will said.

“Not funny,” Danny said.

“Well, we both know
that's
a total lie,” Will said.

Everybody was talking at once then, Danny introducing Zach to Tess, Will saying they called him Danny Junior, Tess saying she could see why, Tess wanting to know if she should try to find Danny some dry clothes and Danny saying, no, he was fine, which was a total lie.

Tess said her aunt and her two cousins had gone into town for ice cream, but that her uncle was inside watching the Red Sox–Yankees game if anybody wanted to join him. She was sure he'd love the company.

“Television,” Will said, making it sound as if he were talking about heaven.

“Not just television,” Tess said. “He's got Direct up here.”

“Yessssss!” Will said, pumping his fist. “What kind of snacks we talking about?”

Tess said that her two cousins were boys, one twelve and one fourteen, so there was more junk food in the kitchen than you could imagine. Her aunt had taken them grocery shopping the day before and let them go wild.

Will said, “I am so there with my new best friend, Uncle…?”

“Sam.”

Then because he was Will, because he still had Danny's back, he immediately shoved Ty and Zach in the direction of The House and said, “Let's leave these two guys alone for a few minutes. Walker probably wants to show Tess his backflip next.”

Over his shoulder, Will said, “Call us if you need us.”

“We won't,” Danny said. “Call you or need you.”

When they were gone, Tess sprinted down the dock on her long legs, disappeared through the backdoor, came right back out with two huge red beach towels.

“You must be freezing to death,” she said.

“You see now why Will says I turn into Captain Klutz when you're around.”

“Nah,” Tess said. “I'm still just seeing the captain of the team.”

“Not lately,” Danny said.

“You want to talk about it?” she said.

Danny said she had no idea.

 

They sat on the back porch in old rickety, squeaky, wooden rocking chairs, Danny feeling like some kind of old man with the red towel over his shoulders. From the television room at the front of The House, the only voice he'd hear occasionally was Will's, no shocker. From somewhere in the woods, they could hear an owl making hoot noises, as if saying that all these people had crashed his night.

Danny said that before he told Tess about everything that was going on at camp, he needed to apologize for something. Tess started to say he didn't, but Danny kept right on going, saying he had been the kind of jerk that even real jerks thought was obnoxious the last time he'd seen her.

She smiled.

“Oh, come on now,” she said. “You're being much too easy on yourself.”

“Very funny,” he said, smiling back. “I get Will the comedian all day and now you at night.”

“You lucky dog.”

“Only if you mean a wet, mangy-type dog.”

They sat there rocking and squeaking.

“I mean it,” Danny said. “About being sorry.”

“I know.”

“Scott bugs me, is all. But you probably know that, too.”

“I do.”

“I can't help it.”

Tess said, “He's actually not a bad guy, if you don't mind complete perfection.”

Danny wanted to say it had never bothered him with her but kept that particular thought inside his head. The way he kept a lot of thoughts like that, about this girl, inside his head.

“You also have to care a lot more about Roger Federer than I do,” Tess said.

“So you don't want to be the queen of Middletown tennis anymore?”

“I guess I'll wait until next summer to win Wimbledon,” Tess said, then quickly told him how bored she got after he and Will and Ty left, and how after about two days of her moping around the house, her mom said she needed some kind of outing. Which, Tess knew, meant some kind of road trip. That night she got on her computer, MapQuested how far away her uncle actually was from Right Way, discovered the distance was 1.8 miles and now here she was, surprise!

For once, he wasn't Captain Klutz.

“I'm glad you're here,” he said.

“I also know that,” Tess said. “Now tell me some stuff I don't know.”

Danny talked for a long time. Told her all about it, all the gory details. Finally admitted to her that Nick Pinto had been right when he'd called him out, that Danny had tricked up his knee injury, knowing his knee was already swollen even if it wasn't bothering him anymore, figuring it was the easiest way for him to get the heck out of there without looking like a total wussball.

Tess never said a word the whole time he was talking, never interrupted him once. Never looked anywhere except right at him and right through him.

When he finished, she said, “So do you want to know what I really think?”

“It's why we hijacked that dopey boat,” Danny said. “Course I want to know what you think.”

“Well, I think…” She scratched her head, paused briefly, like she was confused. “I think…that if you ever think about doing something this stupid ever again, I will personally break
both
your knees.”

She went inside, came back with two bottles of Snapple and handed him one. She'd also brought him two more dry towels, even though he'd said he was okay with what he had.

“It can't be as bad as you say,” Tess said.

“Really?” he said. “Well, guess what. The only time I really felt like I wanted to be at this stupid camp was tonight. And tonight what we basically did was get away from camp. And come to see you.”

“You just have to show this guy,” she said. “This Coach Ed.”

“What if he's right about me?”

“He's not.”

Just like that. Like she was saying, Case closed, done deal, next question.

“You don't know that,” Danny said.

“I know you, Walker. I know you better than anybody. I know you better than he ever will. Or any coach ever will, outside of your dad, when you start playing for him. But you're acting like this Coach Ed is suddenly the world's expert on Danny Walker, that he has all these big insights into you that the rest of us don't. Get real.”

Danny said, “How about I just get out?” Knowing how weak that sounded.

Air ball.

“You can't quit,” Tess said.

“So I beat my head against the wall for two more weeks, with a coach who acts like he only wants to put me into games as some kind of last resort,” Danny said.

He heard a war whoop from Will inside, which meant the Red Sox had done something. Will and Zach were Red Sox fans, Ty was a huge Yankees fan. Danny didn't know where Uncle Sam weighed in.

Tess said, “You know what this really is? It's Ty's dad cutting you all over again. Another grown-up telling you you're not good enough. I thought you always used to tell me that the championship you guys really won in travel was the championship of any kid who got told by an adult they weren't good enough?”

Danny knew he was smiling. He couldn't help himself, even after the two crummiest days on record. She never forgot anything. She remembered Danny's life better than he did sometimes.

“It's my dad's line, actually.”

“So now you have to do that again,” Tess said. “You show him, you show the whole camp, if you have to. You show this guy Rasheed who keeps knocking you down. You're not quitting, and you're not believing something from this coach you know isn't true and I know isn't true.”

Danny wanted a ball in his hands now. Wished he'd let Zach bring his ball with him, so he could hold it, roll it around in his hands, dribble it on the back porch, flick it straight up in the air. A ball in his hands had always made him feel smarter, even smart enough to keep up with Tess. A ball in Danny's hands had always made him feel that he could figure anything out, like it was just a simple basketball problem, finding the smartest way to get the ball from here to there and then through the hoop.

“You didn't hear them laughing at me in the gym,” he said quietly.

“For one play,” Tess said. “One stupid play. Ty broke his wrist once because of one stupid play that wasn't even your fault.” Tess shrugged, smiled. “Get over it, Walker.”

There was a rap on the window. They both turned around. There was Will, pressing his nose against the glass, mashing it. Anything, Danny knew, to get a laugh. Anything and everything. “We gotta bounce,” Will said. “Or we're going to get even more busted than we already are.”

Danny nodded.

“You make the whole thing sound simple,” he said to Tess.

“No, sir,” she said. “From what you told me about this coach and the other players, it's going to be even harder than when you got cut that time. It's not Middletown now, it's not your dad's team, it's not all your friends cheering you on. But you
can
do this.”

“Because you say I can?”

Tess put her hand out for a low five. When he didn't slap skin hard enough, she kept it out there, giving him a look, so he did it again, with more feeling this time.

“Now you're talking,” she said, “like my Danny Walker.”

Her Danny Walker.

Now she pulled him up out of his rocking chair, like a player helping him up after he'd gotten knocked down on the court, leaned down and gave him a quick hug before he knew what was happening.

“This one's for the championship of you, big guy,” Tess said.