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Authors: Rich Wallace

War and Watermelon (11 page)

BOOK: War and Watermelon
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Tony's all arms, not moving his feet any, but he's bouncing his torso around pretty good. Patty keeps shifting away from him, and finally he gives up and faces Janet. After the song ends, Patty walks off and stands next to me again. I think she still looks shy.
“You don't dance?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “Just wasn't ready.”
She shrugs.
We watch Janet and Tony dance to two more songs. I figure I have nothing to lose, so when the next one starts I say, “You wanna?” and point toward Tony and Janet.
She smiles slightly for the first time tonight, and we walk over. They're playing “All You Need Is Love,” which is kind of slow, so I don't have to do much. The next one is fast, so me and Tony walk off while the girls keep dancing. They seem to be having a lot more fun without us.
“This is setting up just right,” Tony says.
“What is?”
He nudges me with his elbow. “For later.”
I don't know how he figures that. Patty hasn't even acknowledged him.
“Change in plans,” he says. “As soon as it's dark”—that would be in less than half an hour—“we bring 'em over by the swings. Then I take her for a walk back in the picnic area, and you get lost.”
“You take
who
for a walk?”
“Janet. Who do you think?”
“You said Patty before.”
“No, I didn't.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Well, I changed my mind.”
He had it changed for him. But that works in my favor anyway, so I'm not arguing.
Not that I'm expecting anything to happen.
The girls dance for about twenty minutes. Me and Tony get more soda and lean against the chain-link fence. The band gets louder.
They finally walk over to us. Janet grabs Tony's soda and drinks the last half of it. She wipes her forehead with her hand. “We're sweating,” she says. She tilts her head toward the locker rooms, and she and Patty walk off together.
“It's time to take advantage of this situation,” Tony says. The girls' locker room is on the way to the swings, so we follow about thirty feet behind them and wait till they come out.
“Take a break?” Tony asks when they reappear.
“Sure,” Janet says.
“Hit the swings?”
“Okay.”
It's dark and much quieter over on this side of the grounds. We sit on the swings.
“Can't dance too much,” Tony says. “We got our opening game in two days. Coach would be pissed if we tired ourselves out dancing.”
Janet says, “I see.” Patty yawns.
“We'll be out there for the opening kickoff,” Tony continues. “First play. Starting lineup.”
“Kickoff team only,” I say. “We're not exactly starters.”
“Who's on the field when the game starts?” he says. “The
starters
. You can't argue against that.”
Janet starts pumping her legs a little to get moving on the swing.
“Let me give you a push,” Tony says. He stands behind her and gives her back a shove. After two more pushes he steps out of the way and she starts going pretty high. Patty gets going on her own. They're giggling.
Janet stops first. Tony seizes the opportunity and pulls on her arm. “I wanna show you something,” he says.
“What?”
“Over there.” He points toward Route 17. The back corner of the grounds is just as dark as it is around the swings. There's a huge old maple tree in the corner.
They walk off. Patty slows quickly and hops off the swing. “Where are you guys going?”
“We'll be right back,” Tony calls.
I figure I'll play along and try to get Tony some privacy. “You must be dying of thirst after all that dancing,” I say.
Patty stares after Tony and Janet with a frown, but then she says, “Yeah. I am.” So we get more cups of soda.
We start wandering with the cups, passing the locker rooms and the swings. She hasn't said anything about Janet, but I'm sure she's eager to see what's going on, so she heads that way. When we reach the kiddie pool I say, “Hold on.” I sit on a bench and yank off my sneaker, stalling for time.
“Got a rock or something in here,” I say, shaking the shoe. I put it back on. She's sitting now, too.
“I wonder what's so interesting over there,” she says, smirking a little and jutting her head toward the dark corner where Tony and Janet went.
“Tony's into trees,” I say. “He wants to study them in college.”
“Uh-huh. What else does he want to study?” She laughs.
“Right.” I inch closer to her. “Nice night, huh?”
She looks at the sky. “Yeah. Fun.” She closes her eyes and inhales deeply. Mostly what you smell over here is chlorine.
I slide my hand along the bench and hesitate. It's not as if she's never made out with anybody, so I lift my hand and set it on her back. She wiggles slightly, then turns and looks at me hard. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” I pull my hand away in a hurry.
She stands up. “I gotta find Janet.”
I stand up, too. Janet is walking toward us. She's smiling.
“Where've you been?” Patty asks.
“Back there.” Janet looks directly at me. “You might want to go help your friend,” she says. “I think I knocked him out.”
Patty laughs and they walk off together. I hear her say “Jerks!” I head for the corner.
Tony is just a few yards away, on the other side of the kiddie pool. He's rubbing his jaw.
“She punch you?” I ask.
He puts a finger to his tongue, then pulls it away and looks at it. It's pretty dark over here, but I can tell that there isn't any blood.
“Just once,” he says. He laughs. “I didn't know where to stop.”
“I guess she let you know.”
“Yeah, she did.”
We sit on the same bench I'd been on with Patty.
“So what happened?” I ask.
“She let me kiss her a couple of times. It was good. Then I got my hands up too high. I said it was a mistake. The second time I did it she belted me.”
I crack up. He does, too.
“So how'd you do?” he asks.
“I didn't get punched.”
“That's good. Let's get out of here. I've had enough for one night.”
“Let's go.”
We pass through the gate and head up the hill. We stop near the Little League fields and look back at the basketball court. It's fairly full now; most people are dancing. We can see Patty and Janet out there, too.
If it wasn't for Tony, I never would have come here. No way. It didn't work out so good, but I guess I'm glad I came.
Tony has no idea what he's doing, but I gotta give him credit. He was definitely in there trying.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 29:
Thirty-two Hours Away
I
watch game shows and old comedies all morning.
I Love Lucy
,
Gilligan's Island
,
Concentration
. I eat two bowls of cereal, a grape ice pop, and a peanut butter sandwich.
“So you had fun last night?” Mom asks.
“I guess. Sort of.”
“Did you dance with anybody special?”
Does she really think I'd answer that even if I had? “Tony's pretty special.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don't know how to dance.”
She puts her hand on top of my head and strokes my hair. “You'll learn. This is a big year for you, Brody. Junior high school can be intimidating, but you'll do fine. Just be yourself.”
“Who else would I be?”
“Oh,” she says with a laugh, “kids your age try to be all kinds of people. You'll see.”
I sink lower into the couch.
“I have some good news,” she says. “I found out who your teacher is.”
“You did?” We're not supposed to know until the first day of school.
“Mmm-hmm. It's Mrs. Wilkey. Same teacher Ryan had.”
“Oh.” I figure Mom found that out at the library meeting the other night. There are teachers on the board with her.
“You'll love her,” Mom says. “She's very nice.”
She's also very old, and according to Ryan she wasn't nice at all. We'll see. I've had some teachers before who'd had Ryan first. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it isn't, depending on how much of a pain he was at the time.
Football's got me worried. It's been a while since I carried the ball, but those fumbles are haunting me. What'll it be like out there under the lights, with everybody watching, in an actual game with everything on the line? I'm scared to death I'll screw up, miss a tackle on a kickoff, and be responsible for a big runback.
Game time is thirty-two hours away, and there's no way I can stand this kind of pressure until then. So I grab a basketball and head out to the driveway to shoot.
I'm thinking about trying out for the Franklin basketball team, but that'll be mostly eighth graders and I'll be at a size disadvantage. But I'm
always
at a disadvantage, so that's nothing new.
Anyway, I've got an entire football season to get through first.
I can shoot. At least here in the driveway. Ryan says our basket is probably three or four inches too low, but we've never measured it.
I take a long shot and it swishes through the net. I sprint in and follow it with a layup, then dribble out to the foul line and hit another.
I'm wondering what it must have felt like for Tony when he kissed Janet last night. However good it must have felt, it was probably overcome by that punch to the face he got afterward. I imagine his lip is puffy today.
Guess that could have been me, since Tony's original plan had him winding up with Patty. Then again, maybe that's what Patty wanted. Maybe she would have kissed him, too. And instead of just a nasty reply from Patty, I would have been the one getting belted by Janet.
But either way, I definitely had the whole thing wrong in my head. That summer-long crush I hoped Patty had on me turned out to be anything but. I felt about seven years old when she called us jerks.
I don't feel any different than I did a year ago, when I was heading into sixth grade. I have no idea what goes on inside girls' heads. I don't have any idea what goes on inside guys' heads, either, at least not the cool ones.
What's inside my head right now is nervousness and embarrassment. Good combination.
Franklin School, here I come.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 30:
Unnecessary Roughness
I
look pretty good in the game jersey. I'm all suited up by four forty-five for the seven o'clock game. Tony finally comes by, and we walk down to the field. His lip doesn't look any worse than mine did last week.
“You scared?” he asks me.
“What for?” I'm sure he can tell that I am.
“Me, too,” he says. “But I can't wait to make that first hit. Just nail somebody on the opening kickoff, you know? Knock all the nerves right out of my system.”
“That would work.”
But we win the coin toss and decide to receive the ball, so we won't be kicking off after all. We stand on the sidelines and watch.
East Rutherford is apparently better than they were a year ago. The game is scoreless at halftime. We spent the first half standing off to the side, yelling but not really feeling like part of the team.
Tony grabs my sleeve as we walk out of the locker room for the second half. “Nice and clean,” he says.
“Won't be for long,” I say. Now we'll be kicking off.
East Rutherford has a fast running back who almost broke a couple in the second quarter. Number 33. He's back deep for the kick, so we're wary.
Mitchell's kick is high and relatively short, and it drifts toward my side of the field. One of the midfield players circles back and catches it, and he immediately swings toward the opposite sideline. I do my box-in around the thirty; otherwise the whole play would be past me. Everybody else from our team is heading toward the return man.
But suddenly 33 is coming toward me with the ball.
“Reverse!” somebody yells.
The guy cuts sharply up the middle of the field as he draws even with me, but I'm ten yards from him. The field is wide open.
I pivot and start angling toward him at full speed. There's no way I'll catch him without help, but I can see Mitchell heading toward him from the opposite side. So the guy gives a head fake and hesitates just slightly, veering into my path. I lunge and wrap both arms around his churning legs, and Mitchell hits him high.
I saved a touchdown, but they're at our forty-two. I get to my knees and hop up. My teammates are clapping as I run off the field. Magrini punches my arm.
Coach Epstein smacks me lightly on the shoulder pad and says, “Nice job!”
Ferrante holds out a palm and I meet it.
My heart is beating ferociously, and my breathing is short and hard. That's excitement, not fatigue. I stand closer to the coaches now, a foot back from the sideline.
Unfortunately, all I did was postpone the touchdown, because they drive down the field with a solid running game. Number 33 takes it the last seven yards to the end zone.
But they get greedy. They try the same play to the other side for the conversion, and Magrini reads it well. He drops the guy for a loss, so the score stays 6–0.
“Get it right back!” Coach Epstein says. He grabs Ferrante's arm and whispers intensely to him while East Rutherford kicks off.
BOOK: War and Watermelon
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