The Perfect Star

by Rob Buyea

  “C’mon, Randi. We’d better get you to the athlete area,” Coach Andrea said, saving me from an uncomfortable situation. She gave me a gentle nudge in the small of my back, and we started walking.

  “See you after, honey,” Mom said.

  “Nice meeting you, Randi,” Jacob said.

  “You too,” I replied.

  But had it been nice? “Concerning” was more like it.

  * * *

  —

  Fast forward just a few weeks, and all of a sudden I was inside Jacob’s gym—Svetlana’s. Mom had really wanted us to come, and Coach Andrea had agreed that it would be good for me. I wasn’t sure I believed that, but I hadn’t put up a fight.

  Svetlana’s was a gorgeous gym. There was way more space and equipment than in my home gym. Coach Barbara and Coach Linda introduced themselves as soon as I got there and said they were happy to have me joining them. The other gymnasts were all very nice, too. We were competing in different divisions at the showcase, so it was a friendly and supportive environment. Coach Linda put some music on, and we got started warming up—and all was good.

  After stretching, we began working on floor. We drilled cartwheels and roundoffs, front and back handsprings, and front and back tucks to loosen up, and then we took turns running through our tumbling passes. I watched a couple of girls hit high-flying and acrobatic passes and felt myself getting excited. The energy in the gym was incredible. My competitive juices were flowing. When it was my turn, I soared. I nailed my pass. And I did it again. And again. I felt great.

  “Randi, that’s got a perfect ten written all over it,” Coach Linda said.

  I smiled and high-fived with a couple of girls.

  Next up, the coaches had us rehearsing our dance and leap passes. I hit a few routine straddle jumps. Then I did a sissonne and ran into my switch full.

  Pop!

  The moment my lead leg came down onto the mat, I felt it. My knee disappeared from under me, and I crumbled. I lay in a heap on the mat, clutching at the burning and throbbing pain shooting through my body.

  It hurt—but I was more scared than I was in pain. I knew it was bad.

  NATALIE KURTSMAN

  ASPIRING LAWYER

  Kurtsman Law Offices

  BRIEF #1

  Summer: A Case of Things Coming in Threes: A Letter, a Talk, a Text

  Unlike the big-announcement letters that had arrived closer to the start of school the previous two summers, this one came early. It was addressed to Mother and Father, but I was allowed to open it, since it was from Lake View Middle; that was our rule. I waited until I was at the law office, and then I found a chair in the conference room and began reading.

  Dear Eighth-Grade Parents & Guardians:

  I hope this letter finds you well and that you’ve been able to enjoy the beautiful weather and time with your children. I don’t want to rush away the summer, but I have news to share.

  The eighth-grade teachers and administration have been in search of something special for our students, and we believe we’ve found it. We’d like to send our eighth graders to Nature’s Learning Lab this fall. Nature’s Learning Lab is an overnight, outdoor-education experience roughly two hours northwest of here. This opportunity would enrich our curriculum and provide a wonderful community-building component. Students would live and learn together and gain a new appreciation for and perspective on our world and their place in it. We would leave school on a Monday morning and return the following Friday afternoon. You can read more about the facility and the experience on their website, www.natureslearninglab.org.

  We are in the early stages of the planning process, but before getting too far into the details, we’d first like to gather your feedback. We ask that by the end of next week you kindly complete the short survey that can be found on our school website. Essentially, we need to know how many of our students would like to participate in this adventure.

  Thank you for your time and your continued support of our children’s education.

  Go Warriors!

  Albert Allen (principal) and the eighth-grade team

  An overnight outdoor learning experience? What did that mean? Was I supposed to sleep in a tent? Preposterous! Completely out of the question. If that were the case, Mother could inform Mr. Allen that I would not be attending.

  I grabbed the letter and marched directly into her office. I could see that she was busy, buried in work behind her computer, but there was no time to waste. “Mother, I’m sorry to interrupt, but something came from school that I need you to read.”

  “Is it about Nature’s Learning Lab?”

  My brow furrowed. “Yes,” I replied. “How did you know?”

  “The letter was sent electronically as well.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I meant to, but then I got busy and forgot. I’m sorry.”

  “What about the survey? Did you complete that?” I asked.

  “Already taken care of.”

  “Mother! Without consulting me! How did you respond?”

  “I said you’d go.”

  “Mother! How could you? I might have to sleep in a tent!”

  Finally, she stopped what she was doing and looked at me. “So?”

  “So!” I shrieked.

  “It will be good for you.”

  “Good for me! I’m not talking to you for the rest of the day. I can’t believe you didn’t consider asking me first. Now you can send Mr. Allen an email explaining your mistake, because I’m. Not. Going.” I spun around and stamped out her door.

  I heard Mother sigh, but she didn’t try to stop me; she knew not to mess with me when I got into one of my moods—and I was in a mood.

  Needless to say, I left the office with much on my mind that afternoon. I hated to bother Randi when she was away training, but I sent her a quick text: Need to talk.

  It wasn’t surprising that I struggled to fall asleep that night. I had the dread of Nature’s Learning Lab haunting me, and as if that weren’t enough, I received a text just before bed that put me over the edge—and it wasn’t from Randi.

  My summer was a catch-22. What the heck did that mean? For one, it meant I was glad to be done with early mornings and homework and classes, but without school, I didn’t get to see my friends. For two, it meant Mrs. Magenta was spending all her time with her mom and dad and husband now that we had helped fix their family feud—and I couldn’t blame her for that—so her community service program wasn’t happening. And for three, it meant Mark was around in the beginning, but then he took off on this month-long family vacation seeing relatives, leaving me with nothing to do. I wanted to hang out with everyone—especially Natalie—but I didn’t know how to make that happen. How was Natalie supposed to be my girlfriend if I never got to see her? Basically, the catch-22 was, it was great that it was summer, but my summer sucked.

  To tell you the truth, I don’t know if any of the junk I just mentioned really qualified as a catch-22. You’d have to ask my brother, Brian. He was the one I’d heard use the phrase. He was reading a book with that title, so he’d started saying it. According to him, Catch-22 was on some list of the greatest one hundred books of all time, and reading those books had become one of his new goals. His girlfriend, Madison, had encouraged it. Brian and Madison had only been together a few months, but my brother was way better with her in his life. She was a definite keeper, even though the book thing was stupid, but I didn’t care—until Brian tried talking to me about the crap he was reading.

  “You wasting your time reading that garbage is the catch-22, because it sounds really dumb,” I said.

  “That’s not a catch-22, it’s irony,” he corrected me.

  “It’s a catch-22 because you’re dumb, then.”

  Brian la
ughed.

  Thanks to my pathetic summer, I was in no mood to hear him babble about any of his stupid books. Simple as that. But he got my attention when he popped over on his way to work one night and mentioned the beach.

  “I’m taking Madison to the beach next Friday. You want to come along with your girlfriend?”

  With those few words my summer instantly went from sucky and boring to scary and exciting. Here was my chance, the perk of having an older brother, but what came out of my mouth was, “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? What do you mean? Natalie’s your girlfriend, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then what don’t you know?”

  “I don’t know if she’ll come,” I admitted.

  “Ask her,” Brian said, making it sound that easy when it wasn’t.

  “But we haven’t ever gone anywhere as a couple.”

  “So here’s your chance, Romeo. Call and ask her. But don’t text her. Got it?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. I’ve gotta run. See you later.”

  “Later.”

  Brian left, and I stared at my phone. Here was the real catch-22. I finally understood. If I didn’t call, I was an idiot. But if I did call, I was still an idiot, because Natalie had made it clear that we were taking our relationship slow, which meant we only talked on the phone on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and it was Wednesday. So I could wait and call her later, but if I did that, I was an idiot, because the longer I waited, the greater the chance was that she’d make plans to do something else. And knowing Natalie, she’d probably want the extra time to prepare. No matter which way you sliced it, I was an idiot. It was an impossible situation—a catch-22.

  I wished I had somebody to talk to about this stuff, but Mark was gone, and besides, he was the last person I could talk to about Natalie. I was on my own. After considerable stressing out, I finally decided to suck it up and go for it.

  I’ll call on three, I told myself. One. Two. Three. Nothing. I counted again. Then again. It didn’t matter how many times I tried, I wasn’t calling. I was too chicken, and that was all there was to it, so I settled for the safer approach—against Brian’s advice. I sent her a text. Two texts.

  want 2 go 2 the beach w/me next friday

  my brother and his gf are going 2

  And then I waited for her reply.

  The waiting was the hardest part.

  If you train and compete at a high level, injuries are bound to happen. It’s almost inevitable. Some would say it’s part of the sport. But was it part of my destiny? Or was it a warning?

  My little brother, Mickey, needed to get a physical before starting school this year. I didn’t want to get dragged along to his appointment, because that would be worse than clothes shopping, so I made a deal with Mom that she would drop me off at the Senior Center to spend the afternoon with Grandpa while she took Mickey. I got Gavin to come with me because we weren’t in Mrs. Magenta’s program this summer and I was super-bored and missing the Recruits—and also because I knew Gavin would want to see Coach.

  “Hi, Gavin,” Mom said, greeting him when he got into our van.

  “Hi, Mrs. Mason. Hi, Mickey. Hi, Scott,” Gavin replied.

  Mickey waved, but Gavin and I did a fist bump.

  “How’s summer going?” Mom asked.

  “Pretty good. Just waiting for the school to hire a football coach.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard. I’m sure they’ll find somebody soon,” Mom said.

  It didn’t take us long to get to the Senior Center from Gavin’s house, and that was good because I was starting to have a hard time sitting still. When Mom pulled into the parking lot, I unbuckled my seat belt before she even stopped.

  “Have fun at the doctor’s,” I said.

  Mickey stuck his tongue out at us and scowled.

  “Gavin, I’m counting on you to keep Scott and his grandfather out of trouble,” Mom said.

  Gavin chuckled. “Sure thing, Mrs. Mason.”

  I pulled open the sliding door, and we hopped out and ran inside. We found Grandpa and Coach hanging out in Coach’s room just like we’d expected. Mrs. Woods was there, too, which was an extra bonus.

  “Hi, everybody,” I sang when we walked in.

  “Well, hello, gentlemen,” Mrs. Woods replied in a cheery voice. “What a nice surprise to see you here.”

  “Hi, boys,” Grandpa said.

  Coach didn’t bother saying anything. He was busy studying some kind of book.

  “What’re you doing, Grandpa?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing really. Just sitting here with my cat, farting around with this crossword puzzle until Coach decides it’s time for our chess match.”

  I walked over and gave Smoky a scratch behind the ears, and his purring motor fired up. He loved a scratch behind the ears almost as much as he loved Grandpa’s lap.

  “What’s Coach looking at?” Gavin asked Grandpa.

  “Pearl brought him an old scrapbook today to exercise his memory.”

  “How’s he doing?” Gavin whispered.

  Grandpa shrugged and tried smiling, but it was a smile that said, Not the greatest. We watched Coach. Mrs. Woods was sitting next to him so that she could remind his memory when he needed it. I wondered if she’d been helping him a lot.

  “Go have a peek,” Grandpa said.

  Gavin and I crept closer and saw the newspaper clippings, photographs, ticket stubs, and other things stuck on those pages.

  “What’s this?” Coach asked.

  Mrs. Woods looked. “That’s from a long time ago when you took me to a concert at the beach,” she reminded him.

  Coach flipped the page over. His face scrunched. “Who’s that?” he asked, pointing to an old snapshot.

  “That’s you with your first football captains.”

  “Wow, that’s Coach?” I shouted. “He’s so young. Look at all that hair!”

  Coach glanced up at Gavin and me and then turned back to his book.

  Mrs. Woods chuckled. “Any word from the school about a new football coach yet?” she asked us.

  “No, not yet,” Gavin mumbled. “If we don’t hire someone soon, we’re gonna be in danger of missing preseason camp.”

  “We did get a letter about the eighth grade maybe going to a sleepaway camp!” I exclaimed. “An outdoor-education place. I hope we go.”

  “Sleepaway camp?” Grandpa repeated. “You let me know about that, because I’ve got a few tricks I can show you ahead of time.”

  “Mom said not to tell you because you’d say that.”

  “You didn’t tell me. You told Mrs. Woods. I just happened to hear.”

  I grinned.

  “You boys don’t need to keep standing there,” Mrs. Woods said. “Pull up a chair.”

  Gavin did, but I decided to get the chessboard and challenge Grandpa to a match since Coach wasn’t playing. It was fun trying to outwit Grandpa, and it was also fun listening to Mrs. Woods talk about the different pictures and clippings even when I couldn’t see them. I just wished Coach were the one doing more of the talking. I liked when he told his stories.

  “How are the rest of the Recruits?” Mrs. Woods asked after they’d finished with the scrapbook.

  “Mark’s gone on some sorta family vacation, and I haven’t heard much from Trevor or Kurtsman,” Gavin said. “And Randi’s away training for a big summer showcase at some guy’s gym her mom knows.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I exclaimed.

  “That’s exciting,” Mrs. Woods said. She patted Gavin’s knee. “You boys hang in there. You’ll have a coach soon. You mark my words.”

  Mrs. Woods got up then and walked over to her bag. “Now, one more thing,” she said. “I’ve been waiting to give you these.” She handed each of
us a book.

  Gavin got From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Mrs. Woods told him it would be a good one to read with Meggie, and I agreed. I’d read it and loved it. It was about a brother and sister running away together. My book was called Chasing Space. It was an autobiography by Leland Melvin, a football player turned astronaut. That seemed like a good combination, so I knew it was going to be a good book.

  “Thank you,” we said.

  I sure liked leaving with presents that afternoon, but I would’ve felt better if Coach had at least talked to us a little. Gavin said the same thing.

  Jacob did everything he could to make it better—but making it better was impossible. Still, he tried—and I noticed, even if I didn’t say anything. He helped me onto a bench in their training room and grabbed me some ice.

  “How bad is it?” Mom kept asking.

  Jacob continued to reassure her, so I didn’t have to answer. He got Mom a coffee and calmed her down, and then he made a phone call to his sports doctor friend. Because it was Jacob, they pulled some strings at the office and got me in that afternoon, so I didn’t have to go to the emergency room.

  Dr. Pierce was nice but not overly sympathetic, and that was good, because I wanted answers, not condolences. Mom was the one who needed the shoulder to cry on, and lucky for her, Jacob was there. Dr. Pierce ordered X-rays so that he could rule out the possibility of a fracture—there wasn’t one—and then he fit me with a knee brace and gave me a pair of crutches.

  “I was able to get you scheduled for an MRI tomorrow,” he said. “After I get the results, we’ll make a plan.”

  “Thank you,” Mom said.

  Jacob shook Dr. Pierce’s hand. “Thanks, buddy.”

  Dr. Pierce nodded. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

  I grabbed my stupid crutches and hobbled out of the room.

  The results came back two days later. As expected, the MRI showed that I had torn my anterior cruciate ligament—the ACL. I remembered Gav talking about an ACL injury after some famous football player had hurt his knee. I’d never thought I’d be the one dealing with the same thing.