Fantasy League

by Mike Lupica

  Knowing her answer before he asked the question.

  “It’s gonna be a big deal, not gonna lie,” she answered. “It’s L.A., it’s the Bulldogs, it’s football.”

  “Now it’s me.”

  “And now it’s you.”

  He was still trying to process what he’d just heard, hearing himself treated like he’d turned into the sports news of the day, and how it was his best friend in the world who’d helped put it out there.

  Anna said, “Remember me telling you that Kevin was giving me some chirp about how he should have been the one to get on his dad’s show? That would have been annoying enough, but then he started acting as if he knew as much about football as you.” She paused before adding, “As much as you and as much as me.”

  “The other day, you mean. I remember.”

  “Do you remember me saying how I set him straight?”

  Charlie said he kind of remembered. It didn’t seem like that huge a deal at the time.

  He could hear her blow out some air at her end of the phone.

  “Well, that’s how I set him straight,” she said. “I told him not to tell anybody, but if he knew so much about football, how come it was you and not him who told Gramps to sign Tom Pinkett?”

  She said Kevin then accused her of making it up, saying his dad had told him it had to have been her uncle Matt who came up with the idea, even if Matt Warren had been in the papers saying it was an “organizational” decision. Acting as if somehow he and his dad knew as much about the whole thing as Anna did.

  That, she said, just chafed her even more, so she told Kevin even stronger than before that it had been Charlie, not her uncle, that Kevin didn’t know what he was talking about and neither did his dad.

  “So you treated it like another competition,” Charlie said. “You wanted to make sure he knew that you knew more stuff than he did. Awesome, Anna. Truly. Awesome.”

  He was on his bed, head back on his pillows, eyes closed. Charlie pretending that as soon as he opened them, the whole thing would be like a dream—or a nightmare—ending as soon as he woke up from it.

  He wasn’t so worried about his secret, if you could even call it a secret, being out there now as much as he was worried that he had put Mr. Warren in a bad spot.

  “I feel bad enough about this,” Anna said. “Don’t try to make me feel worse.”

  “Oh,” Charlie said. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be sorry.”

  “He was just annoying me so much. I told him that all of our guys thought Pinkett was washed-up at first. And Kevin said, ‘So your grandfather listened to Charlie instead of his own son? A twelve-year-old instead of the team GM?’ I said, ‘Yeah, genius, that was pretty much the deal.’ But I made him swear that he wouldn’t tell anybody, and he said he was cool with that.”

  “You should have told me what you meant by ‘handling it,’” Charlie said. “I would have talked to Kevin myself and told him that he couldn’t tell, that it would be a total suckfest if the news got out.”

  “He should have been able to figure that out himself,” Anna said. “He’s not an idiot, no matter how big a mouth he has.”

  “He’s not the only one with a big mouth.”

  He knew he didn’t need to take that kind of shot, but he did it anyway. And it must have landed, because now Anna was quiet.

  He said, “Kevin wouldn’t have had to figure out anything if you hadn’t told him.”

  “Wow,” she said. “Now I’m really starting to feel better.”

  “I didn’t know this was about making you feel better,” Charlie said.

  “As soon as I get off the phone I’m going to call Gramps.”

  “And tell him the whole story?”

  “Just like I told it to you.”

  “Make sure you tell him that I would never have told in a million years,” Charlie said.

  She said she would, she promised.

  “You know I’d never purposely do anything to hurt you?” she said. “You do know that, right?”

  Charlie felt tired all of a sudden. “I know.”

  There was a long silence now, both ends of the phone. Neither one of them ever talked just to talk the way Kevin Fallon did. But right now it was just as if there was nothing more to say.

  Finally Anna said she’d call after she talked to her grandfather, if she could get him. He sometimes went to bed earlier than they did. Charlie said he was going to hit it himself pretty soon.

  “Talk tomorrow, then,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  There was a knock on the door, then Charlie saw his mom stepping inside his room, portable house phone in her hand, and a look on her face that in Charlie’s whole life had never ever meant anything good, at least not for him.

  His mom pointed the phone at him, saying to him, “Is there some reason why I just had to tell a sportswriter from the Los Angeles Times that you’re not allowed to give interviews on school nights?”

  • • •

  Charlie and his mom were sitting at the kitchen table, Charlie just having told her the whole story. She wasn’t a football fan as much as Charlie was, didn’t follow it, only cared about it because he cared about it. He’d tried to explain to her why the Bulldogs getting Tom Pinkett was such a smart thing for them to do—there was hardly any risk, it was the same thing he did in fantasy when he had to make a call on a player, risk versus reward.

  “It’s like some actor who hasn’t had a big part in a long time,” his mom said. “When he gets a big part, everybody says, ‘Where’s he been?’”

  “Exactly.”

  It was past ten o’clock by now, his normal bedtime for a school night, even though his mom liked to joke that it was “soft” ten, knowing how many times she had opened the door and found him still on his laptop.

  “The reporter actually believed I was going to put you on the phone with him,” she said.

  “It’s because I’m a kid,” Charlie said.

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I told Anna before, nobody would think this was a story if it had been an adult who’d suggested Tom Pinkett to Mr. Warren.”

  “It’s not just a story,” his mom said. “People are going to look at it as a drama, especially between Joe Warren and his son.”

  “All because of me.”

  “Not all because of you,” she said, “which is why we are going to keep you out of this. It’s because of Anna and Kevin and Kevin’s dad and, guess what, because your friend Mr. Warren actually decided to sign your other friend the quarterback because you told him to. Everybody’s got to own this.”

  “But I didn’t tell him to!” Charlie said. “All I told him was that I thought the guy could still play.”

  “So he can handle the fallout, not you,” she said. “Hopefully the media will know enough to leave a twelve-year-old boy alone. But no contact with anybody in the media, Charles Christopher Gaines. No Facebook, no Twitter, nothing. Somebody else may choose to keep this drama going. But it’s not going to be us.”

  “I just don’t want Mr. Warren to think it was me that started it.”

  Stuck on that.

  “You said Anna was taking care of that.”

  “The least she could do.”

  “You know she didn’t mean any harm,” his mom said. “In an odd way, it was just her way of defending you with Kevin. Try to look at it that way, as hard as that is for you right now.”

  She had put cookies on a plate between them, even though it was late. Charlie had eaten one, washed it down with a glass of milk. His mom had always told him that cookies and milk could make you feel better about almost anything. In a way, this was the best part of the whole night, the end of it, the two of them sitting here talking.

  He wished they were talking about anything else, but still—it had been a long time since they�
�d sat at the table like this, trying to solve the problems of the universe.

  “How do I handle this tomorrow at school?”

  “You just try to make a joke out of it, say that everything just got blown out of proportion,” she said. “Whatever you do, don’t lie. That’s something that never changes. It’s like I’ve told you your whole life: The truth is always much easier to remember.”

  “Okay.”

  “I wouldn’t even mention it on your next podcast,” she said. “Because that would be a way of you keeping the story going.”

  “Nobody listens to my dopey podcast anyway.”

  “Really?” she said, grinning at him.

  “If Mr. Warren hadn’t thought Tom Pinkett was a good idea, he wouldn’t have brought him to the Bulldogs.”

  “Tell that to your friends.”

  “Okay,” he said again.

  “And now go to bed, Mr. General Manager, and let me figure out how I plan to handle this tomorrow if any of your other new friends in the media decide to call me.”

  “They’re not my friends!” Charlie said. “And don’t call me Mr. General Manager.”

  She said she was just trying to lighten the mood, for both of them, even though Charlie could see she wasn’t happy with what had happened tonight, telling him when they sat down at the table that it wasn’t in her plans to be the parent of a Hollywood child star.

  She said she would be up to say good night in a few minutes, told him not to call anybody, not even Anna, that Anna could tell him about her conversation with her grandfather in the morning. Told him to shut off his computer so he wouldn’t be tempted to go searching the Net to see what people might be saying. They were officially done for the night, his mom said, and would regroup in the morning.

  Charlie did what he was told, went upstairs and washed his face, brushed his teeth, put on a pair of his favorite basketball shorts, and a cool UCLA T-shirt, in that cool UCLA blue, that Anna had gotten him.

  He was even more tired than he thought. His eyes were closing for real when his mom came in, kissed him on the forehead, told him she loved him.

  “Look at my football man,” she said.

  “Yeah, look at me.”

  A couple of minutes after she had shut the door behind her, Charlie heard his phone buzzing on the nightstand next to him. He thought about letting it go to voice mail, but when he looked at the phone this is what he saw:

  L.A. Bulldogs.

  He picked it up and said in a soft voice, “This is Charlie.”

  “And this is your friend Joe Warren,” he said. “I hope it’s not too late to call.”

  “Not tonight it’s not, sir.”

  “Good.”

  “Mr. Warren, I am so sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For all this coming out the way it did about Tom Pinkett and you and Matt.”

  “I just got off the phone with my extremely apologetic granddaughter,” he said. “And I am going to tell you what I told her: chill.”

  The word sounded funny coming from him.

  “But my mom just got a call from a reporter,” Charlie said, making sure to keep his voice down.

  “Probably the same one who called me. Nice young fella named Bill Spencer. Dad’s a columnist in New York. Gil Spencer. Known Gil for years and like him. Most sportswriters are about as fun to deal with as lawyers.”

  Charlie thinking: How could Mr. Warren be this chill?

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Why, I told him the truth. Told him I was watching a preseason game with a young man who knows his football and he suggested we give Tom Pinkett a look, and we did, and we’re glad we did.”

  Charlie pulled the covers over himself. “But what about the part about Matt not wanting him?”

  “Told him the truth about that, too.” Charlie heard the old man laugh. “Told him that we have disagreements all the time about players. HBO could get one of those Hard Knocks series just by setting up cameras in our draft room. Also told him that if fair people were keeping score, my son has made a lot more smart decisions than people realize. And has overruled his old man plenty of times when I wanted to make a really dumb decision.”

  Charlie with the covers over him, talking to the owner of the Bulldogs, about a story that was going to be in the paper about both of them in the morning.

  Not sure anymore whether this was a dream or a nightmare or both.

  “I’m still sorry it came out like this,” Charlie said.

  “It’s okay, Charlie, really it is. For now, just figure out when you can come back to practice,” Joe Warren said. “If that’s still all right with your mom, I’ll set it up with Carlos.”

  Charlie said he would.

  “Before I hang up, not that you actually hang up one of these toy phones, let me leave you with something, Charlie,” Joe Warren said. “It doesn’t matter how old or young you are: The truth will always catch up with you eventually. Trust me on that.”

  “My mom always tells me pretty much the same thing.”

  “Smart woman,” Joe Warren said. “Best thing is to own the truth from the start, whether you like it or not.”

  Using the same expression—owning it—his mom just had.

  Joe Warren said, “Just remember what I’m telling you, Charlie. It’s important.”

  Charlie suddenly wondering if he wanted to talk all night, if he was just settling in the way his granddaughter did sometimes.

  There was a brief silence at his end of the phone, like he wanted to say one more thing, but all the old man said was “Night, kid.”

  Sixteen

  THE NEXT MORNING THE FRONT headline of the sports section read like this: KID GM? Beneath it, the article included this quote from Joe Warren:

  If they’re good ideas, I don’t care where they come from.

  His son, Charlie saw, took a slightly different approach.

  You know what players I’m focused on this week? Matt said in Bill Spencer’s story. I’m focused on our players, and the ones they’re going to be lining up against. Which means this week is pretty much like every other week. Everybody else can have their fun. Getting ready for our next game is always mine.

  When Bill Spencer had gone back at Matt Warren about whether the story about Charlie was true or not, Matt had said, If we continue to have this conversation, we’re both going to feel like twelve-year-olds. I didn’t ask my dad why he wanted me to take another look at Tom Pinkett. But once he asked, we did our due diligence and decided he might help us. End of story.

  Charlie asked his mother what due diligence was.

  “Sort of like homework,” she said. “Do you believe Matt Warren didn’t ask his dad why he wanted Tom Pinkett all of a sudden?”

  “Don’t know,” Charlie said. “And don’t care much right now.”

  She had asked if Charlie wanted her to drive him to school today, but he said no, there was enough weirdness going on, he’d be happy to be on the bus with his friends.

  Yet it turned out the guys on the bus, none of whom actually read the morning paper, had all either read about the story on their phone or had heard from their friends about Charlie and Tom Pinkett.

  Pete Ciccone, one of the better baseball players in their grade, said, “Wow, is it true you’re calling the shots now with the Dogs?”

  “Yeah,” Charlie said, trying to take his mom’s advice, keep things light. “Next I’m thinking about replacing the head coach.”

  Then he quickly added, “Just kidding. People are making way more of this than is actually there.”

  “Not the way it sounded on the TV when I was eating my cereal,” Pete said.

  “It was on the TV this morning?” Charlie said.

  “Just SportsCenter,” Pete said. “Nothing major,” he added with a grin.

 
“Awesome,” Charlie said, shaking his head, staring down at his sneakers. “Truly awesome.”

  Anna was waiting for him in front of the school, no sign of Kevin Fallon, Charlie still not sure how he was going to handle that one. He just wanted to believe that Kevin didn’t want to turn Charlie’s life sideways any more than Anna did, that both of them had gotten into a dumb game of who knew more.

  “You believe how big this has gotten this fast?” Charlie said.

  “I kind of do, actually,” she said. “And you might not want to hear this, especially from me, but it’s not like it’s the end of the world as we know it.”

  “Feels like it.”

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “You’re famous. Get over it.”

  He looked at her, all tough girl now, maybe done apologizing for everything. Going back to being Anna.

  “Get over it?” Charlie said. “I’m sorry, did I do something wrong here?”

  “Did I do something wrong by helping you become famous?” Anna said. “Yeah, get over it, Gaines.”

  He didn’t say anything, mostly because she’d nailed it. And nailed him in the process. She wasn’t right as often as she thought he was—nobody could possibly be. But she was right this time. There was a part of him that didn’t hate this. He still didn’t want to cause trouble for Anna’s grandfather, or her uncle. He genuinely felt bad that this had gotten out the way it had. But for once, Charlie wasn’t just Brain, wasn’t just the football nerd guy.

  He could see it with his classmates on the bus, even the ones he didn’t consider close friends: They were treating him differently today. Not like the child star that his mom had talked about the night before.

  Just a star.

  That was another truth he didn’t want to outrun, that he wasn’t afraid to own, even if he wasn’t going to tell Anna.

  Both their buses had arrived at school early today. So they had some time before the bell rang, went and sat in the grass near the front entrance.

  “Your gramps said he had a good talk with you,” Charlie said, trying to change the subject at least a little bit.

  “He called you? He said he was going to. You guys have a good talk?”

  “They’re all good talks with him.”