Perfect Season

by Tim Green

  Troy attended and felt awful.

  Whereas the week before players and coaches had looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and wonderment, he now got treated—except from Thane and Chuku’s dad—like one of the ball boys. People were polite, but no one really cared. Mr. Cole wished him good luck before the game. At the beginning, Coaches Kollar and Crosley glanced at him hopefully from time to time, but Troy had nothing to give them and they stopped before the first half ended. Afterward—even though the Jets won and people were happy—the owner was nowhere to be seen.

  The reporters ignored him, too. That was a relief anyway. Ritchie Anderson didn’t ask him to talk at the press conference. The football-genius story seemed to be officially dead. Troy found his mom in the tunnel. She had a parking spot in the players’ lot underneath the stadium. They got out of there before anyone else.

  When they pulled out onto the turnpike, Troy’s mom frowned at the road. “I’m sorry, Troy.”

  “I just want to get as far away from this place as I can.” He thumped his head against the window.

  “If he hadn’t already paid you—”

  “The money my father stole?” he interrupted.

  She gave a short nod. “I’d say you could just quit. I hate seeing you have to go through all this. I’m your mother. I’m supposed to make the hurt go away.

  “But I feel like you’ve got to try.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  FOR THE NEXT COUPLE of weeks, Troy did try.

  He didn’t focus on his job with the Jets as much as he did learning the game plan for his opponents on Friday nights, but he tried. That’s what he told Mr. Cole, and Troy was grateful that the owner seemed almost to have lost interest in him. The coaches and players certainly had. Troy looked at his Sunday outings as the price he had to pay for the joys of playing on a winning football team on which he was the star quarterback.

  His own Summit team seemed to only get better with each passing week. Troy was certainly a huge part of the reason, because—along with his line and receivers—he kept improving. Articles began to appear in the smaller, local papers about him and Chuku, the Killer Kombo. Troy’s timing on passes, his fakes on bootlegs and play-action passes, made Coach Sindoni pucker his lips from time to time and let out a low whistle that filled Troy with joy.

  He was so thrilled that the bad stuff seemed to be nothing more than minor annoyances, like pesky mosquitoes on a wonderful summer evening.

  On the morning after the Summit team’s sixth win Troy sat undefeated at the kitchen table and opened the Saturday morning newspaper to read about himself. He chewed on the words and gulped them down as if they were the marshmallows in his breakfast cereal.

  “Mom.” Troy tapped the paper until she put down her pencil and looked up from a Sudoku puzzle. “This guy called me a ‘phenom.’ How about that? I’d rather be that than a genius. Geniuses are a dime a dozen. And they’re saying I’m a candidate for the All-State team. Can you imagine? As an eighth grader? It’s never been done, Mom.”

  “Let me see.” Tate leaned over his shoulder. “That’s awesome, Troy. Phenom. Cool.”

  Troy searched his mind for something enthusiastic to say to Tate, something to return the compliment. The trouble was that things for Tate weren’t going so great. Her mom was still stuck in San Diego with her dad, who wasn’t doing any better at all. She had made the JV soccer team, which was a pretty big deal as an eighth grader, except for the fact that even though she was evolving into the star player, the team itself had won only two games.

  “Thanks, Tate.” That was all Troy could think of.

  Troy’s mom smiled at the “phenom” news, but something was missing.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?” Troy asked.

  “Well . . .” She took a sip of coffee. “I just wish the Jets were winning as much as Summit.”

  Troy frowned at her for raining on his parade. “They’ve won a couple of games . . . and I’m trying, Mom. I am. I said I was, and I am.”

  “Oh, I’m proud of you, Troy.” Her smile lost its baggage for a moment. “All those touchdowns. Don’t think I’m not. But I worry about the Jets. Mr. Cole had such big plans for the team, and all that money. Don’t look at me like that—I’m your mom. I’m supposed to worry.”

  Troy nodded because he guessed he understood. It wasn’t going to dampen his enthusiasm, though. With the team winning and him playing so well, even an annoyance like Grant Reed and his continued wisecracks about the kindergarten corner had become as meaningless as a raspberry seed stuck in his teeth.

  “Do you know if we win our next three games it’ll be a perfect season?” Troy’s voice bubbled. “That’s never been done before in Summit High School football history. After that, it’ll be on to the playoffs. Think about it, Mom. Seth said Mr. Biondi told him that if we do that, he knows we’ll get the support for a new stadium. When that happens—with the record we’ll have—St. Stephen’s isn’t going to be the place to be anymore . . . Summit is!”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  THE FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY, THEY were at the breakfast table when Tate got a text from Ty, inviting all of them—including Seth—to join him and Thane at a charity party in Manhattan at the Guggenheim Museum.

  “Me, too?” Troy craned his neck to see if he was really mentioned in the text or if Tate was making it up. He felt a bit guilty for having let Ty fade from his life. “We haven’t even spoken.”

  “Chuku is probably going. His dad’s on the list.” Tate kept reading her phone. “I guess the mayor is going to be there, and the cast from Glee. Wow. That’s cool.”

  “Chuku doesn’t like Glee.” Troy just couldn’t see Chuku getting excited about some stuffy charity event. “Me neither.”

  “Can we go, Ms. White? He’s picking us up in a limo.” Tate showed her phone to Troy, practically glowing with delight.

  “I love that cheerleading coach. Jane Lynch, right? Sounds fun,” Troy’s mom said.

  “We’ve been in plenty of limos,” Troy grumbled.

  “Do you want me to ask him who else is gonna be there? Maybe Eli Manning.” Tate started to text Ty back.

  “Naw,” Troy said. “Who cares?”

  His mom let her spatula clatter into the sink. She set plates of eggs and toast down in front of them both. “Eli Manning? You love Eli Manning, Troy, and you know it.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t need to be glomming onto him in some crowd.” Troy picked up his fork and broke open his eggs so that orange yolk gushed onto the plate. He didn’t want to say how much he loved Eli Manning because the idea of being Ty’s guest just didn’t sit quite right.

  Tate stopped texting. “You don’t want to go?”

  “No, I’ll go.” Troy stuffed some egg into his mouth and talked while he chewed. “It’s just no big deal, that’s all.”

  Tate’s phone buzzed. “He sent me a screen shot of the invitation. It’s five thousand dollars a couple. That’s a big deal.”

  “Tate, it’s not polite to talk about money.” Troy stared at her until she blushed and shrugged and started to eat.

  “Tell him we’d love to go, Tate.” Troy’s mom sat down and she shot Troy a disapproving look. “All of us.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  THEY DIDN’T EAT DINNER that night because Thane talked with Troy’s mom and said they’d have a ton of food at the party. Troy’s mom made him put on some church clothes, which gave him something legitimate to grumble about. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to grumble, but he knew part of it was that he should be the one picking people up in limos. He was the one with a multimillion-dollar contract, not Ty.

  When the limo pulled up and beeped, Tate dashed out onto the front porch, then sprang back inside the door. “Check it out! It’s a huge Humvee! White! It’s like the one on The Bachelorette!”

  Seth and his mom walked out into the front hall from the kitchen looking like movie stars.

  “Nice,” Seth said, peering out the open door and smiling at Tate.
>
  Troy felt as if it was going to be a long night.

  Thane and Ty sat in the backseat facing forward, with a space between them. When they all climbed in, Thane said, “Here, Tate. We saved this seat for you, right, Ty?”

  Ty’s face practically turned purple. When Tate slapped his knee and said hello, all he could do was stutter and mumble something about being sorry to hear about her dad. Troy felt pretty satisfied that the whole way into the city, Ty couldn’t find his tongue.

  When they climbed out in front of the big museum that looked like an upside-down wedding cake, Troy leaned close to Tate. “A limo can’t make you smooth, right?”

  Tate shot him a scowl, then turned to Thane. “Thank you for inviting us.”

  “Hey.” Thane laughed. “You guys are family.”

  Inside, waiters carried trays covered in white linen and loaded up with drinks and fancy stuff to eat that Troy gobbled down: scallops wrapped in bacon, deep-fried shrimp, little triangles of fried cheese, and even mini hot dogs wrapped in puffy blankets of golden dough.

  Several players from the Giants and the Jets were there, including Mr. Moore and Chuku, who wore a white Polo shirt with red pants and some Converse sneakers.

  Troy fist-bumped Chuku before Chuku spread his grin all around.

  “What’s up, dawg? I didn’t know they let just anybody into this place.” Chuku raised his eyebrows and everyone laughed. Encouraged, Chuku proceeded to work the room, introducing himself to TV and sports stars alike as an equal. It made Troy laugh.

  Ty hung back during it all, his eyes rarely leaving Tate, acting so timid he could barely speak. Troy had to admit that he took advantage of the situation by following Chuku’s lead, talking with the Giants’ massive defensive lineman, Jason Pierre-Paul, and joking with them about who was going to get more quarterback sacks this season as if they were old buddies.

  Behind it all, Troy wasn’t only trying to put himself on equal footing with Ty, he wanted to send a secret message that Ty needed him. If Ty wanted to be close to Tate, being Troy’s valued teammate was the best way to do it.

  When Eli Manning appeared, though, it was Troy whose tongue got tied. The famous quarterback seemed shy himself, but other people swarmed him, and before Troy knew it one of the PR people was tugging Eli’s arm and saying they had to go. Troy stood frozen, missing his chance.

  It was Ty who stepped right into the fray and stuck out his hand so that Manning could only knit his brow and shake.

  “Eli, you need to meet my cousin. He’s the football genius. You know, Troy White?” Ty grabbed Troy’s arm and dragged him in front of Eli Manning before putting their hands together to shake. “Wait, let me get a picture.”

  Ty stepped back and snapped off a photo on his phone. “Thanks, Eli!”

  The PR person looked insulted and quickly hustled Eli away through the crowd. Troy could only stare at his cousin.

  Ty gave a small shrug and a cautious smile. “I knew you’d want a picture, and I really feel bad about us not playing together, Troy. Really.”

  In an instant, Troy remembered how much he liked his cousin and why.

  “Hey, Ty. You know what you gotta do?” Troy put an arm around Ty and steered him toward Tate. “Show Tate that YouTube video of a talking cat you showed me. Tate loves cats.”

  When Tate giggled at it, Ty broke out into a monster smile and Troy nudged him even closer.

  There was more food on the next level and Troy began to really enjoy himself. When he and his friends found themselves beneath a painting by Marc Chagall, Troy remembered something from his reading and told his friends that the painter was once a poor Russian peasant.

  “My man is more than a football genius.” Chuku pulled Troy close in a one-armed hug.

  Troy accepted the praise then continued to mingle. His interaction with Ty lifted a weight free from his heart. He felt at home among the colorful lights, the tinkling of glasses, the soft murmur, and the eruptions of polite laughter from rich and famous people raising money for a children’s hospital. It was as though he was meant for things like this, meant to be outstanding and live an above-average life. By the time they emerged from the Lincoln Tunnel and looped around a bridge so they could clearly see the bright lights of New York City in their wake, Troy was confident that things were once again going his way.

  So when he shook Ty’s hand, he grabbed it with the other as well and coaxed another smile onto his cousin’s face before he slid out of the car.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  SUMMIT FOOTBALL WAS THE place to be a high school player.

  They won again and, even though Troy had to suffer through another Jets loss that weekend, it couldn’t dampen his spirits about football.

  Seth had stopped asking Troy to predict plays in their games, and Troy’s heart swelled with affection for his coach, friend, and father figure for not pushing him on the subject. Instead, Seth urged Troy to spend as much time as he possibly could with Coach Sindoni, studying the other teams’ defenses and preparing game plans to defeat them. Troy loved it.

  The only person Troy spent more time with than Coach Sindoni was Chuku. The Killer Kombo was official. In school, they walked the halls together in a league of their own, two eighth graders who were the stars of the varsity football team. Troy led the league in passing, and Chuku led the league in receiving. The two of them had big dreams, and they liked to dream them out loud, together.

  “Man,” Chuku said one day in the lunch room, wrinkling his face, “I know you like this UCF team, but I’m thinking Alabama . . . maybe Texas.”

  Troy could only laugh, partly from embarrassment at Chuku talking about such things in front of people, and partly from the thrill that it really might come true.

  The whole town of Summit, in fact, was abuzz with football, the team, its coaches, and especially its very young star quarterback and wide receiver.

  The football team was undefeated, 6–0, and other people besides Troy and his teammates were beginning to whisper about a perfect season, something Summit had never achieved in the school’s entire history. The better Summit did, the easier Troy found it to forgive Thane. The one he felt bad for was Ty, relegated to a middle school team that played on Thursdays after school when almost no one could go and watch. Certainly there weren’t any TV cameras, newspaper articles, or highlights on the eleven o’clock news.

  On the Friday night of their big game against East Orange, Troy was thinking about Ty, surveying the crowd as he liked to do right before warm-ups, and wondering if he’d see his two cousins at tonight’s game. Ty’s text to Tate had again been vague, so when he saw them sitting with Tate and his mom, he smiled and waved to all four of them. Troy appreciated the way Thane had continued to treat him well during his Sunday afternoons with the Jets or on the charter flights when the games were away. Even though the Jets’ season was seriously floundering, Thane gave no indication that he blamed Troy in any way. Troy wasn’t quite sure that if he were in Thane’s shoes he’d manage to be so friendly and forgiving.

  Knowing Ty and Troy were in the stands gave Troy an added boost and his passes seemed to fly during warm-ups with some extra zip. That didn’t bother Chuku. He liked it when Troy heated up his passes, and he was prancing around the field like a stallion ready to break out of the gate. Troy had a light sweat as he marched with the team up the steps alongside the bleachers and toward the locker room for Seth’s pregame speech. He had to admit that the sight of the tall man in the suit didn’t shock him, because it was normal for Troy to see the man whether the team played home or away, and he always stood out because of his towering height and his suit and tie.

  What did shock Troy was the look on Mr. Biondi’s face as he left the tall man’s side and tapped Seth’s arm. The tall man disappeared into the crowd as Mr. Biondi tugged Seth away from the team toward the side entrance to the school. Troy slowed his pace and hung back by the door to watch them talking before Coach Sindoni grabbed him and pulled him inside, closing t
he team room door and sealing in the smell of sweaty shoulder pads, body odor, and Icy Hot.

  “Seth’s out there,” Troy said to Coach Sindoni.

  “I know, with the AD, probably something about the national anthem or the team introductions,” said the coach. “Don’t worry about that nonsense, you’ve got a game and I’ve got some things I want to go over with you, last minute, on the greaseboard.”

  Troy tried to concentrate on Coach Sindoni’s words and the diagrams on the board, but something told him—maybe it was the look on Mr. Biondi’s face—that things just weren’t right. To confirm his thoughts, the clubhouse door banged open. Seth stamped inside and banged it shut.

  “Bring it in!” The pressure built up behind Seth’s face as if he was going to explode. “Everyone! Now! Quiet!”

  The team crowded into the benches in front of the main greaseboard at the center of the room. Seth seemed to compose himself, but spasms plagued his face, twisting it from anger to disgust to despair and back again.

  “Okay. Here’s the deal.” Seth’s voice quavered. “When you work hard, when you succeed—I mean, we’ve got a perfect season going here—people will always be gunning for you. And if they can’t beat you, they cheat you . . .”

  Seth looked around. No one spoke. No one moved.

  “Right,” Seth said. “You guys have no idea what I’m talking about. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to tell you, but I’m going to. I’m going to tell you because it might mean that everything we’ve done is for nothing, but most of all, I’m going to tell you to make you mad.”

  Seth’s eyes traveled over every face. “We have done nothing wrong, but someone says we have. Guys, the AD just told me that we’re under investigation by the league for rules violations, recruiting or something. I can’t even imagine where they got that crazy idea, but the league is talking about suspending us and making us forfeit our games.”

  No one spoke.

  “I know,” Seth said. “What can you say? Nothing. But guys, whether this game counts on our record or not, it might be our last, so let’s make it good . . . Let’s make sure people know that Summit football is for real. Summit football is the best. Let’s go prove that against East Orange. I WANT YOU TO PUNISH THEM!”