by Andrea Cale
When his twin brother finished, the head coach took back the stage.
“I told you he was the better coach,” Flash joked. “Orange and Navy, I know you will win. This talented football fanatic brother of mine knows you will win too. Let me ask this again, do you know you will win?”
Armed with pep talk and new knowledge, the team’s energy took on new life. The players’ shouts raised the hairs on JP’s arms.
“OK then,” said the head coach. “You guys are excused until I see you in the visitors’ locker room on 2269 Dan Marino Boulevard in a few hours. Relax, focus, and reflect on these historic moments for our team.”
As Coach Flash wrapped up his team’s last practice of the season, he knew his twin brother’s impromptu speech would bring confidence to the group. He hoped it would make one player in particular feel more at ease.
“So, do ya have a minute?” the high-school coach asked his former player as the group started to break.
“I don’t know,” JP joked. “My head coach, your own brother, told me not to listen to outside influences right now.”
The player and his former coach shared a laugh.
“Seriously,” the running back said with sudden gravity. “When I saw you walk on the field, I felt like I had taken my first deep breath since I’ve been in Florida. It’s great to see you again, Coach.”
“It goes without saying that everyone back at Jamesville-DeWitt High is very proud of you,” Crash said. “That includes me, you know.”
“Well, I owe all of my achievements to the strong line of coaches who got me where I am today,” JP said. “There has always been some higher power looking over my shoulder to lead me to what everyone seems to think is my destiny.”
“I don’t know about that way of thinking, JP,” Crash said.
The small running back looked at him with a raised brow.
“I’d argue that it’s easy for people to say you’re destined for greatness as an explanation for all of your ongoing achievements, especially when they look at you only from the outside and see your small size,” Crash said. “You have undoubtedly had some great people in your life—your parents, my brother here.”
“You,” JP interjected.
Crash’s stern face told JP the man was no longer joking around.
“Your own hard work and talent are what got you here today,” Crash said. “Don’t underestimate them.”
The pair shook hands.
It was a concept that JP hadn’t pondered. He felt frustrated over letting himself get caught up in a seesaw of emotions since taking up the starting position. But in these final hours before the game, with Crash’s confidence in him, he finally felt relief.
“I’m going to give those undefeated Falcons a run for it!” he announced.
“That’s it, man!” Crash said. “Don’t overthink it. Just find a way to run and you’ll pull this bowl off.”
CHAPTER 33
ALL
Caroline and her fellow University of Boston cheerleaders lifted their maroon-and-gold pompoms and lined both sides of the Falcons’ tunnel in anticipation of the favored team’s sprint onto the field. The squad’s cheers may have been perhaps their most boisterous ones of the season, yet they sounded mute within the sold-out Sun Life Stadium, an arena that frequently hosted the Miami Dolphins, Florida Marlins, and University of Miami teams. On this night, as two of the nation’s best college football teams prepared to face off in the prestigious Orange Bowl, more than seventy-five thousand fans in the stadium had risen in anticipation of being in attendance at an exceptional matchup.
Caroline’s cheer partner lifted her thin body into the air by pushing the soles of her spotless white sneakers upward with seemingly little effort. The motion made her red hair take flight with the white ribbon that dressed it. Her matching white uniform, trimmed with a maroon stripe on the skirt, showed off a toned frame. She lifted her pompoms with great energy, despite loathing the name pompom as well as the saccharine feeling she occasionally got when she waved them around.
On the tips of her partner’s fingers more than seven feet in the air inside the rocking stadium, Caroline wondered whether she would catch Devin’s eyes for the first time since their breakup. She wondered if her distant father had spotted her on the field from the sea of wild fans above. She no longer pondered if the thousands upon thousands of people surrounding her noticed on her pure white uniform a scarlet letter marking a troubled past. Caroline’s short time in Father Santori’s confessional booth had taken care of that worry at long last.
But still missing in the cheerleader’s spiritual journey were the realizations that so many others were carrying around their own invisible letters that defined them—“good” or “bad”—and that the fans in the stadium that night would’ve served as the perfect sample for Father Santori’s human corn husk experiment.
If Caroline could’ve peeled away the layers of each game goer, she would learn that the stadium held exactly 7,109 other people that night who also experienced abuse as children. She would learn that everyone in the packed stands carried around one burden or another. Precisely 2,249 of the fans in the stadium would go on to have a stay in prison at one point in their lives. More than 61,000 would experience the great joys and struggles of parenthood. An unsettling number of 23,954 would have a form of cancer at some point in their lives. Exactly 34,122 fans in the stadium would go on to stay married to their partners through life’s good and bad times. More than 6,841 were currently facing the bump of unemployment in their careers.
The fans stood lonely together, anxious for a break from whatever weighed on their everyday lives. They stood lonely together even though strangers in close proximities shared some aspects of their layered lives in common.
And of the more than 75,000 fans in the stadium, 10,815 of them identified with being badly bullied in school. A sweet, shy boy named Henry was among them as his own bullies remained a safe 1,500 miles away in Brockton, Massachusetts.
Henry’s trip to the Orange Bowl had begun when his favorite Converse sneakers touched the sparkling floors of Boston’s Logan Airport and his body took in the distinct excitement of airport air as passengers busily looked for their departure gates or taxis for the trip home.
“Does your stomach feel all right, Henry?” his mother asked as the boy had stared bravely through the Airbus window with pure fascination, taking breaks only to enjoy his complimentary soda and pretzels. “Do your ears hurt?”
Henry had shaken his head no as he realized that the plane ride was also his mother’s first flight. His great appreciation for the trip made him do something he hadn’t done in months. He had asked her if she was doing fine too.
“I’m fine, Henry,” she said. “I’m just so excited to be here with you.”
Upon reaching Miami Gardens Airport, the mother and son followed the signs to the baggage claim as if they had become professionals at air travel. Their first flight had also given them confidence in the taxi pickup line, where the easy-to-please boy felt thrilled to take his first cab ride.
“Holiday Inn Express in Fort Lauderdale, please,” Misty said sweetly to their designated driver. “I brought directions if you need ’em.”
The man behind the wheel thought Misty made a joke. He had already made that route four times that day.
“I guess he’s all set,” Misty whispered to Henry. “I guess there are no belts in this car. Should we ask to switch cabs?”
“No, Mom. It’ll be fine.” He didn’t resist Misty’s attempt to brace him in the seat like a human safety belt.
For Misty and Henry, their stay at the tidy Holiday Inn might as well have been the Four Seasons as they neatly placed their clothes in the matching dressers and enjoyed a respite on the firm mattresses and fluffy pillows. Lunch on their unfamiliar day of travel had featured a familiar outing—a salad and pizza picnic by the Atlantic Ocean. The comforting food and crashing waves provided a taste of home despite being a twenty-four-hour car ride away f
rom their usual picnicking spot at Nantasket Beach in Hull, Massachusetts.
The pair spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Ft. Lauderdale, a city in which warm weather and palm trees made them feel like they were in a different, more exotic country.
They returned to the hotel too early, in Henry’s opinion, to prepare for their dinner out with the man who made their trip possible. About thirty minutes into Misty’s preparations inside what she thought was the fanciest bathroom she’d ever seen, the hotel phone rang, interrupting Henry from flipping through the numerous cable channels atop one of the hotel beds.
“Hello?”
“Henry! You made it, dude,” Teach said. “How’s Florida treating you? OK?”
“It’s great,” Henry said.
“Great, big guy. Hey, can I pick you and your chaperone up for dinner outside the lobby in half an hour?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, and Henry? Who is your chaperone, by the way? Did your mom end up coming with you?”
“Yup.”
“Very well then, see you in thirty!”
As Henry internally debated whether Teach’s voice sounded really happy at the end of their conversation, his mother marched out of the bathroom in a fluffy white towel and hair curlers.
“Who was that?” she asked, even though she knew Henry’s one-of-a-kind grandmother wouldn’t be checking in on them at the expense of a long-distance call. The caller could only have been one person, she thought.
“Teach,” Henry mumbled, without taking his eyes off the television.
“And?”
“He asked if he could pick us up in half an hour.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said it was fine.”
“Oh, Henry.”
Misty disappeared into the bathroom to kick her preparations up a notch. Her makeup application was rusty from serving only rare nights as a hostess at the restaurant and having even more rare dates out in Boston, but when she emerged from the bathroom in her purple wrap dress and a shiny, dark, and wavy hairdo, Henry couldn’t resist tearing his eyes away from the television. His mother looked beautiful, even if she was wearing two different shoes.
“Which one?” Misty asked as she switched feet like a nervous flamingo with one sandal and one boot.
“I dunno,” Henry said. “I know it’s January, but isn’t it too warm here for boots?”
Without a word, Misty changed into her other sandal and eyed her son’s oversized, belted khakis and plaid, blue button-up.
“You look nice,” she said. “Shall we?”
Henry clicked off the fancy television and escorted his beautiful mother to the lobby, where Teach was already waiting.
“Henry, my fine student, fancy meeting you here,” Teach said with a fist bump. “And good evening to you, Mrs. Misty Miss.”
The adults laughed as they recalled their earlier introduction fumbles.
“I don’t know,” Teach said. “I’m feeling a bit underdressed next to you two looking so sharp for our dinner.”
Teach was having a hard time keeping his eyes off Misty. While the job of being a young mother gave Misty tremendous maturity, only one year separated Henry’s mother from his teacher, and the teacher was surprisingly the more senior one of the two.
“Oh please,” she said, thinking Teach looked perfectly handsome in an outfit that the man typically reserved for his summer wedding attendances. He had rolled up the sleeves and enjoyed the freedom on this night of unbuttoning a few buttons from his tie-less neckline.
Teach opened the door of his rental car for Henry before quickly jogging to the other side for the passenger who made his jaw line feel flushed.
“I barely recognized you without the earphones on, you know,” Misty said, with hopes of keeping the mood light and avoiding an awkward evening.
Teach smiled, feeling relief over a date offering something funny to fill the dead air for once. He wondered if he was on a date. He thought it felt like one.
The car became silent yet comfortable as Teach focused on navigating through an unfamiliar city to a restaurant called Mangos on Ft. Lauderdale’s East Las Olas Boulevard. Misty and Henry enjoyed every block of the city views.
Teach had selected the restaurant after an online surfing session made it appear fun and nice without being too fancy. To Henry, who had only ever visited his mother’s restaurant and fast-food joints, it was the finest dining place he’d ever entered.
“Family of three?”
“Um yes, three please, but no,” Teach said to the hostess with a deepening blush. “We are a teacher and a student and a mother. Our Henry here won a prestigious writing contest in my class to earn himself tickets to the Orange Bowl. Your finest table, if you please.” Teach managed to wink at the hostess to relay his jest without appearing the least bit creepy or demanding.
“Well, of course,” the hostess said toward Henry. As Henry took a seat, he looked around. While he didn’t notice anything that made his table better than others, he still felt important.
As they returned their menus after ordering grilled pork chops, a sesame-crusted tuna salad, and a cheeseburger, Misty and Teach accidentally brushed arms. The touch shot unfamiliar electricity through Misty’s right side and prompted her to excuse herself to the ladies’ room to make sure her eyeliner hadn’t spread up toward her brow.
The server returned to the table first.
“Young man, I forgot to ask how you’d like your cheeseburger done,” the server said apologetically to Henry. The boy’s face looked puzzled.
“How do you like it cooked, little dude?” Teach asked.
Henry’s face turned from puzzled to red. It was a question that had never been asked by the cashiers whenever he ordered his burgers in Brockton’s fast-food joints.
“I like mine with no red in the middle, so I usually ask for them well done or medium well,” Teach whispered to his student.
“Well done, please,” Henry said.
“Very well done, Henry,” Teach said as the server left the table. “Spoken like a true pro.”
Teach wanted to ask the shy boy about his mother’s story, but he decided that would be inappropriate. When she returned, he mustered enough courage to offer her a drink.
“A glass of wine sounds perfect,” Misty said, already looking forward to calming her nerves.
“Red or white?”
“White, please.”
“Do you like sweet, dry with light body, or dry with medium body?”
Henry wondered if they were really talking about wine. He was just getting over the new terms regarding his burger.
“Dry with medium body sounds perfect.”
Teach looked down the wine list to locate the most expensive one in that category, even though he sensed that for a woman like Misty, it wasn’t expected or necessary. He flagged the server with a slight motion.
“A glass of the Ferrari Carrano chardonnay for the young lady, please, and a glass of Chianti for myself,” Teach said. “And for the boy, a root beer?” Henry nodded in delight. His mother nudged him under the table.
“Yes, please,” Henry added.
“As a restaurant employee myself, I’m fully impressed with your wine knowledge,” Misty said.
“Oh, I had a cheat sheet,” Teach admitted. “I know nothing about wine. There’s a list here that spells out every glass in the category you like. Even I could follow the instructions.”
Misty found his self-deprecating humor refreshing. She looked guiltily at Henry, who fortunately didn’t seem to mind her conversation with his teacher.
As if on cue, live reggae music began to play, making the warm evening that much more magically fun. Misty felt as though she were in a movie.
“To the University of Boston Falcons,” Teach said, lifting his glass of red.
“They just have to win,” Henry agreed with a clink.
It was the most emotion Misty remembered seeing from Henry in months. She closed her eyes and h
oped Devin Madison could pull off a win for her son.
Henry took a bite of his oversized burger and accidentally forced ketchup out the other side, onto his best shirt. The boy quickly tucked his napkin into the neck of his top to cover up the stain. Misty pretended not to notice. Teach quickly tucked his own napkin into his best shirt to match.
“I like your idea, little man,” Teach said. “This is the only shirt I have that I can wear to warm weddings. We got to protect our styles, you know?”
Misty’s heart felt as though it had jumped into her throat. She had never felt this way over a man before. She blushed over the fact that the man was none other than her son’s teacher.
Later that evening, as she lay in the hotel bed attempting to sleep, she replayed the perfect dinner in her head while Henry also struggled to drift off in the bed next to her for an entirely different reason. For the shy boy with the challenging childhood, the game could not happen soon enough.
When the moment the mother and son were both anxiously anticipating finally came the following day, Teach entered the hotel lobby with quick steps. From his cap and jersey to his maroon corduroys that were sure to make him sweat, every garment he was wearing featured University of Boston colors. Misty couldn’t help but smile.
“Sorry to keep you guys waiting. Traffic is so much worse than I expected. Shall we make our way to Miami Gardens for the Orange Bowl?”
Teach’s words got more loud, dramatic, and comical with each syllable until it was Henry’s turn to smile. Teach took a subtle risk in opening Misty’s car door first this time, and as the rental meandered slowly through the traffic, Henry wondered whether they would miss a minute of pre-game activity. Misty wondered if they would get there in time to pick out a souvenir for her mother. Teach wanted to be there already.
The trio didn’t fare much better in the parking garage, where they circled around and again and became convinced there were no more spots until they finally watched white lights appear on a car ready to reverse as though it were a miracle. Teach put on his blinker. A truck zoomed in opposite them for a face-off, even though Teach had been there first. The car reversed toward Teach, leaving him in a disadvantaged position for the take. The truck took their spot.
