Front and Center

by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

  So I was feeling pretty good about myself, on-court and off-court as well. Now that the pain had faded a bit, I was really proud of myself for taking the reins like that with Brian, telling him it was over between us. Because it was. I was so much better off with Beaner. Sure, he might embarrass me sometimes, and our romance wasn't exactly heart-throbbing, but he was funny and supportive and an all-around really great one-on-one guy.

  The way my life was going, why, I couldn't imagine things ever going south.

  12. Opportunity Stinks

  FIRST OF ALL, BEANER ASKED ME to the Valentine's Day dance. The Valentine's semiformal, actually. Not that I knew what a semiformal was except that I didn't have the clothes for it. That part I knew for sure.

  Which would have been bad in and of itself—not him asking me really, but that I had to figure out the whole clothing business, which you might understand by now I'm not so good at, all that fashion girl stuff. But what made it eight billion times worse is that Beaner—you know how I just said he's great so long as I know to duck the embarrassing parts? Well, it turns out I'm not so good at anticipating when exactly those parts are going to be.

  Because what happened was that after the West Lake game on Friday, I went out with Amber and Dale. Which I hadn't done in a while, what with all their traveling and my traveling and me hanging out with Beaner, and something called sleep, which I need every so often, not to mention school and homework ... Anyway, I hadn't seen them for a really long time, and it really meant a lot to hang out and not talk college or recruiting or Magic Johnson and instead just have us be.

  So there we were, the three of us, not even at Amber's because her mother was actually home for once, and instead we went out for pizza. The pizza place wasn't so great, and Dale and Amber couldn't help comparing it to Chicago, which apparently has a completely different species of pizza, it's so good, but it was a lot better than hanging out with Amber's mom. I didn't even care that my coat would smell like fried onions for a couple days, or that I'd have to take a shower afterward to get that smell out of my hair.

  They were in the middle of describing this pizza place to me, the one in Chicago, trying to nail the accent of the guy and how he always said "meatballi," because I guess if you're saying pepperoni and salami and broccoli and all those other i words it would make sense to have meatballi as well, and Amber would always order meatballs because she loved so much to hear him shout out "Pizza! Meatballi!" It got to her so much that now she was even saying "meatballi" whenever she thought of meatballs, and I think I'll be doing it too. Who knows, maybe that guy in Chicago invented a whole new word and Amber was there to see it happen.

  So of course we had to order a meatballi pizza, and then Dale asked for some napkini, and I passed the paper plati, and Amber said she wished the pizza had more sauci, and we were just having a grand old time speaking restaurant Italian, when who should come bounding up to our table but Beaner. Which is a word I don't use too much, "bounding," but it works really well for him. He'd just come in with a bunch of guy players from their West Lake game, which I guess they'd won because they were all in such a good mood.

  "Yo! Wassup, ladies?" Beaner asked, slipping in beside me.

  Amber kind of gave him the eye but Dale answered, "Not much. I'm Dale, by the way."

  "My man," Beaner said, offering a fist for her to punch. "Beaner."

  I was already getting all hot in the ears, although Beaner's boundingness didn't seem to bother Dale in the least, and Amber I shouldn't worry about because sooner or later she was going to have to figure out how to deal with Beaner and his being my guy, however it was that she did it.

  "So how was your game?" I asked.

  "Awesome." He shrugged. "Listen, I forgot to ask you before. You wanna go to the Valentine's Day dance? You know, the semiformal?"

  Amber happened to be taking a big swig of pop when he asked this, and some of it actually came out her nose.

  "That's great," Dale said, pounding Amber on the back. "Go for it, D.J."

  "Oh." I handed Amber a big wad of napkini. "What, um, what do you wear to a semiformal?"

  Beaner laughed. "I don't know! Wear my Hawley uniform—wouldn't that be awesome?" Meaning that T-shirt he'd made for the pep rally with the big HAWLEY 00 on the front.

  I could feel sweat starting in my armpits. Amber and Dale were watching this like Beaner and I were a new sitcom they were checking out. "Um, seriously. What did people wear last year?"

  He shrugged. "I dunno. I wore my granddad's tuxedo jacket and these really cool Hawaiian shorts."

  "No way!" Dale said. "Me too!"

  "You wore shorts?" I asked, just as Amber said, "You went to a semiformal?"

  "All the seniors on the softball team went together. I had this tuxedo jacket I found in a thrift store. It was so great—it had sequins down the front and everything."

  We all stared at her in shock. Well, Amber and I were in shock; Beaner was totally impressed. He slapped her hand, even. "That's. Totally. Awesome." He turned to me. "Anyway, lemme know. So, check in with you later." And then he was off, headed for the video games.

  "You went to a semiformal?" Amber asked Dale again.

  "It's no big deal. So what are you going to wear? Because it really shouldn't be a tuxedo."

  A semiformal. What the heck was I going to wear to a semiformal? I thought about asking Kathy Ott to help out with this little poser, but she'd already driven me to Minneapolis, not to mention all her help this fall with Mom, and fundraising for Win, and decorating our house ... she'd done enough. She needed a Schwenk vacation. And it wasn't like Dad—or Curtis!—would have any ideas.

  And it's not like I wanted to go to the semiformal much anyway. I'd never even been to a dance! At least the room would be dark. I knew that much about dances. And it didn't matter if you didn't know how to dance, because I know the kids in my school and it's not like any of them would ever make Dancing with the Stars except Kari maybe. Or Abby Halstaad.

  Maybe Abby could help me with the dress. She probably had one already, knowing that kid. She could give me advice on how to go about getting one.

  I was just beginning to make some peace with the whole concept of dress-shopping hell, and dance-going hell, when Brian reappeared. Literally. Saturday morning Curtis and I were sitting at the kitchen table doing homework when we heard someone pull in, crunching over the snow. Curtis saw the car first, and right away he shot a glance my way. I craned around to see, and there, heading for the spot where he used to park last summer, was Brian's blue Cherokee.

  I leapt up and grabbed my jacket. What the heck was Brian doing here? Hadn't I made it clear that we shouldn't be talking anymore?

  I tried to act cool, but I was still wiggling my boots on as I came up to him fussing with a camera.

  "Hey," I said, smushing down my bedhead as best I could.

  He smiled this crooked smile. "Hey. I, um ... my dad wanted some pictures of the ramp. You know, to put up in his showroom. So he can be all 'look what we did.'"

  "Oh."

  "And I offered to take them. Save him a trip. That okay?"

  "Sure. I mean, if your dad didn't want to drive over..."

  "No, is it okay if I take pictures of the ramp?"

  I swallowed. "Sure. Whatever."

  We walked toward the house, our feet crunching on the snow. It was a really sunny day, bright enough to make you squint.

  You know, Brian didn't have to come all the way over here and take these pictures. Mr. Nelson can drive to Red Bend and manage a camera just as well as his son.

  "Is this light going to be okay?" I asked. Not saying what I was thinking.

  He grinned. "Guess I should have waited for a cloudy day. That's what they say, you know, when you're taking pictures."

  "That's what they say, huh?" I couldn't help it.

  He grinned wider. "Yup. They do." He rubbed the back of his neck. "You want to go out with me?"

  It took a second or two for the words to register. "
What?"

  "I said, 'Do you want to go out?' You know, to the movies or something. On a date, you know. Or, you know, two."

  I almost plopped down on the snow, I was so surprised. "You're asking me to go out with you?"

  "It's not that big a deal. Kids do it all the time. Drive to the movies, maybe grab a burger..."

  "Ha. This is different, you know. What you're asking."

  He nodded, serious all of a sudden. "I know. That's why I'm asking it."

  "Brian, I've got a guy. I'm already going out with someone."

  "So break up with him."

  "I can't break up with him! He's my—" I tried to say boyfriend, but I couldn't. The word just wouldn't come out. "He's my friend. It'd be wrong."

  "You don't like him," Brian said quietly.

  "I do too!"

  "Not like you like me. Not like I like you."

  Well. That just sort of filled the yard for a couple of minutes, all the way up to the very farthest reaches of the atmosphere.

  "I'm with Beaner," I said, finally.

  "You don't have to be. You can change your mind."

  "Are you going to change?" Looking him right in the eye when I asked this.

  "I'd like to think I already have," he said, looking right back at me.

  "Where have I heard that before?" I said. Well, actually I didn't say it. Actually I thought it up the next day. But I would have said it if I'd thought of it fast enough. Instead I just said something brilliant like "Oh, yeah?" Something you'd hear on a grade school playground.

  "Really."

  I nodded or shrugged or grunted, I can't really remember; what matters is that I didn't have a clue how to respond. We stood there for a few minutes feeling our noses freeze—mine was, anyway. Then Brian headed back to the Cherokee.

  "Think about it," he said.

  I nodded, and he drove away.

  It wasn't until he'd left that I realized he hadn't even taken his pictures. But that hadn't really been the reason for his visit after all. Had it?

  So that was something to think about all right, in those hours between ten p.m. and six in the morning that most people use for sleeping. For Brian to say he'd changed—I had heard that before. From him. But he'd never told his friends off before, the way he did that night at Taco Bell. So what if he was telling them off for making fun of Beaner instead of me—it was the same thing. He'd never smiled at me in public before. He'd never left a party for me.

  And that business about how I didn't like Beaner—that was weird. That was weirder than weird. Was it really that obvious, like across-Taco-Bell obvious? And it wasn't even true ... Well, it was, kind of. It was true that I didn't like Beaner the way I liked Brian.

  But with Beaner I knew what I was getting. So what if Brian made me feel like fireworks were going off inside me. He could also make me feel like a big fat clod of heartsick dirt. It was like he could take any emotion I had and make it ten times stronger. Which is great when it's happiness but pretty darn awful if it's anything sad.

  So that's how my thinking would go, around and around. Only every once in a while we'd pause for a bit, my brain and I, at a little place called You're An Idiot. And while I was at that place, I'd list all the reasons I shouldn't be lying awake thinking about boys and boyfriends when I had so many more important things to do, when the world had so many more important problems. I was nothing better than those girls who stand in the girls' bathroom crying over their boyfriends. I was not that kind of girl, and I needed to shape up and start sleeping!

  And then my brain would start puttering around once more.

  That's how it went the next few days too, Dad and Curtis tiptoeing everywhere so I wouldn't bite their heads off like I did when Dad slapped me on the back Sunday morning and I yelled at him. Which just so you know is extremely unusual of me, and surprised Dad so much that he didn't even yell back; he just went out to the barn for a couple hours of peace. I even canceled cafeteria practice Monday afternoon because I just couldn't work up the energy, plus I was totally beat because it wasn't like my sleep Sunday night had been so fantastic either. All I could do, day and night, was think about what Brian had said, and how awful it would be to actually break up with Beaner, and how it would be that much worse if Brian then bailed on me afterward, after I'd made the mistake of falling for him yet again, because just because Brian said he'd changed didn't make it true, and how was I to know he wouldn't completely freak the first time his friends saw us together?

  Then, just to make my life that much more fantastically wonderful, I walked into health class on Tuesday to find Ashley Erdel with huge red eyes and a pile of tissues, looking like her whole family had died.

  "Hey." I settled next to her. "What's wrong?"

  "I—didn't—" She began crying again. Of course the teacher didn't notice.

  "You didn't what?" Ace health class? I'd kill that dumb teacher if this was the case.

  "I didn't get in!" She pushed over a letter with a big red W logo. It was a pretty long letter, but she pointed out the word "deny." She knew where that word was right away.

  "You didn't get into Madison?" I couldn't believe it.

  "It's my SAT scores. I knew it." She dropped her head onto the desk.

  I stared at the letter. It was all that "we regret," "many qualified applicants" baloney.

  "I thought if I got my application in early enough ... Oh, Madison! I love Madison!" Her shoulders began to shake.

  "I'm so sorry ... Oh, Ashley. Well, at least you got to play some basketball." But I didn't think that would cheer her up. And guess what? It didn't.

  It was a pretty brutal game that afternoon against Two Geese. "Two Geese" is just about the coolest school name I've ever heard; when I was a kid I wanted to go to Two Geese so bad just so I could say it all the time. Now, though, I couldn't care less. I felt so awful for Ashley. Here she was playing basketball, taking tons of time that she should have been using to get even smarter, and in the end it didn't even help.

  At least she was getting some playing time. Kari was back, with her ankle all taped and strict instructions not to rebound. But three other girls were out with strep—it's a wonder any of us were standing, really, so many kids were sick—and so Ashley went in almost right away, taking Kari's place while Kayla played point guard so Kari could rest her ankle a bit. Kari was guarding Two Geese 5—see? Even that's cool, saying it like that—and so of course Ashley had to guard 5 when Kari was out, and it was great to see her using all the defense stuff we'd worked on, boxing 5 out and following her everywhere, sitting in her lap.

  Only then Ashley planted a screen and 5 barreled into her and knocked her down, and Ashley didn't get back up.

  For a moment my heart stopped. Last fall, you know, Win got face-masked, right in the middle of a PAC-Ten game. We watched it on TV, the whole thing, each minute dragging past like an eternity, time felt so slow, without him moving one tiny bit, as the players on the sideline stood in little huddles, some of them praying and some crying to themselves, the medics working as hard as they could, this huge crowd of medics and trainers, until finally after a whole lifetime, it seemed like, an ambulance crept out onto the field and they loaded him up...

  Panic bubbled up inside me, all my hot game sweat suddenly freezing cold against my skin, as I watched Ashley lying there. Only she was moving, I told myself as I gasped for air. She was rocking back and forth and sobbing, clutching her arm to her chest.

  They got her standing finally, her wrist already swollen and purple, her whole forearm wrong. Her mom was out on the court with her, and the trainer packed her arm with ice packs, every touch making Ashley scream it hurt so much, and her mom helped her out to their car, someone running ahead to pull the car right up to the entrance because you'd have to be dead not to know Ashley needed an ER stat.

  Coach K gathered us up and tried to get us refocused on the game, but that wasn't going to work for me. Her right wrist was broken, her right hand—which is what always happens becaus
e of course everyone catches themselves with their dominant hand. Her writing hand. The same day she finds out her favorite college in the world doesn't want her, she breaks her wrist. So now the one thing she was good at, which is school, she wouldn't be able to do.

  And it was all my fault. Because if I hadn't coached her so much, encouraged her to be so aggressive, she wouldn't have ended up doing something that a girl like Ashley should never, ever be doing, which is planting screens against Two Geese.

  I was so upset that I missed six shots in a row, until finally Coach K pulled me out and told me to get myself in order. So I sat there on the bench with a towel over my head, wishing with all my heart I'd never started those stupid practices, and praying like crazy Ashley's wrist wouldn't end up as bad as it looked although it looked awfully bad.

  At halftime we were down by seven. Coach K told us not to think about Ashley, that injuries are just part of the game and it wasn't anyone's fault, looking straight at me while he said it. But I knew that wasn't true.

  As I was heading back on court he took me aside to say I needed to show some leadership.

  "Leadership is what got Ashley hurt," I said, scowling at the floor.

  "Don't you go thinking that. Leadership is what's going to win the game for her." Which was pretty lame of him, trying to turn it around like that. "D.J., you go out there and you show them what you can do."

  Which, again, was pretty lame, but wouldn't you know I did. I guess all those years of Dad bossing me around, and Win, somehow got me trained to do whatever I'm told no matter what. It wasn't the best game of my life, that's for sure, but at least we won. And at the end of the game, Two Geese 5 found herself with a couple big bruises just for her.