The Harder We Fall

by Mina V. Esguerra

  “When are these from?” I asked. I kind of recognized the uniform from the news archive, but couldn’t pin down the year.

  “That one, he was a junior I think. First year as co-captain.”

  “Right.”

  “Do you watch him play?”

  “Yes, kind of. I went to Addison Hill too.” That answer was simplest.

  “I haven’t been able to go to a game in years,” Judy said. “Schedules couldn’t work out, with the chemo and all. He’s told you about that, right?”

  I nodded, even though he really hadn’t. It wasn’t a conversation I could have with Judy right then, because I wouldn’t be able to hold myself up. I also felt that I didn’t deserve her confidence. She might think I was her son’s friend, or girlfriend, but I was actually neither, and I didn’t want to get her hopes up.

  “But he says I’ll be able to keep up, with this. Watch videos of games and all,” Judy continued.

  By the time he got back to the living room, with a duffel bag stuffed to bursting, our conversation remained mostly about tech support and small talk about his games. I wondered what else he needed from me, but he didn’t seem to require my further participation. He took his mom to the kitchen and they had a hushed conversation in front of the list of dates on the fridge, then we were saying goodbye, hugging, promising to be back in a few days.

  When we got back into the car, I leaned over to his side and kissed him. He needed it, I felt, and he collapsed into it, into me, for a moment forgetting that he had to be strong.

  “I understand now,” I told him. “When we get back I’ll ask you questions that will matter to her.”

  ***

  Excerpt from Nicholas Cevasco interview #3

  Tom Mendoza’s speech about when you guys turned around. Was he right?

  Not completely. I’m sure he thinks his story’s right, because that’s when he noticed that I was committed. Tom thinks things only exist when he figures out they’re there. My turnaround was a few weeks before that, and it wasn’t anything dramatic.

  What happened, you just showed up one day and liked it?

  Yes. I did. I didn’t want to be anywhere else. I was feeling like shit about everything. That relationship I told you about had finally ended.But the feeling of worthlessness had been around for a while, and the time I spent playing and training was time that didn’t suck. And then it became time that felt good.

  What is winning like, then?

  We don’t win a lot, so I can tell you from a lot of losing experience that it’s really not about feeling validated when you win. The pride takes a beating, but then you remember who you are.

  A team player?

  A healthy guy who can get shit done.

  ***

  He let me ask questions about other things. Why this, instead of getting a “real job.” Why there, instead of hacking it out locally the way Grayson was doing. Where would he live. What would he be doing all day, and was it worth it.

  The answers were all different ways of saying that he had to do this. That opportunities were rare, and when they fell on his lap he shouldn’t question them.

  Building a case for leaving, using me to do it. I didn’t mind. I wanted to help.

  These videos, all these extra questions I wouldn’t need for my project, building a case for his mother, one-sided conversations that would keep her company and have her know that this absence was for her. And maybe in the process make it not so much an absence.

  I didn’t mind being the conduit for it. It made him feel better.

  And also made me feel like I was doing something, I guess in a way that I hadn’t been for anyone else before. I’d been accused many of times of being a spoiled California princess and they weren’t wrong, some days. On most days I was simply indifferent.

  I did not want to be indifferent toward him.

  He didn’t ask if he could stay over again, and I didn’t offer it either, it happened like of course where else am I gonna go. And when I had kind of clocked out from working on this project and he was the guy I was sleeping with again, I couldn’t find a trace of the burden on his shoulders, because he was all control and focused energy. Focused on me, so that was great. There’d be a moment, for example when I was stretched out on my side, enjoying the warmth of him down my back, I’d doubt for a moment why I felt compelled to take care of him; he obviously had everything down. There wasn’t an unsure bone in his body, it seemed like, until that look he would give me, had started to give me, once his breathing steadied again, once he recovered from his release.

  Like he was checking if I were still there.

  “I’m here,” I said finally, to get it out there. “Hi.”

  He smiled, cracking the broody exterior a tiny bit, enough to let a sliver of light and happy through. I did that. I scored one for myself again.

  Chapter 12

  I had two boxes of my things brought downstairs, by Nicholas actually, knowing that my dad would be coming by sometime this week. I didn’t forget about it. Usually dad’s visits were quick, barely spending five minutes in the living room. He would drop something off, or pick me up. That was how it was.

  So when he finally did show up, parking his shiny SUV in that usual slightly askew way on the curb, I half expected him to grab the boxes, and drive off. I didn’t even get up from the kitchen table, where I was working on the laptop, starting my first edit.

  Dad knocked, let himself in, and surveyed the area. Saw the boxes. “This everything?” he asked.

  “Yes that’s it,” I said.

  “You want breakfast downtown?”

  I shook my head no. “Had coffee earlier, but thanks.”

  And then Nicholas came downstairs, in the black gym shorts that he wore as pajamas last night. No shirt, because he didn’t need one, went without a shirt pretty much nightly since he began staying over. He paused as he hit the bottom of the stairs, when he noticed the gray-haired man in a suit in the middle of living room.

  “Young man, are you dating my daughter’s roommate Stephanie?” dad asked him. Nice touch, with “young man.” Establishing the hierarchy.

  “No, sir,” Nicholas answered, polite as a dog demoted to beta.

  “Then put a shirt on, I’m taking you and my daughter out to breakfast. I insist.”

  ***

  My father would never go up to the counter and order food, at restaurants that required it. I’d never seen it happen. He’d get me to do it, or we’d eat somewhere else. When we got to the pancake place downtown and he discovered that they didn’t take orders at the table, he pulled the “young man” card again and asked Nicholas to get us our breakfast. The young man took it in stride and refused Dad’s offers to cover the bill.

  Somewhat mortifying.

  “This is why you didn’t come home last week?” Dad said, as soon as Nicholas was out of earshot.

  “No. It’s not like that.” I had my face in my hands pretty much the entire short drive in his car, in the passenger seat, knowing he was peering at Nicholas in the back seat. They talked to each other, basic questions like how old Nicholas was, his major, his job. Nicholas was able to say that he was a pro athlete, and I wasn’t sure how Dad felt about that. “I am working on something. He’s...helping. And I’m doing something for him too.”

  We did not have a “sex talk,” dad and I. We had a “You run if you want out of there, you hear? You kick him in the balls, you run, and you call me. And if you don’t want to run, you use condoms. You make him wear it on threat of ball-kicking, you hear?” I hoped that he was remembering that conversation throughout our awkward car ride, that if that was how he prepared me for this then he should be fine because I had followed all the guidelines.

  Dad looked...well, like he was adjusting to all of this. “Helping with what? Do I want to know?”

  “Shut up, Dad, I’m serious. His mom is sick and he wants videos of himself talking, so she can watch him while he’s away.”

  It was the right thing t
o say to my father. He understood everything about having to take care of someone, when you had your own shit to do. “What does she have?”

  “The usual. Started in her liver, recently showed up in the lungs.”

  “Where’s his father?”

  “Single mom,” I answered for him, surprised that I knew enough by now to say these things.

  “Does she have coverage?”

  “He calls her ‘mildly insured.’ He’s going to have to make up for the rest of it himself.”

  “And taking the contract in Japan will do that?”

  I shrugged. “For now, it’s better than his other options. He’s just a year out of school.”

  “And a business major. Those are a dime a dozen.” He looked in the direction of the counter, quite possibly beginning to see Nicholas as a person. “His agent would have gotten him an acceptable offer, of course. But that’s what, a year? And he can’t get injured or jeopardize his health in any way. There’s only him then? No siblings?”

  I shook my head. “None. There’s an aunt who drives Judy to chemo and other appointments when he’s not around, but she can’t be counted on to cover expenses.”

  These other things I knew because he continued talking, answering questions, even after I pointedly stopped recording him. He was still sitting on his mark, and I was still on mine, behind the tripod. I would ask, and he would answer. Nothing much in his demeanor changed even as he went off the record. He just wanted to tell someone all of this.

  So that was me, gladly.

  Nicholas came back with a stack of pancakes, coffee, and bacon. They were all for me and my dad, apparently, and he sat there eating two bananas.

  “I have training today,” he explained.

  Dad’s mood had changed, I could tell. He ate his food properly, and his eyes stopped darting back and forth.

  “Nicholas, Daria,” he said, “Esme is flying into SFO this weekend, and I’m taking her out to dinner. You both should drive to the city and see us. When are you leaving for Japan?”

  “Before the twentieth,” Nicholas answered. “I have it on my calendar somewhere.”

  “Saturday then?”

  Nicholas looked at me, and I shrugged back at him. “Yes, Saturday,” he said.

  ***

  Excerpt from interview with Todd Chang

  I guess I’m surprised—everyone I’ve met so far seems to have stumbled into this.

  Not me. I’ve been a fan since I was a kid. I was stoked when I found out that Addison Hill had a rugby club and I tried out as soon as I could. My family lived in Australia when I was younger. I guess it’s why I know it.

  You’re co-captain now. Does that mean you’re considering pro options like your predecessors?

  Definitely. I mentioned it to them before they graduated, in case it wasn’t clear from the start. Maybe I also want points for enthusiasm. I brought up with my family the possibility of going back to Australia because I was really serious about this, but they didn’t agree.

  You still think you can do it, despite what they think?

  It’ll happen. I talk to them about Monk—I mean Nick, a lot. That guy doesn’t have the support system that a lot of players usually need, and he gets it done. He introduced me to the guy who got him his agent, you know that?

  Yes I saw. What’s happening with that?

  That was more of a hello, nice to meet you, see you again when we don’t suck so much. But that’s how it starts, and I just gotta do better.

  Why aren’t you doing better, you think?

  Grayson and Nick would know this more, but they talk to us about it all the time. It’s a bunch of things. Maybe we have it in us, but we don’t get enough of everything else. We wait for the varsity scraps. We line up for things like field time, the gym, the weights, the fucking treadmill, use of buses and vans...but that’s not the reason, you know? Those are the excuses. Grayson always tells us to make up for it, improvise, don’t wait for things to be given to us.

  What does Nicholas say?

  He doesn’t have to say anything. He does it.

  Chapter 13

  “Daria, this is an impressive application package.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m wondering though why you’re choosing to leave out KramerEnt from your entire resume.”

  Salty would ask that, of course. She reserved the right to comment on our individual applications, if she felt that she could help us. She had always asked why I didn’t play up my connections more, even as she excluded me from certain opportunities because of my connections. It was a messed up system, but I knew that she was only doing it because that was how it worked.

  “I technically haven’t worked at all for them,” I answered. I had practiced that one. “My name hasn’t appeared in any show credits.”

  “Yes, but you are daughter of the studio’s CEO and stand to run it in the future, especially if you’re pursuing a media career.”

  My hands were on my lap and I started pulling at my thumb. “I’m choosing not to share that information.”

  “If they find out?”

  “Then I’ll answer the way I did now.”

  “Daria, you will find it easier to get jobs when you reveal this to potential employers.”

  I nodded. “Ms. Salt, my dad produces shows about models getting slumber-party surgeries. I don’t think it’ll be impressive to anyone I will be sending an application to.”

  Salty cleared her throat. “You’re thinking about the content, but an executive will be thinking about clout. You may not agree with the content of his studio, but that clout is an asset and it’ll help you get things done.”

  “I understand, but I really want to do it this way. Will you let me do it this way for now? I know I’ll probably have to use it in the future. I don’t want to right now.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I stand by what I said though, your application looks good. Excellent. How’s the rugby video going?”

  “I started an edit,” I said. “It’s not like anything I’ve done before.”

  Salty’s smile was smug, because she enjoyed that we were all out of our element. “You’ll do fine. I look forward to seeing the final next week.”

  Consultation meeting over, and with that, I had officially sent in my application to the intern position contest. It also meant that I was down to my last week at Addison Hill, and in less than two weeks, Nicholas would be heading to Japan for who knows how long.

  “You done with Salty?”

  It was Kyle, coming up to the door of Salty’s office. He was in shorts and a ratty shirt (all of us graduating students were in sleepwear chic on campus lately), carrying his application folder and nothing else.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “So you and the rugby guy, huh?”

  I was already walking away when he said it. I had to turn around.

  “Nice of you to really do your research. In depth, and all,” Kyle said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Just make a better video, Kyle.”

  “Just saying that I’d understand if you get to win this. You seem to have put in a lot more effort than I did.” Kyle had his back to Salty’s door, but was not going inside. “What are you doing for our underfunded rugby club, DK? You giving them a perfectly-timed grant, to fix all their problems, like in a fairy tale? Are you going to be their Oprah? Because I’m sure that’s going to be awesome on video. That might make people cry.”

  “Researching my project, Kyle? That’s low. Use your time to find your own damn angle.”

  “Or maybe you’re doing a sob story, getting into the backgrounds of those players, right? Most of them being financial aid kids, with disciplinary records? Are you getting them to pour their hearts out to you? Because guys really loosen up after you sleep with them. We’re predictable that way.”

  My vision blurred, for a second. Kyle, damn it. We were separated by a few feet and I immediately wanted to cross that distance and kick him. Or worse.

  But this wa
s, indeed, Kyle (shudder), and he had always played mind games with me. Always hinted that I was using either money, my dad, or my “feminine wiles” to one-up him, and I’d always caved by distancing myself from everything that might be interpreted as an unfair advantage.

  I bit my lip and tasted blood. “Now I know your video really sucks, Kyle. Thanks for the pep talk.”

  Chapter 14

  Much as I hated to be affected by Kyle (shudder), my mood afterward was swinging. I already had a freaking script and sequence down, but every hour or so I’d wonder if this was exactly the direction Kyle was pushing me in, and that would make me change everything. Only to revert to my original outline once the annoyance that I’d been influenced by him at all settled in.

  Nicholas was still sort of living with me, coming in from tryouts or training or whatever. I didn’t let him see how the edit was going, and he didn’t ask. He noticed my general pissed-offness though and that led to me having to explain the Kyle situation.

  “He’s your Ryan Bristow,” he said.

  “You mean you have a Kyle Lefferts,” I retorted.

  “You know what I mean then. Even if we’ve never won against them, I take great pleasure in causing him any kind of self-doubt.”

  “I’m stuck because I want to maximize his pain with my awesomeness.”

  He kissed the top of my head before heading to the refrigerator. “You push him out of your head and do the work. The resulting awesomeness will hurt him anyway.”

  “Yes, Captain. I feel adequately motivated, Captain,” I said, and watching his legs and butt from here as he picked out his drink was making me feel better. “Do the guys call you Captain?”