by Tim Green
“Ahhh.” Brock’s dad smirked and looked over at him. “I see.”
Brock sighed and shook his head, slapping Mak’s helmet. “Now I know why you wear that thing.”
“Why?”
“So when people want to smack you in the head—which is probably about every two minutes—they don’t scramble your brains.”
“When you’re the first-team QB,” Mak said, “you’ll be glad your left tackle is comfortable in his helmet so he can concentrate on protecting your blind side.”
“You’re forgetting something,” Brock said.
“What?” Mak asked.
“I’m a lefty, so my blind side is on the right.”
“Oh.” Mak chewed on the mouthpiece hanging from his face mask. “Then I guess you better watch your back.”
“Is that what your dad would say?” Brock asked as they pulled into their narrow driveway.
“Oh, for sure. My dad says that all the time.”
Brock nodded, because he had a feeling it was advice he’d need to follow quite a bit here in Calhoun, both on and off the field.
28
That evening, Brock and his dad headed over the bridge and through town on their way to Laurel’s house. Highway 37 went north out of town along the river before veering toward a round-top mountain covered with trees. Thick woods bordered the road on both sides for half a mile before they came to the spot where Brock’s dad’s GPS said they had arrived at their destination. On their left, two fifteen-foot stone towers stood watch on either side of a gravel driveway. Big fancy coach lights capped the towers, their bulbs already burning bright in the shadows of late day. Brock’s dad turned in, and just beyond the towers they saw a matching stone cottage with a slate roof. It looked like a gingerbread house.
“Wow. Nice.” Brock leaned forward in his seat, looking for signs of life through the diamond-shaped windowpanes.
An older man in a tweed cap came out of the front door carrying a walking stick. He seemed surprised to see them, but stepped right up to the car. Brock’s dad opened his window.
The man leaned down. He had a thick graying mustache. “This is a private drive; you’ll have to turn back.”
“My son is supposed to throw the football around with Taylor. Are you Mr. Lehman?”
The man looked startled. “Oh, no, I’m Humphries. Master Taylor is at the main house.”
The man pointed up the gravel road. Brock’s dad thanked him and they drove on.
“Main house?” Brock hadn’t seen many homes nicer than the stone gingerbread house Humphries lived in.
“I guess,” his dad said. They rounded a bend and the trees opened up into a sprawling lawn where an enormous stone mansion fronted by a half circle of columns rested on a small rise overlooking the river. Off to the right, beyond a pasture spotted with dark-colored horses eating grass, was a crisp white horse barn trimmed with dark-brown beams and a slate roof of its own.
“Wow,” Brock said.
“Wow is right.” His dad swung the car into the large gravel circle and stopped.
One side of the wide front doors swung open. Laurel burst out and down the half-round stone steps. “Hi! Taylor’s out back. Come on.”
Brock got out and introduced his dad.
“Nice to meet you.” Laurel held out a hand to shake, gave Brock a smile, and set off down a slate path that circled the big house, bringing them to the grassy lawn between the house and the river, which was cloaked in the shadows of the trees from the far shore. Beyond the river, the sky glowed orange as the sun set in the distant hills.
Taylor had a pile of footballs spilled out in the grass, and he was throwing each one into a net some thirty yards away. The net was strung with various red plastic circles for targets. He took a pretend snap, dropped three steps, and rifled a ball, striking one of the red disks with a pop. He gave his work a tight nod before turning to them.
“Hey, Brock.” Taylor shook Brock’s hand before addressing Brock’s dad. “Sir.”
Someone coughed behind them and Brock turned. Walking down the wide rounded staircase from a terrace above was one of the most beautiful women Brock had ever seen. Tall with silky blond hair that glowed in the late-day light, Laurel’s mom moved like a deer, stepping smoothly and effortlessly as she came toward them with an outstretched hand.
“Well, hello.” Her smile came easy and stayed. “I’m Laurel and Taylor’s mom. You must be Brock. Laurel’s told me about you, the football player who reads.”
“Hey,” Taylor said, “I read.”
“Yeah, the sports page,” Laurel muttered in a playful way.
Brock shook the mother’s hand. It was long and smooth, but strong. Thin bracelets of gold jangled together on her wrist like tiny wind chimes. He was suddenly aware of the rip in the knee of his jeans and the color of his father’s sneakers—once white but now a shabby gray. Still, his father stood tall and proud, like a stone monument that belonged right there in the middle of this fancy lawn.
“And, this is your father?” She extended her hand to Brock’s dad.
“Pete Barrette. It’s very nice of your kids to help Brock,” his dad said. “We just moved into town.”
“I’m Kim Dahlman. It was nice of you to bake cookies for our sale.” Her smile quivered, and it mocked him.
The image of Wentzel’s insults about his dad flooded Brock’s mind. He realized how bad they must look, Flatties with no mom, a cookie-baking dad, here in this place with this rich and beautiful family. Brock also knew that as short and hot as his own temper was, his dad’s was shorter and hotter. Right now, his father’s face was blank.
Brock took a breath, and waited for the fireworks to begin.
29
Suddenly, Laurel’s mom’s smile bloomed into a toothy grin and she snorted at her own joke, making a noise that didn’t fit anything Brock had seen so far. Then Brock saw his dad do something rare: he looked at his feet, blushed, and broke out into a silly grin of his own.
“I mean it.” Laurel’s mom touched his father’s arm. “That was borderline heroic. Most men would have taken a big pass on that circus of hens.”
Brock’s dad shrugged. “You have to do your part, whether you want to or not. Especially when not.”
Laurel’s mom swept her hand toward the terrace. “Please, why don’t we sit. We can watch the kids, and I can offer you coffee or something?”
“Coffee?” Brock’s dad said.
“I have a fresh pot.”
Brock’s dad gave him a wink and a smile and followed the beautiful woman up to the terrace.
“Here.” Taylor tossed a smaller football to Brock and he caught it. “Let me see how you hold it.”
Brock spun the ball in his hands so that his fingertips touched the laces.
“Lefty, huh? Good.” Taylor moved Brock’s left hand back on the ball, just a bit. “Some people put their finger right on the tip, but you don’t have to. Whatever feels right. Now, when you throw, you always want to follow through so that your thumb ends up pointing down.”
“Um. I can throw it pretty good. I just don’t know the plays.” Brock didn’t want to sound ungrateful, but he hoped Taylor would simply watch him throw and they could get down to business.
“Oh?” Taylor gave Laurel a look. “Well. Okay. Let’s see. Throw it into the net.”
“Which disk?” Brock asked.
“Disk? Well, if you think you can hit one, go for the one in the center.”
Brock stood sideways to the target, drew back and fired the ball.
THUNK.
Taylor smiled and tossed him another ball. “Do that again.”
Brock did.
Taylor grinned at Laurel and scratched his head. “Okay. Well, that was quick. What about the footwork on your drops?”
“Three step and five step?” Brock only knew from watching practice that a quarterback’s footwork was important.
“Do you know that too?”
“No,” Brock said. “I’ve seen
it and tried a couple three steps, but I could use some help.”
“Good. We’ll work on that, then we’ll go inside and work the whiteboard. I can show you how this offense works.”
“Can you explain that Z and X and H and Y thing?” Brock asked.
Taylor waved a hand in the air. “That’s easy. You’ll see.”
30
Brock threw well, not perfect, but strong for someone with so little experience. Taylor said so, and the beaming look on Laurel’s face confirmed it. Brock glanced up at his dad every so often, but more times than not he was watching Mrs. Dahlman instead of them. After a time, Brock rubbed his shoulder.
“Sore?” Taylor asked.
“A little.”
Taylor nodded. “Time to stop. When your shoulder gets sore, that’s your body telling you you’ve had enough, and you have to listen. You’re just not used to throwing. You’ll be able to zing a hundred passes by the end of the season.”
Brock opened his mouth to speak, then clamped it shut.
“What were you going to say?” Laurel asked.
“I was just thinking about Van Kuffler having me do all those push-ups,” Brock said.
Taylor frowned and shook his head. “He’s a rotten egg, that Coach Van Kuffler. Maybe I can help with that. We’ll see. Let me think about it some more. Hey, let’s go get on that whiteboard.”
Brock helped Taylor—along with Laurel—retrieve the footballs that were spread across the lawn and stuff them into a big mesh bag.
“How do you know all this stuff?” Brock asked. “I mean footwork, and arm motion and all that? You’re like a coach.”
Taylor shrugged. “My dad was a quarterback.”
“I told him he played for the Bengals.” Laurel nodded with pride.
“Is he here?” Brock felt a small charge of excitement.
Taylor glanced at Laurel. She didn’t say anything, so he spoke. “He’s in Dallas. We don’t really see him since they got divorced.”
“Oh.” Taylor’s tone made Brock wish he hadn’t asked.
None of them spoke after that. Taylor led them inside, through a double set of glass doors in the lower level of the huge house. He put the footballs away in a closet beside the entryway. They passed down a short hallway, then went right down another hall before taking another right and entering a huge room filled with Xboxes, flat-screen TVs, and thickly padded couches and chairs. On a wall by the window looking out at the river, a whiteboard hung in front of a small circle of desk chairs.
“Sometimes the offense comes over and we watch videos and go over plays.” Taylor pointed to the chairs and Brock could imagine the high school running backs and receivers sitting around with serious faces.
Brock slipped into a seat, trying not to grin when Laurel sat right next to him. He watched and listened intently.
It was easy, the way Taylor explained it anyway. Before nine o’clock, Brock understood a dozen basic plays of the offense. It was a simple language based on letters and numbers so that the name of each play told the quarterback exactly what to do.
“This isn’t so hard,” Brock said. He’d just correctly diagramed a Spread Right Alaska 99 on the whiteboard.
“Well, you’re pretty smart. Some people don’t get it that quick,” Taylor said.
Laurel’s expression made Brock blush and he thought of his dad, up on the terrace with their mom. It was getting dark outside. Brock yawned.
“Yeah, I could do this all night. You’d better get some rest.” Taylor set the marker down on the narrow tray beneath the board. “You’re gonna be crazy sore tomorrow from the push-ups alone. Forget about our throwing.”
“Maybe he should take it easy?” Laurel gave Taylor an eager look.
Taylor shook his head. “He should, but that’s the trap. That’s why Van Kuffler did what he did. He knew you’d be useless tomorrow, and if you bail out, he’ll say you’re not tough.”
“They’re getting ready to put me on the line anyway,” Brock said. “Because of my size.”
“That’s not fair.” Laurel scowled at her big brother. “He’s got an arm. As good as you when you were his age.”
Taylor shrugged. “You know what Dad always said. Life’s not fair, and football’s less fair than life.”
“You can help him.” Laurel sounded almost angry. “They listen to you, Taylor. You know they do. Don’t let Coach Van Kuffler end Brock’s career before it even starts. You know he’s good.”
Taylor studied Brock and chewed on his lower lip. “He can be good.”
“Then do something.” Laurel slapped the desktop attached to her chair.
Taylor looked out the window. The light was nearly gone and the day had faded to charcoal gray.
“Maybe,” Taylor said. “Let me see what I can do.”
31
“Nice people,” Brock’s dad said. They were driving across the bridge, its steel ribs jutting up into the night, lit by random blue-white lights whose reflections glinted off the tar-black river below like huge stars. “I mean, they have everything, but you’d never know it. Very down to earth.”
Brock had his window down, and he pretended not to hear. His mind had wandered into a world where he had a family who everyone respected, so that people like Coach Van Kuffler wouldn’t dare to mistreat him. A nudge in his ribs startled Brock into the present. His father removed his finger from Brock’s chest and returned his hand to the wheel. “I asked you a question, Brock.”
“Uh, sorry. What?”
“I was saying how nice the Lehmans are. The whole family, and I asked you what you thought.”
“They are.” Brock glowed like the ring on a hot plate. He recalled the image of his dad and Laurel’s mom on the terrace. After the whiteboard session, he and Taylor and Laurel had gone upstairs through a towering wood-paneled room with a marble fireplace you could stand up in, and out onto the terrace. In the faint light of the stars and a sliver of moon only inches remained between the thick wicker arms of his father’s and Laurel’s mother’s chairs. They tilted toward each other, both looking out at the river, talking in low voices, coffee gone cold in cups resting on the small cocktail table before them.
He remembered his father’s words about dating and how it would have to be a pretty special woman, but wasn’t that exactly what Laurel’s mom was?
It would be perfect. What could be better for gaining acceptance in such a small and hostile town than the richest, prettiest woman around falling in love with his father, and taking them both under her protective wing? Still, Brock knew better than to talk about such things, especially with his father.
“Taylor said he might be able to help me with Coach Van Kuffler.” Brock nodded and they turned down their street.
“Really?” Brock’s dad raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s just another example of how nice they are. Kim invited us to dinner on Friday. I’d say we’re pretty lucky. First place we decide to stay and we meet people like them.”
“Mak too,” Brock said as they pulled into the driveway.
His father grinned. “And Mak.”
Brock’s new friend sat on their tiny front stoop in the dark, dressed in his football gear, head to toe. He stood when he saw them and stumbled toward the car. Brock’s dad shut off the engine and they got out. Mak was blubbering like a wounded whale.
“Mak? What happened?” Brock’s dad put a hand on Mak’s shoulder pad.
Brock saw something gooey all over his friend, something glimmering in the light from the streetlamp.
“They . . . they made me . . . I didn’t want to, but I had to.” Mak gasped between words and he shook with distress and rage.
“Easy, Mak,” Brock’s dad said. “Just tell me what happened.”
32
“I came over to see how everything went at Laurel’s.” Mak stifled his sobs. “They were egging your house.”
“Who?” Brock’s dad’s voice went cold.
“It was Wentzel and his goons.”
Brock now saw that the shiny goo on Mak was from broken eggs. Little shards of shell clung to his jersey and helmet. He saw too that the front of their house had been pelted with a dozen or so eggs, yellow yoke and clear dribbling goo scattered with shell fragments smearing the front door, siding, and windows.
“Wentzel did this?” Brock could barely believe it. “What about the whole teammate thing? Won’t he get kicked off?”
Mak burst out with a fresh gut-wrenching sob. “He won’t. I will.”
“You?” Brock’s father scowled.
“Wentzel didn’t throw the eggs. That slick snake. He was just with them and he was laughing and when I yelled at them to stop, they threw them at me and ran, but that jerk Wentzel stood there pointing and laughing and . . . Oh!” Mak sobbed again and smacked a fist into his other hand. “I couldn’t help it. I just smashed him, punched him right in the face. Now . . .”
Mak gasped again and shook his head violently. “I’m not gonna be on the first team. I’m not gonna be on any team.”
33
The very next day before practice even started, Coach blew his whistle and called them all in. Brock stood with the rest of the team, listening to Coach Hewitt rant. Flecks of spit burst from his mouth like fireworks. His cheeks burned red and his hands flew through the air. Mak was demoted, off the first team and suspended for the first game.
The only good news was that he hadn’t been thrown off the team entirely. That had been Mak’s biggest fear.
The only rebuke Wentzel got was a general bit of life advice from Coach Hewitt to be careful the company you keep. Wentzel smiled smugly. Brock wanted to scream. No mention was made of the boys who egged his house. Brock’s father had insisted that the best course was to not make a big deal out of it.
“Kids throw eggs,” his father had said. “Let it go, Brock. If you don’t, you’ll look like a baby. Trust me.”
Practice began with a sour intensity. Sharp whistles. Angry shouts. Players dug teeth into their rubber mouthpieces and moved and sweat and added some extra hustle to their steps. By the time warm-ups and agility drills were over, jerseys were dark with sweat and droplets of perspiration drizzled down cheeks like raindrops.
