Again, I reached my right foot back and drilled another shot. One after the other. Right foot. Left foot. Each time the ball smacked the door, shaking the metal runners that ran along the ceiling. Each time I imagined Maako's face taking the full impact of the ball.
Five blistering shots.
Then ten.
Then twenty.
The music was thundering and the garage door was shaking and the runners were clanking, and all I wished for was one of my shots to bring down the whole damn garage. When I looked up, my mom was standing in the doorway. I turned off the stereo.
"Who're you mad at?" she asked.
"Just practicing," I said.
"Didn't you have practice earlier?"
"I need more work," I said. "I need a lot more work."
My mom didn't push it. "Well, we really can't afford to have you break the garage door," she said with a muted smile. "Maybe you can get 'more work' another way."
"Sure, Ma," I said.
***
I threw on my sneakers. My body was tired, but my mind was wired. I started down Lake Road, still pissed off about Maako. How was he able to dog me so badly in the scrimmage? I had to remember his strength. His speed. His quickness. I had to remember that obnoxiously smug look on his face. I wanted it to be branded in my brain so that Maako—or anyone else—would never beat me like that again.
My sneakers pounded against the pavement as I passed between North and South ponds. Up ahead, Lake Road arced to the right and crossed over Redemption Bridge. I thought I could see a girl with willowy, light brown hair on the other side. My feet suddenly didn't feel quite as heavy.
As I got closer, I could see she had a delicate face, soft eyes, and an odd habit of walking with her forearm across her waist. I slowed down. The girl glanced at me. There was something familiar about her. Our eyes locked. I realized then she was the girl who had been sitting with Trinity and Stephanie underneath the bridge a few weeks earlier.
With a flick of her hand, she waved. "Ciao."
Chow? What was that supposed to mean?
I nodded to the girl—like I would to a teammate. A moment after I did, I knew how stupid that must've looked. And a moment after that, I was past her.
My stomach fluttered and my thoughts were going a mile a minute. Should I turn around? What would I say? Would she stop? She probably didn't know who I was. Or worse, knowing my luck, Trinity and Stephanie had already told her everything about me—at least, everything they thought they knew. I looked over my shoulder, almost tripping over my feet, but the girl had already crossed Redemption Bridge and was continuing up Lake Road.
My run slowed to a halfhearted jog. I tried to reignite the anger I had for Maako, but my mind was distracted. Forget about the scrimmage. Forget about Maako. Forget about getting my ass whipped. There'd be other practices to obsess over. I stopped and sat on the curb. All I could think about was this pretty girl walking farther and farther away.
I was glad to be done lifting weights. Benches, curls, deadlifts—that was my Saturday night. There was a party going on in town, but I didn't know where. Not that it mattered. That was for Kyle and other people.
Between sets, I thought about the girl on Lake Road. Maybe she was sleeping over at Stephanie's tonight. I tried to come up with an excuse to knock on the Saint-Claires' door, but it was much too late. Maybe tomorrow I'd see her leaving the house from my bedroom window. Maybe then I'd run outside and say hello.
I closed the basement door, turned off the kitchen lights, and climbed the stairs to the second floor. The television was on in my mom's bedroom.
"Jonny, could you come here a second?" she called.
I stood at the doorway. My mom was sitting upright on the bed, with a checkbook and bills spread out in front of her. She took off her glasses and placed them on the nightstand. "Did you lock up?"
"Yeah."
"And the lights?"
"All off."
"I bought the notebooks and pens you need for school," she said. "They're on the kitchen table."
"Thanks," I said.
"I'm going to need your help around the house on Saturday," she said. I guess I didn't look particularly thrilled, because my mom shrugged and gave me a sympathetic look. "There's no one else but us, Jonny."
I understood. I turned to leave but stopped. "Uh, Ma, do you know what the word 'chow' means? I'm not sure how to spell it."
"Ciao," she said. "It's Italian."
"Italian?"
"It means hello, or goodbye."
"Oh," I said. "How do you know which one?"
"Depends on the situation," she said. "You have to figure out what the person meant. Why?"
"No reason," I said. "I heard it somewhere. On a TV show, I think. I was wondering, that's all. I'm gonna go to sleep. Good night."
"Ciao, Jonny," she said with a curious smile.
I slapped the alarm clock off. Morning sunlight angled through my bedroom-window curtains.
"Damn..." I muttered.
My hope for an instantaneous skip in time to graduation day had been an exercise in futility. As had my more modest wish for a freakish thunderstorm to tear down trees and power lines and flood the high school grounds.
I sat up, feeling a twinge in my lower back and stiffness in my knees. It was soccer season—I couldn't have expected to feel any better. A short-sleeved shirt and tan pants were folded on my desk chair; shoes were lined up below. I peed, took a shower, and, a short time later, sat at the kitchen table eating a bagel with cream cheese.
And so began the countdown of days, weeks, and months until I'd escape Millburn High for a college somewhere far away.
Outside, Kyle beeped his car horn.
"Gotta go, Ma," I said, putting the dish in the sink. "See ya later." My mind was already out the door.
"Wait a second," she called out. "Wait just one second."
My mom and I didn't have to make this some grand bon voyage. Later tonight there'd be time to answer questions about classes and teachers. Besides, there'd be plenty of other school mornings. One hundred and seventy-nine to be exact.
My mom rushed down the stairs, buttoning her blouse and straightening her skirt as she entered the kitchen. "You look very nice," she said.
"Thanks for putting my clothes out," I said. "How 'bout we go back to me doing it myself, okay?"
She smiled and nodded. "First day of senior year. How do you feel?"
"Like crap."
"Language, young man." She wrapped her arms around me. "Nervous?"
"Ma, please." I started to pull away, but she held tight.
"I wake up one morning," she said wistfully, "and I've gone from being a teenager dreaming of making the Weequahic High cheerleading squad, to a wife and mother. I wake up another morning and my son—that little boy with the runny nose I always had to wipe—is all grown up."
"Kyle's waiting," I said.
"He'll wait a little longer," she said. "You think your mom's a little crazy, don't you? You'll understand when you have a son."
"Tomorrow will be like today," I said, opening the front door, then adding, "Thursday will be like tomorrow," as it closed behind me.
I could see Kyle tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. I jumped down the front portico steps, jogged across our lawn, and opened the passenger door. Stephanie, sitting in the back seat, greeted me with a disinterested pout. She was wearing thick makeup, painted-on black jeans that hung well below her belly button, and a black tube top across her chest. Trinity's influence was unmistakable. I climbed in.
"Ready?" Kyle said.
"As I'll ever be."
Kyle cranked the stereo and gunned the engine. The BMW spun out until the tires caught hold of the pavement. He went from first to fourth gear in the blink of an eye, his arm jerking backwards, then forward, then back again.
The car rumbled over Redemption Bridge, then down Highland Avenue, taking the curve around the Racquets Club like a Matchbox car on a grooved plastic track. Twi
ce over the summer, Kyle had been pulled over by Millburn police for speeding; twice he got off with just a warning after they recognized him. People at school thought it was only a matter of time before he got into an accident, but I never worried, confident God would never take away one of his best.
I heard Stephanie snapping her gum. "Must be feeling lucky today," I said.
"Lucky?" she said. "For what?"
"Your first day of high school and you get a ride with two seniors."
"Yeah, sure," Stephanie said. "I'll be the envy of all the sophomore girls. They'll say, 'Ohmygod, ohmygod, you rode to school with Jonny Fehey. Tell us, please please please, what's he like?'"
I looked over my shoulder.
Stephanie smirked, pulling down the top of her jeans with a long black fingernail. "Snap a pic, Jonny; it'll last longer."
Stephanie was going to fit in perfectly at Millburn High. That was a shame. She used to be a sweet girl living at the edge of her brother's world, as happy stomping in puddles after a summer downpour as she was prancing through leaf piles on fall afternoons. But by junior high, Stephanie had become a frequent visitor to detention hall. Now it was clear she wanted to step out from Kyle's shadow—at least as much as a sophomore girl could when her big brother was the school's star athlete—while Trinity would be right in front of her to lead the way.
Kyle turned into the school driveway, banking left in front of the main entrance, past the gymnasium. He lowered the stereo, and his fingers stopped tapping. I think he noticed Maako walk by; I certainly did. Kyle followed the line of cars into the parking lot, taking the best of the prime spaces set aside for seniors.
Stephanie reached her hand out. "I need money," she said. "For lunch."
"Mom didn't give you any?" Kyle said.
"Just give me some. You don't want me anorexic, do ya?"
Someone knocked on the trunk. Trinity and the girl from Redemption Bridge walked by. My stomach swirled.
"Who's that?" I said to Stephanie.
She shook her head, dismissively. "The sweet aroma of sophomore girls arousing the carnivores. Pathetic, just pathetic."
Kyle slapped a ten-dollar bill in her hand. "You owe me."
"As the younger sibling of the famous Kyle Saint-Claire, I owe you for every day of my life," Stephanie said. "I just thank God for being part of your gene pool."
"It's your first day," Kyle said. "Try not to get in tumble Mom and Dad don't need the hassle. Most important—and get this through your thick skull—don't embarrass me. Now leave, wiseass."
"Stephanie, who's that?" I said again.
She squeezed out from behind my seat, giving me another why-are-you-talking-to-me look. "The new girl."
"What's her name?"
"The. New. Girl. No need for you to know anything else, Jonny-boy," Stephanie said. She called out to Trinity, who offered a quick wave but never broke stride.
***
The school was loud and frenzied, churning with juniors and seniors seeing friends for the first time since last June, and sophomores, with their deer-in-the-headlights looks, searching for homerooms. Kyle and I moved along with the flow of traffic, then parted ways. He went down one hallway, high-fiving and slapping hands with guys on the team, while I went down another.
The fresh faces. The excitement. For a second, I thought something did feel different, like I was somehow taller, or more mature. Maybe my mom was right. I was a senior. Maybe that had more status than I realized. I'd play in most of our games and, hopefully, chalk up a few goals and assists. Some decent college would accept me. Fall and winter would pass, then spring, and before I knew it, my time at Millburn High would come to a quiet, if not pleasant, end.
Piece of cake.
But seeing Sloan Ruehl smacked me back to reality. She stood by an open locker, surrounded by the group of girls people at school called her "band of bitches." One of them would say something, then wait for Sloan to smile or frown, laugh or shake her head, smirk or roll her eyes. Then they'd all do the same.
Sloan was at the top of our class and the top of the ladder. She was pretty, privileged, and had a reputation for drinking like a fish. It was well known that she started last year's ritual of Friday liquid lunches—a can of Diet Coke spiked with Bacardi—that ended abruptly when one of her bitches passed out in chemistry class.
At the other end of the hallway, I noticed Abigail Blonski walking our way. People thought Abigail was fat. Most called her a dog. Last year, she and I were assigned an AP bio class project together. I thought she was quirky (in a good way) and kind of funny. She planned on going to FIT for fashion merchandising. But none of that mattered. Abigail surely hung from one of the lowest rungs.
Abigail must've seen Sloan, because she immediately moved to the opposite side of the hallway, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, eyes down. Yet when she got close, Sloan's bitches turned in her direction.
"Fatty," one of them sneered. Another hissed something about her clothes, or her acne, or whatever deficiency du jour they wanted to mock. Then they all burst out laughing. People stopped and stared.
Abigail hurried down the hallway past me.
"Are you all right?" I said to her, but she didn't look my way. I wanted to say something more, but she had already disappeared into the stairwell.
It was my turn to pass through the gauntlet.
I stared at Sloan, expecting a look of disgust to spread across her face as a very real indication that I had deluded myself into thinking this year would be any different from last year. Sloan looked at me, too. But, strangely, there wasn't contempt or nastiness on her face. Even her bitches seemed to quiet. As I walked by, Sloan's lips parted like she was going to say something—or maybe I just imagined it.
"I miss Ruby," I wanted to tell her.
But my mouth didn't move.
I don't know why.
I thought a lot about Ruby. All the time. I had just two photographs in my bedroom. One of my mom and me at Great Adventure on my twelfth birthday; the other, a Polaroid of Ruby the day I left for Denver's airport. I remembered everything about her—her voice, her laugh, her whisper, her scent. They would always be with me.
I wondered whether I really wanted to let Sloan know how much I missed her cousin, or if it was just something that needed to come from my mouth and be heard by the only person at Millburn who might understand what it meant.
I looked over my shoulder; she glanced over hers.
The distance between us increased.
From an arm's length, to a few yards.
To the length of the hallway.
A small scratch in the metal shelf marked where I had started.
I had thumbed through hundreds of books. Thick ones. Thin ones. Tall ones. Short ones. Sometimes I'd turn the pages slowly to make certain. Other times I'd fan the pages quickly because I just didn't care anymore (even though I really did). The rumor was the ladder had been drawn on a sheet of graph paper, then slipped inside a book's front cover. Or tucked inside a back cover. Or hidden somewhere in between.
One Sunday every month or so, I borrowed my mom's car to drive to the Millburn library. All the librarians knew me. I think they thought I was one of those responsible students spending his time finishing homework for the upcoming week, or diligently researching a term paper. They'd smile when I walked in. I'd say hello, then climb the spiral staircase to the stacks on the second floor.
I returned another handful of books to the shelf, then sat back. I heard the soft murmur of discussions at the reference desk, but otherwise, the library was quiet. I closed my eyes. So many damn books. Row upon row. Shelf upon shelf. Stacks upon stacks. It seemed like it would never end. There were tens of thousands of pages to thumb through, maybe hundreds of thousands. I wondered if this was all just a ridiculous waste of time. Maybe the ladder wasn't hidden here in the first place. Maybe that was the cruel joke—making our class believe the ladder existed when it never really did.
But yet, what if it did e
xist?
And I found it?
Would I throw it away?
That wouldn't fix much; the damage had been done a year and a half earlier. Or maybe it would. Maybe I'd burn the ladder in a ceremonial fire on the high school lawn so that everyone could see. I'd gladly deal with the consequences. Or maybe I'd change the ladder by mixing up the names—putting my own on one of the highest rungs—then make a hundred copies to spread out on the cafeteria tables, tack up in the hallways, and tape to classroom blackboards. I'd bet that would shatter our grade's hierarchy to smithereens.
I pulled more books from the shelf. I opened the first and flipped through the pages.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven...
And so on...
Soon, that book was done and I was on to the next. And the next after that. Until a pile of books sat at my side and a small scratch could be marked farther down the shelf for the next time.
A steady downpour kept the cafeteria crowded. A half-eaten turkey sandwich and a page of quadratic equations sat in front of me. I looked out the window, watching rain spill over the patio's cement tabletops. Our game against New Providence hadn't been called off; the weather was expected to pass. I hated playing on a soaked field. I hated even more watching the game from a wet bench.
A painted banner stretched across the cafeteria entrance. GO MILLERS! STAY UNDEFEATED! The Millburn Item was already making comparisons to the school's best-ever team. To open the season, we crushed Livingston, 5-1, and Dayton, 6-0, then turned a two-goal lead in the first half against West Orange into an 8-2 drubbing. After winning our first six games handily, we climbed to eighth in the state rankings. Against Verona last week, Kyle set the Essex County record for most hat tricks in a career. Afterward, Pennyweather awarded him the game ball—just another to put on the Saint-Claires' crowded living room mantel.
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