Opposite of Always

by Justin A. Reynolds

  “Fine.” He crosses his arms. “Name three college conferences then.”

  “Easy! The Big Ten, the Southwestern. No, wait, no, the Southeastern, plus, uh, the Big Southern.”

  Franny cracks up. If I don’t end this charade, he may rupture something.

  “Whatever,” I say. “I don’t have to prove my love for the game to you.”

  “Right, man,” he says. “You have nothing to prove.”

  I know Mom is a lock for All Things Sports, but I’m surprised when Dad joins us in the basement, too. My surprise mostly disappears when he brings refreshments with him, popcorn and soda and a bag of cookies. Mom has Dad watching his middle-aged figure closely these days, so any opportunity for Dad to cheat on his spouse-sponsored diet is seized with gusto.

  “Hmmmm,” Dad says, smacking his lips. “Feels like something’s missing, doesn’t it? I know! Anyone want pizza? I just happen to know Pizza Czar has a specialty supreme on sale right now.”

  “I’ve already eaten, but thanks, Mr. King,” Jillian says.

  “You know I’m always game for vittles,” Franny says, springing to life on the edge of the sofa.

  “Great, that makes two of us,” Dad says. “Jack, looks like you’re the tiebreaker, my favorite son on this earth. Heck, you’re tied for my favorite person period.” He looks over at Mom. “Right there with your mother, of course.”

  Mom is already resigned to the fact that no one can change Dad, we can only hope to contain him. She tosses her hands up. “Whatever you guys want to do, but at least half of it has to be veggie.”

  “How about half of a half,” Dad pitches. Mom’s eyebrows rise. He’s pushing his luck. “No, no, you’re right, babe. We can have fun and be healthy, too.”

  Dad slips upstairs to order the food as the program starts.

  My stomach is nauseous.

  And my heart, although I’m sitting on the floor doing absolutely nothing physically demanding, is pumping hard enough to power a triathlon.

  I have no idea how real gamblers cope.

  We suffer through an agonizing thirty minutes of sports talk before the reveal starts.

  . . . And Mandrake makes the cut, the committee rewarding their conference tournament runner-up finish with a fifteenth seed slotting . . .

  I explode into the air in a manic flurry of fist-pumping and chest-bumping, although the chest-bumping is just me bumping my chest against random inanimate things, such as the wall or the basement support beam or the arm of the sofa, because no one else is willing to chest-bump me, probably because they aren’t willing to risk a concussion.

  But I can’t help it.

  Because maybe this thing will work after all.

  The Good Doctor

  “I only took this meeting because I received your letters, and your emails, and your repeated phone calls to the office and to the lab, and I must admit, curiosity won out.”

  “My parents preach perseverance.”

  “You’re certainly younger than I imagined.”

  “I intend to make a sizable contribution,” I interject for no reason other than I’m uncertain what to say.

  Dr. Sowunmi peers at me over the tops of his glasses. “How old are you? Nineteen? Twenty maybe?”

  “I’m eighteen. Not that it should matter, Doctor. I mean, you’re only, what, thirty-two, thirty-three? When you decided you were going to cure sickle cell, how did you feel when people made assumptions purely based on your age?”

  Dr. Sowunmi pushes his glasses up his nose, but says nothing.

  “Look,” I continue. “I’m here because I believe in you. In your research. In your medicine. And because I’m in love.”

  “Ah.” The doctor clears his throat, leans back in his beat-up leather chair. He puts his hands to his mouth in a way that reminds me of someone smoking a pipe, except he doesn’t have a pipe, and I doubt he smokes. “It’s best not to mix medicine with emotion.”

  “From what I understand, you have family members who’ve battled with sickle cell, Doctor . . .”

  “Yes.” He nods. “Which is why I know it’s not wise to mix the two. The only way for it to end, Jack, is badly.”

  “But Doctor, aren’t both things tied to the heart?”

  Dr. Sowunmi smiles, and it’s like I can see his guard go down, his face relax into what it probably looks like when he’s eating his favorite bowl of cereal or rewatching his favorite movie. “How old are you again?”

  “Eighteen,” I repeat, smiling back. “And did I mention I have money?”

  “I can’t promise you anything. We’re still in the early clinical stages.”

  “I understand.”

  “And I’d like to meet with the patient first. To evaluate their current health, their labs. To discuss with her or him, were we to proceed, what our course of treatment would involve.”

  “Of course, Doctor,” I say, standing up to shake his hand. “Thank you so much. Thank you so so so much.”

  “I can’t promise anything,” he repeats, smile gone.

  “Right,” I confirm. “No promises.”

  On the way out the doctor’s office, my cell phone rings and I imagine it’s Kate and I think, Wow, perfect timing. But it’s not her.

  “Hey, man, did you forget?” Franny asks, his voice borderline panicked. “Please, tell me you didn’t forget and that you’re on your way.”

  “I didn’t forget,” I assure him, although I did lose track of time. “I’ll be there.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “But soon soon, right? Like you’re already on your way?”

  “Yes, soon soon,” I say.

  “Tell me everything’s going to be okay, Jack.”

  “Franny,” I say with all of the hope and faith that I can muster. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  I really want to believe it will.

  Wait. What?!

  Franny’s nerves are more jumbled than the tangle of cords behind our television. But he’s doing his best to hide it.

  Under normal circumstances, Franny’s the epitome of clutch. Take, for instance, his last regular season must-win road game: he was cool, calm, collected on his way to a team-high twenty-four points, sinking the go-ahead free throw with time expired to ice the victory and advance to the playoffs.

  But this current Franny isn’t all smiles and laughs and joke after joke after joke.

  On the way home from school yesterday, he insisted on stopping to get a haircut. Made Jillian pull over in the middle of horn-honking traffic so he could double back up the street and catch a bus (even though Jillian said it was no problem to drive him) over to his cousin’s house, who moonlights as a barber. Crazy thing is, Franny hasn’t cut his hair in, like—forever. A while back we started calling him the Puerto Rican Questlove. But as of yesterday afternoon his scalp is low and clean, sparkling, too, like he’s an executive preparing to lead an important board meeting. No big deal, he said when he opened the door to his house, my mouth falling open as I pointed to his dome. It was just time, you know, he said in a way that I knew meant he didn’t want to keep talking about it.

  Even now, he’s pacing the floor, pretending like he’s exercising, as if all the back-and-forth down the narrow hallway is part of his big-game preparation.

  “Franny, it’s going to be okay, man,” I say not for the first time today.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” He walks into the kitchen and I don’t move from my spot on the living room sofa. “Gotta make sure these chops don’t burn or Abuela will beat my ass.”

  “I’ll beat your ass if they burn,” I shout.

  “Right!” He laughs.

  The front door locks turn and Franny emerges from the kitchen, eyes wide. “Wait, what do I do?” he says to me, to the room, to no one. “What do I do?”

  “You don’t have to do anything, Franny,” I say. “This is on him. Not you.”

  We stand there, waiting for the door to open, for the earth to split.


  “Francisco,” Franny’s dad says. His voice is rich, like it’s wrapped in a husk. The Coupon steps inside the threshold, Abuela standing quietly beside him. Franny doesn’t move. I don’t know if he’s frozen in place or if it’s by choice. But then his dad is rushing forward, wrapping his arms around Franny until Franny’s all but disappeared in the man’s broad chest and arms. The Coupon makes Franny, tall and muscular in his own right, seem small, like a marionette version of himself.

  “You probably thought you’d never see me again, huh?”

  Franny shrugs at the question, sheds the man’s arms from his shoulders. “Never thought about it, really.”

  He examines Franny’s eyes, the way my dad looks at me when he’s about to make some important point and he wants to make sure I’m listening. “Well, I’m back now, son. For good this time.”

  Franny laughs. “What, you want some sort of medal in advance?” He turns to Abuela, kisses her on the cheek. “Food’s ready.” He walks back into the kitchen.

  Franny’s dad looks at me, like he’s just noticed me standing there, his face morphed into surprise, or maybe embarrassment. He forces a smile and in his face I see Franny’s—Franny’s light-brown lips and slim nose, the way Franny’s eyes seem to glow at the edges, the same oval chin.

  I wonder if he’s going to give me away to Franny. If this is the part where Franny finds out I went behind his back and have been conducting business with his dad.

  “No way this is my man Jack. Last time I saw you you were about yea high, and now just look at you.” He extends his hand, his fingers chapped, like he wields an ax for a living. “My man Jack. Long time, brother.”

  “Long time,” I parrot. “So, how was it?” I ask, because I’m stupid.

  “What? You mean the joint? Pretty awful, man. Do yourself a favor. Never get locked up.”

  “Okay.” I stuff my hands in my pockets. “I’ll try not to.”

  “You still doing the poetry thing?”

  “Not really. I’m more into prose these days.”

  “Prose. Right on,” he says.

  A pan clatters in the kitchen. And then another.

  Abuela points down the hall. “Baby, you go clean up. I washed some clothes, laid them out on your bed. Jack and I are gonna get in this kitchen before your son burns down my house.”

  “Yes, Mama,” he says, stooping down to kiss her on her forehead. “For the last two weeks I’ve fantasized about your pork chops. You don’t know the hurting I’m about to put down.” He lets loose a low whistle and strolls down the hall.

  Franny’s dad wasn’t exaggerating. He devours pork chop after pork chop, to the delight of Abuela, who feels infinite joy when people like her food. Meanwhile, Franny barely touches his plate.

  “Francisco, you see that State game the other day? That comeback was wild, right? I mean, those cats were all the way in the grave, and then lightning came down from the sky and they couldn’t miss.”

  “I didn’t see it,” Franny says. Which is a lie. He couldn’t stop talking about that game.

  “Well, they’ll probably replay it on ESPN Classic, that’s how good it was,” Franny’s dad says, leaning back in his chair, his face electric. “I put some money on that game at halftime. When they were down by twenty points. Don’t ask me how I knew, but I just had this feeling that game wasn’t over. Like, deep in my gut, you know.” He squeezes his stomach, as if to emphasize just how deep.

  “Francisco, you know I don’t approve of gambling,” Abuela pipes up.

  “Aww, Mama, it was twenty dollars. It was nothing.”

  “Still,” she says. “Twenty dollars is not nothing.”

  Franny’s dad smiles big. “When you’re locked up, you do whatever you can to help pass the time. A little gambling keeps things interesting is all.”

  “Well, you’re out now. And that’s all behind you,” Abuela says firmly.

  “Yes, Mama.” Franny’s dad leans over, kisses his mom on her cheek. “So, Mama told me you guys are getting ready for prom.”

  Franny doesn’t bother looking up, but the silence is too much, so I mumble a feeble “Yeah.”

  “I met your mom at prom, Francisco, I tell you that? She went to the high school across town and she came with this other guy. I had a date, too. But soon as I saw her . . .” He pauses, a smile spreading on his lips, stares off like he can see the memory projected on the wall. “Soon as I saw her I knew. I knew. What about you, man? You got somebody special you taking?”

  Franny doesn’t bite. “Come on, man.”

  “C’mon on what,” his dad says. “Where we going?”

  “You don’t gotta pretend to be interested.”

  “I’m not pretending anything.”

  “Let’s just eat, yeah?”

  “You gotta come to one of Francisco’s games. He’s taking them to the playoffs. They’re gonna win, too,” Abuela interjects. “People always ask Francisco where he got his ball-playing skills from. What they don’t know is I was a pretty good dancer in my day. Good dancing and good ball-playing, they’re the same.”

  I clap my agreement, but Franny isn’t in a charitable mood.

  The Coupon chuckles. “You forget I used to ball pretty hard, too. Ball is in our blood, ain’t no surprise that—”

  Franny pushes his chair hard away from the table, its feet scraping the linoleum. “Can I be excused, please?”

  “But I have pie in the fridge. Made it this morning. Ice cream, too.”

  “Lost my appetite.”

  She clicks her tongue. “Francisco, your father just got here. You should—”

  “Mama,” Franny’s dad interrupts. “The boy says he’s not hungry, no sense in making him stick around.” He winks at Franny but Franny looks away.

  “Fine.” Abuela sighs. “But your homework better be done right, Francisco. Check and double-check.”

  Franny squeezes her hand. “Triple-check,” he promises, clearing his plate. He gives me a look like, let’s go. But it feels rude to bail.

  “Thanks for dinner, Abuela. It was delicious, as usual.”

  She pinches my cheek. “You’re always welcome here, Jack. You’re family.”

  The rest of the evening Franny’s in one of his I’d rather not talk moods. Which I try to respect, although there’s so much to talk about. Down the hall, his father’s voice booms and Abuela laughs in a way I can’t ever remember her laughing, like her laughter had been locked away for years. It makes me happy to hear her happy. But the more she bellows the sharper Franny’s silence gets.

  “We should stay at your house tonight,” he says.

  “That’s cool with me. Whatever you want to do.”

  “It’s what I want to do.”

  “Okay,” I reply, trying to remove any edge from my voice. Were my voice a color it would be white, and were it an object it would be a flag. The most important thing you can do for Franny, Mom said earlier this morning, is just be there, Jack. You two don’t know it yet, but one day that’ll be the only thing that matters. So, that’s what I’ve made up my mind to do. Be there. Be here.

  “Okay,” he repeats.

  Franny’s bedroom is a hodgepodge of familiar comforts. The beanbag chair I’m slouched in is the same one I’ve slouched in for nearly a decade. Franny still has posters of bands taped up that he doesn’t listen to anymore. His bookshelf is sagging with heaps of comics still in their slipcovers; the latest Black Panther sits atop. On his desk, where he’s sitting now, is what we’ve started calling The Stack. The Stack is as precarious as the last few moves in Jenga. A steadily growing pile of scholarship offers to schools all over the country; letters and packets boasting about each school’s advantages, falling over themselves to recruit one of the nation’s top athletes. You can feel The Stack’s desperation. Look at me, yoo-hoo, please, please, pick me!

  It’s odd, though. So many schools ready to hand him the keys to their kingdom, but he wants to be here, forty miles away, with us—Jillian and me. That Stat
e is not even one of the top ten schools recruiting him, and yet he’s willing to go there because he doesn’t want to be away from Jillian, from me. Of course, he’d never say that, but it’s understood. Jillian and I have both tried to push him to do what’s right for him, but he won’t even entertain a different path. I know what’s best for me, man. Trust.

  Franny sees me eyeing The Stack and he smiles. His first grin tonight.

  “How many more since last week?”

  “Half a dozen maybe,” he says. “But still no word from our beloved Whittier.”

  I shrug. “If they’re too stupid to accept you, then maybe I shouldn’t go either.”

  “You’re crazy, son,” he says, grinning harder. “I tell you that today? How crazy you are? First of all, your moms would go upside your head if you turned down Whittier. And then she’d probably come after me next.”

  “Probably,” I concede, laughing.

  “Uh-uh, no probably about it. True story.”

  “I’m saying, though. Who wouldn’t want Francisco Hogan at their school? Who wouldn’t want Francisco Hogan, period?”

  “I tell you this much, man.” Franny wags his head, stares in the direction of the kitchen, of the rolling laughter, of the best peach cobbler known to man. “Either you want me or you don’t. But I don’t want anything that doesn’t want me back.”

  JILLIAN: Hey, how did it go? He’s not answering my texts or calls.

  ME: Not great. He’s in quiet mode.

  JILLIAN: Damn. Too late for me to come over?

  ME: Never.

  Twenty minutes later, Jillian descends the basement steps, her long legs taking the stairs two at a time. We always joke that she’s 90 percent legs, 8 percent head and shoulders, and only 2 percent torso.

  “Hey, boys,” she says.

  Franny looks at her, then at me. “You two texting behind my back?”

  Jillian walks over, kisses the top of Franny’s head. He looks up at her, his big brown eyes ready for whatever she has to give. She cups his face.

  “Baby,” she whispers. She sits on the sofa beside him, pulls his head into her lap. He doesn’t resist. “Baby,” she repeats.