Matthew and the Stone

by Bob Blanton

  “She asked me about the Winter Ball. Do you think she was hinting for me to ask her out?”

  “Earth to Matthew, is anybody home? She lets you win at tennis; she spends an extra thirty minutes getting ready whenever you’re coming over, always wears her best clothes, what gave you the first clue?”

  “I don’t think about her like that.”

  “Of course not, you’re so in love with Emily you wouldn’t notice if a supermodel walked up and laid down at your feet.”

  “She’s just a freshman.”

  “Get a clue, Bozo. Lots of juniors date freshmen. Besides she’s only four months younger than you. Geez you’re the math whiz, add up the numbers. She’s had a crush on you since she first saw you last year.”

  “Okay, okay, so what am I supposed to do?”

  “Nothing, because you’re Don Quixote tilting at Emily.” Jason was obviously pleased with his literary reference. “And Emily thinks about you like you think about Brea, as a friend.”

  Matthew grimaced at the truth, “Lay off, Jason.”

  “Fine, I’ll trounce you on the court tonight. That should show Emily what a great guy you are.” Jason’s voice had just enough jest in it that Matthew hoped he wasn’t really mad, but he couldn’t be sure.

  Jason headed off to his car, and Matthew went over to the bike rack, hoping that things would be okay between Jason and him.

  . . .

  Matthew was at the curb waiting for Jason to pick him up when Emily drove up in her Porsche Boxter. “Hi, Matt.”

  “Oh, Hi, Emily, where’s Jason?”

  “He’s picking up Alex, no consorting with the enemy before the match. Are you ready?”

  “Sure, as ready as I’ll ever be.” Matthew climbed into Emily’s car. “Did you get a chance to talk to Brea?”

  “Yes, she said she baited Jason into a match last night to tire him out for us. She thinks our only chance is to play to his forehand.”

  “Good, maybe we have a chance.”

  “Well, she also said not to bet any money we didn’t plan on losing. So, I don’t know what kind of chance we have.”

  “Oh don’t worry. I’ll try to keep Alex at bay while you tear into Jason.”

  “No problem,” Emily said as the Porsche Boxter roared away from the curb. She turned the stereo up to blasting. “This will help get us psyched up for the game.” She had to yell to be heard over the stereo.

  . . .

  When they arrived at the country club, Jason and Alex were already on the court warming up. “About time you showed up, we were wondering if you’d lost your nerve or maybe been nicked by the coppers,” Alex said, as Emily and Matthew walked onto the court.

  “We’re hardly late, especially if you factor in the normal Jason time. We didn’t want to get here too early and cut into your together time.”

  “You guys should warm up; Alex and I are already warmed up.” Jason and Alex went to the side of the court to chat, giving Emily and Matthew the whole court for their warm-up.

  Matthew and Emily batted the ball back and forth a few minutes to warm up.

  “Are you ready, Matt?” Emily asked.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “We’re ready. Hey you guys, are we here to play tennis or kiss?” Emily had to shout to get Jason’s and Alex’s attention. The two of them were necking on the bench.

  “Okay, okay,” Jason said as he and Alex got up and headed to one side of the court.

  “Let’s start,” Alex said.

  Once they started, it was pretty clear that Alex and Matthew were just window dressing. Emily and Jason handled most of the volleys and Alex and Matthew lost most of the points. For the first set things were pretty much even. Neither side lost their serve, but Jason and Alex won the set in a tiebreaker. Jason was joking with Alex the whole time.

  “He doesn’t look like his mind is in the game,” Emily said to Matthew as she prepared to serve, “maybe we can take this next one.”

  For the second set they stayed on serve until the sixth game. Then Matthew and Emily broke Alex’s serve to put them up 4-2. “Yes!” Emily yelled, clenching her fist. “We’ve got them now,” and she gave Matthew a hug.

  Alex, looking dejected, walked over to Jason, “Sorry, I really botched that one up.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get it back,” Jason pushed her chin up with his finger. “Alex, how much do you want to win this thing?” he asked.

  “I’ve never beaten Emily at anything,” Alex said. “It would be bloody good to win once.”

  “Well if you want to win, would you mind if you just covered the baseline? I’ll cover the rest of the court.”

  “You mean just stay out of your way?”

  “Sort of; or we can keep playing like we have been, we’re having fun and we might still win. It’s up to you.”

  “Let’s get them; Emily could do with a good rousting.”

  “Okay, they’re playing to my forehand, so cheat that way. And no matter what, stay two feet behind the baseline.”

  “Two feet behind the baseline, roger.”

  “That way you can run down the balls I can’t get to.”

  “Hey you guys,” Emily hollered, “are you ready to take your medicine or what?”

  “Be quiet and serve the ball,” Jason said as he smacked a tennis ball at her.

  “Okay Matt, you’re up.” Emily tossed the ball to Matthew.

  Matthew served the ball deep to Alex. She was able to dance around it and return it to his backhand. Matthew raced to the ball and returned it low and hard. Jason took Matthew’s volley in midair and laced it down the line past Emily.

  The next point went much the same way. Then Emily told Matthew to try and hit the ball over Jason’s head, but that only resulted in Matthew hitting it long and out of bounds. Alex and Jason won the game at love.

  Then it was Jason’s serve. Jason started out with two aces. Matthew and Emily backed up for Jason’s serves after that and were able to return them, but Jason just charged in behind the serve and volleyed the ball to the line. Emily and Matthew looked at each other hopelessly. Now the set was tied four games each.

  On Emily’s serve, Jason returned the serve at Matthew, and then charged the net. He had no problem passing Emily down the line after Matthew’s return. The next few points went much the same. They only won one point off of Emily’s serve.

  On Alex’s serve, Matthew couldn’t get his return by Jason. Every time, Jason would just nail the return on the fly into the open court. Four points later it was Jason yelling “Game, set, match!” as Alex ran over to give him a hug.

  “That’ll teach you to get cocky with us,” Alex hollered across the net.

  “Sorry,” Matthew said to Emily as he walked over, looking dejected.

  “It’s not your fault. That guy should go pro, he’s really good.” Emily patted Matthew on the back. “I’ve never been schooled like that in my life.”

  “It happens to me every week. I told you he was good.”

  “Well, let’s go take our medicine,” Emily said as they walked over to the lip-locked pair.

  “He…llo,” Emily said stretching it out for emphasis. “I guess we owe you lunch.”

  “Sounds fine with me,” Jason said as he turned and shook Emily’s hand. Then moving to shake Matthew’s hand, a little fire entered his eyes, “Don’t dis my sister again.”

  “Sorry,” Matthew said feeling a little shocked by the ferocity in Jason’s eyes.

  “All right,” Jason was all smiles again.

  Alex gave Matthew a little peck on the cheek and said, “Let’s go and let you buy that lunch.”

  “What was that about?” Emily asked as she and Matthew gathered their stuff.

  “Oh, Brea was kind of hinting about the Winter Ball and I ignored her. I guess I was a little dense, I didn’t realize she liked me that much.”

  “Well she does, and you should ask her out. She’s really cute and she adores you. You’d make a nice c
ouple.”

  “I don’t know,” Matthew mumbled under his breath.

  “Men, they never see a good thing even when it’s staring them in the face,” Emily just shook her head. “Well let’s go pay the piper. That’ll teach me to mouth off in the middle of a match.”

  Lost at Sea

  On Friday, Matthew met up with Jason at lunch.

  “Jason, how’s it going? You sure gave Emily and me a big-time tennis lesson yesterday.”

  “Hey, everyone needs a lesson in humility once in a while. Are we all square?”

  “Sure.”

  “Hey, what are you doing Saturday afternoon?”

  “I’ll probably go into Webmasters to do some work, why do you ask?”

  “I’m going to take our sailboat out; do you want to come along?”

  “I don’t know; I need to get caught up on a project at work.”

  “Come on man, you’re always too busy to have fun, let’s go out for the afternoon and relax. The sun, wind and ocean are the perfect formula for a relaxing afternoon. We’ll just go out for the afternoon. I was going to ask you earlier in the week, but then I was in New York and didn’t get a chance.”

  “Okay, I guess I can catch up on Sunday, and it’s been years since I’ve been sailing. What time?”

  “I’ll pick you up at 1:00, we’ll probably be back by 5:00, bring a jacket.”

  . . .

  The next day Matthew went to the Golden Dragon for his Kung Fu lesson at 9:00 and sparring class at 10:00. He was going to start a new form this week and he was worried about having enough time to learn it. The tennis lessons and other activities with his new friends were really using a lot of time Since he had to keep up his work schedule, his Kung Fu had been suffering.

  Master Lee met him when he came into the school. “Matt, are you ready for your lesson?”

  Matthew bowed to Master Lee before answering “Yes, I’m all set. Do I need any weapons?”

  “No, we’ll be working on a new hand form, so no weapons. Let’s go out back so we have some room.”

  Matthew followed Master Lee out of the school into the parking lot of the bank next door. Matthew usually had his lesson outside, especially since the advanced Kung Fu set took a lot of space and the school only had two large mats. It was fortunate that it almost never rained in San Diego, or the school would have had a hard time accommodating all of its students in the limited amount of indoor space.

  Matthew and Master Lee bowed to each other to open the lesson.

  “Matt, you haven’t been coming to group class much lately, are you keeping up with your training?”

  “I’m sorry, I’ve been real busy lately. I keep practicing in the morning, but it’s been hard to have the free time in the afternoon to come to the school.”

  “Well if you can’t come all the time, you need to at least make it to sparring class on Tuesday night.”

  “I almost always make it to sparring on Saturday.”

  “Only sparring once a week isn’t enough to keep you sharp, and we have the tournament in December; we’re counting on a gold medal from you in both sparring and push hands.”

  “I’ll try to make my schedule work.”

  “Don’t try, do.”

  “All right, I’ll make it work.”

  “Okay, let’s get started. We’re going to start the five-animal form. It’s an internal form so you’ll start out performing it slowly like Tai Chi. After you’ve mastered it, we’ll add speed in some places so you can work on staying relaxed while delivering quick bursts of power.”

  Master Lee demonstrated the first part of the form. It included a move where he stood on one foot, while the other was extended into a heel kick to the front. Master Lee then sank down on his supporting leg until he was resting on his ankle. Then he lifted himself back up and executed a slow rear kick. This was the most physically demanding move in the form. Matthew had seen it demonstrated every year at the tournament.

  “Now you try.”

  Matthew executed the same set of moves that Master Lee had shown him. Since he knew that he’d have to work on the strength to be able to do the opening part of the form, Matthew had been working with one of the students who had already mastered the form to get this part down. He was hoping Master Lee would be impressed when he was able to do the sinking kick move.

  “That’s good, but you’ve left out some details.” Master Lee then went through the moves again pointing out small details about hand placement, exact bend in the wrist. “Now do it again.”

  By the end of the forty-five-minute lesson, Matthew had done the moves so many times he’d lost count; and his legs were screaming with pain, especially his right leg, which had to do the one-legged squat move.

  “Okay, that’s enough for today. You are staying for sparring right?”

  It wasn’t really a question so Matthew just nodded yes, and prayed that his legs would recover enough before he had to get in the ring with someone. Fortunately the sparring class consisted of drills and combinations, so he didn’t have to really try and defend himself on his rubbery legs.

  “What’s the matter, Matt, you’re not quite as quick as you usually are?” his partner, Mr. Corlis said.

  “My legs are killing me.”

  “Five Animal?”

  “Yeah, I must have done the opening sequence twenty times.”

  “Yeah, you need to really practice that part. You don’t want Sifu spending the whole lesson detailing it.”

  “I’ve been working on it with Mr. Hartly; I thought I had it down, but Sifu just kept finding details to correct.”

  “I think they like to make the first lesson really painful. Like an initiation, just make sure you learn as many moves ahead as you can; the later moves are a lot easier, and you’d rather Sifu spend time on those.”

  “I will. I just hope I can make it home on my bike.”

  “I’ve got my truck; I’ll give you a ride home.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Corlis.” Matthew was relieved that he’d be able to save that energy for sailing.

  . . .

  After he showered, Matthew made a PB&B sandwich and wolfed it down along with a glass of milk. He grabbed a couple of granola bars for snacks and headed out to the curb to wait for Jason.

  As usual, Jason had his Lexus wound up so it really sounded loud coming up the hill to Matthew’s house. He made a quick U-turn and pulled up beside Matthew.

  “Jump in.”

  Matthew hopped into the convertible without opening the door. “Let’s go.”

  “I checked the weather; we should have some nice wind once we get out of the harbor.”

  “Good, what kind of sail boat is it?”

  “It’s a 39-foot Beneteau. It’s a real beauty. We’re going to try to do some racing in it this winter; she can really haul when the wind’s up.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “It is, maybe you can crew with us. Dad’s planning on doing the Newport Beach to Ensenada race next spring. That’s a real blast, a big party and a race all rolled into one. We flew out a couple of years ago and crewed with a friend.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” Matthew yelled so he’d be heard over the noise of the wind and the engine.

  A few minutes later, they pulled into the parking lot at the Del Mar Yacht Club.

  “We’re at the end of pier four, down and to the right.”

  “Do you need me to carry anything?”

  “No, brought everything over this morning; we’re set to go.”

  They walked down the ramp onto the floating dock. As they turned onto pier four, Jason pointed to a white sailboat. “There she is.”

  They walked down the side of the boat. It had its front sail, the jib, wrapped around the stay. The main sail was still under canvas tied down to the main boom. The helm was a silver wheel with the classic spokes beckoning back to the early days of sailing, but it was mounted on a console with lots of instrumentation that was thoroughly modern. Cara Mia was written
across the stern.

  “It’s named for your mother?” Matthew asked.

  “Yeah, Dad thought that way she couldn’t complain about him spending time and money on the boat. Mom actually does like sailing in it a lot.”

  “I can see why, it’s a real beauty.”

  “Yes it is. Now we’re going to just shove off right away. So, you grab the bowline; when I get the diesel fired up, you just walk it out of the slip, and then jump on.”

  “Sounds easy.”

  Jason undid the aft line and jumped on board. He went to the helm and fired the engine up. The diesel roared to life and after it had settled in, Jason engaged the propeller and started to back the boat out of the slip. Matthew just walked the bowline to the end of the slip, then jumped on. By the time he worked his way to the cockpit, Jason had the boat turned and heading out of the slip area.

  “Matt, can you grab the chocks off the side; we don’t want people thinking we’re amateurs.”

  Matt walked up the side of the boat and collected the white chocks that were used to keep the boat from bumping into the slip when it was moored. As he brought them back to the cockpit he asked, “Where do you want them stowed?”

  “Over there in the locker under that seat,” Jason pointed to the seat just to the left of the cabin entrance.

  As Matthew lifted the seat and dumped the chocks in, Alex stuck her head out of the cabin door and asked, “How long before we put the sails up?”

  “We can put the main sail up now,” Jason said.

  Matthew was stunned; he turned to Jason, “You didn’t say Alex was coming.”

  “I thought I’d told you that the girls were coming with us.”

  “Girls?” Matthew said, turning his head toward the cabin. Brianna was just coming up the steps.

  “Hi, Matt; would you come and help me take the cover off the main sail?”

  Matthew gave Jason an angry stare. Jason just smiled and mouthed, “Gotcha.”

  Matthew heaved a big sigh and thought, “Don’t let this get to you; you’re here to have a fun time sailing. Like Cara said, no matter what the situation, you should always have fun.’” He went over to the mast and helped Brianna take the cover off the sail.