Restart

  Then Chase notices me.

  “Oh, hi, Shoshanna—” His smile disappears when I glare at him.

  “Wait a minute,” Mr. Solway exclaims. “Is she your friend, Chase?”

  He nods. “We’re in video club together. I’m the one who suggested you for her project.”

  The old soldier thinks it over and comes to a conclusion with a curt nod. “That makes it different. I’d be happy to help the two of you out.”

  I don’t like the sound of that. I don’t have a partner for this contest. And even if I did, the last person on earth I’d ever choose would be Chase Ambrose.

  But if I say that to Mr. Solway, I’ll get kicked out again—this time for good.

  I turn furious eyes on Chase. He gazes innocently back and I know that somewhere deep inside, he’s laughing at me.

  It looks like I have a partner—whether I want one or not.

  And I don’t.

  How am I ever going to explain this to Joel?

  My dad recently bought himself a souped-up Mustang with four hundred horsepower, huge tires, and just enough of a defect in the muffler that it roars like a bulldozer. That’s what he drives when he isn’t in the Ambrose Electric truck—he won’t be caught dead in Corinne’s van. And, he assures me, when I’m sixteen, my first lesson will be behind the much-beloved wheel of “the ’Stang.”

  “I hope not,” I tell him, “because I won’t be able to make out a single word over the engine noise.”

  He laughs appreciatively. “You won’t be able to hear a police siren either. But you’ll be able to outrun one.” We pull up in front of my house and he kills the engine so we can hear each other scream.

  “Thanks for dinner, Dad. Corinne’s a great cook.”

  “The best.”

  “Helene’s really fun too. I guess we’re turning into pretty good friends.”

  He grimaces. “Because you played princess with her.”

  “Yeah, well, we were going to have an ultimate fighting match, but we couldn’t find an octagon.”

  Dad doesn’t crack a smile. “I guess you never struck me as the kind of kid who’d care whether or not he’s ‘pretty good friends’ with a four-year-old.”

  I shrug. “She used to be afraid of me. Isn’t this better?”

  “She wasn’t afraid of you, exactly. But you were different then. Tougher. Nobody messed with you. Think of Aaron and Bear. Like that.”

  I’m having flashbacks of my wonderful toughness—punching and shoving kids, kicking their heels out from under them in the halls. But it’s not all bad stuff like that. I remember walking through the school with my shoulders back and my head held high. I remember feeling important and confident and powerful. Maybe some of that came from what a jerk I was, but surely not all of it. I was a star athlete and a state champion. I had a lot of friends. I was somebody in this town. It’s not a crime to be proud of that.

  I reach for the door handle. “Anyway, thanks again, Dad.”

  “One more thing, Champ,” he says quickly. “There’s this doctor. He’s a sports medicine expert, so he has a lot more experience than that quack Cooperman. I talked to his office and he’s willing to take a look at you to give us a second opinion.”

  “A second opinion?” I echo. “We know exactly what happened to me. What’s a second opinion going to do?”

  “Get you on the field, where you belong!” he exclaims immediately. “Even Cooperman admits you’ve recovered. It shouldn’t cost you your whole season!”

  “Dr. Cooperman explained all that,” I remind him. “You know, abundance of caution and blah, blah, blah.”

  “And if that’s the right move, Dr. Nguyen will tell you the same thing. But if it’s not, you’re throwing away your eighth-grade year, maybe another state championship! Nobody’s ever won two in a row—not even me!”

  His face is flushed with passion. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s one hundred percent sincere. Even more amazing, he’s talking about me surpassing what he accomplished on the Hurricanes. Obviously, there’s a lot I can’t remember, but for him to suggest I might go beyond him—that he might be second best after me—that’s huge!

  How could I not see this Nguyen guy? He’s a specialist, which means he knows more about sports injuries than anybody—including Dr. Cooperman. If he gives me the okay to play, then nobody can stop me.

  “I’ll tell Mom,” I promise.

  “God, no!” he explodes. When I gawk at him, he adds, “We don’t want to worry her. She’s got enough on her mind. I’ll take you to Dr. Nguyen, and when we get the all clear, then we’ll find a way to bring it up to your mother.”

  I don’t want to get my hopes up too high. “You mean if we get the all clear,” I amend.

  “Whatever. But I’ve got a good feeling about this, Champ. You’ll have your old life back before you know it.”

  My old life. I allow my mind to sift through the idea. I’m excited to play football, but what I really crave is the chance to be me again. To make up with my best friends and mend fences with the team. Those feelings of self-assuredness and pride won’t just come from memories anymore.

  It could all happen very soon.

  Bear snatches the pass out of the air, hugs the ball close to his body, and executes a lightning spin move around a lady pushing a baby carriage on the sidewalk.

  “Watch it!” she barks as the startled baby begins to scream.

  “Sorry!” I shout over my shoulder, and we continue along Portland Street, tossing the ball between the three of us.

  I’m not back on the team yet, but no one said I couldn’t play a friendly game of catch as we make our way to community service.

  The “friendly” part is just for us. It doesn’t include our fellow pedestrians, who run for their lives when they see us coming.

  “Hey, cut it out!”

  “Watch where you’re going!”

  “That’s my head you almost took off!”

  A ten-year-old kid lets loose a string of obscenities when we knock him off his bike.

  “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Aaron crows gleefully.

  Laughing, I haul the kid and his bike upright and turn back just in time to see the ball screaming at my face. At the last second, I reach up and pick it out of the air. Not bad, I think to myself. Maybe I really am the star everyone says I used to be.

  Aaron and Bear are all power and no finesse. Aaron’s even kind of a butterfingers—he’s constantly running into the road after the bouncing ball, amid squealing brakes and honks of outrage. But I seem to have some real skills, and what Dad would call good hands.

  “Great catch, Ambrose!” Aaron bellows. “Now you see how much the Hurricanes need you.”

  I grin, but don’t tell them about the appointment Dad’s going to set up with Dr. Nguyen. I don’t want them celebrating something that might not happen if the new doctor doesn’t clear me to play.

  But he’s going to. I can feel it.

  When we get to the Portland Street Residence, I spy Shoshanna just stepping in the front door. Luckily, Aaron’s looking the other way, and I throw Bear a bullet pass to make sure he doesn’t see her. It wouldn’t be easy to explain to those guys that she and I are working together.

  I don’t have a time sheet to sign, so when they head to the office, I make a beeline for Mr. Solway’s room. I’ll have to catch up with them at some point, but the way they goof off and eat cookies, I’ve got plenty of time.

  I don’t feel great about running around behind their backs, but it’s easier this way. Why stir things up if I don’t have to?

  “… so the colonel is lecturing us on conserving resources and right behind him on the landing strip, the PFCs are unloading the six coolers of pastrami sandwiches we had flown in from San Francisco. And we’re praying he doesn’t turn around because we sent two pilots over twelve thousand miles, including a stop at the Midway Islands, to get us lunch. We’re breaking our arms patting ourselves on the back that we got away with i
t, when the colonel sniffs the air and says, ‘Call me crazy, but I could swear I smell pastrami!’”

  I cling harder to the flip-cam so my laughter won’t make the picture jump. I can see that Shoshanna, the interviewer, is actually biting the side of her mouth to keep from cracking up. You don’t want to do anything to interrupt Mr. Solway. Once he gets started, the stories tumble out, one after another.

  It’s our third day at Portland Street working with the old soldier, and our best yet. Shoshanna never planned on spending more than a couple of hours here, but neither of us counted on Mr. Solway having so much to say. Most of the time, he’s all sarcasm, so it’s hard to have a normal conversation with him.

  The big difference is Shoshanna, who’s a natural interviewer. She’s so genuinely interested that she brings out the best in Mr. Solway.

  Some of the stories are sad, like losing friends in battle or having to rescue children orphaned by the war. Some are uplifting—the work of medics and nurses, and the incredible heroism of ordinary soldiers. But amazingly, in the middle of all that suffering and violence, a lot of funny stuff happened too. Like the pastrami incident, or the time General MacArthur’s laundry was sent to their post by mistake, and they used his silk boxer shorts as party hats on New Year’s Eve.

  I get the impression that Mr. Solway was the army’s version of a class clown, which doesn’t really match the cranky old geezer he is now. Or maybe it does—I think of his mistrust of authority figures like doctors and administrators. He saw almost as many of those during the war as he does today in assisted living. After he took out that tank, he spent five weeks in the hospital. He was nearly court-martialed for running an illegal gambling operation. He filled empty IV bags with helium and took bets on balloon races. While he’s telling it to Shoshanna, he’s roaring with laughter. His face is pink from the joy of the memory.

  “I had fifty bucks on the hot water bottle—that was a lot of money in those days—and this crazy Texan threw a hypodermic needle like a dart and brought me down three feet shy of the finish line. I’ve never been so mad at anybody in my life! But I paid up—at least I was going to until the MPs raided the game, party poopers!”

  Engrossed in the story, I nearly miss the twin gasps from the hall. I glance over my shoulder to spy Aaron and Bear standing in the doorway, staring in bewilderment.

  Busted.

  “Let’s take a break, okay?” I set down the camera and join them outside.

  “What gives?” Bear demands. “First you come with us to community service when you don’t even have to—that’s bad enough! But now you’re making a movie about the place?”

  “It’s for video club—”

  “And with Shoshanna Weber?” Aaron cuts me off. “Her stupid family got us sentenced to the Graybeard Motel!”

  “Maybe I’m trying to make things right with her,” I defend myself. “Maybe if I help her with her project, the family will be in more of a forgiving mood.”

  “Yeah, that’ll work,” Aaron snorts. “Listen, man, you might not remember how much the Webers hate our guts, but I do. If it was up to them, we wouldn’t be on community service; we’d be on death row. But, hey, it’s all good. If you want to spend your time with people who curse the day you were born instead of your true friends—it’s not like we can stop you.”

  I’m torn. On the one hand, I’m not doing anything wrong. Still, I’ve kind of brought this on myself by covering up the fact that I’m working with Shoshanna. Aaron looks honestly hurt—like I’m stabbing him in the back. And let’s face it, he might be kind of right. After all, I didn’t have to be so secretive about the video project.

  Bear chimes in. “And of all the Dumbledores in this place, why do you have to pal around with that one? If you’re looking for relics, this place is like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Why him?”

  “We’re interviewing him,” I try to explain. “He’s the most interesting person here. The guy’s a war hero!”

  They stare at me like I’ve got a cabbage for a head through a long, weird silence. Finally, Aaron mumbles, “Yeah, you showed us the picture.”

  “The way you ignore all the residents here, I figured maybe you forgot.”

  “Yeah, well, we didn’t,” Bear snaps. “We know all about Mr. Steinway.”

  “Solway,” I correct.

  Aaron is annoyed. “Listen, when you’re practicing football three hours a day and doing community service because you have to—not because it’s your hobby—you’ve got a lot more on your mind than remembering every old coot’s name. Come on, Bear.”

  “Look who’s talking about forgetting,” Bear adds resentfully as they head down the hall.

  Way to go, Chase, I chew myself out as they round the corner. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid. And now they’re ticked off at me. Worse, they feel like they can’t trust me anymore.

  What next, huh?

  When I reenter the room, the first thing I see is Mr. Solway’s walker standing against the wall. The old soldier himself is up on his feet, directing Shoshanna, who is pulling a heavy box out of the closet.

  “You know,” she’s saying, “I thought being in the army taught people to be more orderly.”

  Mr. Solway throws his head back and guffaws loudly. “I’m the exception to that rule. Some of the fellows—to this day, they make a bed so tight you could bounce a quarter off the blanket. Me, I always hated the spit and polish. I promised myself that the minute there was no sergeant around to search for a speck of dust on my boots, I was going to be as messy as I wanted to be.”

  “Well, in that case,” Shoshanna informs him, “this closet is your crowning glory.”

  Instead of being insulted, the old soldier looks kind of pleased.

  I can see it from all the way across the room. There are a few shirts, pairs of pants, and one suit on hangers pushed over to one side. The rest of the space—ninety percent of it—is jam-packed with what can only be described as stuff. Picture the entire contents of a house crammed into a tiny four-by-four space. All the things that would end up in the basement, the garage, the attic live in that closet. There are books, Ping-Pong paddles, a broom, a couple of bowling trophies, hip waders and a fishing rod, framed pictures, a weed whacker, ice skates, a three-foot-high oriental vase with a crack up the side, a golf umbrella, a garden gnome, luggage, and cartons of varying sizes. As I cross the room, I get a peek inside the box that Shoshanna dragged out. It contains three replacement furnace filters, jumper cables for a car, and a sterling silver nutcracker set.

  It looks like exactly what it is—the things a person collects over eighty-six years. And when that person moves to a place where all the storage space is one little closet, it gets pretty tight in there.

  “We’ve got a lot of great footage of Mr. Solway talking,” Shoshanna explains to me from the depths of the collection. “But what we need are some visuals to cut away to—mementos, old photographs, that kind of thing. What do you think?” When we’re talking project business, she sometimes slips up and treats me like a fellow human.

  “Good idea,” I agree.

  Mr. Solway peers into another box. “Son of a gun! I was wondering what I did with my thirty-two-piece ratchet set.”

  I look at him, standing up and walking on his own, even bending over to see inside the carton. It’s hard to believe that this is the same Mr. Solway that I first met, struggling on the walker and never even bothering to open the blinds to let some light into his gloomy room.

  Maybe when his wife died and he moved into Portland Street, he lost focus because everything in his life used to revolve around her. But now that Shoshanna and I are coming over to work on the video, he’s totally different. He wants to present himself well on camera, so he shaves, dresses well, stands straighter, and walks better. According to the nurses, his appetite has improved at mealtimes.

  We dig around some more, moving stuff out of the closet and unpacking boxes until the floor is covered in knickknacks. We do find a few things we
can use in the video—black-and-white photographs from the barracks in Korea; the Solways’ wedding picture in a double frame with one from their fiftieth anniversary; his old military dog tags and another set belonging to a buddy who was killed in the war.

  We’ve got enough, but Shoshanna is like a bloodhound, on her hands and knees in the closet, running her hand along the baseboard.

  “What are you doing back there?” Mr. Solway asks. “Drilling for oil?”

  She reaches behind a golf bag and draws out a navy-blue velvet jewelry box of an odd triangular shape. Embossed in silver on the lid is the Great Seal of the United States.

  “You found my medal!” Mr. Solway exclaims in amazement.

  Glowing with discovery, Shoshanna flips open the cover.

  The box is empty.

  Mr. Solway frowns. “It must have fallen out.”

  Shoshanna and I give the closet floor a thorough inspection. No medal.

  She has a question. “Mr. Solway, when was the last time you wore your medal?”

  “In this place?” He’s sarcastic. “Lots of state occasions here. Wheelchair races. Canasta games. Colonoscopies—”

  “What about before that? Before you moved here?”

  He casts her a wry grin. “I get you. What if the crazy old codger packed up the empty case for a medal he lost twenty years ago? No, don’t apologize. It’s a valid question. The answer is I never wore it. Not that I was ashamed of it, but it didn’t feel right—like I’d be saying, ‘Look how great I am. I’ve got a better medal than you. Any dimwit can win a Purple Heart.’ My wife used to take it out once a year on Veterans Day. And when I refused to wear it, she’d polish it up and put it away again. Maybe one time she misplaced it. She was confused toward the end. It’s possible.”

  He retreats to his easy chair and sits in silence. Talking about his wife always makes him sad. We quit filming early in order to leave our subject with his memories.

  “I love Mr. Solway, but he’s pretty weird,” Shoshanna says as we cross the lobby, heading for the exit. “He won his country’s highest honor and basically ignored it.”