Front and Center

It was pretty quiet in the locker room afterward. You could tell everyone was thinking about Ashley, how much she was hurting probably right that second. I felt awful, that's for sure.

  Kari came over with a bunch of dollar bills and asked if I wanted to chip in on a teddy bear. Which is just the kind of good idea Kari always has—she's going to be such a great grownup—and I dug all of my change out of my backpack, some of it pretty linty, feeling a little bit better, just a tiny bit, because at least now I was doing something. Right then Coach K knocked and came in same as always for our post-game review, telling us everything we did right and for once kind of laying off on everything we did wrong, because of Ashley and all. A couple times he shot me a look I couldn't figure out at all, like he wanted to say something but not say it, if that makes any sense—it didn't make sense to me, anyway—and then as we were wrapping up, he asked me to come by his office.

  Great. He did want to bawl me out, but just not in front of everyone. For what, though? I hadn't been that tough on 5—was her coach complaining or something? Sheesh, grow up already. You should see how they play in the Big Ten. Which I wasn't going to be playing in, I reminded myself, but still. No need to be such a wuss.

  Only when I went into the office, going through the little door from the locker room that's always so fun to use, like a secret passage or something, the first person I saw wasn't the Two Geese coach. It was Dad.

  Dad never came to afternoon games—that's milking time. So what was he doing here?

  Smut was hurt. That was the only thing I could think. Or maybe something had happened with Win, he'd relapsed or something—can you relapse from a broken neck? No, it must be Mom's back again. We'd warned and warned her, everyone from Dr. Miller on down to Curtis, but she'd lifted Win...

  Only Dad didn't look the way he would if Mom was hurt, or Smut. I couldn't figure his expression out at all, actually, but whatever it was that had brought him all the way into Coach K's office couldn't be that bad. Not from his appearance.

  Then I noticed, finally, the guy perched next to him on a folding chair: the coach from UW–Madison.

  He held out his hand. "Good to see you again, D.J. That was an impressive game. Really," he added fast when my face fell. "It was very impressive. It takes a lot for a team to recover from an injury like that. You really pulled it together."

  "Oh. Thanks..." It's a wonder my mouth worked at all, my brain was such a jumble. What is the UW coach doing here? He'd seen the game? How bad had I played? I couldn't even remember, I was so spazzed now. I needed a few hours alone just to review all my mistakes. How obvious had that business with Two Geese 5 been? Does a Big Ten coach want to see those sort of take-downs, or not? And on top of everything else, I was apparently supposed to be listening to what this guy was saying. What they all were. Which I was also blowing royally.

  "...too bad about Sasha Christensen." The UW coach was shaking his head. "I don't want Michigan State stealing another one of our players."

  "Well, you go where you're wanted most," Dad put in, like he was some sort of sports commentator. "I mean, we all love Wisconsin, but from what I hear, they offered the Christensen girl a better package."

  Coach K grinned at him. "You've been around the block on this, haven't you?"

  "I'm just saying," Dad said. "You asked us here for a reason, dintcha?"

  The UW coach leaned forward. "Yes, I did." He looked at Dad, and then at me. Right at me. "D.J., I'm here as a representative of the University of Wisconsin to offer you a four-year scholarship to Madison."

  There was an extremely long silence. The three of them were staring at me, waiting.

  To tell you the truth, brain-wise I was still back on Sasha Christensen. She'd been recruited five years ago, and this college coach knew all about it. Did he follow every girl player in the state? And remember them for years afterward? Had he been in this very office with Coach K half a decade ago, talking to the amazing Sasha Christensen?

  "D.J.?" Coach K asked.

  "You, um ... wait." All of a sudden my brain caught up. "You just offered me a scholarship?"

  Dad roared with laughter, and slapped me on the back. "That's what it sounds like to me, sport. Pretty exciting, huh?"

  I sank into a folding chair. "Wow."

  The UW coach grinned. "It gives me chills, every time. Twelve years I've been doing this, and I still ... It's a pretty special moment."

  "D.J.? You okay?" Coach K asked. Because the three of them were smiling and laughing, but I was just sitting there like a statue. "Don't worry about Ashley. This doesn't have anything to do with her. Athletic scholarships and academics, they're completely different."

  I just got accepted to Madison. Accepted with one year of high school left. Without even applying. Without even taking my SATs. And Ashley, a girl who deserves college as much as anyone I've ever met, a girl who studies for fun, she hadn't. Instead they picked a girl who's never in her life cracked a book voluntarily and who wouldn't know a math formula if it hit her in the head. Whose only skill is dropping a ball through a hoop, and helping four other girls do the same.

  There were thousands of kids dying to get into Madison who right this moment were probably going through the same heartbreak as Ashley, staring down at their rejection letters because the school didn't want brainy students, students who love to study and learn and make the world a better place, the school didn't want them half as much as it wanted ball players.

  But do you want to know the really pathetic thing? I hadn't even thought about Ashley, not until Coach K brought her up. Now I felt twice as bad, if it's possible to double how bad I already felt. Because up until he said that, I'd been in an absolutely different kind of misery. Hadn't I made it clear to this UW coach that I didn't want to go to his school? I had to be polite, after all. I didn't say your university sucks. But couldn't he tell I was dead set against it?

  No, I guess he couldn't. I guess he figured I was just being shy or something. Which I was, duh, but a heck of a lot shyer than he even figured because guess what, I was too shy to play. And now I was going to have to say that out loud. Say that truth. Admit to him, and to everyone in Red Bend—because you can be sure everyone would hear; knowing Dad, it'd be all over town by morning—that D.J. Schwenk didn't have the guts to play for Madison.

  I knew, I knew already, that I would never be able to explain. Not in a way that anyone would understand. Never. All they would say, all they'd think, is that I was letting down the town. Letting down my school. Letting down the Schwenk name, and my family, and my brothers.

  "This doesn't have anything to do, you know, with Beaner and all that?" Dad asked.

  Oh, thank you, Dad. Because for a couple minutes there I'd forgotten about that whole heartbreak of Beaner and Brian. How I liked both of them so much, and how Brian was now asking me to choose. What possible training had I ever had, ever in my life, for that? None. I was actually better equipped to play Big Ten ball than to deal with having to choose between them.

  "You okay, sport?" Dad asked. Sounding as worried as I've ever heard him.

  "Yeah," I lied. "I just—I need some time. That's all."

  "Of course." He gave me a little hug. "But you just need to know ... I'm so proud of you."

  I almost lost it, right then and there.

  "It's a big shock," the UW coach put in. "I always think the girls will be expecting it, and I'm always surprised when they don't. You're a special person, D.J. Don't forget that."

  Somehow I managed to smile. It felt like I had rigor mortis, that thing where your muscles freeze—that's how much strength it took. But I did smile at him, and not burst into tears. And I took the paperwork from him as he gathered up his stuff, and shook his hand, and even waved a bit as he walked out of the office.

  The second the door clicked shut, though, I bolted for the locker room. But I hadn't made it half a step before Coach K grabbed my shoulder.

  "What's the rush?"

  "I—it's just—" What could I say? All
I wanted, more than anything in the entire world, was aloneness. I wanted to be out of the office and away from Coach K, and from Dad who was beaming at me like I'd just won the lottery, which I guess in his eyes I just had. The girls' locker room was probably empty by now. I could sit there as long as I wanted, until the custodian kicked me out. Cry if I needed to—it sure felt like I did. Figure out what the heck had just happened.

  Coach K eased me back into the folding chair. "We're not done yet," he said, giving me another weird look. He stuck his head out his door—his main door, not the secret passage one. The UW coach was still out there, talking to some woman, it sounded like. I really didn't care. Just a couple more minutes, I kept telling myself, like you'd tell a little kid who's about to lose it. Just a couple more minutes. I shut my eyes and took a deep breath.

  "Pretty amazing, isn't it, sport?" Dad asked. He sounded so proud. Oh, God.

  "Hi there, D.J." a woman said as the door clicked shut behind her. "Nice to see you again."

  I opened my eyes to see the University of Minnesota coach settling herself in the folding chair.

  She smiled at me. "I'm really glad I got a chance to see you play. I feel even more confident now about our decision."

  No way, I thought. No way. No way. No way. I forced my face into another rigor mortis smile, a little one that wouldn't take too much energy, because it took all the energy I had just to sit there listening to that nice U of M coach talk. I didn't absorb everything she said. I couldn't. But I heard three words clearly enough. The words "delighted" and "full scholarship."

  13. Barf Shoes

  I HAVE NO IDEA HOW I made it home. Mom goes on and on about the dangers of drunk drivers, you hear all these public service announcements, but no one ever puts out announcements warning against hysterically sobbing sixteen year olds. I could have wrapped the Caravan around a telephone pole and I wouldn't have noticed except maybe to wonder why it was that I suddenly felt better. Because there's no way that totaling the car could've left me feeling worse.

  At least I made it out of Coach's office okay. I shook hands with the U of M coach, and agreed that wow, it sure was a lot to absorb, and told Dad I was okay driving even though he was looking at me kind of funny. And K checked with both the coaches about when they needed answers. I can answer right this second!, I thought, but I didn't have the brainpower to get that out. Instead I just nodded and agreed with whatever they said, doing whatever I could to get out of there before I collapsed completely.

  I made it out of the school parking lot, driving on autopilot, my brain spinning away with all these thoughts that I couldn't possibly organize. I didn't start crying until I was partway home. Then I couldn't stop.

  I was still crying when Dad walked in half an hour later with Curtis. Who I'd been supposed to pick up, back before my life detonated. Whoops.

  I haven't cried in front of anyone in I don't know how long. Okay, once last fall I cried with Win's coach's wife, that first night he was hurt. But I do my very best to go off alone whenever I get that way. Whenever I feel that pressure in my throat. So it must have been quite a shock for the two of them to walk in and find big tough D.J. sitting at the kitchen table in a puddle of boogers and tears, Smut pressed against my knee looking all concerned.

  I couldn't see them because my head was down on the table, but I heard this long pause before the door clicked shut behind them. Curtis took a step back and slipped out of the room. Disappearing at the first sign of family tension.

  "I'm sorry, sport. Coach K asked me to be there," Dad said. "Guess I shouldn't have come..."

  "It's not that!" Only it probably sounded like "Iz—na—da" because I was crying so hard.

  He patted my shoulder in an extremely awkward way. "Anything I can do to help?"

  Which set me crying even harder.

  Curtis walked back in and came over beside me. "Here."

  I looked up: he was holding out a roll of toilet paper. I took a long sheet and blew my nose and wiped my eyes, then wiped off the table. "Thanks." At least it slowed my tears down, the combination of Curtis's niceness and Charmin. The tears didn't go away—I could feel them inside, just waiting to rev back up—but it gave me a bit of a breather.

  "Guess you didn't want to go to Madison," Curtis said.

  I laughed, a little non-laugh. "Guess I don't want Minnesota either," I said. Trying to sound casual instead of sobby.

  All of a sudden the phone rang.

  Dad picked up. "Hey ... Oh, hey, Win ... Yeah, you heard right. Wanna congratulate her?"

  My face must have looked like a dynamited building, I started crying so fast.

  "Oh!" Dad said. "Um, she, uh..."

  "She's taking a shower," Curtis put in.

  "Yeah. She's in the shower." Dad sounded pretty normal saying this, but he was looking at me like he couldn't figure out when the aliens had taken over his little girl.

  I didn't care if I was full of aliens, I felt so bad. I just climbed the stairs to the bathroom—because it had been a good suggestion of Curtis's, doing that—with my face in my hands, the tears squeezing out between my fingers, and stood in the shower sobbing away, wondering if it was possible even to tell what was water and what was tears, and whether it really even mattered.

  ***

  School the next day—oh, boy. I don't know who told, Dad or Coach K or whoever, but every single kid and every single grownup in the building seemed to know. And all of them, it seemed like, sought me out to congratulate me, asking me which one I was going to choose. Over and over again, all day long. Asking which one I loved the most.

  It was all I could do not to lose it, fending off everyone's congratulations and knock-'em-deads and advice on where I should go, advice completely and totally based on their own personal notions and totally un-based on me. All day long, whenever anyone said anything, anything about how fantastic Big Ten ball was, all I could think about was Tyrona's two missed free throws and how I'd never, ever, ever put myself in that position. Ever. No matter what.

  Even Amber got in on it. Only she just assumed I'd be going to the U of M because then I'd be able to hang out with Dale's friends in St. Paul. It was like my part in this decision, my voice, had nothing to do with it—it was all about her happiness and how psyched she was to have me as part of their gang. Which wouldn't be a bad thing, necessarily—knowing Dale, those friends were probably okay—but I wasn't given a choice one way or the other. This wasn't the first time Amber's treated me like someone who should just tag along with her ideas, but it had never gotten under my skin before. Because this time it wasn't which movie to see or what the best F-150 color is; it was my life. Which Amber didn't seem to get. Didn't even seem to sense, really.

  It got so bad, with Amber and everyone else, that I almost cut school. Walked out the front doors and just drove away. But I didn't, and you know why? For the simple, stupid reason that I had no other place to go. Any building I entered, even if it was the pizza place or the Super Saver or my very own home, was bound to have folks as ready to jaw my ear off as the population of Red Bend High School.

  So really even more than cutting school I wanted to curl up and die. Okay, not die —I wasn't suicidal. But die temporarily at least. Die enough that everyone would leave me alone and not remind me every two seconds of how I was going to have to tell the whole town that I was really a big fat wuss.

  At least Ashley wasn't in school. Apparently her wrist hurt so much that she stayed home. Kari swore Ashley had been really psyched when Kari had told her about me and Madison, which would have been great to hear except that it was just another example of how everyone was putting their own feelings in place of mine, and in place of Ashley's too, it sounded like. Because of course Kari was so psyched that she probably just projected all that psyched-ness onto Ashley. But it was still a relief to walk into health class and know I didn't have to face her.

  I felt so awful that I skipped practice. I told Coach KI was sick, which was a lie unless you count emotional s
ickness, which I had absolutely.

  "You doing okay?" he asked, studying me. "Must be a bit overwhelming."

  "You can say that again."

  "Me too, having two D-I coaches in my office ... Jerry was expecting this, you know. He knew it was a long shot."

  I looked at him blankly.

  "You remember—Jerry Knudsen. From Ibsen College."

  "Oh. Him. Yeah, well, I still want to go there."

  K laughed, and patted me on the back. "Glad to see you're keeping a sense of humor."

  He didn't even notice I was serious.

  And then, just to make my day completely perfect, on the way out I ran into Beaner. Who I'd been avoiding all day for reasons you probably can figure out without too much strain.

  "Yo! Rock star! Total congrats, man!" He jumped up on my back like always, the way that always cheers me up no matter what. Always did, anyway, until today. "So, you waiting to hear from Connecticut now? The Olympic team, maybe? Hey, what's wrong? You feeling bad?"

  "Yes," I said. Because that's precisely how I was feeling.

  "Yeah, well ... It's probably not contagious." He gave me a kiss. "Man, you are sick."

  "I know. I am."

  Driving home, I couldn't help but wonder what Brian would think of all this. If he'd be able to understand what I was going through. He was a QB, after all; he knew what pressure was. Only he also knew how to handle it, a lot more than I did. He'd probably just say that of course I was good enough for D-I and I should just do it.

  Which was exactly the advice I was already getting, and exactly what I didn't need to hear.

  Then when I got home finally, I got another surprise, because sitting there at the kitchen table, wolfing down coffee and cinnamon buns, were the two farmers who'd helped us out right after Win got hurt.

  Dad handed me a cinnamon bun. "Early practice there, sport?"

  "Yeah, kind of." I eyeballed the farmers, trying to figure out what was going on.

  "These fellas are going to manage the farm for a couple days," Dad said matter-of-factly. As if it was completely natural for him to turn his cows over to anyone who wasn't blood kin. "I'm heading over to Minnesota, you know. Spell your mother for a bit."