The One and Only

  “Someone, huh?” Coach said. “You mean someone like Ryan’s daddy.”

  “Are you serious?” I said, feeling my eyes grow wide.

  Coach nodded. “Well, that was the rumor. He wanted a top-notch receiver for his son to throw to.”

  “But … So … You knew about that?” I stammered. My heart sank a little, hearing him toss out the theory so casually. Maybe Ryan was right—maybe I was naïve.

  “I knew that was the rumor. As I said, I don’t know for sure … I have no idea where Ced got that truck. I know he didn’t buy a damn Escalade from his paper route in the Third Ward,” Coach said, as I remembered Cedric lovingly referring to his neighborhood in Houston as “the Trey.” Come to think of it, he reminded me of Reggie, with an outgoing personality and an affable way of bridging the gap between the children of privilege at Walker and the blue-collar athletes. Everyone had rooted for him—there was even an impromptu pep rally on the quad the spring of our junior year when the Falcons drafted him as the seventh overall pick. He had done well in the NFL since then, still playing for Atlanta, married with three or four children—and maybe a fleet of Escalades.

  “Did you ever ask Cedric about the car?” I pressed. “Or Mr. James?”

  Coach Carr seemed a little defensive as he answered. “I asked Ryan about it. I asked his daddy. They both denied it. I asked Cedric himself …”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said it was his uncle’s. The title was in his uncle’s name and his uncle was making the payments on it.”

  “Did you believe him?” I asked.

  “As opposed to calling one of my kids a liar?” he said, putting down his plate. “What am I gonna do? Confiscate the truck? Trace the title? Strap his uncle to a lie detector? Bottom line, Cedric was a good kid. He worked hard on the field and in the classroom. And you know what?”

  Before I could reply, he said, “I’m glad Ced had a nice ride … He deserved it. Wherever the damn thing came from. Good for him.”

  I digested this, wondering if I had come across as self-righteous or judgmental.

  “You’re right … I didn’t mean to …” My voice trailed off as I searched for the right verb. I started to say “accuse” but changed it to “suggest.”

  Coach nodded, but kept his eyes on the television.

  “I’m sorry, Coach,” I said, although I wasn’t exactly sure what I was apologizing for.

  When he finally looked at me, his eyes had softened. “It’s okay. I’m not mad at you, girl … I’m just annoyed and frustrated by the whole thing. Here’s the deal … In a sense, Ryan’s right. There’s always going to be a little shadiness. Cheating. Whatever you want to call it.”

  I stared at him, trying to keep an open mind, though I hated where this was going.

  “When I was in school, there was this old guy—Fred Tripp—who used to slide us five if we had a good game … We called it Mr. Tripp’s handshake. We’d tell the freshmen … ‘Oh, you played a good one. Get ready for the handshake!’ ”

  “Five hundred? Or five thousand?” I said, shocked by what he was telling me.

  “Five. As in—five dollars.”

  We both laughed. “Yeah. That’s how the freshmen felt when they got home and looked in their envelopes and we all had a good laugh at their expense.”

  I smiled.

  “But, see, that’s the thing. Forget the amount. Some of us took that envelope. And some of us didn’t.”

  I nodded, afraid to ask what camp he’d been in.

  “Regardless of the amount, that five spot was still against NCAA rules. And every kid who accepted Mr. Tripp’s handshake was in violation. Walker was in violation … So did Rhodes break the rules? I really don’t know. You can ask him—but he’s gonna tell you no. Just like Cedric told me no. You understand what I’m trying to say?”

  I nodded, but didn’t love his answer, which seemed only to be a variation of what Ryan had told me in his basement.

  We both turned our attention back to the TV, just as Georgia kicked a long field goal, making it by a hair. Coach clapped once, though I knew he wasn’t really invested in the game, just happy for the kicker. Happy to see a good play. Maybe even a little bit happy for the underdog, although it had been a long time since we were in those beleaguered ranks. We both ate for a few seconds, watching Georgia celebrate.

  Coach flipped back to the other game as I started chewing on my bottom lip, a nervous habit, and said, “What do you think of Ryan’s parents?”

  “His mother is nice but very meek. As for Sherwood …” Coach shook his head. “Brash, arrogant son-of-a-bitch. The do-you-know-who-I-am? kind of guy … Ryan’s actually turned out pretty good in spite of him.”

  I nodded, trying to analyze his choice of words. Pretty good wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but it could have been just the understated way Coach spoke.

  “How are things going with Ryan, anyway?” he asked, just like he had at the track, as if maybe the update would have changed in a few weeks.

  “Fine,” I said, shrugging.

  “Getting serious?”

  “No,” I said so reflexively that it surprised me, and I found myself wondering whether I’d told the truth. Then again, if I were disclaiming my relationship so effortlessly, didn’t that mean, by definition, that Ryan and I weren’t serious? My head suddenly hurt as I put the ball back in his court. “What about you?”

  “What about me?” Coach finished his taco, folded his napkin twice, then deposited it over his plate.

  My palms sweaty, I said, as nonchalantly as possible, “Do you think you’re going to date anyone … anytime soon? … Or are you … not ready?”

  “I might be … just a little bit … ready,” he said, staring into my eyes as my heart really began to race. “But only for the right woman.”

  “Of course,” I whispered.

  “Someone who would always respect what I had with Connie. My past …”

  “Right,” I said, nodding.

  “Even better if this woman actually knew Connie,” he said, leaning toward me, his voice lowered. “She has to be intelligent. Strong. With some gumption.”

  “Of course,” I said, wondering if I had gumption. At this moment, I wasn’t so sure.

  “And she definitely has to understand this coaching thing … the game of football … She has to love football. Has to.”

  “Right,” I said, hypnotized by his words and his eyes and the sound of his voice. “What about physically? Do you have a type?”

  “Not really,” he said. “But I like brown hair. Reddish brown is nice. What do they call that—auburn?” He looked right at my hair as my vision blurred.

  “But the hair is just a bonus. A two-point conversion if you will.”

  I tried to speak, but couldn’t.

  He stared right into my eyes and said, “You know anyone who fits the bill?”

  “I might,” I managed to whisper.

  “Oh?” he said with as much charm as a man could possibly have without being too charming. “You might?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Well, let me know … Because short of that woman, the one I just described … I’d rather be alone … Just sitting here, alone, watching football.”

  He gave me a slow smile, staring even deeper into my eyes. So deep that I suddenly knew. Almost for sure. I held his gaze, paralyzed with fear, excitement, utter shock. Never in a million years had I seen this coming.

  “Shea?”

  “Yes?” I said, finally breathing, wondering if I’d heard him wrong. If it were only wishful thinking.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded, took a breath, and said, “So … what do you think Lucy and Lawton would say? If you found this … woman?”

  Waiting for his answer, I pushed Ryan from my mind, telling myself that I hadn’t crossed any lines. This was a theoretical conversation. That’s all.

  “Lawton would be okay … I think … But Lucy? … I don’t know. That m
ight be a problem … Then again, she wants me to be happy.”

  “Of course she does,” I said. “Do you think … you can be? Happy again?”

  “I think so … I hope so.”

  “I hope so, too, Coach,” I said, wondering if you could faint from attraction.

  I could hear in the background that someone had just scored, but neither of us looked toward the television. “But you know what, Shea?”

  He rarely used my name, and it caught me off guard. “What, Coach?”

  “I’m already happy. Right here. Right now.”

  I smiled and said, “Well, guess what?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I am, too,” I said.

  “Well, good,” he said as we both turned back to watch the game.

  The rest of the night was all about football, both of us pretending that we hadn’t had the conversation in which he told me, more or less, that my crush was not one-sided after all.

  Twenty-six

  The first two times I said I should go, he protested, but just after midnight, when I caught him stifling a yawn, I got up and said it really was time. He walked me back to the garage door and gave me a hug, then a kiss. It was only a friendly peck on the cheek, but still significant, since it was the first ever, at least since I was about ten. I floated home, so dazed that I didn’t realize that I had left my purse in his kitchen until the following morning. I waited until nine, in case he was sleeping, then dialed the only number in the world I knew by heart other than my own.

  “Yep, you left your pocketbook,” he said before I could ask.

  “Pocketbook?” I said, mocking his old-fashioned terminology.

  “Yes. You’re lucky you didn’t get pulled over. How would you have explained that one?”

  “Easy. I’d tell the police that you had my license. Drop your name … Works every time in this town.”

  “Yeah, we already went down that road once,” he said, referring to my teenage drunk-driving episode. “Remember?”

  I shuddered at the memory. “God, you scared me that night. Worse than the cops.”

  “That was the idea,” he said.

  “You know, I vowed that night …” I started, my voice trailing off.

  “What did you vow?” he said.

  “Never to let you down again.”

  “And you haven’t,” he said. “So. You gonna come get this thing or what?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ll be right over to get my pocketbook.”

  A quick shower later, I was headed back over to Coach’s in jeans, an old Cotton Bowl hoodie, and a haphazard ponytail. I was still on a crazy high until I pulled into the driveway and saw Lucy’s car. Panicked, I started to back up, until I spotted her in the front seat looking right at me through the back window. She gave me a little wave, then got out of her car in a navy dress, nude pumps, and a double strand of pearls. She reached into the backseat to unleash Caroline from her car seat before they both walked over to my car. My mind raced for an explanation of why I could be here so early on a Sunday morning as I lavished attention on my goddaughter, buying a few seconds of time.

  “Hey, honey! Don’t you look pretty!” I said as Caroline crawled onto my lap and began playing with the buttons on my dash. “I love your dress. And your braids.”

  “They’re French braids,” Caroline said. “Mommy did them!”

  “Well, oui, oui! She did a great job,” I said, glancing up at Lucy, who gave me a distracted, fast-twitch smile.

  Caroline babbled some more random updates about her morning, something about her stuffed bunny named Monkey falling into the sink and getting wet. She then made a rapid transition and asked if I had candy in my car.

  “Sure do,” I said, opening my glove compartment and pulling out a roll of cherry Life Savers that I kept there just for her. They were sticky from the sun, having melted into the paper wrapping, but Caroline didn’t mind, shoving two into her mouth. One dropped from her mouth and rolled down the front of her white piqué dress, leaving a red trail before falling onto the driveway. Lucy wearily sighed, as Caroline scrambled down from my lap, plucked the candy off the ground, and inserted it back into her mouth.

  “Hey, Luce,” I said as nonchalantly as I could, realizing we’d yet to speak directly to each other. “You going to church?”

  “Yeah … But who knows if we’ll ever make it there,” she said, talking more to herself than to me. She sighed again, looking exhausted. “What’s going on with you?”

  Clearly she was asking me what I was doing at her father’s house on a Sunday morning, but I shrugged and said, “Oh. Not much.”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, point-blank.

  I glanced up at her through my sunglasses and could see that she looked slightly puzzled but not accusatorial or suspicious. I told myself not to be defensive or, worse, lie, as Caroline scampered toward the house. I could see in my peripheral vision that Coach had emerged from the garage. He bent down to scoop up Caroline, then walked toward my car. Right away, I saw that his wedding ring was now on his right hand, a change since last night, and one that made my heart thump in my chest.

  Lucy repeated her question. “So? What are you doing here? Just checking on Daddy?”

  I considered simply saying yes, but forced myself to be truthful, mumbling that I had left my purse here.

  “Your purse?” Lucy said, Coach now standing beside us. “When?”

  “Last night,” I said, sneaking a glance at Coach, who looked the way I felt. Uneasy, guilty, totally busted.

  “It’s in the kitchen. On the counter,” he said without looking at me, as Caroline reached up and played with the bill of his cap. She knocked it off, revealing a head of messy hair—as messy as short, coarse hair could really be.

  “Why is your purse—” Lucy began as Coach cut her off.

  “Shea was sweet enough to bring me some tacos last night. After the game. Very nice of her.” He looked at me and said, “Thank you, again.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said with a lump in my throat.

  Lucy studied her father, then me, then her father again, finally saying, “You don’t look ready for church.”

  “Was I supposed to be?”

  Lucy shook her head and said, “It’s Sunday morning, isn’t it?”

  “Since when do I go to church on Sunday morning if it’s not Easter or Christmas?”

  “Since this past Wednesday. When we talked about you going to church with us and you said you’d make every effort to go,” she said, as I wondered if she, too, noticed that his ring had changed hands. Was that part of what she was upset about? Or was it only that I had come over last night? Or merely that her father wasn’t going to church? “Ring a bell?”

  “Vaguely,” he said.

  “So this is your every effort? Talking about Taco Bell in those clothes at …” Lucy glanced at her white ceramic watch. “Nine forty-five?”

  Coach stared sheepishly back at her.

  “Ugh. Okay. We have to go,” she said.

  “Next week,” he mumbled.

  “That’s the day after Texas,” I said, the words just slipping out. My tone of voice saying, So we all know that ain’t happening.

  Caroline ran her hand over her grandfather’s whiskered face and said, “Ow. Your face hurts!”

  “Yes, Care Bear. I need to shave today,” Coach said, then gently put her down and looked back at Lucy. “Where’s Neil, anyway?”

  “He’s meeting us there,” she said.

  Coach nodded, then glanced at me and said he’d be right back with my pocketbook. Once he had made his escape, Lucy stared at me intently, her eyes narrowed. “So was last night … work-related? For your story?”

  I shook my head and admitted that I’d already turned my story in.

  “So you really just stopped by to check on him?”

  “And bring him Taco Bell,” I added, hoping I didn’t look as guilty as I felt.

  Lucy studied me for a few seconds
and finally nodded. “Y’all are friends. I get that.”

  I said nothing.

  “It’s sort of weird, though,” Lucy said, doing her toe-pointing thing left over from years of ballet.

  “Weird?” I said, still watching her feet.

  “That you’re friends. Apart from me. I mean, can you imagine me hanging out with your dad?”

  “I don’t hang out with my dad,” I said. “But you’re friends with my mom.”

  “Not like that. Not like … eating Taco Bell together late Saturday night … without you,” Lucy said. “But whatever, I really gotta go.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  “Where are you going?” Lucy said.

  “Home,” I said.

  “Why?” she asked, a little on the shrill side. “Don’t let me chase you off. He’s not going to church. And what do you have to do today?”

  “Well, watch the Cowboys,” I said, just as Coach returned with my bag. I took it from him and murmured my thanks.

  “What time do they play?” Lucy asked. “The Cowboys?”

  “Kickoff’s at three,” I said.

  “Well, then? What’s the rush?”

  “I was only coming to get my purse,” I said.

  “Yes. But you’re here now. You should stay. Go on in. Have breakfast together.”

  Lucy was definitely agitated, now boxing us into a corner. To protest any more than we already had would almost look worse than acquiescing, so he finally just looked at me and said, pleasantly, casually, “Shea. You’re welcome to stay. But I really don’t have much to eat in the way of breakfast. Other than raisin bran …”

  “Okay,” I said stiffly. “I’ll come in and have a bowl of raisin bran. Thanks, Coach.”

  Lucy nodded with a broad, forced smile, her lips reminding me of how they used to look in braces, stretched across her face. She stooped for a second to retie Caroline’s sash, now dragging on the ground, and neaten her French braids. Then she picked her daughter up and headed for her car. “All right, then,” she said over her shoulder. “You two enjoy your breakfast together.”