Out of Position (22 page)

“It’s an internship with the Dragons,” I say quickly.

That doesn’t prevent my mother from getting out, “Harold, he’s working for free.”

“You couldn’t get a paid internship?” my father says. “It’s not like the Dragons need money. They just signed Hartwell for 17 million.”

“How many years?”

“They offer you a job and don’t tell you these things?”

“If it’s more than three, it’s too many,” I say.

“Don’t change the subject,” he says. “So what’s the problem?”

I take a breath, again, but my mother beats me to it. “He wants to drop his classes and not graduate.”

“Put off graduation,” I say. “I still want to graduate.”

“With a summer class?”

There’s a silence that I know I have to break. Finally, I do. “Summer’s a pretty busy time, actually.”

“When, then? Next December? Next June?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll tell you,” Father says. “If you get this job, you’ll never go back. I didn’t pay over a hundred thousand dollars for you to get three and a half years of an education and no degree.”

“It’s always about the money with you,” I say.

“That’s because I know the value of it.” Another variant, same old melody. “I’ve tried to pass that on to you. I’ve obviously failed.”

“I know the value of money.” I pace the room. “There’s just other things, too.”

“Like what?”

How do I say,
like doing a job I’m not going to hate?
Or
like living a childhood dream? “
Like doing a job that’s fun.”

“You don’t base your life on what’s fun. Right?”

Damn him for remembering my words. Damn me for saying them. “I thought college was when I was supposed to discover life and take chances.”

“You think if you don’t finish college, you can keep wasting your life?”

“I’ll finish, I promise,” I say, but he’s not done.

“You don’t graduate this June, and you’ll be responsible for your own student loans.”

It takes a moment for that to sink in. I do some rough figuring in my head. “
What?”

“
You heard me.”

“I can’t believe you’re threatening me. Like some loan shark or something.”

Mother says, sharply, “Wiley!”

“Just doing our job as parents to make sure you get a good education.”

“I’m apparently learning extortion.”

“Wiley Victor Farrel.” She’s good and mad now. It always did take her a couple minutes to catch up to Father and me.

“Well, do you have another name for it, Mother? Because I sure don’t.”

“It doesn’t matter what you call it,” Father says coolly.

“You’re serious.”

“Just try me and see.”

“You have plenty of money. I know you do.”

“It’s not about the money. It’s about the principle.”

“You’d want me to pass up this opportunity just to get a piece of paper.”

He sounds more detached than I know he is. I can picture the folded-back ears, the narrowed eyes. “I wouldn’t call an unpaid internship with no promise of anything more an ‘opportunity’.”

“This is a really incredible thing they’ve offered me. Millions of guys would kill to have this chance.”

“You can get something better. You don’t have to jump at the first job offer you get.”

I feel remarks crowding my throat, fighting to get out. I can’t choke out any of them. “This isn’t just a job offer!”

“Call it whatever you want,” he says, off-handedly. “As long as we understand each other.”

I don’t even know what to say. Father doesn’t wait long for me to come up with something. “Do we?” he says.

“Yeah,” I force out. “Yeah, we understand each other just fine.” It’s an effort not to slam the phone down, to force myself through the end-of-call pleasantries until I can get out the door.

I go to campus for a walk through the quad. Spring is just beginning to peek through the shell of winter. Scraps of snow cling to the crooks of branches, defying the moist, temperate air. The rows of trees feel like prison guards, despite the fact that I’ve always loved walking through this area, even in winter. I was always the one, among all my friends, who loved school and loved being a part of it. Studying, learning, watching football — Brian came the closest to understanding that, but he always found Forester lacking. He would’ve been happier in Whitford, outside the Peco megalopolis, rather than a couple hours north of second city Aventira.

For me, Forester has always been just right. I can learn, be challenged, excel. This last year with Dev has taught me more than any class I’ve taken, and that, too, I owe to the middle-country sensibilities. On the coasts, everyone is hyper-aware of what everything
means.
Dev would not have been an innocently closeted — no, not even closeted, but oblivious — jock on either coast. He would’ve couched his defenses in elaborate politically correct speech, or biting sarcasm. We’d have snapped back and forth at each other, he might’ve thrown a punch (but not really, that’s too honest a reaction), and gone our separate ways. I would right now be happily or worriedly preparing to graduate with an English degree, remembering the time I got under the skin of one of those uppity jocks, probably telling the story for the fortieth time over tea to my equally snooty literary friends.

My parents grew up in Port City. They look down their noses, very slightly, on the people they’ve chosen to live among. And that, if I may be permitted some armchair psychoanalysis, is probably what bothers them about my not graduating. They wanted me to go to Whitford or Pemberton rather than middle-tier Forester, eventually giving in because of Forester’s sparkling liberal arts ranking, and because I promised I’d apply myself. But for me to leave school to go take some football job is just too midwestern for them. For many of our neighbors, the kids of my generation were the first in their families to attend college. My parents don’t want me to be the first in a long line of my family to fail to graduate from one. I mean, what would they say to the neighbors?

I wander around through the grounds, feeling the chill beneath my feet and looking up at the skeletal branches interlocking over my head. I can’t afford a hundred thousand dollars, even on whatever salary I might get from the Dragons. But every part of me rebels against giving in to the threats, a trait that, ironically, my parents themselves bred into me. Not to mention that I had fun doing the Dragons’ work and I’m good at it. If it were just disobeying my parents, well, I could manage that, as evidenced by my relationship with a male tiger. But the money… the thought of the weight of that debt landing on my shoulders makes me hunch over as I walk.

Speaking of Dev, he’s supposed to come over tonight. He rented a place off campus, but we haven’t gotten together there at all. My place is more comfortable, more convenient. Maybe I should go to his place now, and not wait for tonight. The thought of his arms around me makes me all warm inside. But I don’t want to involve him in my drama. Maybe it’d be better to let myself cool down some more before we get together.

By the time I argue myself into letting myself see him, it’s already evening and he’s on his way over. That’s okay. I just won’t mention my parents, I decide. I’ll just let him comfort me without knowing why.

 
“They’re what?”

I sigh, and give in to the pressure on my shoulder, rolling onto my back to look into Dev’s muzzle. He’s on his side, both of us fresh from the shower, but any post-coital sleepiness is gone from his expression. He rests a paw on my stomach, inches from my exhausted sheath, the gesture intimate but not arousing. “If I drop the lit review class and don’t graduate, they won’t pay my student loans.”

“How much… how much is that?”

I rest my paw atop his. “Something over a hundred grand.”

He nods. “That’s what mine are. I thought your parents were rich, though.”

“We didn’t pay cash for tuition. My father shuffled some things around so we’d qualify for a loan. He said student loans are a good investment because of the interest rate and the repayment terms.”

“And because you can blackmail your kids with them?”

“He’s using threats to force me to do something I don’t want to, not threatening me with exposure of some nasty… little… secret.” I punctuate the last few words with light brushes over his sheath.

He closes his eyes, but doesn’t purr. “That’s just… that’s not…” I don’t say anything, moving my paw to his hip and brushing the soft, slightly damp fur. He opens his eyes to look at me. “So what are you going to do?”

“I dunno.”

“Come on.” He pokes me gently in the stomach. “You always know what you’re gonna do.”

I shake my head. “I really don’t. I should take the lit review class, it’s the only sensible course. But…”

“But you don’t want to.”

“It’s a hell of an opportunity.”

“Maybe Morty would wait until the summer?”

I shake my head. “Maybe, but not likely. I mean, by the summer they’re gonna want to be rolling already. They really need help watching film for the draft. I could maybe latch on in the fall, go to the games with him…” My voice trails off.

“You don’t think he’d let you?”

I lean against him. “Who knows? I have the opportunity now. I don’t know if I’ll ever have it again. I showed him something at the combine, but if I can’t commit to the internship, I’m not sure I’ll get another chance. He said it himself, there are kids lining up for this job.”

Something changes. His expression assumes an intensity I’ve only seen a few times. When we first met, when he didn’t know what was going on or why he was attracted to a male fox, he had that same ferocious determination in his narrowed eyes, his flared nostrils, his exposed teeth. Also, that time he threw me in the closet. This time, though, it’s not directed at me.

“Hundred grand, huh?”

“Something like that. You okay, stud?”

The paw on my stomach presses down. “Listen,” he says. “Work with the Dragons. When I get drafted, I’ll pay off your loans.”

I cover up shock with flippancy. “
When
you get drafted. Who went and made you all confident?”

He leans closer to me, his breath hot on my whiskers. “I mean it. You helped me last year. If I do get drafted it’ll be because of you.”

“Back to if,” I say. “Anything you get from playing football is because of you.”

“No.” He glares down at me, shifting his weight to pin me where I am. “If I watched my life like game film, I’d see me kinda drifting around. You know, always good enough to make the team, never good enough to stand out. Until last year. Then I’d see me suddenly motivated, making plays, trying hard.” His nose bumps mine. “That’s because of you.”

“Morty calls that ‘flipping a switch,’,” I say.

“Yeah, well, you flipped my switch good,” he says. I’m awash in his breath, his scent, the power of his presence.

I tease his sheath and grin. “I could feel it.”

He growls, smiling. “I’m serious, doc. You go for that Dragons job. If your parents really make you pay your own expenses, I’ll cover ’em.”

I kiss him. Relief, not just from a financial burden, but from the necessity of having to make the decision, fills me as warmly as he did just a little while ago. “Thanks,” I say. “You realize that if I get this job, it’s thanks to you.”

“Which is thanks to you.”

“But you did the work.”

We argue about this for a little while, until he puts a stop to it to start something else.

 
Having made the decision, it’s easy to avoid my parents’ phone calls. I feel almost giddy with excitement and defiance as I put the paperwork through to drop the lit review course, and explain what I’m doing over lunch with Jason, at his insistence. (At the Green Parlour. Definitely gay.) He’s disappointed, but he respects my decision. More importantly, he signs the form for me and, after I hint around a bit, says he’ll talk to Schruft. I figure since it looks like I won’t be graduating, I don’t really need to talk to him any more. He asks if I’m still planning to graduate sometime, and I say yeah, I want to. He gives me his number and says to keep in touch, and goes off to class.

I sit there a little while longer. I expect the tension and stress to melt away now that the deed is done, now that my paws have started down the path. Instead, I can’t help but think about what my parents will say. I don’t care what they have to say, I tell myself, but then it’s just me talking to myself, a voice I want to shut up but can’t. Three and a half years of work, the pride I put into all of it, discarded for a shot at this job. Is it worth it? Doubts gnaw at my gut. I want to run after Jason and tell him to tear up the form. I could call him; I actually take out my cell phone and program in his number, but I don’t hit Talk. I just look at it and then I take a breath and put the phone away and walk through the quad.

So I’m not going to graduate. I’ve done most of the work, but I won’t have the degree. It’s okay, I remind myself, because I can feel my hackles rising. I can always go back and finish it later. People do it all the time, taking semesters and even full years off.

But still. This is the first thing, the first big thing I’ve started and not finished. I’ve quit. That word, when it hits my mind, freezes me in my tracks. It’s something my father would say—will say, no doubt, when that inevitable conversation rolls around. No matter how you sniff it, it’s the scent of quitting. Quitting to do something better, absolutely. Will that make a difference? Probably not.

I make my way back to my room, slowly, feeding the guilty ache inside me with more self-flagellation. Had I really tried as hard as I could to make both the Dragons and Schruft happy? Or had I just bolted for the football job, abandoning the course that was more difficult? I’ve taken pride in everything I’ve done at college because it was hard work, not skating through like Allen or some of my other friends, not avoiding difficult things.

I pass the computer lab where I’ve been doing research on prospects, and that just makes me more depressed. So many stories, testaments to the power of persistence, overcoming horrendous obstacles to become highly-touted players. The coyote from the wideout trials, the one with the sculpted fur, I’ve been following as my own pet project. He grew up in a Peco slum. His older sister died of a drug overdose. His father tore out his mother’s throat. His aunt took him in; she died of cancer. He’s dyslexic. He was put into remedial classes for five years until someone thought to give him the right kind of test. And on, and on, and on. He’ll be graduating in the top ten percent of his class, and he’s gotten better at his position every year he’s in college. He isn’t on many draft boards—projected as a late-round pick at best—but if I have anything to say about it, he won’t be a twister.