Sara (10 page)

And whenever Glenn was around, she would take his arm and hang on his every word.

“She's hot, huh?” Craig Morton, a sophomore, nudged me in the side with his elbow when she walked past us right before lunch. “What I wouldn't do with that!”

“You wouldn't know what to do with that,” I replied sourly. I walked into the cafeteria line, and once I had my food, I saw Candy sitting alone in a corner of the lunchroom reading a book while she ate.

“Mind if I sit down?” I asked, putting my tray down across from her.

“Not at all.” She smiled up at me. She glanced over at a nearby table, crowded with pep club girls and some of the other cheerleaders. “I told them I needed to read this chapter”—she leaned forward and whispered—“but to be honest, I was tired of talking about Noah's funeral and planning a tribute to him for the game Friday night.” She rolled her eyes. “Am I a bitch?”

“No,” I said, looking over my lunch tray—sloppy joe, French fries, salad and brown betty for dessert. “Everyone's acting like Noah was some kind of a saint, and he really wasn't. It kind of bugs me.”

“Glenn said the same thing to me after English,” she said with a shrug. “We do tend to do that when people die, I guess.” She smiled at me, and I felt warm. She had a really great smile that lit up her entire face. “I suppose the team's going to dedicate the game to him?”

“I don't know.” But once she said it, I knew that Coach Roberts would probably do exactly that. It was hokey and corny—so of course we would do it. We'd win the game for Noah.

It made me want to throw up.

“So, I've been wondering, how exactly do you know Sara, Candy?” I took a bite out of my sloppy joe.

She looked at me and frowned a little bit. “I don't really know her at all. Her aunt and uncle go to our church, so when she got into town on Friday her aunt called my parents and asked if I would take her out after the game Friday and introduce her to people.” She shrugged. “I didn't really have a choice. Not that I minded doing it,” she added quickly.

“So you'd never met her before Friday night?”

“No.” She brushed her red hair away from her face, raising her eyebrows and frowning a little bit. “Why all the questions, Sherlock?”

“Oh, I was just curious about her, is all.” I didn't meet her gaze, picking up my sandwich again. “How you wound up being out with her, is all.”

“Interested in her?” She said it casually, but her jawline tightened and her nostrils flared a little bit.

“No, no, not at all.” I shrugged. “Glenn's spending a lot of time with her, so I was wondering.”

“You're really protective of him, aren't you?” Her right hand touched mine briefly before she pulled it away again. “I think that's really sweet.”

“Glenn can take care of himself, trust me.” I grinned at her. “But still…you know, he's been having a tough time of it lately, so, yeah. I wanted to check her out.”

“He's so brave.” She took a drink out of her can of Diet Pepsi. “I can't imagine doing what he did this summer. Did you have any idea? I didn't.”

“I didn't either.” I laughed. “I would have sworn he was in love with Laney and would be chasing her all year.”

“No idea at all? Really?”

I glanced at her. “What are you trying to say?”

“Nothing.” She smiled again. “Seriously. I was just wondering. I mean, like I said, I think he's so brave, and I admire him for that—I don't know if I could do it myself.”

“I know I couldn't,” I said before I could stop myself, without thinking.

She tilted her head to one side and narrowed her eyes. She opened her mouth, but didn't say anything for a moment. When she finally spoke, she said, “Well, we're still going out this Saturday, aren't we?”

I smiled at her. “I'm looking forward to it.”

She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. “Me, too. Just do me a favor and stay away from Sara.”

“Jealous?” I teased her.

“No, not jealous.” She frowned. “There's something about her, though, that—” She stopped, and started playing with her napkin. “Never mind.” She shook her head and laughed it off.

“What?” I stared at her, curious. “You can tell me, Candy.”

“No, it's silly, nothing really, nothing at all.” She stood up as the bell rang. “I better get to class.” She winked at me. “Why don't you call me after practice tonight?”

“I'll do that.” I watched her walk out of the lunchroom. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a pink blouse, but to me she looked a thousand times better than Sara in her expensive black dress.

For the rest of the day I did wonder what she'd been about to say. I figured maybe I could get it out of her when I called her.

And I really was happy she wanted me to call her.

*

Football practice was a real drag that day.

Usually, the Mondays after games we just practiced in shorts and T-shirts. We would have a session in the lunchroom where Coach would go over plays he wanted us to try on the blackboard. He would go over things that went wrong and went right in the last game, and then we'd head out to the practice field to run plays for the rest of the practice before we did our wind sprints to close out the day.

Ordinarily, after a loss Coach Roberts would not be happy—and we would get a stern lecture in addition to a pep talk. The whole song and dance about not getting down, that the season was more than just a game, the usual rah-rah bullshit.

But this wasn't a normal Monday after a game. One of our teammates had been killed over the weekend. And as we quietly took our seats in the lunchroom, it was pretty obvious he wasn't very comfortable. He stood in front of the chalkboard and cleared his throat. The murmurs in the room died to silence, but he didn't say anything. He just stood there and cleared his throat a second time, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“If he tells us to dedicate the goddamned season to Noah, I'm quitting the team,” Glenn said to me under his breath.

But Coach Roberts did no such thing. He did give us the same “it's a great, great tragedy” speech we'd been hearing all day, but he didn't stop there. He went on to talk about Noah and what a good player he'd been. “He wasn't a great player.” Coach Roberts wiped at his eyes, and wouldn't meet any of our eyes. Instead he looked up at the ceiling. “Noah wasn't ever going to be all conference, wasn't going to go on to play in college. He just liked to play football, and he had a lot of heart. But you all know that. You all played together for years, and you know what Noah Greene was all about. I remember that first season, when I first started coaching here—some of you remember that year, some of you younger players don't—and I remember Noah telling me after we lost our fifth straight game not to get down, because we'd win a game, he knew we would, and I shouldn't lose my faith in the team. And we did only win that one game. And after that game was over, Noah came up to me, and told me, ‘Told you so, Coach!'”

I wasn't so sure I believed the story. The Noah Greene I knew was a sore loser and always blamed other people if he lost. Nothing was ever his fault—that was one of the main reasons I never liked him.

So I kind of tuned Coach Roberts out as he talked about how Noah wouldn't want his death to affect the rest of the season, that he would be watching us, and we should make him proud to have been on our team. It was really corny, the kind of thing you'd see on a family-oriented television show. I let my mind wander, and I wondered again about the key ring.

Where the hell had it come from?

When Coach Roberts finished talking, I looked around. A couple of Noah's friends had tears in their eyes, but most of us looked real uncomfortable and kind of glad he was finished.

“It's like something out of one of those corny old black-and-white movies,” Glenn muttered, and I stifled a laugh. Rather than going over the game plan or new plays, Coach Roberts announced that the funeral was going to be Wednesday at one p.m., and we would all be excused from class to go, “but we're still going to have practice on the dot at three thirty. Now, let's go out there and run some plays, and we'll call it a day.”

We ran plays for about an hour and a half, and Coach didn't even make us run sprints. The whole day was kind of subdued, actually. No one really seemed to have their heads in it, and even Coach didn't seem himself. Ordinarily he'd yell at us when we screwed something up.

Maybe he was afraid to yell at us in our delicate emotional states after Noah's death.

It wasn't until after practice that things began to get ugly.

And it happened in the locker room, of course. I took my time getting to the locker room after practice the way I always did—I hate standing around waiting for a shower stall, so I like to wait until almost everyone else is finished. That way I also don't have to hurry, and Glenn never rushes me.

I was just coming out of the shower, tying my towel around my waist when I heard Zack Zimmer say, “I bet you're pretty glad that Noah's dead, aren't you?”

I froze in place, and then Glenn replied, “I don't really care one way or the other, if you want the truth.”

“Don't be thinking that since he's gone we've forgotten you're a fag and a pervert and a cocksucker.” Zack went on, “And if you know what's good for you, you won't be looking at the rest of us when we're changing.”

That got me moving. I walked around the corner.

Zack spent the summers working on his father's farm, so his face, neck, and forearms were tan, but the rest of him was white as a ghost. Like me, all he was wearing a towel. His face was red, and cords stood out in his neck.

Glenn was putting his shoes on, not even looking up at him. “Don't flatter yourself, Zack. Trust me, you've got nothing I want. And if I ever look at you, it's by mistake.” He finished tying his shoes and stood up. “And you're the one standing there in front of me in just a towel. Seems to me like you
want
me to look at you.” He stepped over the bench and took a few steps closer to Zack. “That what you want, Zack? You want to be with me but you're too afraid to make the first move?”

This isn't going to end well
, I thought. “Guys—”

Zack's face flushed. “You calling me a fag?” He took another step closer to Glenn. Now they were in reach of each other.

I looked over at Coach's office door, which was closed.
Where the hell is he?

Glenn laughed. “No, you're a real man, right? What's the matter, Zack, did your favorite sheep die?”

“You motherfucker!” Zack swung at Glenn. His swing was wild.

Glenn ducked the punch easily and before I could say anything or move, he swung back. His fist caught Zack square in the nose, and I heard the crack of cartilage shattering as Zack fell backward. A fountain of blood erupted from his nostrils, and he fell flat on his back. The towel untied as he fell, so he lay there on the tiled floor naked, his hands clutching his nose, blood erupting over his fingers.

“Stay away from me, or I'll fucking kill you, do you understand me?” Glenn hissed. He picked up his gym bag and walked out.

I don't know how long I stood there. I guess I was in shock. I'd never seen Glenn throw a punch at anyone before.

Zack moaned, and that snapped me out of it.

I knelt down next to him. “You okay, man?” I pulled on his arm. “We've gotta get some ice on your nose before it starts to swell.”

“Thun of a bitch,” Zack moaned.

I wound up going to the hospital in Kahola with him and Coach. While Zack was getting his nose set—he refused to let Coach call his parents—Coach looked at me long and hard. “Are you going to tell me what really happened, Martin?”

Zack's story—which was kind of lame—was that he had slipped and hit his nose on a bench. I was pissed that Zack didn't tell the truth. Not that I wanted Glenn to get in trouble, but now I was stuck having to cover for him and his stupid story. That was the unspoken code of teenagers—never tell the adults the truth. No matter how pissed off you are at the other person, nothing would be worse than telling an adult what happened. “He fell, I guess. I heard him yell and when I came around the corner he was lying on the floor, his nose bleeding all over the place. I guess he fell.”

“I don't buy that story at all, Martin.” Coach sighed. “I guess you kids don't trust me. I don't know why that surprises me. I remember what it was like when I was your age.” He laughed, a little sadly. “Believe it or not, I was your age once, and nobody ever told the adults anything.”

“Yeah.”

“Look, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure this out,” he went on. “Zimmer probably called him a fag, right? Maybe that's not how it started, but that's how it ended, and Lockhart hauled off and slugged him.” I started, and he smiled at me mirthlessly. “Pegged it, didn't I? You kids think that we teachers are oblivious to everything, but we notice things. You think I don't know what kids are okay with Lockhart's being gay and what kids aren't? I've heard Green and Zimmer and Froelich go on about Lockhart—I was at the school board meeting when the good Brother Zimmer was going on about how letting Glenn stay in school would result in the decline and fall of civilization as we know it.” He rolled his eyes. “And it's not like Zimmer and Lockhart ever liked each other much to begin with. I was afraid there was going to be trouble, but I never expected Greene to go and get himself killed.” His shoulders dropped, and he suddenly looked a lot older. I realized Noah's death had hit Coach pretty hard. “It's all such a waste, and we teachers sit around hoping you kids will come to us, open up, let us help. We've all been there before, you know? That's why we become teachers, because we want to help you kids through it all. But the joke is on us, because you kids don't want no part of us. So we just get to sit back and watch it all happen.”