Chapter 27: Score!

Thursday November 10
I woke up in a contemplative mood. The expressions on the Waterloo players’ faces as the clock ticked down must have gotten to me. I had at most three more games of high school football. It was hard to imagine that it might finally be over.

Of course, I had a lot to look forward to. College and the rest of my life were yet to come. The Waterloo game made me understand that I wanted to play at higher levels of competition. What we’d created with this team was about as good as it would get at the high school level. I relished the opportunity to challenge myself against much better players. I finally felt like I should take that next step.

As much as I looked forward to moving on, I also wanted to savor what we had left and finish what we’d started. I almost regretted signing on to do the Japanese TV miniseries, for lack of a better way to describe what J-dramas are. While I looked forward to seeing my friends in LA, I felt that in a way, this was a precursor to finally leaving my hometown.

In moments like this, it was only natural to reflect on how I’d gotten here. Dear Lord! All the drama. I had started to agree with my uncle’s comments about ‘someday I would understand.’ Tami was a good example. Now that I’d had a chance to step back, and wasn’t in the middle of it all, I could see what a bad situation that was for me. The sad part was that our drama had almost torn us and our families apart.

Hindsight being 20/20, I would have done a million things differently. Then again, if I had, I wouldn’t be who I was today. I couldn’t live my life in regret. If I hadn’t experienced all the hurts, and the perceived and far too real betrayals, I might have been happier. The only problem was that I would still be the little boy who needed Tami to hold my hand every time I had to make a decision.

What it had done was force me to grow up. I knew I had a long way to go in that regard. I had a lot to learn about love and what it meant to be in a committed relationship. My first three years of high school, I’d sort of run wild, especially when I was in LA. As far as I was concerned, Vegas needed to give up its ‘Sin City’ nickname to LA. The thought of going back there, with all the temptations, had me worried.

Then I relaxed as I thought about Brook. We both knew that we were probably not a forever couple. Not many high school relationships were. That didn’t mean that we weren’t a good fit or didn’t care about each other. I honestly thought I loved her.

Falling in love was one of the most exciting, rewarding, and scariest experiences I’d ever had. The frightening part was putting yourself out there. I’d decided that I’d just had a bad run of luck in that department. It was either that, or I couldn’t understand why anyone would risk it. I ticked off all the women who had hurt me: Tracy, twice; Eve Holiday; Harper; and finally Tami, who’d done a number on me too many times to count.

Tami was the big one, though. I had always assumed that she was the one for me and tried everything I knew to win her over. The last time she’d rejected me, my ego had taken a big hit. How could Tami say no to me? In my mind, we were a team where it was us against the world, and we planned to conquer it. What I found was she said she loved me ... but not right now. It would be some fantasy ‘someday’ scenario.

Then Brandon had staged it to appear that she and Alan slept together. As horrible as that turned out to be when we discovered he’d raped her, it probably saved me. The sight of the two of them naked in bed and the used condom had finally changed my expectations. It put me in the frame of mind that maybe Tami wasn’t who I would end up with. To be honest, I still didn’t know who that ultimately would be.

It had taken me almost a year to get over her. I know it sounds crazy that even after all the anguish, I would still have deep feelings for Tami. But she’d always been ‘the one’ in my mind, the girl I just knew I would grow old with. I still had knee-jerk reactions when I was around her. As much as I might want to, I don’t think I would get entirely past that anytime soon.

I’m sure that an uninterested bystander would think I was crazy to have had the kind of feelings I had for Tami. That’s just it, though: love isn’t logical. That was why it was dangerous to tell someone that their boyfriend or girlfriend wasn’t right for them. When it’s you, you don’t see it. Even worse, you don’t appreciate being told that.

When I finally opened up, and Brook and I got together, I discovered I had never experienced true love. Once you’re in love with someone, it was hard to remember how you lived without them. I honestly wondered how I’d managed to elude love for the entirety of my life before Brook. I’m sure everyone experiences love differently, and at different times in their lives. Even the meaning of love is extremely subjective, but I say with confidence that anyone who’s experienced it knows it’s the best feeling ever. Yes, even better than sex.

I found I might have a permanent smile on my face. I even kept it when Precious decided that my chest was warm and wanted to lie on it.

“Good morning, Precious. How’s your day going?” I asked as I rubbed her chest, and she began to purr.

Bandit was the purring king, but Precious was pretty good herself. The difference was she could go from a loving cat to shredding you in the blink of an eye. She was like the temperamental pit bull of the cat world. I knew many pit bulls were good dogs, but it only took once for one to eat your face off.

That was probably why our local shelter’s website showed more pit bulls or pit-bull mixes than any other breed. They must have shown their ugly side, and their former owners decided their health and safety was important enough to surrender their dogs to be adopted by someone else. It was either that, or they were trying to rent a place and quickly found out that landlords wouldn’t rent to them. That was usually because their insurance wouldn’t allow that breed in the house. Of course, pit bulls weren’t the only breed on the ‘bad dog’ list. I’d learned that little factoid listening to my mom complain about other canine reasons that forced her to turn down renters.

My solution to the ‘bad dog’ dilemma was to get myself a Lab. They weren’t voted the most popular dog year after year without good reason. I knew that Mayor Duke (I was sure this moniker would soon be forgotten) was the best dog I could ever hope for.

I looked at the clock and saw that I’d gotten so distracted by my thoughts that there was no longer time for me to run. What brought all that on? I had no idea. Then I remembered I would see Brook in a little while and smiled. I really did love her.

“You play Beverly again,” Dad told me as I came into the kitchen.

We’d managed to face Beverly in the playoffs for the last three years. Then this year they’d had to forfeit our regular-season matchup because of the flu epidemic. Their coach was defense-minded. It would be interesting to see what he planned for Saturday’s game. Our only saving grace was that he didn’t have a full week to prepare for our change in play style. When I thought about it, Waterloo had come into the game with a good plan to try to steal an errant lateral. Coach Hope had us watch some rugby games, and it happened more often than I wanted to think. It wasn’t if it would happen, but when.

“I didn’t want to play Beverly. They beat us once, and we’ve won the last two. They know us about as well as any of our conference rivals. I would much rather we were playing someone we’ve never faced before,” I reasoned.

“I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

It seemed Dad was more confident than I was. The playoffs were a big deal, but for Beverly, it would be more personal. They would try to make the most of their shot at redemption for the last two times we beat them.

I worried about the game until we picked up Brook. Seeing her smiling face reminded me that she just made my day better.

“You look happy,” she said as Paul held the door for her.

When Brook was seated, I leaned over and kissed her. She smelled of mint from her shampoo, and her lips tasted like cherries. She must have put on a flavored lip gloss.

I pulled away and looked deep into her sexy eyes.

“I’m happy because I am so lucky to have you in my life.”

Brook sucked in her breath and bit her lower lip. It was cute to see her suddenly look shy.

“Damn it. You say something like that, and I’ll want Paul to take the long way to school. We’ll surely be late.”

Paul had heard the last part when he got in the front seat.

“You don’t pay me enough to captain the love boat.”

We both giggled. If I were Paul, I wouldn’t want to witness that either. Then again, he might learn something.

“I vote we either go to your cabin or turn back to my place,” I suggested.

“I vote I take you two to school so I don’t have to explain this to your moms,” Paul said.

At the ripe old age of 23, he’d officially become a curmudgeon.

We both rolled our eyes at him as he took us to school. That didn’t mean we couldn’t make him uncomfortable by making out in the back seat. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of this a long time ago. Making out with Brook before school was a great idea.

When we pulled into the school’s drop-off zone, Brook pointed out the downside of this activity.

“Uhm, David,” she said and pointed. “Boner alert.”

Or should I say upside? Mr. Happy was convinced that Brook was about to be nice to him and he’d taken notice. Paul thought my predicament was hilarious. I started mumbling something about karma being a bitch. Maybe we needed Cassidy to drive us in the morning. She at least wouldn’t have a problem watching.

“Dead kittens, kissing Yuri’s grandma...” I mumbled under my breath to deflate the issue.

Nope. Nothing. I looked at Brook and smiled.

“What the hell, Brook?” I complained as she bailed out of the car.

She should at least help fix it if she caused it, right? Damn Tami!

High school boys had popped woodies since there was high school. I did what they all did: I pulled my shirt out of my jeans and used my book bag to disguise the problem. No one would notice, I was sure.

When I went to first-period gym, Wolf was at his locker, which was right next to mine. He glanced over and began to chuckle.

“I can’t help it,” I tried to explain. “Brook and I sort of made out before school.”

“You need to go get into the ice bath. That’ll fix it.”

Now that was a true friend. Ice-cold water caused everything to shrink. I hurried up and got ready for PE, grabbing a towel to drape over my arm to help cover myself up. Both Jill and Becky were busy preparing to treat other players.

“David pulled something in his groin area,” Wolf announced behind me.

I couldn’t be too mad. I would have said the same if it’d been him. There would be payback, though, as both trainers turned to see what the problem was. I flipped them all off and dropped the towel. I figured they’d seen it before, so I dropped my shorts, took off my shirt, and climbed into the ice bath.

“Jesus, Dawson. Have you no shame?” Wolf asked.

“Don’t make me come out of here,” I warned him.

Both Jill and Becky barked ‘no’ at the same time. That got both of us chuckling, and the trainers joined in. It didn’t take long for the ice water to have the desired effect, both with my obvious problem and my bumps and bruises.

Last period, the coaches pulled the skill players out of class and took us to the film room. When we were all seated, they showed us some plays from the Waterloo game.

“We’re sure that Beverly is watching the same film you are right now,” Coach Hope said.

Coach Mason was running the machine and had his laser pointer out.

“This is the first play. See how the cornerback snuck over to intercept the toss to Ty?” he asked.

He then ran a series of plays where they had done something similar.

“I want you all to switch gears and think defense. How would you defend us?” Coach Mason asked.

Coach Rector, our defensive coordinator, weighed in. It was obvious he and Coach Hope had talked about this from the way they looked at each other.

“I’d try a variety of different maneuvers to trip you up. I might drop some linemen back and also spread out our linebackers.”

They had gathered film of us doing some of those things to our opponents. They showed some Beverly film, and we saw them laying traps on pass plays. When I’d gone to football camp at Kentucky, we’d talked in depth about how to not necessarily trust something if it seemed to be too open.

“Can you bring up a couple of plays from the rugby game you showed us?” I asked.

When we watched it before, I’d only looked at it from the offense’s point of view. I began to shake my head.

“I don’t believe they’re going to trap as much as you think,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Coach Hope asked.

“The rugby guys expect the ball to be tossed around. If you watch how they defend it, you’ll see they use a zone approach and keep it in front of them. They don’t care how many times you toss it back and forth because they have you hemmed in.

“If I were Beverly, I would do two things. I would focus on not giving up big plays, and I would force the ball out of my hands. As a defender, I would hope that the opposition would get a penalty by forward-lateraling the ball. Or that they toss to someone with the wrong jersey to turn it over,” I explained.

“That makes sense,” Coach Rector said. “The rest of our players aren’t used to handling the ball. They’re much more likely to make a mistake.”

“I don’t want anyone to think that this will replace our offense completely. It’s simply adding a wrinkle that keeps them guessing,” Coach Hope reminded everyone. “The good news is that if we know they’ll zone up on defense, then I can game-plan accordingly.”

“I might have some wrinkles that’ll work,” Coach Mason said.

We knew he would.

While Roy was teaching me to fly, he had some great advice.

“Push forward, and the barn gets bigger. Pull back, and it gets smaller.”

At that very moment, the barn looked to be too big for comfort. I’d been distracted by Roy showing me that one of the gauges showed an engine problem; when he talked about stuff like that, I tried to pay attention.

I’d assumed that we were the only ones in the air for miles. That meant I could take my eyes off my surroundings for a moment to give him my full attention. I’d forgotten one of the big no-nos was to kiss the ground with the airplane. Roy had explained early on that would probably be a problem. He understated what I expected it would actually be: us either dead or wishing we were.

I swear I was only inattentive for a minute. When we both looked up to see the barn roof was too close for comfort, he’d calmly provided the ‘push-pull’ advice. I pulled back the controller, and we quickly climbed back to altitude.

“That was unexpected,” Roy said.

“What? That I didn’t pay attention and almost killed us?”

“No, that we lost altitude like that. We need to head back.”

The engine sputtered, and I could feel the plane vibrate. That didn’t feel right. I felt myself tense up and started to white-knuckle the controller.

“That’s not good,” Roy, now officially renamed Captain Obvious, said.

“Should I go faster to get us back sooner?” I asked.

“No. If we crash, speed works against us. Take us up to get more altitude in case we lose the engine and need to glide in,” Roy told me.

Now that he said it, I could see his logic. Hitting the ground faster equaled harder. I’d been awake in physics class the day they covered that.

I brought the airplane to an altitude of 10,000 feet when it sputtered again, and I felt the vibration. When it didn’t smooth out, I looked out to the side of the plane and saw smoke. Now I worried that faster wasn’t the only problem. Fire plus aviation fuel ... was bad.

“Roy, I think we’re on fire,” I worried.

He got onto the radio, and when he said, “declaring an emergency,” I officially became concerned. The only reason I wasn’t wondering if there were parachutes was he had said it as if he were discussing the box scores for a ball game. He was one cool customer.

“I’ll take it from here,” Roy said as he put his hands on his yoke to fly the airplane.

I was confused when Roy began to lose altitude and turned us away from the airport. The engine made a terrible noise, and we started to lose power. The problem with most small aircraft was that the engine was the heaviest part of the plane. When you lost power, it would want to drag the airplane to earth nose first.

“I’m going to attempt to land on that road,” Roy told me. “Radio it in, so they know where we are.”

I called air traffic control to tell them that we were losing power and planned to land on a country road. I wasn’t quite as calm as Roy had been.

Roy made it all look easy as he landed us. When we came to a stop, the front of the airplane billowed smoke. Roy and I hurried to unbuckle ourselves and get out of the aircraft as fast as possible. There was a small fire extinguisher under the seat that Roy grabbed as he jumped out and then popped the engine compartment. There weren’t any flames. It looked like coolant had leaked out, and the engine had overheated and seized up.

“I’ll kill him,” Roy said, showing emotion for the first time.

“Who?” I asked.

“I hired my wife’s brother as a mechanic. He was supposed to check all the planes yesterday.”

That would do it.

Unbeknownst to us, there was panic at the flight school. Cassidy and Brook had beaten us back to the airport from their lessons, and Roy’s wife had run out to tell them we’d declared an emergency. They’d gathered in the office so they could listen to air traffic control. When I said we were going to try to land the plane, Cassidy hit her emergency button on her phone because they could hear the fear in my voice. That sent an alert to almost everyone I knew.

Fritz confirmed it was a real emergency and notified my parents. My mom was in the middle of showing a farm down the road. Guess who was surprised when their mother showed up, with a carload of clients, at our smoking plane parked in the middle of the country? That would be me.

In the background, you could hear sirens as they rushed to where they expected we’d crashed. Mom all but put the car into a power slide as she slammed on the brakes to stop. Her clients would remember to wear their seatbelts after that display of driving. I vowed not to take her to any more driving classes if that was the result.

“I’d go hide, if I were you,” I told Roy, and hurried to my mom’s car to open her door.

“Oh, thank God!” she said as she got out and about choked the life out of me with the bear hug she put me in.

“I’m fine,” I said, and then jumped right into damage control. “Roy was with me the whole time and knew exactly what to do. The airplane just had a mechanical failure, and we had to land it. No big deal.”

Welp, I was wrong about it not being a big deal. We soon had local, county, and state police, fire and rescue all on the scene. Based on experience, this would quickly turn into a circus when the press got wind of the errant landing. I’m not proud of what I did next.

“I would love to go see the next farm you’re showing your clients,” I told my mom.

She got the right idea, and I slid into the back seat with the husband.

“Hi. I’m David,” I said as an introduction.

While Mom showed them the next farm, I turned my phone back on. I made it a habit to turn it off when I flew so as to avoid any distractions. I had a slew of voicemails and text messages. Of course, I called my girlfriend first.

“Oh, thank God!” Brook said when she answered. “I thought you might be hurt.”

God seemed to get a lot of credit today.

“Roy took over when we had to land...”

I had to relate the story three times. Once for Brook, then Cassidy who conferenced in Fritz, and finally Roy’s wife.

I was talking to the wife in the kitchen while my mom showed the husband the barn.

“I’m not sure I want an electric stove.”

“There’s always propane,” I suggested.

“I don’t want to have the view out my kitchen window marred by one of those ugly tanks,” she objected.

“They can bury one for you. When my mom gets back in, she can explain how that works.”

That seemed to satisfy her. She smiled brightly at me and walked back into the living room. The wife clearly had advanced to the point where she was trying to figure out where to put her furniture. I hated to be the one to tell her husband, but they’d bought a house. He just didn’t know it yet.

The back door banged open, startling me. Brook ran in and launched herself at me. I about fell down but managed to keep my feet as she wrapped my neck tightly and began to cry. Cassidy wasn’t far behind and made it a group hug.

My mom and the husband came in, and I pointed to the living room. Mom rolled her eyes and shook her head. From her expression, I dreaded the talk we would have later when she didn’t have clients around. I just prayed that my flying days weren’t over.

“I was afraid I’d lost you,” Brook finally got out.

“Oh, Baby. I was with Roy. He has to be the calmest person I know. If he hadn’t been there, I might have panicked when the engine died. With him in the cockpit, I never felt we were in danger,” I said to try to reassure her.

“The way his wife acted, we were sure you’d crashed,” Brook said to explain her reaction.

I was able to get loose of her and led Brook and Cassidy outside so we wouldn’t mess up my mom’s potential sale.

When we got outside, Brook wrapped her arms around me again and looked me in the eyes.

“I love you, David Dawson. I think I’ve taken you for granted the last few weeks. The thought of losing you told me that I need to mend my ways. I just couldn’t imagine our story ending this way.”

“Everything works out in the end,” I told her.

“That sounds too much like a fairy tale. What if it doesn’t?” Brook asked.

“Then it isn’t the end.”

She blinked at me.

“You really believe that?”

I gave her a kiss and smiled.

“Of course I do, because I love you too, Brook Davis.”

Cassidy had a big smile on her face and tears in her eyes. The last person I expected would get emotional was her. She was my tough little ninja. Ninjas didn’t have girl feelings. Brook, on the other hand, was all girl.

“Take us home, Cassidy. I bet he’s hungry, and I need to get my emotions under control, or he’ll never get a chance to eat,” Brook said.

That was a tough call. In the end, my stomach won out.

When I arrived home, I watched the latest episode of our documentary with Brook and Cassidy while we ate. DVRs were a gift. I could zip through the commercials and watch what I wanted when I wanted. Now if they would do that automatically, they would have something.

I smirked when Jeff caught Brook and Destiny’s fight.

“It must be ratings week,” I said.

“Why would you say that? That was terrible,” Brook complained.

“I think it’s also shark week. You might be right,” Cassidy said.

Jeff also showed Alan and his misdeeds, along with comments from several of my teammates. Jeff had bunched all the bad actions into one episode. Brook was upset. Channeling my PR agent, I told her to just be glad they got her name right. I think my earned karma from almost dying had balanced out in Brook’s eyes. I contended that everyone told me to man-up when this kind of stuff happened to me.

Friday November 11
For my photography class, we had a new project we had to do. We were to create a photo album that had a theme but also showed different photography techniques. When Brook saw the photo album I was creating, she wanted to see it.

“‘A Moment in Time’?” she asked.

“Too corny?” I asked, and she rolled her eyes. “I thought it was clever. What’s a photograph if it isn’t a split second of frozen time that I capture through the lens of my camera?”

She ignored my questions and turned to the first two pictures that were side-by-side. It was a picture of the walnut trees on my farm, the river, and the bluff I someday wanted to build a house on. I’d set up the camera on the other side of the river facing back towards where the farmhouse was.

She looked up at me in confusion.

“These are exactly the same.”

I could see why she might think that.

“No. They’re completely different.”

“I hate to disagree, but they are the exact same picture.”

“Look closer,” I urged. “They were taken five seconds apart. Focus on a small section of the picture and compare it to the other one.”

She leaned closer and inspected both pictures, then looked up suddenly and smiled.

“The leaves moved. They are different.”

I just grinned at her, and could see the understanding come into her eyes.

“I get it. A moment in time is frozen in the picture. I bet you could take hundreds, if not thousands, and never get the same exact one.”

“Exactly,” I said, smiling that my girlfriend recognized what I’d done.

Next was a series of pictures of the farmhouse and barn that showed the moon above it. I’d taken a photo every fifteen minutes throughout the night. Well, I hadn’t, really; I’d set up a tripod and programmed the camera to take the pictures. I valued my sleep too much to sit up all night. It had taken almost a week to find a night when the clouds cooperated and stayed away so they didn’t ruin the shot.

The last picture was the net result of what I wanted to accomplish. Brook looked up when she flipped to that page and smiled.

“I want a copy of this one. It’s so clever,” she said to approve.

What I’d done was stitch six of the pictures together to make it appear like there were six moons equally spaced over the house. It was a fun way to show what you could accomplish with time lapse and the software we’d been given. I hoped it showed that I understood what I’d been taught so I could get an ‘A’ for my project.

At lunch, all seemed right with the world.

“Where are we going tonight?” Jill, my brother’s girlfriend, asked.

I looked at Cassidy and Don because they normally double-dated with Jill and Phil. Brook stuck her elbow into my ribs, and I showed my irritation.

“You promised to take them to dinner,” she reminded me.

“Oh, I thought we were staying in and working on that video project I’ve wanted to complete.”

I’d teased Brook that if Fritz and his crew had a video of us having naked fun, we should make our own. That conversation had gotten me nowhere ... so far.

“Where are we going to dinner?” Brook asked to get me to focus.

“What’s going on? I thought we had plans for tonight,” Cassidy complained.

“David said he would take Phil and me out tonight,” Jill said.

“That means we can’t go out,” Cassidy pouted.

I glanced over at Brook, who was mysteriously quiet. This felt like a setup. I looked down at the table, and Tracy and Pam were giggling. I tried anyway.

“Wolf, could you and Sarah take Don and Cassidy with you guys tonight?”

“I’d love to, but we already have plans.”

“And those plans are?” I asked.

“Going to the T-Bird with everyone,” he explained to let me off the hook.

The Thunderbird was a campus restaurant-bar that let you stay to enjoy the band free of charge if you had dinner there early. There might even be dancing if I played my cards right.

It had been a busy week with the game on Wednesday and then the excitement of the airplane having mechanical difficulties. So it wasn’t too much of a surprise when before football practice I found Roy, looking nervous, waiting for me outside the training room.

“I thought I had to come to you for flight lessons,” I said as we shook hands.

“They asked me to come here for the press conference.”

I pulled my phone out and found that somehow the ringer had been turned off. I had six messages from Frank and Caryn, followed by several text messages.

“Hang on, I need to call a couple of people before we meet the press,” I told Roy and then called Caryn. “What’s up?”

“Finally!” she huffed. “Frank needs you to call him as soon as possible. He set up a press conference so you wouldn’t be hounded about the plane going down.”

“Message received,” I said, and received an inappropriate comment in return.

“One more call,” I promised Roy.

“I have some talking points for you,” Frank said without preamble.

He proceeded to give me an outline of what I should say.

“Mr. Tyro is here with me. Do you want to talk to him too?” I asked.

Frank thought it might be a good idea to have us on the same page, so I handed the phone to Roy.

They’d set up the press in the place where we usually held after-game press conferences. It looked to be the usual suspects with Jeff as their ringleader. He, of course, ambushed me as soon as I walked into the room. Roy was still talking to Frank, while I’d gone to Coach Hope’s office to grab our talking points that Frank had emailed me. I’d used Coach’s printer.