Chapter 12: One For The Team

A couple of days later, the doorbell rang. When I opened the front door, Vicky was standing there.

"Joey isn't here, Vicky."

"I just left him. I stopped by to see you. Can I come in?"

"Sure. I guess so."

I pushed the door open and led her into the kitchen.

"Do you want a Coke?"

"Yes please. That would be good."

I pulled a couple of bottles out of the refrigerator and used the opener under the cupboard to open them.

"Here you are."

"Thanks."

We sat down at the table. She looked down at her hands as she nervously twisted the bottle in her hand. She finally took a drink, as if it was a whiskey bottle and she needed some courage.

"Les, I came over here to apologize."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I should have said something the other day. I was afraid of what the other girls were going to say. I should have thought about what I'd feel like if I was treated that way. I didn't spread any rumors but I should have told them off like Darcy did. I just want to tell you I'm sorry and I hope we can be friends."

She looked at me nervously, waiting for my answer. I thought about what Mr. Johnson would say.

"I'd like that."

Her face lit up as I said it.

"Oh, great. Thank you. Look, I'm going to quit the team and tell them what I think about them."

"You don't have to do that for me, Vick."

"I want to. I'm tired of the politics. I don't fit in with them very well since I'm only going to be a sophomore."

"I know what you mean. Sam and I didn't get real close with anyone because we're just freshmen. Darcy's the only one who had anything to do with us. And that only started because she heard about my brother and me."

"They've talked about both of you behind your backs since they found out. And now that you guys told them off, they refer to both of you as 'brother fuckers.' I'll be glad to get away from them."

"I don't miss them at all. It would have been nice to cheer at the games, but I'm fine without the squad."

"Well, maybe we can find something else to do. Cheer can't be the only thing that's fun in high school."

"That would be good."

The time went by. Vicky wasn't a constant companion like Sam had been, but we got together a few times and went to the mall or a movie. Joey didn't want to see The Sound of Music so we went to that. Both of us cried and cheered.

Three weeks before school started, Joey decided he wanted to see other girls as well as Vicky. She told him she wasn't into that and if he didn't want to commit, he could go ahead and see the others and forget about her. I think she was surprised when he took her up on it. We spent many an hour watching her crying, wondering what she did wrong. Like I was the expert in relationships.

One good thing came out of it as far as I was concerned. I had someone to go see Dr. Zhivago with. Vicky and Joey had been planning to see it for months before it came out, but he took some kid who was still in junior high. I thought we cried in Sound of Music. This was ten times as bad. I had to console her again about Joey when it was over.

Bill left for Viet Nam about a week and a half after our time together. Darcy was sure she was pregnant because her period was due four days before he left. As far as I know, I was the only person they trusted enough to tell. Darcy wanted to tell the world but that would cause big problems. So, good old Leslie got to be the recipient of the news that nobody was supposed to know. It turned out that Darcy was correct. She found out in the first week of school that it was definite when she went to a clinic called Planned Parenthood. They had some crazy idea that she didn't want the baby and she had to work hard to convince them to let her go. All that work to get pregnant and they wanted to "terminate" it.

Sam was still spending all her free time with Wes. He was the same, lying in bed, breathing regularly. That's about all he did. He had a tube with a bottle to pee in and wore diapers. He was still fed by the IV. Nancy stopped coming after a while because Sam took over all of her chores. Nancy was glad not to have to come over to our house every day because she was setting up projects for the candy stripers at the hospital. Jeff was over most days and checked Wes, dropped off IV bottles and more diapers and made googoo eyes at Mom. Sam fed, bathed and changed Wes' diapers and pee bottle as if he was her patient. She changed his bandages until they weren't needed anymore. She also sat by his side for hours, reading out loud or telling him what was going on. It was pretty easy to see the girl had it bad. I hoped she wouldn't be disappointed and that he'd recover.

I made it a point to stop over at Mr. Johnson's at least once a week. A few times he wasn't home and I discovered he was over visiting the two widow ladies, Edith and Elizabeth. He was proud of me when I told him that Vicky and I had made friends.

"I want to find something other than regular classes to do. I'd thought cheer leading would be good, but you know what happened there."

"What do you like to do?"

"I don't know. I like people. I like finding out about them. Everybody has an interesting story. Like you and Marie. I enjoyed finding out about the two of you."

"Do you like to write?"

"It's OK. I don't know how good I am."

"Well, I suggest one of two things. You can either try to get on the school newspaper or you can get on the yearbook committee."

"What's the yearbook committee?"

"It's the people who get all the information for the yearbook. They have to talk to the students and find out what they're doing in the various clubs, on their teams, things like that. The committee needs to get pictures of the various functions. Sometimes the person who does the interviews does it, sometimes it's two different people."

"That sounds like fun."

"I suggest you go to the school as soon as you can and find out what you'll need to do. It might be too late if you wait until school actually starts."

"I can do that. Maybe Vicky will be interested, too."

"Maybe she will."

It turned out Vicky was interested in doing the photography. She had taken a course in summer school and found that she liked it. Her teacher told her she showed a lot of promise.

We went to school and saw the Vice-Principal. He sent us in to see our guidance counselor and he sent us to see the faculty supervisor of the yearbook committee. When we talked to him, he acted as if we were a gift from heaven. Evidently there was some idea that the people who put the yearbook together were squares. He made sure we knew what we'd be doing and made us promise that we'd put in the hours we needed in order to get the project ready to go to the printer. We both agreed it sounded like fun.

Since the yearbook took time to get assembled and printed, we would only be needed for a semester. We were told to think about what we wanted to do for the second semester and get with our counselor before Thanksgiving vacation.

I got a letter about a week before school started with a list of the classes I had been assigned. Yearbook was down as my last period course. I couldn't tell if I had male or female teachers because there were only last names in the teacher column. As a freshman, I was required to go to a half day orientation the Friday before Labor Day. School started the Tuesday after.

Orientation took four hours and should have probably only taken one. I couldn't believe some of the dumb questions that were asked. Like it was a surprise there was going to be homework or that we'd get report cards with grades on them. I went with Vicky. We saw Joey and Sam but he pretended he didn't see us and avoided us. That shook up Vicky even though they'd been apart for three weeks.

We got our lockers and combinations. The dumb question about that was "Are we supposed to remember the combination?" Those of us with five dollars got to stand in line and get a student activity card. There were five lines with letters, like A through E. The girl in front of me said her name was Elizabeth Summers and was disturbed when the woman told her she'd have to go stand in the M through S line. While I was waiting, I saw a guy in the next line arguing that he should get his card and he'd pay the $5 later. It didn't work.

I had to get up at 6:30 on Tuesday so I could be at school by 8:00. Vicky lived a couple of blocks over, so we took different routes. Sam didn't say anything about wanting to walk with me so I didn't push it. So, I got to walk to school by myself.

I was surprised with the amount of homework I got the first day. I had to read a chapter of The Grapes of Wrath for English, another one on the Crusades for World History and do a page of math problems. Plus I had a week to memorize the periodic table of the elements for Chemistry. Before that morning, I didn't even realize there was a periodic table of elements. I also got my assignment for Yearbook.

I was in charge of interviewing the Varsity, JV and Frosh football teams as well as Track, Cross Country and Tennis. I was to talk to each coach to find out about the team and get anywhere from two to five team members to talk to in detail. And each coach would set up a team question and answer period with the whole team team so I could get their opinions about the team. I had a month to get all the interviews done and typed up. And then I'd get my next assignment.

A month sounds like a long time. But I had 21 team members, six teams and five coaches to interview. I lucked out because Coach Wilson took care of both Track and Cross Country. So, that's 32 interviews in 20 school days and I had to type them all up with two fingers. I'd wanted something to keep me busy and this was it. Vicky got to take pictures of the people I interviewed, so she was in and out. Of course, she also had to go to some games and meets so she could get shots of the action. How tough is that? Standing on the sidelines at the football game, taking pictures of the guys in their uniforms?