Chapter 39: Playing The Game

One Sunday afternoon late in October, Kayla and I were in my family room. This time, we actually were doing homework, instead of merely pretending to. Stephen was in his room, presumably doing his homework, though in actuality he probably had his headphones on and was zoned out, listening to his new Van Halen album.

The telephone rang, but before I could struggle up from the floor, my mom answered from the kitchen.

"Sean! Telephone!" She waited until she heard me pick up, and then she hung up her phone.

"Sean? It's Jaimie. Is Kayla there?"

"Yeah. You want to talk to her?"

"No, it doesn't matter. I was just making sure you guys were together. I need to talk to both of you, I think. Can you meet Jake and me at Mike's Pizza in about an hour?"

I glanced over at Kayla, who was looking back at me quizzically. "Sure," I said.

"Okay, see you there," said Jaimie, and she hung up.

I shrugged as I stepped back over Kayla's outstretched legs. "Jaimie and Jake want to meet up with us," I said.

I walked over to the kitchen and saw my mom cutting up vegetables and putting them in a big pot.

"Mom? I don't know if it makes a difference with what you've got planned for dinner, but Jake and Jaimie want us to meet them at Mike's, so we'll probably eat there. Is that okay?"

She looked over her shoulder at me. "That's fine, honey. I'm just making a big pot of stew. We'll have lots of leftovers." She smiled at me, and turned back to her work.

Luscious and I worked for a little while longer, and then we packed up our stuff and I carried her backpack out to my car. When I came back in the house, Kayla was in the kitchen, saying goodbye to my mother. I stood in the doorway and watched my girlfriend and my mom together. They had come to really like each other over the past year. It was the oddest thing: I couldn't see how I would ever be a pal to Mr. Lehigh, but here Kayla was, with my mom, who was treating her like one of her best friends.

We got to Mike's a few minutes late, and Jaimie and Jake were already there, sitting in their favorite booth. They had soda fountain glasses filled with ice and Cokes on the table in front of them. As we slid in opposite them, I couldn't help but notice that Jaimie looked very worried. She held out her hands toward me, and I naturally took them in mine.

"What's up, Jaimie?" I asked.

Tears welled up in her eyes. "Tara's pregnant," she said quietly.

"What?" I was shocked. "How did it ... Ah, forget that, what I mean is, she's been grounded since last spring. When?"

"We don't know for sure," she said. "She won't talk about it much."

"We all know she's found ... opportunities," said Kayla. She looked as shocked as I felt. "Didn't she use any protection?"

Jaimie looked disgusted. "She must have fallen asleep during Sex Education," she grumbled. Now that the bad news was out there, shared among her friends, her grief over this family misfortune seemed to be lessened. "She said she thought she was too young to get pregnant."

"Too young? You'd have to be pretty young not to be able to be knocked up, a lot younger than her," said Jake.

"And thank you very much, Mr. Sensitivity," shot Jaimie.

"Sorry," Jake mumbled, abashed.

"So, who's the guilty party?" Kayla asked.

Jaimie looked down. She was acting like she was feeling a little bit responsible about all this, but I didn't see how any of it could have been her fault.

"She doesn't know," she whispered.

"What?"

"She refuses to even talk about who the father is to my mom and my dad," Jaimie said quietly. "But she told me she doesn't know who it is."

"How could she not know?" asked Jake incredulously.

Jaimie favored him with a look that said, You really didn't say that, did you? She turned back to face Kayla and me.

"Sean, she did tell me that Stephen was one of the boys she'd been with," she said.

My heart fell into my stomach. Of course he was. Didn't Jake and I chase him out of her room that night of the picnic and scavenger hunt? And then there was his confession the next morning. I didn't think Jaimie knew anything about that.

"But he's not the only one, I would guess," I said.

"No. Tommy, Carlos, Richie, Stephen. They seem to be the prime suspects. But she also mentioned three other boys she'd fooled around with one time or another during the summer."

"Man! When did she find the time to boink..." Jake stopped, and counted the names on his fingers. "What is that? Seven? For a girl who spent all summer grounded, she really got around."

"Boink?" Jaimie looked at him dangerously. "Is that how you think of it?"

He backpedaled swiftly. "Uh ... no, sweetie, I just ... uh ... I mean, obviously she didn't take it very seriously ... and..."

She ineffectually slapped at his hand as the tears started again. "Oh, never mind, you big oaf. I know you didn't mean anything by it. I'm just a little upset right now."

He put his arm around her and gently pulled her to him, kissing the top of her head lovingly. "I know, sweetie. I'm sorry."

Jaimie sniffled and reached for a paper napkin from the chrome dispenser on the table. She wiped her nose delicately, and dabbed at her cheeks and under her eyes to blot up the tears.

"Anyway," she said, after regaining her control, "do you guys remember the first day of school? That half-day Tuesday?"

Kayla and I glanced at each other.

"Sure, you do, don't you? You guys were being ... naughty, weren't you?" She smiled at us. "I know because Tara told me she watched you."

"Ah," I said, that dim light bulb finally flickering on inside my thick skull. "The face in the window. It was Tara!"

"Yes," confirmed Jaimie. "She came home on the bus, but I had to stay after school to look stuff up in the library, so I didn't get home until later in the afternoon. Tara was home, but she was soaked. Remember? It was raining that day."

"Very stormy," murmured Kayla. She put her hand on my knee, and I dropped my arm below the table and put my hand on top of hers. She turned her hand over, and our fingers naturally intertwined.

Jaimie looked at us, a smile twitching the corners of her mouth. "Apparently. Anyway, I found out later that Tara saw you that afternoon. By then she already thought she might be pregnant, so she was wandering around in the storm, worrying herself sick. Anyway, she saw movement, and she slipped between the bushes and watched you two." She started sniffling again, remembering her conversation with her sister. "She saw how much you two ... cared ... for each other while you were..."

"Making love?" suggested Kayla quietly. She glanced quickly at her brother to gauge his reaction, but he was focusing on his girlfriend.

"None of her experiences were even remotely like ... making love," continued Jaimie. "It was always hard, quick, almost violent, she said. She thought that's how it always was. So when she saw you, she ... she got mad. I think she's been angry ever since."

"So now what's going to happen?" Kayla asked.

"My parents wanted to have every boy she could name arrested, charged with rape. They were so angry, they drove her even further away from them. She refused to tell them anything. They were screaming at each other. Tara absolutely refuses to even consider an abortion. She wants to have the baby, raise it herself. She won't talk about giving it up for adoption, or anything."

"Do any of the boys know anything about it yet?" I asked. Stephen hadn't been acting any differently that I could tell.

"No, I don't think so," said Jaimie. She sighed. "I don't even know if she's planning on telling them."

"It's going to become a little obvious pretty soon," said Jake.

"Yes, but she's got several weeks before she'll really start to show," said Jaimie. "Hopefully, by then she'll have made some sort of intelligent decision about this baby."

The pizzas Jaimie and Jake had ordered for us arrived, and we spent the next hour or so chewing over the Jacks family problem while we consumed large quantities of sodas and pizza.

Finally, Jake sat back and patted his stomach. "I do believe that pizza is the world's most perfect food."

"How do you figure?" asked Kayla.

"Easy," he said as he reached for one last tidbit of pizza. "You've got your bread in the crust. You've got your vegetables of various colors, tomato paste and onions and mushrooms and peppers. You've got your meat, with the sausage and pepperoni. What are you missing? It's a perfectly rounded meal."

"Oh, I get it," I said sarcastically. "A perfectly rounded meal?" I indicated the empty pizza pans.

"Well, you know what they say. Mathematicians don't have all the answers. After all, they think 'pi r square', when everybody else knows that pie are round. Including pizza pie."

Kayla and I both threw scrunched-up napkins at him for that.

Jaimie said, "Pizza is missing at least one ingredient. Without it, no food could rationally be called perfect."

Jake looked at her, smiling. "And what's that, sweetie?"

"Chocolate, of course."

Just the thought of that made me a little queasy. A chocolate pizza? Maybe not.

The next weekend was Homecoming. Because of all the trouble the previous year, float building was still not allowed, so the parade was not going to be very exciting, in anybody's mind. All the fall sports teams were going to walk the parade route in their uniforms, and the middle school teams would all be there, too. The marching band would be in the parade, and convertibles carrying the mayor and other local politicians were going to be interspersed.

The Homecoming King and Queen candidates would also be in cars in the parade. The student body had held elections a couple of weeks before Homecoming, separated by class, to choose class representatives for the King's and Queen's Court. Two boys and two girls from each of the three younger classes had been chosen, and three had been chosen from the Senior Class, the theory being that it would be seniors who would be selected as Homecoming Royalty.

Partly due to her association with me, but mostly because she deserved to be there, Kayla was elected as one of the sophomore representatives. Ashley Horvath was chosen as a junior member of the Queen's Court, while both Molly O'Toole and Keisha Prescott were selected as seniors. For the King's Court, both Eric and I were picked as seniors, and Jorge was one of the elected candidates from the Junior Class. The final selection of the King and Queen would take place at the dance on Saturday night.

We all went to the football game after the parade. On a warm and sunny afternoon, we watched as our team bettered their record to eight wins and one loss. Kayla and I sat together in the stands, surrounded by most of the rest of the student body, enjoying the day, though I couldn't help but think about all that had occurred the last time our school was celebrating a Homecoming.

At the dance that night, we all once again gathered in the same area of the gymnasium, though this time around there were some differences. Molly's date was the red-haired math whiz, Alex Baumgartner, and my date was the luscious Kayla. Tiny was there, with Erica Frost, and so were Jake and Jaimie. Jorge was still dating Marissa Montoya, and Paco and Kristina stayed near them. Eric and Keisha were there, of course, as were Anthony and Ayesha, Tessa Navarrone and Austin Graves, Toby Mueller with Ashley Horvath, and Josh O'Toole and Andrea Coulter. We were a big, loud, boisterous group, and the combination of the loud music from the disk jockey and being surrounded by my friends kept most of my melancholy thoughts away.

Early on, Dr. Osgood stepped up to the microphone on the raised platform at one end of the room, and introduced the King's Court and the Queen's Court. He called each of us to come up by him, and we stood there as he ceremoniously tore open the large envelope.

"The Homecoming Queen for 1982 is ... Molly O'Toole!" He tried to make his announcement sonorous, but he couldn't help smiling as Molly was crowned.

After she had received her scepter and sash, Dr. Osgood stepped back up to the microphone. "Our Homecoming King is ... Eric Johnson!" We all applauded as Eric moved up to join Molly, a huge and bright smile lighting up his face. They stepped down, Molly's arm tucked in his elbow, to take the first dance as Homecoming Royalty, and the DJ cued up a cassette recording of our school's orchestra playing our school song. It was corny, and it was completely memorable. Soon, the rest of the King's and Queen's Courts followed suit. By the second song, the rest of the kids at the dance joined us, and the ceremonial part of the evening was done. It was back to having fun again.

Kayla, Molly, Keisha, and Tessa kept me out on the dance floor most of the evening, and I didn't mind at all making a fool of myself. It was a wonderful evening, and when the dance ended, everybody streamed out of the school doors and moved as a crowd into the parking lot. We piled into our cars and headed out for a late night dinner to finish the evening, giving hardly a second glance around as a precaution against the previous year's mischief.

Of course, it wasn't long after that weekend that the entire school found out about Tara's condition. Speculation and rumor raced up and down the halls for weeks about the whos, the whens, and the juicy details. Stephen and his buddies were found to be the prime suspects, so life within our little community became very difficult for that entire group. Tara didn't want anything to do with Tommy, Richie, Carlos, or Stephen, and did her best to distance herself from them. Tracy Evanson stayed at Tara's side most of the time, trying to be the best friend she could, while the four boys banded together and stayed away from everybody as much as they could.

It was very unsettling for me, as Stephen's older brother, but it must have been sheer torture for him. Having a popular older brother, and having teachers expecting him to be more like me, only added to the pressure. I tried to talk to him, but for much of that fall he brushed me off. I was so busy with soccer and school that I didn't press the issue. I hoped that, after our season ended, I would be able to spend a little more time with him, and try to help him through this. For the time being, however, our fall season was what was taking up most of my time and energy.

In November, we entered the playoffs as the only undefeated soccer team in the state. Our national ranking had moved up to third, mostly because of the scoring firepower we were able to unleash out of the middle. Everybody was gunning for us, and we welcomed the challenges.

For the regional playoffs, the team seeded eighth had to play us, the top-ranked team, on our home field. That was the unlucky Lincoln Valley Bozos. They gave up about halfway through the first half, and we ended up playing all our bench players for a lot of the game, winning 9-0. Each successive game was against tougher opponents, but we still breezed through, winning 6-1 and 5-0.

David and Lori brought the boys to every game, and Davey and Kip sat on the bench with me during the Lincoln Valley blowout. Coach Bill was there for every game, too, and there were quite a few of his players and their parents who attended at least one of the playoff games. A number of my summer students were there, too, especially from the competitive group. I talked to a bunch of them before each game, and they were practically salivating at the thought of playing varsity soccer at some point. Many of them were even more rabid about the game than I was.

After our victory over Lincoln Valley, the Metro Times released their All-Conference selections. Eric, Jorge, and I were selected, and so was Paco. Hap got an honorable mention, as did Weasel. Three first-year starters on the list was startling, even to Coach Neville.

Coach gathered the team together at the end of practice on Monday.

"Congratulations are in order," he said. "We have some new players who have been receiving some attention, it seems."

There was some good-natured cheering from our teammates.

"Hey!" Adam's voice cut through the noise. "Does this mean I can get a new nickname now?"

We all laughed. Eric put his arm around Adam's shoulder. "Sorry, man, but you're stuck with it now."

"Shit," mumbled Adam. "I hate being known as Weasel."

"You want us to call you 'Weasel-icious' instead?" asked Brett. "It'll just be shortened down, anyway."

Adam shrugged. "Nah," he said. "I guess I kind of earned it last year. So, I guess I'll just have to be ... I don't know ... maybe tenacious as a weasel on the field?"

"Yeah, that'll work," said Eric with a laugh. "We'll let ol' Hartigan know that's what it stands for, next time he comes around for interviews."

On Wednesday, I got home after practice and settled in to do some homework. Kayla had told me during lunch she had an appointment after school, so she didn't know what time she would be able to meet up with me. I had gotten my assignments for the rest of the week, since the team was leaving the next day to go downstate for the tournament, and I wanted to take the opportunity to work ahead a little. My full ride to Florida was all but assured, but I still didn't want my grades to slip during my senior year.

Mom came home from work and started on dinner. She poked her head into the family room.

"Where's Kayla?" she asked.

"She had something to do after school," I replied. "She might be over later."

"Should I set a place for her at the table?"

"I guess not," I said.

She gave me a funny look. "Is everything okay with you two?" she asked.

"Yeah, fine. Why?"

She stood up and leaned against the doorframe, a spatula in her hand. "It's not like you to be so unsure about whether she's eating here or not, that's all," she said.

"It's nothing, Mom. She has other stuff to do besides be with me, you know."

"I know, dear, it's just..." She paused, watching me, and then sighed. "Never mind, then," she said, and she turned back into the kitchen.

What's up with parents? I shook my head. First, they're concerned that you're spending too much time together, and then, when they see you alone, they worry that there's trouble brewing. You just can't please them, no matter what.

Michael and my dad got home at about the same time, and I went up to get Stephen for dinner. I knocked on his door, but there was no answer. I tried the knob, and it turned.

Stephen was lying on the floor, his eyes closed, his feet keeping time and his legs moving to the music pounding out of his headphones. Even from where I stood, I could hear Joan Jett snarling about how much she loves rock and roll, the heavy bass beat thumping into the floor.

I kicked his foot, and he scrambled up, pulling the headphones off.

"What?" he gritted.

"Dinnertime," I said.

"Don't want any. Go away."

A big part of me wanted to be obstinate. I sat down on his bed. "No," I said.

He just shrugged, and put his headphones back on. I stood up and hit the power button on his tape player. He scrambled to his feet, yanked off the headphones, and stepped up into my face.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he said loudly. He had to look up at me. He was just hitting his growth spurt, but I had a few inches on him. I grabbed him by his arm and pulled him over to the chair by his small desk, and pushed him down into it. He slumped there, the fight already flowing out of him.

"What do you want, Sean?" he asked miserably.

"You're my brother, Stephen. I want to help you, if I can."

"You want to help me? Stop being so fucking perfect," he said heatedly.

"What?" I looked at him in surprise. Perfect? Me? Didn't he even know me?

"Yeah. You think it's easy being your little brother? 'Hi, I'm Stephen Porter. Yeah, I'm Sean's brother. No, I don't play soccer, too. No, I'm not a fucking All-American athlete. No, I can't get good grades like Sean. No, I can't get the prettiest girls in school.'" His voice was derisive and bitter.

"Nobody's asking you to be just like me, Stephen."

He looked at me like I was the stupidest creature to grace the earth. "Oh, yeah? Spend a day in my shoes, Big Brother."

I was getting a little angry. "You think I'm living a charmed life? Well, maybe right now I am, but I worked pretty fucking hard to get here, Stephen. Sure, I'm good at soccer, but I started out as a crummy player, just like everybody else, but I worked at it, because I liked it. Easy being me?" I gave him a bitter, humorless bark of a laugh. "I've had my ass kicked more times than I like to think about. Last year I got beat up, kicked in the gut, and knifed, right there in the school parking lot." I pointed to the scar snaking down my left arm. Even with my summer tan fading, the scar was stark white.

"Yeah, while you were coming to the rescue of Miss Homecoming Queen."

"You're kidding, right? Stephen, she rescued me. If she hadn't stopped Jilly, he would have skewered me. Molly put herself in danger because I was down on the ground, getting the shit kicked out of me." I really didn't want to relive that night, that humiliation, but I had no choice now. "If it weren't for my friends," I said roughly, "I might not be here now. Molly, and Tiny, and Eric, and Josh, and Kayla, they all had a hand in saving my butt. You think that was fun? You think I felt like Sean Porter, Big Man on Campus, then? Shit on a stick, Stevie." I wiped my cheeks. Somehow they had gotten damp.

"Sean, I..."

"And, yes, I'm dating the prettiest girl in school. Was it my idea? Stephen, I'm probably even more dense about girls than you are. Kayla nearly had to hit me over the head with a two-by-four before I figured out that she would go out with me. She was my best friend's sister, for God's sake! I had already fucked up two or three relationships. I thought I was dead in the water when it came to dating. Who would want to go out with me? I was poison."