Chapter 43: Preparations

Kayla and I had made a connection over the holidays, but it was much weaker than I would have liked. Still, it was a connection. By the time I got back to school, I was determined to keep up my writing campaign. I didn't want her to forget me.

Lightspeed came over to my apartment the first week back, pulling up on a big Japanese motorcycle. He took off his helmet and shook his head, letting his long hair fly around and rearrange itself however it wanted. Spencer and I were on the front steps, enjoying a beer. It was cool out, cool enough for sweatshirts, but Lightspeed still had on his baggy California shorts.

"Yo, dude, isn't it a little chilly to be riding around like that?" asked Spencer with a smile.

Lightspeed came sauntering up to us. He deftly caught the can of beer Spencer tossed to him. He popped it open. It began to foam all over, but he didn't care. He tilted it up and drank, slurping up the foam. He drank about half the can, sighed, and perched on the railing beside us.

"It's cold, but it stops," he said finally.

"It stops?"

He smiled. "It's like hitting yourself on the head with a hammer," he replied. "It feels so good when you stop."

"Doesn't sound like much fun to me," I said. "Did you ride that thing all the way from California?"

"Righteous," he said. "Followed Route 66 into Oklahoma, and then kept moving south and east. Outasight trip."

Spencer sat up. "Really, dude? Let's see if I can do it backwards. Hmmm ... San Bernardino, Barstow, Kingman, don't forget Winona, Flagstaff Arizona, Gallup New Mexico, Amarillo..."

"Oklahoma City is mighty pretty," they both sang. They laughed and shook hands.

"Thirty thousand people on this campus, and I team up with the only ones who can sing Route 66 backwards," I grumbled.

"It could be worse," said Spencer.

"How?"

"You might still be rooming with Westy."

"Good point." I turned to Lightspeed. "It's a long time on a bike," I said.

Lightspeed smiled. "Think of it as a long time in the saddle," he said. "Hey, you wanna go for a ride?"

"Too cold," said Spencer.

"Pussy," accused Lightspeed. "How about you, Boss? Wind in your hair, freedom of the open road, all that bullshit?"

I looked at his bike. It was tempting. I loved riding around in convertibles, and this looked to feel even more liberating. I started to get up, but then I remembered a promise I had made, a promise that Lori McMasters, Lori Wilkinson, had extracted from me in a fit of grief over her lost husband.

It was a long time ago, I said to myself in a classic case of rationalizing.

Don't delude yourself, Self, I fired back in my mind. Perhaps it was rash, maybe you were young, and nobody would probably care even if they did find out, but it was still a promise.

Come on, let's go for it! said the adventurous Sean, the one I increasingly thought of as the Sean with the pitchfork and the horned tail.

I sat back down. "Can't," I said.

"How come?" asked Lightspeed, clearly surprised.

I shook my head. "I made a promise a long time ago to a good friend of mine," I said. "As much as I'd like to, I won't break that promise."

I saw Lightspeed think about it. He shrugged and dismissed it, reaching instead into our cooler for another beer. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Spencer surreptitiously studying me. I was a little uncomfortable with his examination, but the little devilish Sean had disappeared in a self-righteous poof of smoke, and I felt quite at ease with my decision.

"Good on you," said Harlan, and I saw Spencer nod once. He reached in and grabbed two more beers. He opened them both, and silently handed one of them to me.

We had about five weeks before the spring clinics began. During that time, Pick put on his dog-and-pony show for any of his prospects who were still undecided. Among those was the defender from Texas, Rico Montenegro. Pick was pinning a lot of his hopes for the future on this kid, and he pulled out all the stops for Rico's campus visit.

Pick and Stan Harvard met Rico, along with his father, at the airport, and ushered them into the offices. Jesse, Lightspeed, Spencer, and I were waiting for them, per Pick's instructions. After the introductions, we sat around a conference table.

Pick said, "This here is your opportunity to ask us anything, Rico. These players are the core of what make the Gators a great team. Jesse here is graduating, but as you can see, we still got quite a cupful of talent to carry on with."

If Rico was intimidated by being the outsider at the table, he didn't show it. He started out boldly by addressing Jesse.

"I've watched the tapes Coach Cropper sent to me. It's an unusual system you got here. You won't be here next year. Will it still work? Who's going to be the scoring power for the offense?"

Jesse leaned forward. "Our system was implemented by Sean Porter. It'll work because he makes it work. The scoring will come from the system. It doesn't depend on one player. Even though I was the leading scorer, it could just as well have been Lightfine, or Goldman, or even Porter. We tap into the strengths on the field, and the game flows from that."

Rico nodded. "I could see that." He glanced at me, and then continued talking with Jesse. "What you going to do next year? You going to be an assistant here, maybe?"

Jesse smiled. "I don't know where I'll be next year," he said. "But I'll be a Gator, no matter where I am."

"I get that," said Rico. He turned to Spencer. "I seen the tapes of your finals in Illinois. You could be a great scorer, you moved up."

Spencer shrugged. "I like midfield. But I still have plenty of chances at the net. Actually, you will, too. Want to be the highest- scoring defender in the conference? This is the place to accomplish it."

Rico looked a little startled. We finally managed to say something he hadn't anticipated. He hadn't expected to be surprised by anything, but Spencer's statement obviously piqued his interest. "Really? They keep statistics like that?"

"Sure," said Spencer, pleased to be able to shake the kid. "You know who it was this year?"

Rico looked at me. "Let me guess," he said.

I didn't say anything. Spencer chuckled. "It's his system. Who better to use it to advantage?"

Everybody else faded from existence, as far as Rico was concerned. "How did you come up with it?" he asked.

"It just made sense to me," I said. "When I explained the concept to everybody, we all revised it until it seemed to be able to work for us. It's been a work-in-progress ever since."

"It makes sense to me, too, but nobody at home could see how it worked. You talk to each other a lot on the field, obviously."

"Of course. You can't play as a team otherwise."

"Yeah, well, I seen a lot of teams that didn't talk."

"But your team did, right?"

He shrugged. "Usually," he said.

"And you won because of it."

He gestured with his hand. "A lot of the time, I guess we did."

"And when you didn't win, those were the games somebody was in a bad mood or something, and the communication broke down. Right?"

"Well ... yeah."

"It's all in the communication."

"Okay. But on some of the plays on the tapes, it seems like you all move without anybody saying anything."

I grinned. "Which schools are you still looking at?"

He looked at me quizzically, wondering at the change in the subject. "Texas, Houston, Arizona. Why?"

"I just wanted to make sure there weren't any SEC teams on your list."

"Ah," he said admiringly. "Because you guys got a secret."

"Hand signals," I said. "We change them every few games, so teams don't catch on to what they mean, but that's how we can send messages anywhere on the field without letting the other team know what we're up to."

Rico grinned. "Smart," he said.

"Credit Jesse and Bryan with that one," I said. "They're the ones who came up with the idea."

I could see in his eyes he was impressed. The rest of the conversation opened up to the table, but Rico was careful not to make any statements implying a commitment to anywhere. He was a smart kid, and he was working the advantage the best he could.

Mr. Montenegro and Pick got into a whispered conversation and stepped over to the corner.

"Let's go get a soda," I suggested.

The five of us got up, and Jesse led the way to the machine outside the locker room. I got a bunch of quarters from Eunice and began feeding them into the machine. When we each had a can, we stood around for a moment. I leaned against the wall and took a long drink.

"You're a talented player, Rico," I said. "And you had a good team around you. You could go off to some school and be the star, but unless you've got talent with you on the field, you can only carry your team so far."

Rico didn't say anything, but he watched and listened. Spencer and Lightspeed were standing on one side, and Jesse was opposite them, bracketing Rico and me.

"One great player can carry a high school team pretty far, but Division One is a different animal altogether."

"You ever been to Texas?" asked Rico.

I shook my head.

"High school sports in Texas is a different animal, too. 'Specially football and soccer."

"And cheerleading," said Lightspeed. We all looked at him. "Well, it is," he said, a little defensively. "Shit, don't you guys read the paper? Murder-for-hire, parents from hell, it's all there in Texas."

Rico smiled. "He's right," he said. "It's a tough world out there in the Lone Star State."

"All the more reason to have some good friends around you who can keep up," I said. "You're right, it's a tough world out there. But teammates make it better."

Jesse nodded. Rico saw it, and he slowly nodded, too.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Teammates make it better."

By the time Rico and his dad got on the plane to go back home two days later, Pick had his signed letter of intent. The Gators had another high school All-American wrapped up, and the other SEC schools were probably gnashing their teeth. Spencer and I had spent as much time with Rico as we could, even taking him along to a couple of classes so he could get a feel for college life. His father was content to let us monopolize Rico's time, and it helped us to get to know him better. Rico gave the impression he was a hard and brash guy, but it was really just a facade. Behind the confident exterior he was just another teenaged kid, half scared out of his mind about his future, just like the rest of us. The biggest thing was he Got It, got what we were trying to accomplish as a team. He was another integral piece of our puzzle, and he would work with Lightspeed, Sugar, Spencer, and me to create what I hoped would be something very special.

I still spent a lot of time with Erin and Alex, but our flirtations subsided. They seemed to be respecting my desire to see my plan through to the conclusion, for good or ill. We went out to the Warehouse to see some local bands occasionally on the weekends. A lot of the time we were in a big group from school, and I danced with Erin, or Alex, or one of a half-dozen other girls who happened to be along at one time or another. No three-way kisses, no groping each other on the dance floor - well, to be honest, no more groping with Alex or Erin than with anybody else. We were college kids, after all.

I may have sinned in my mind, and my hand certainly got a workout most nights, but I kept as true to my goal as I possibly could. It was hard. It was very hard.

And there was another little nagging thought that insinuated itself into my consciousness at times, especially when I was feeling introspective or doubtful. It had to do with Kayla's Christmas gift, which I kept in a prominent place in my room, on the top of my bookshelf next to my desk.

I had it faced backwards, though, because I wanted to look at her inscription every day.

To My First Love

Not To My One and Only Love, or To My True Love. The implications worked on me, like little dogs working over a rawhide bone.

Of course I couldn't expect Kayla to remain dateless all this time. Lord knew I certainly didn't. Seeing this as an indication of her personal growth beyond Sean Porter was difficult, though. Who was her second love? Was there a third? Where did I stand in relation to her subsequent lovers? Were there subsequent lovers? Or was this all just a payback, one of several I deserved? Somehow, the thought of Kayla twisting the knife just didn't seem to be right, but then I had been wrong before. Am I wrong this time, too?

On the good days I saw it in a different perspective, considering that perhaps there wasn't a second meaning to her inscription. Maybe she was just trying to tell me she cared for me in a special way. She was honoring our past, and hoping for our future. On those days, I remembered my Luscious, backlit by the dim light of a doorway, innocent and desirable, making me ache with longing.

I was in turmoil, but there was nothing I could do about it. Soon it would all be made clear.

I hoped.

Jesse, Frenchy, and the other seniors were excused from the spring clinics. They had enough on their plates without being lame-duck members of the team. It wasn't until our first full-team clinic that it hit me: my playing days with my biggest supporter and one of my best friends were over. He was still going to run clinics during the coming summer back in his hometown, but we wouldn't ever play competitively on the same team again. It was a shock.