31: Teammates

Our dating life slowed almost to a halt. Four out of five of us guys and one of the girls were on basketball teams. Three of the girls were cheerleaders. That was nearly half our dating group and the others felt obligated to come and cheer us on. Then we all had to study like crazy on the weekend to catch up. I didn't even get to see everyone over our long Thanksgiving weekend because we had to go to this cousin-I'd-never-heard-of's wedding. Betts wasn't any happier than I was since she was supposed to be home for the weekend from college and got dragged all the way to Louisville instead of getting to spend the time with her friends.

We played two basketball games each weekend, usually before the varsity played. That meant I was riding the team bus from school to wherever the game was if it was away. JV and Varsity traveled on the same bus and it was just like riding to school with the younger team in the front of the bus and the older guys in the back. As the only freshman on the varsity squad, Lionel got stuck kind of in the middle and we rode with Sean, a junior on the JV, and David, a sophomore who made varsity. That divided the back from the front. Whitney, Doug, Carl, and Derek rode in the next row forward. The coaches rode in the front and there was plenty of room for the cheerleaders if they weren't going in a separate van.

I was worried about Whitney being on a bus of all boys and apparently the school administration was, too. Mrs. Hammer wanted her to ride in the cheerleader vans, but Coach put the brakes on that. Instead, Mrs. Abernathy, the JV cheer coach, rode the bus with the team. She wanted Whitney to sit in the front seat with her, but Whitney flat out refused to ride with the coaches unless there was a problem. With Carl and Doug beside her and Lionel and me behind her, there was never a problem and Mrs. Abernathy sat with Coach Mitchell, Coach Hancock, and Coach Washburn who assisted both teams.

Josh learned pretty quickly that he wouldn't play if he tried his tricks of keeping the ball away from Whitney and me. Coach would just bench him and rotate the other guard, Bert, with Whitney and me and sometimes one of the all-purpose players. I started getting more play time and became the play-maker. Coach would yell to me what he wanted to happen when I brought the ball down-court and I'd give the signal to my team. We actually started to click and won some games.

Irma la Douce was a riot. Rachel held my hand all the way through the performance, even with her parents sitting right beside us. I guess they actually bought the ticket. That's a wild play. A guy falls in love with a prostitute and to keep her from seeing other guys, he spends all day working in order to hire her all night. She can't understand why they aren't saving more money toward getting married because he works all the time and is exhausted, but never seems to save any money. She's distraught when she discovers her lover is spending time with 'another' prostitute while she's falling in love with the mysterious man—the lover in disguise—who sees her every night. I was kind of amazed that Rachel's parents took their daughter to the musical, let alone her date.

We sat in the back seat of their car on the way home and Rachel made no secret about sitting in the center so I could put my arm around her. We didn't make out, but we whispered a lot. The theater was about thirty miles away, so we had time. Rachel also made sure that my arm was wrapped around her shoulders and held my hand just above her right breast, but not touching.

"Did you like the show?" she asked.

"Yeah. It was funny and the music was good."

"What was your favorite part?"

"The pretty girl sitting next to me and holding my hand."

"You think that's going to get you kissed?"

"No. I think that's the way I feel. How come we've never gone out before, Rachel? You were the second girl to claim me back in fifth grade."

"Yeah. Then the next year I kind of grew up ... er out ... and Doug got interested. There just never seemed to be an appropriate time in junior high."

"How are you and Doug getting along?"

"Oh, fine. But, Brian, I'm one of his girlfriends and he's one of my boyfriends. I love not being tied to only talking to one boy, even as much as I like Doug. Believe me; he's having a good time, too."

"I just didn't want it to feel weird."

"You haven't felt it at all, yet." I turned toward her and she held her lips close to mine. "Yes, you may," she whispered. I glanced at the front of the car to see if her parents were noticing. I couldn't see her father's eyes in the rearview mirror, so I kissed Rachel. It was just a soft kiss and not a passionate kiss. We held our lips together for a minute and then she laid her head on my shoulder. She let go of my hand and put her arm around me.

"Brian, thank you."

"It's me who should be thanking you for this wonderful date," I said.

"Maybe, but thank you for writing the rules so we can all date each other. I hope this won't be the last date we have."

"Not if I can help it. It's just so crazy now with basketball. I never expected this."

"Well, my unwritten rule is that what I do with a boy is based on how much I like him and how well I know him. I want to know you better."

"Rachel, I'd like that."

We pulled onto the gravel of my driveway and we straightened ourselves up. I got out of the car and Rachel got out right behind me. We held hands as we walked up to my door.

"May I kiss you, Brian? I don't mean like that little kiss in the car, but like a real kiss I'd like to give my loving boyfriend because I had such a good time tonight and I like him and I think I know him well enough to want a real kiss?"

"Rachel, you kinda took my breath away with that little one. I'd love to kiss you, girlfriend." It was still gentle and a little tentative as we each figured out which way our heads were going to turn and how we matched up. In a moment I was feasting on Rachel's lips and tongue and she squeezed me tight.

"You sure know how to kiss a girl, Brian. Goodnight, boyfriend."

"Goodnight, girlfriend," I whispered as she got back in her car and her father drove away.

I didn't have any "dates" for the next couple weeks. We played away games in Akron and Rochester and a home game against Warsaw. We were coming up to the end of term and winter break and I had a ton of homework for Geometry and Advanced Chem. I had a long English paper of five pages to prepare and a paper for World History. About the only classes I didn't have homework for were Phys Ed and Drafting.

"I wish I could just hole up somewhere and study this stupid Geometry homework," Brenda complained. She was the only one in our group that was at the same level in math I was.

"Why don't you come over Saturday afternoon and we'll work through the problems together. I can't believe Nolan assigned us fifty problems. He knew we had a game Friday night."

"Hey, can I hang out and go over that World History chapter?" Lionel asked.

"Me, too," Liz said. "We don't have the same period history class, but Mr. Hancock is giving us all the same homework."

When we all got together Saturday afternoon, there were six of us studying up in my attic bedroom. Rhonda and Whitney came over to work on our Comp papers. That was the beginning. The next week, ten of us met to study together. And we really studied. It was almost like having a study hall in my bedroom. Mom was really nice. She always had a snack for us in the middle of the afternoon. We studied until about six when parents came to retrieve their kids, but we were all too tired to go out afterward.

Betts got home from college on the seventeenth and our semester winter break started the nineteenth. We were all exhausted.

We had a holiday tournament in Warsaw on Saturday the twentieth. Four teams, two games each. We played Plymouth at noon. At two, Warsaw played Bremen. At six, the losers played the consolation game. At eight, the winners played for the holiday championship. It was a JV tournament. The varsity was playing its holiday tournament at Syracuse. That meant two busses and for convenience sake, the cheerleaders rode with their team. I was a little worried about Renee because she'd be riding the same bus as Chad, but with Ms. Hammer, Lionel, and Lamar on the bus, I didn't think it would be too bad. The JV bus was lots better since we had Mrs. Abernathy, Brenda, Rose, Whitney, Carl, Doug, and me. Coach Hancock and Mrs. Abernathy weren't fussy about keeping the players and cheerleaders separate, but they walked down the aisle about every ten minutes to talk to someone. It wasn't that long a bus ride and we were sent to our locker rooms.

It was hardest on Whitney, of course. She didn't have a locker room. She wore her uniform under sweats and didn't have a place to shower between games. When everyone had left the arena, the cheerleaders all blocked the girls' locker room, which had been used for two of the boys' teams, and Whitney got a shower before we all went to an early dinner. We lost the first game and faced Bremen at six. Win or lose, we were staying through the last game and wouldn't get out of town until after ten. We ate at the Holiday Inn and Coach warned us not to eat too heavy a meal. I wondered how we managed to have the school pick up the tab for our meal when we were at a tournament. There must have been a budget somewhere. We sure didn't get meals paid for at home.

"This is such a drag," Whitney complained. "Look. I'm in street clothes. If we don't get back by five, I won't have a place to change."

"It's okay, honey," Rose said. "You don't need a shower before the game. We'll find a girls' restroom you can change into uniform in and make sure no one comes in while you're getting ready." I thought it was really sweet that Rose called Whitney 'honey.' It was more than our team. It was our family. I found out how deep that had changed during the first half.

Whitney took an inbounds pass from Josh late in the second quarter and dribbled down court. She'd been hot so far this game and had racked up ten points already. As they approached the center line she flipped the ball back to Josh and set a pick for him to move into position for the play. He cut behind her and threw the ball across court to Derek. Some big dude from Bremen decided the best way to break up the play was to charge right through Whitney. She landed right in front of Josh. The whistle blew for a foul. I couldn't hear what was said, but Josh threw a punch and the kid from Bremen went sailing across the court. Whistles all over everyplace and the coaches were on the floor pulling their teams back. Coach Hancock was kneeling beside Whitney to make sure she was all right and then helped her up. The Bremen kid was bleeding. Refs were consulting and both teams looked like they were ready for war. We all stood at the bench and were ready to charge onto the floor if a single Bremen player came off the bench.

Josh was thrown out of the game. The kid from Bremen was lying on the floor next to the bench with his head tilted back and another player holding an ice pack against his nose. Whitney sank two shots on the intentional foul. The Bremen center shot the technical foul for his team and missed one of two. Both teams got warnings that the game would be called if there was any more rough stuff. I went in for Josh.

We won the consolation game by fifteen points.

"Listen up. We had a player thrown out of the game." Coach Hancock had waited for everyone to get showered and out of the locker room. Then he'd held us in the hallway until Whitney went in and showered. The cheerleaders went into the locker room with her and Mrs. Abernathy. As soon as she was dressed, Coach led us back into the locker room for a lecture. The championship game was already in the second quarter. He had the cheerleaders stay with us. "We were lucky to pull out that win. We do NOT throw punches on the court. Ever. Josh, you're suspended from the first two games after the break. There's no tolerance for that behavior." Shit. No matter how much we didn't get along, Josh was really a good player and the team depended on him. "Before we leave this room, though, we're all going to know what really happened out there. You first, Whitney. What happened?"

"I tossed the ball to Josh and set a pick. Josh went around the side and I turned to take my position and got blindsided by the asshole from Bremen."

"You'll be benched a game as well if you can't control your language," Coach said sternly. "Josh. What happened?"

"He plowed into her and knocked her on her butt. I hit him."

"All of it." Josh was silent. "I want to know why you hit a player from the other team."

"He said, 'Girls are made for fucking, not basketball, '" Josh said. "He was talking about my teammate and I hit him."

Holy fucking Christ!

We loaded on the bus and left.

Whitney sat next to Doug and across the aisle from Josh. Sora, one of the JV cheerleaders, was next to him. Carl and Brenda sat behind them. Rose and I sat behind Whitney and Doug.

"Thanks, teammate," Whitney said, turning to Josh. She held out her fist and he bumped it with his. Doug, Carl, and I reached in and bumped fists, too.

"Teammates," we said.

Rose cuddled up next to me for the rest of the ride home.

"You're still coming over tomorrow aren't you?" she asked.

"Of course. It's your fifteenth birthday," I said. "It's really nice of your parents to invite me. I wanted to take you someplace, but I can't expect them not to want you home for your birthday."

"We talked about it," Rose said. "They said that birthdays were family affairs, but that they understood if I'd like my boyfriend to come over. It was funny. As soon as he said it, Dad stopped and said, 'One of them.' He knew darn good and well you promised to take me out. He was just digging at me."

"Your parents sound pretty cool. Things have been so crazy with basketball that I've fallen behind in inviting my girlfriends and their parents for dinner. Hopefully after the break it will get back to normal."

"Are you kidding? Two months of what we've been going through and then March Madness. Things won't be normal till spring break."

We weren't allowed any displays of affection, but the coaches didn't mind if we were holding hands, just if we were kissing. I squeezed Rose's hand and we just leaned against each other the rest of the way back to school.

One of our "unwritten rules" was that we don't give birthday presents and Christmas presents to each other. Might sound strange, but I had fourteen girlfriends and four boyfriends. I'd go broke giving each of them two presents a year. It just wasn't practical. That didn't mean that we didn't recognize each event. Like Rhonda, Courtney, Samantha, and Jennifer going to the dude ranch for my birthday. We even had a cake at our lunch table the last day before break for Rose's birthday and for Sugar's, the day after New Year's. But I think Mr. and Mrs. Davis were surprised when I arrived Sunday afternoon with no present for Rose. Nonetheless, we had a nice dinner and birthday cake with Rose's little brother, who I'd never met, there. It turned out that Ross was in seventh grade and was a friend of my little Shorty, Judy.

With the general family obligations completed, Rose's older sister Roxie left on a date. Rose led me to their basement family room. Ross was sent with us. Boy, this was going to be an interesting time together. I had no idea, though, what kind of relationship Rose had with her brother. They had a real home movie theater set up in their basement family room. There were big chair and a huge TV with a video player.