Every Happy Family (9 page)

“Yeah,” agrees Beau. Today it's only an exhibition game, but he's more nervous than pumped. He's here on a scholarship after all, and it isn't for his good looks. Or, as Quinn likes to point out, for his grades.

“I saw a picture of you,” Killer says.

“Huh?”

“Art class. Ms. Jameson was using it as an example. Was totally you.”

“A girl named S...S...Satomi did it.”

“Satomi's gifted, man. Going to be famous some day. Like you.”

“Yeah, sure.” Killer's always gushing high-flying compliments.

“She lost her parents and sisters, you know, in some freak train accident in Japan. She was like, eleven.”

“Satomi?”

“Yeah. Lives here year around.”

“That sucks.” Beau hates stories like that. Makes him want to hit something.

•••

It's halftime and an enraged Coach Dugan has called a huddle. Sweaty and mud splattered, the players stand with their arms wrapped around each others shoulders and encircle the coach. “Not fucking good enough.” He whips off his ball cap and drills it into the ground. “Who's your check, Moore?”

“Twenty,” mutters the guy on Beau's left.

“Fucking look at me when I'm talking to you.”

Lyle Moore lifts his head, his arm tightening around Beau's shoulder. Beau's arm tightens back.

The coach's face is flushed, his cauliflower ears inverted conch shells, his nose something deflated. Dugan is a god among coaches. Under his five-year reign, St. Paul's has won more rugby games than any school in North America.

“Then why do I see number twenty
pussy-skipping down the field
?” Dugan's saliva warms the side of Beau's face. “Everybody pulls his own weight and stays on his check.” His eyes lands on Beau's. “That one tackle was yours, Wright.”

Beau was distracted by a woman on the sidelines wearing a purple jacket like Pema's. “Y...y...y...yes, sir.”

“Y...y...y,” says the coach, then moves on to a grade twelve named Mick. Beau seethes, hating himself.

“A little late, Mick,” says the coach.

“If it wasn't for fucking Phan,” says Mick. Andy Phan, one of their own, was the touch judge who called Mick's try incomplete.

“Were you fucking Phan?”

Nervous laughter loosens the circle.

“Remember, you're only as good as your team.” Dugan doesn't seem to realize that he's stepping on his ball cap, pushing it into the mud. “You're one machine out there. One.”

“One,” echoes the captain, and the team follows a beat later.

“It's a question of?”

“Honour!” they bark in response, their deep voices deeper on purpose.

Dugan gives them a sad, even loving, smile, as if any second he might tear up. “Show me what I know you can do.”

Beau's never had a coach who cared about the game as much as this man, and by extension cared about him as a player, and can't help but want to please him.

From the start of the second half, Beau is absorbed to the point where anything beyond muscling towards one united goal is background noise. He makes every one of his tackles, two huge kicks downfield and a crucial fake-then-pass to Mick, who scores. When he plays well, he's free from thinking about things he has no business thinking about. This is why he loves the game, why he needs the game. And what always amazes him is how he can never tell which comes first, his playing well or his team playing well. Chicken or egg, Coach Dugan is clearly the wise rooster.

Though they lose four tries to three, Dugan's ecstatic in the dressing room. “That's what I like to see,” he booms, “one pumping heart out there. One heart.” Smiling so broadly Beau can see a molar missing on one side, the coach thuds his chest with the butt of his fist. It isn't the first time Beau makes note of the size of his fist.

“We're going to need that same aggressive teamwork Thursday when we play the Irish lads. Play it forward in your brain. Just like you played now...play it forward.”

Eyes open behind the blindfold, Beau reaches towards Satomi's face but doesn't find it. A second later, she takes a firm hold of his hands and draws them down on top of her head.

He smiles his thanks.

Her head shape feels like a rounded-off square and he can't stop picturing Hello Kitty. She scratches her scalp, pushing aside his hand. He waits until she's finished. Her hair is almost as short as his except for a silky curtain of bangs that hangs just past her eyebrows. Pema has the same bangs except that the rest of her hair hangs to her waist. His thoughts return to Satomi as her head pivots left. Though she was crazy focused when doing the touching, now she won't stop fidgeting. She turns her head right. She shivers. Then sucks her teeth – at least that's what it sounds like – making it impossible to concentrate. Sure, he's no artist like her, but he can't afford to blow the assignment either and she knows that. Any mark below a C+ puts him on the bench. She scratches her cheek, knocking his hand. He feels dismissed, even disliked, and that whatever connection they made two days ago was in his mind only.

Satomi sighs as if waiting for him to get on with it which makes him even more pissed off. Doesn't
his
touch feel good to
her
? She starts to turn her head and he stops her, forces it forward and holds it still. Her face sandwiched between his hands, he waits for her reaction. She doesn't resist, doesn't say anything, but then, slowly and with deliberation, she starts to turn her head again, forcing it against his hands. He forces it straight again.

“I'm stronger than you, remember?” he whispers and feels her smile before all her resistance seems to disappear. “Okay,” he says with a nod.

Except for a small rough patch on either cheek, her skin is ridiculously soft.

When he touches her ears she makes them wiggle ever so slightly.

“Talent,” he whispers.

She wrinkles her nose and somehow stresses it the tiniest bit to cause it to vibrate.

He knows she'll bite him when he comes to her lips, and she does. It hurts but he doesn't let on, just leaves his finger there until her teeth give up and release him.

Nearly finished, he cups her chin with both hands just like she did to him. When he hears the teacher speaking to someone on the far side of the room he leans over and, teasingly soft and brief, kisses her lips. And she, who would have seen it coming, doesn't stop him. As soon as he pulls away, she slips from his hands with a screech of chair wheels along the floor.

He yanks down his blindfold to see Satomi slumped in her chair, arms crossed, eyes down, knees bouncing against each other under her tartan skirt. He can't tell if she's furious or about to cry. He runs a hand through his hair, thinking how to explain himself. Why
did
he do it?

When he starts to apologize, she wrinkles her nose to its vibrating point and flashes a tiny smile. He laughs to himself, you win, and drops back in his chair.

His portrait of her looks like a cross between an alien and a panda bear. Hello Kitty, in other words, if Hello Kitty wasn't a kitty. When Satomi turns in her chair and sees it, she bursts out laughing, which prompts an invitation up to Ms. Jameson's desk. While Satomi gets in trouble, he checks out her self-portrait; an arty, exaggerated likeness with oversized features as if she's making fun of herself. The inflated lips have a light shining on their centre. He scoots over in his chair and takes a closer look. The light's in the shape of puckered lips. His kiss?

Satomi is now walking towards him and he wheels back to his easel. She comes and stands beside his chair.

“I want to apologize for laughing at your picture of me,” she says, unapologetic, then whispers, “You are free to whip me.”

“Hmm... Start with a walk after dinner?”

She covers her mouth to keep from laughing aloud again. “But Beautiful,” she whispers, “fish don't walk.”

“We could go to the pond?”

“So what
does
Sa...Satomi really mean?”

They're walking the chip path around the school's perimeter. Well, he's walking and she's sashaying or clomping or sliding on her feet while making mini-breaststroke and diving motions.

“Wise beauty,” she says. “Not to be confused with your kind of beauty.”

“Dumb beauty?”

“No. Easy. Easy beauty.”

“It's not my fault I...I look a certain –”

“I know. It's just good face-fortune.”

“Hey, I might not have lost my family, but that doesn't mean my life's easy.”

“Oh, you've heard my sad story,” she says and walks hunched forward, arms crossed over her head. “Poor fat fish.”

“Wise beauty,” he says.

She straightens and begins walking sideways, crossing one foot over the next. “Everyone has a sad story. But you see I now speak perfect English with no accent and will be able to get any number of jobs in Japan. And, before coming here, I knew nothing about art. So, happy ending. But I have vowed that after I graduate from this school I will never eat another potato, never go to any form of chapel and never recycle anything ever again.”

Beau laughs and tells her how he failed room check on Monday.

“I failed room check so many times my first year, my roommate hated my guts, sad story, but I was in the best shape of my life, happy ending.” She runs on the spot, makes an ugly determined face, then walks backwards, facing him. “So tell me your sad story.”

“I'm here for the rugby, don't really have a sa...sa...sa...” Embarrassed, he looks at her and is grateful when she looks away. “God, I haven't stuttered since I was a little kid.”

“This place takes getting used to.”

“Yeah.”

“How did you get over it? Stuttering. I mean before.”

“Well, it was Pema really.”

“Pema?”

“Ma...ma...my sister. She's adopted. Mom couldn't have any more kids after me. My aunt was raising money for Tibetan orphans. So –”

“Pema.”

“Yeah.”

“She older or younger?”

“Almost a year older but in my s...same grade. Mom kept her back.” He takes a breath. “First you should know that my mother's a linguist who considered my stutter her personal failure, so tried all these exercises on me and when those failed put me in speech therapy. All of which made it worse because I became super self-conscious about it.”

“I know that one.”

“Anyway, new country, new family and all, Pema cried a lot in the beginning. I mean, like all the time. Couldn't understand a word of English.”

“How old was she?”

“Three almost four. So, the story is whenever Pema cried, Mom dragged me over to talk because it would make Pema laugh instead of cry. She has this great laugh,” he says, smiling, “like sheep bleating. Anyway, my stutter became the best joke ever and I was like some big hero so, naturally, I started to try and force the stuttering. Was instantly cured.”

She stops walking.

“Sorry, long story,” he says.

“You didn't stutter once right then,” she says, taking his hand and examining the back of it.

“Oh?”

“You miss your sister.” She makes it a statement.

“We've always been pretty close.”

“Pretty?”

“Too pretty,” he says before realizing that's not what she meant. He pulls his hand away and strides ahead. He just sounded like a sick perv.

“Don't worry, Beautiful,” she says, catching up. “Whatever your sad story, this place will beat it out of you. You know, I'd really like to draw your hand.”

Owen Daily arrives at practice still in his school uniform.

“Why aren't you dressed?” Coach Dugan says as if confounded by what he's seeing.

“I can't see very well.” Swollen shut, Owen's left eye is a fat clam, the skin muddied shades of yellow and purple. A cleat to the face was his story.

“You can walk?” asks the coach.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you can run. And I'm planning to start you in Thursday's game against JKS.”

Owen's good eye perks up. He's also a grade eleven on the senior team but, unlike Beau, Owen has yet to start.

“Tomorrow go see the nurse to hurry that eye along. Now run and get dressed.”

Owen begins to leave.

“I said run,” says the coach, and Owen breaks into a sprint and bangs his elbow on the door frame, stifling a squeal.

When it's
his
face that's messed up, thinks Beau, maybe the coach will let him play centre. And what will his story be? Diving try against the goalpost?

They have a warm-up run, stretch, and then, because the fields are dry for a change, the coach calls a game of touch. After the game, they head to the gym to weigh in before hitting the machines. Beau's sorry to see he's lost three pounds. He sets himself up on the rowing machine beside Killer.

“What's your weight, Johnny boy?” the coach asks a grade twelve, his tone too friendly.

“Same.”

“You did write down the same weight as last month,” he says loud enough for everyone to hear, “but you don't look the same to me.”

Johnny continues adjusting the height of the pec press.

“Come on over and let's have a look-see together.” Dugan grabs a fistful of Johnny's hair and leads the overweight defenseman, hunched and helpless, to the scales. Beau can't watch.

“Two-hundred-sixty-one pounds,” announces Dugan. “Whoa. Now that's what I call fat.”

A couple of guys snicker.

“What are you laughing at?” snaps Dugan. “What's funny about one of your own being overweight? It means
you're
overweight.”

He lets go of Johnny's hair and smoothes it back in place as he speaks. “At meals, vegetables and protein first. Have second helpings of these only, then go for the fruit. Hopefully you're pretty full, but if you must, have a little pasta or bread for dessert. It'll work. Trust me.” He pats his own flat gut. “If I or anyone on your team sees you eating chips or cookies, you're on the bench next game. Right?” he calls to the room at large.