Behind the Curtain (3 page)

In the morning when Ingrid went downstairs, Mom and Ty were already gone. Echo Falls High started half an hour before Ferrand Middle, and Mom went
right by it on her way to work. That meant Ingrid and Dad ate a lot of breakfasts together, Dad never going in before his nine-o’clock meeting with Mr. Ferrand. Dad would read her little snippets from
The Wall Street Journal
, and Ingrid would eat the kind of things she ate when no one was paying attention. But today
The Wall Street Journal
was still in its plastic wrapper and Dad was already packing his briefcase, tie knotted, suit jacket on.

“Morning, Dad.”

“Morning,” he said, barely looking up. “Going in a little early today.”

“Something special happening?”

“Probably be going in a little early for the foreseeable future.”

“How come?”

“Globalization, if you want to put it in one word.”

A word that was in the air, even if Ingrid didn’t really understand it. “What does it mean, anyway?”

“Means we’re all going to have to work harder,” Dad said. “Including you.”

“Me?”

“Not just you,” said Dad. “Kids in general.”

“Kids have to work harder?”

“That’s the future. Big forces are on the move.”

“What kind of forces?”

“History will judge.”

Dad poured coffee into a thermos—he never did that, always enjoyed his second cup at home—and headed for the door that led from the kitchen to the garage.

“I like your shirt, Dad.” A beautiful deep blue with white collar and cuffs, but Dad, already out the door, didn’t hear. For the first time in her life, Ingrid felt a little nostalgic. History would judge how hard she was working? The future sounded grim.

I
NGRID HAD HEALTH
last period on Fridays. Time slowed way, way down in health class, just when you wanted to be out of the building so bad, but otherwise Ingrid had no complaints. Mr. Porterhouse, the gym and health teacher, whistle hanging around his neck, would read for a while from the textbook, and then say, “I know all you sports”—Mr. Porterhouse called everyone sport—“got work to do.” Then he would settle down to the
Hartford Courant
crossword puzzle and the kids could a) do their homework, b) talk quietly, or c) go to sleep. Getting a head start on weekend homework made the most sense, but come on. And had it been first
period, Ingrid would have slept, but her sleepiness always wore off by midmorning. So she almost always chose B, talking to her friends, and she had a lot of them in health class, including Stacy, Mia, and Joey Strade.

Today’s subject seemed to be drugs, pretty much as usual. There were a lot to cover—heroin, PCP, cocaine, meth, LSD, ecstasy, marijuana, hashish, plus all those nicknames like crank, crack, spliff, weed, grass, smoke, uppers, downers. Ingrid’s favorite—as a name—was hashish because it sounded so exotic. Without even smoking it, she could call up clear pictures of caravans, camels, casbahs. So: Why bother smoking it?

All those drugs were bad; Ingrid didn’t dispute that for a second. The problem was that maybe they all weren’t quite as bad as the textbook said, a discrepancy that raised doubts in the minds of some kids. Getting the facts right was important. As Holmes told Watson in “A Case of Identity,” “Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.” You could learn a lot from Sherlock Holmes, and Ingrid had. On the other hand, he could be unpredictable, like when he went on cocaine jags from time to time. Maybe if
he’d run into Mr. Porterhouse, who was now droning on about—

“…anabolic steroids mumble mumble synthetic hormones mumble mumble make muscle.” He glanced over the top of his reading glasses. “We all know what hormones are by now?”

No one disagreed.

Mr. Porterhouse went back to the text. He wasn’t a fast reader but it seemed that way, maybe because he ignored punctuation. Plus all that mumbling. “…exaggerating the mumble mumble testosterone on the body such as increased mumble mumble muscle mass and deep voices steroids are illegal and can cause stunted mumble irreversible liver mumble violent mood mumble facial hair on girls and women as well as male-pattern mumble and bad acne.”

He glanced up at the wall clock, where the minute hand still had a huge distance to travel before they were free. “That about covers it,” he said. “Any questions?”

No questions. Mr. Porterhouse reached for the crossword. Quiet talk started humming around the room.

Joey Strade, sitting across the aisle, said: “Going to the game tonight?”

Ingrid turned to him. Joey, son of Chief Strade, was someone she’d sort of known for years. He’d always been a quiet, pudgy kid, his only uniqueness being a stubborn cowlick that stood up like a blunt Indian feather. Now he wasn’t so quiet or pudgy—although the cowlick was still happening—and she knew him better. They’d gone to a couple of dances at the Rec Center and she’d been to his house, where he’d demonstrated the catapult he built for the science fair, winning honorable mention. He also had this new direct way of looking at you. And they’d kissed two times, no point leaving that out, although how important it was Ingrid didn’t know.

“Of course I’m going,” she said. “Did he say acne?”

“Acne?” said Joey. “There was something about liver. I hate liver anyway.”

School sucked in many ways, but the goofy part came close to making it all worthwhile. Ingrid restrained a crazy impulse to pat that untamable Indian feather thing at the back of Joey’s head. Up front, Mr. Porterhouse did some erasing on his puzzle, then chewed on the pencil, deep in thought. Ingrid remembered she still hadn’t learned the word
for giant midgets. And that almost reminded her of something else, something maybe important. Oh, yeah, MathFest. Mustn’t forget.

A kid with his face painted red ran through the parking lot by Red Raider Field waving a red banner and screaming, “Are you ready for some football?”

“What happens in other countries on Friday nights?” said Stacy. “Like Norway.”

“I guess they just sit around,” said Ingrid. She stood by Mr. Rubino’s top-of-the-line Weber, grilling the last of the burgers for the Booster Club. Dad, former Red Raiders star quarterback, was president and Mom was treasurer.

“I always liked the sound of Norway,” Mia said.

Over on the field, the band struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Spangled: Ingrid loved the word. Maybe it didn’t make sense, but that was America to her, summed up. She got rid of the rest of the burgers at fire-sale prices, gave freebies to Stacy and Mia, shut off the gas. They were in their seats—top row, fifty-yard line on the home side, right above Mom and Dad—in time to see Rocky Hill run the opening kickoff all the way to the Echo Falls thirty-yard line.

“Nice shade of blue,” Mia said. Rocky Hill did wear sparkling sapphire-blue pants, but was that the point right now? Mia really wasn’t much of a football fan.

A fact Stacy picked up on right away. “Do they have football in New York?” she said.

Mia rubbed Stacy the wrong way sometimes. Most of what they had in common was being friends with Ingrid.

“Not that I ever saw,” Mia said, which was probably the simple truth. But Stacy thought Mia was giving her attitude—Ingrid could tell just from the way Stacy let out her breath.

The defense ran onto the field. “Hey,” Ingrid said. “Ty’s starting.” There he was, number 19, in the secondary on the near side, bouncing up and down.

“Bobby Moran rebroke that arm yesterday,” Dad said.

Ingrid spotted Bobby Moran, one of the stars of the team, on the sidelines in a sweatshirt and jeans. His cast, attached at an awkward angle to a chest harness, went from shoulder to fingertips. His eyes were on Ty.

“Ty’s just as fast, maybe faster,” Ingrid said.

“Takes more than speed,” Dad said.

“For a cornerback against a passing team?” Ingrid said.

“They won’t be passing tonight,” Dad said.

“Why not?”

Rocky Hill came to the line of scrimmage. “Sweep,” said Dad, more to himself; he was uncanny about knowing what was about to happen in football games. “Going at him right off the top.”

Rocky Hill’s quarterback took the snap, handed off to the running back. Sweep to the near side, the running back following a huge lineman, number 61, both of them kicking up clods of dirt. They turned the corner. Ty came up to meet them, hardly hesitating at all. That was bravery. Ingrid understood at that moment how much Ty loved football, like nothing else in his life. The lineman knocked him down and then the running back ran over him. Touchdown. Ty jumped right back up.

“Going to be a long night,” said Dad.

The very next time Rocky Hill got the ball, they tried that sweep again. The lineman bowled Ty over. The running back stepped on him on his way by. Ty got up, not so quickly.

Dad shook his head. That pissed Ingrid off. “The linebacker’s not even getting there, Dad,” she said.

Mom glanced back in surprise. “So it’s not Ty’s fault? How do you know that, Ingrid?”

Ingrid shrugged. But this wasn’t rocket science or brain surgery, the two jobs people always used for defining braininess, leaving out for some reason detective or criminal mastermind. This was just football, and she’d been watching lots of it—all Ty’s games this season and, just lately, Joey’s Pop Warner games as well.

“Forget about the linebacker,” Dad said. “Ty’s got to fight off that block.”

But what about the end? Ingrid thought. Where was the Red Raiders end, that enormous kid from the Flats, son of the crabby guy at the Sunoco, number 88? Shouldn’t he be out there, trying to slow down 61? Wasn’t he supposed to push 61 wide, giving the linebacker a lane?

The coaches were talking on the sideline.

“They’re going to move Ty to the weak side,” Dad said.

Next series, they moved Ty to the other side.

“As if they won’t be able to find him,” said Dad.

Mom turned, gave him a look. Dad, gaze fixed on the field, didn’t catch it, but Ingrid did. It wasn’t an angry or irritated look—she’d seen looks like that
going back and forth between her parents, what kid hadn’t?—but more puzzled, as though she didn’t quite know him.

Toward the end of the second quarter—Rocky Hill 14, Red Raiders 7—they found Ty again. A sweep to the weak side, 61 still leading it, untouched. This time Ty was a little more hesitant coming up—Ingrid wanted not to see that but couldn’t help herself. He plugged the hole, in a crouch, hands up, tried to slide off 61, spin around in time to tackle the running back. Ty was so quick it almost worked. But 61 was pretty quick too, especially for someone his size. He lifted Ty right off the ground. Ty landed flat on his back just as the running back ran over him one more time.

Ty lay there for a moment, then rolled and pushed himself up. He took a few wobbly steps toward the wrong sideline, turned, walked to the Red Raider bench, actually recovering enough to jog the last few steps. The coach met him on the sideline, put a hand on Ty’s chest. He yelled something, his nose practically touching Ty’s face mask. For a moment, Ingrid thought he was yelling encouragement, like nice try or not your fault, or
not entirely one hundred percent your fault. Then she saw spit droplets flying from the coach’s mouth, silver under the lights, and realized he was beside himself with fury. He stayed there in Ty’s face, some of his words—like “piss poor”—carrying all the way up to the top row. Ingrid felt herself turning red, as though she were on the receiving end. She saw that Mom had reddened too. A lumpy muscle jumped in the side of Dad’s face. Ty went to the end of the bench, sat there, head down. No one talked to him.

“Can you punt for a field goal?” Mia asked.

Ingrid rode to Stacy’s house in the Rubinos’ pickup.
RUBINO ELECTRIC
read the gold lettering on the door.
NO JOB TOO BIG OR SMALL
. A great slogan, in Ingrid’s opinion. Said it all. And true: Mr. Rubino was a genius when it came to electricity. He’d turned the Rubinos’ family room into a kickass entertainment center complete with a real popcorn machine and a robot that rolled around with a tray of drinks. Even the sound system in the pickup, now playing a song about strawberry shortcake and broken hearts—Mr. Rubino loved country—rocked. Mr. Rubino was also lighting director for the Prescott
Players, famous in local lighting circles for how he’d handled the Cheshire Cat’s smile in
Alice in Wonderland.

“How’s the script look, Ingrid?” he said.

“Haven’t seen it yet,” said Ingrid. Every year, the Prescott Players put on The Xmas Revue at the high school, directed by Jill Monteiro, the leading drama teacher in Echo Falls and a genuine off-Broadway actress, with kids from the school system in all the roles. There was lots of singing and dancing, plus a scene from a play or two. This year the High School Theater Club was doing a sword fight from
The Mask of Zorro
and the kids from Ferrand Middle the scene from
The Wizard of Oz
where Dorothy and her friends finally meet the wizard. Did Ingrid have the lead role? Yes, she did, but the truth was there hadn’t been much interest in
The Wizard of Oz
, the kids preferring a spoof of the balcony scene in
Romeo and Juliet
that Brucie Berman had written, or rather claimed to have written, although it came off the Internet and was nixed by Jill Monteiro in any case; and in the end no one else auditioned for Dorothy.

“That sword fight’s gonna be awesome,” said Mr. Rubino. “Bobby Moran stuck one of those suckers right through the auditorium wall.”

“Bobby Moran’s in the play?” Ingrid said.

“That’s how he rebroke his arm,” said Mr. Rubino.

“Not football?”

Mr. Rubino shook his head. “Swordplay.”

The Rubinos lived in the Lower Falls neighborhood, not as nice as Riverbend but they had a great house with lots of additions Mr. Rubino had built himself, sprawling all over the place. Just as he pulled into the driveway, the Firebird pulled out, the tires squealing as it sped away.

“Now where the hell’s he going?” said Mr. Rubino. He watched the Firebird till it vanished around a bend, his forehead wrinkling up. Mr. Rubino had a round friendly face with a big bristly mustache. Ingrid had never seen it worried like this. For a moment he looked like someone she didn’t know. “And I told him three times to stick a bulb in that taillight.”

They went inside, Mr. Rubino first straightening a garden elf in a flower bed by the door.

“Ellie,” he called, “where’s Sean off to?”

No answer.

“She’s back on four to midnights,” said Stacy. Mrs. Rubino was a nurse at the hospital, up by the soccer fields.

“Oh,” said Mr. Rubino. “Right.” His body sagged, as though he felt tired all of a sudden. He popped open a can of Bud from the fridge, sat at the kitchen table, but didn’t even have time for a sip before the phone rang. He listened for a few seconds, then said, “Did you try the circuit breakers?” He listened some more and said, “It’s that box under the cellar stairs.” And some more, before saying, with a little sigh, “Be there in ten minutes.” He put the beer back in the fridge.

Stacy and Ingrid went down to the entertainment center, reclined on the recliners. They watched
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
, one of their favorites, on the gigantic screen. The popcorn machine made popcorn with tons of butter. The robot brought a Coke for Stacy, Fresca for Ingrid.

“This is the life,” said Stacy.

“Wouldn’t change a thing,” said Ingrid. She and Stacy went all the way back to before they could even walk and talk. There was a photo to prove it: two tiny girls splashing around in a tiny plastic swimming pool, not wearing bathing suits for some reason. What was that all about? Did people get stupid the moment they had kids?

“I love this part,” said Stacy, “the car going through the window.”