Leverage (28 page)

“Oh,” she says, seeing me before I can turn around to leave and come back another time. “Hi,” she says, pulling off headphones big as earmuffs and dropping them around her neck. Her white face reflects electric blue from whatever's playing on her laptop screen.

I take a slow breath and step forward, handing her the orange sheet.

“Oooohhh . . . you must be special,” she teases. “We only have three of these babies and you get one on permanent loan for the whole year. Lucky you!”

I scratch at my chin whiskers and nod, wondering if I can get the recorder and leave without actually talking.

“Actually this is a requisition for one of our old, dumpy models. But luckily you've got the inside connection. Me. I'm gonna hook you up with our deluxe model. It's smaller. You can clip it on your belt or even hang it around your neck. Best part is you can use it for your music. I'll give you a flash disk, too, so you'll have enough memory to hold a buttload of songs. You control playback and file searching with this button here,” she says, and her pinky flicks over the little gizmo without actually pointing to a button.

“Wuh-wuh-where?”

“Wow!” Tina says. “He speaks.” She reaches behind her and digs out a wire cable from a box full of flash disks and then plugs the recorder into her laptop while still talking. “Might as well give you all the goodies. I can hook you up with some of my music playlists—try and expand that jock brain of yours. Now that I'm thinking about it, I should send you the redubbed videos I've got. Not that you need more ego-stroking about your Friday night highlights but I've got some great edits—especially the one's I've synched up to . . .” And she starts listing a dozen bands, most I've never heard of.

“Wuh-what?” I hold my hand up, trying to halt her mouth. “Video?”

“Of your games,
duuude
.” She drags this word out with a smirk and she might as well be saying “retard” or “shitbrain.” “Which reminds me, I thought the point of the game was that the ball carrier avoids the tacklers? Not rams into the nearest guy with that box of rocks under your helmet. Last game, you may have given yourself early-onset Alzheimer's. I saw it—we all saw it—way too up close and personal thanks to that helmet cam. I have to admit those hits are acoustical magic when I pipe them through the new SuperPulse sound system. Fans love it, too. And we always give the unwashed cretins what they want, right?” She stops long enough to take a breath of air and then starts up again. “It
would
be nice if you'd work on your verbal skills—I'm not asking for a twenty-four hundred SAT score or anything but I mean, come on, throw me a bone. I don't need a Shakespearean sonnet, but give me something to work with beyond the occasional grunt. Think about it.”

“You like fuh-fuh-football?” I ask.

“About as much as getting my period,” she answers.

“Huh?”

“I don't like football,” she clarifies before sliding a spoonful of yogurt into her mouth. “What I
do
like is single-handedly running the control board for our school's newly acquired Xenbro XB 5000 Stadium Big Screen with SuperPulse sound system. You want bigger and better, you'll have to buy NFL tickets.”

“That's yuh-yuh—” I start before she cuts me off.

“Yeah, that's me,” she says. “I'm the DJ up in the booth ... beeyatch!”

“Why?” I ask, meaning why does she do it if she hates football?

“Why? Are you serious?” she asks back, ready to laugh at how stupid the question is to her. “While Buffy and Chrissy are bragging that they led the cheerleading squad, I get to tell Harvard and Yale I ran the sound and light board equivalent of an outdoor rock concert on a biweekly basis. In fact, I may just skip college and set up my own production shop. Chrissy and Buffy will marry one of you no-necked, atavistic, knuckle-draggers and pop out pretty but dim-witted rug rats while I'm touring the world with the stars, being paid in euros and yen, and having people shudder in ecstacy every time my fingers tickle a sound-board. You and your buddies go on and break your heads open. I'll broadcast it and make millions. That's why.”

She suddenly stops like she's trying either to catch her breath or get hold of her mouth before it runs off without her. She turns her attention back to her laptop. I hear soft clicking as her fingers massage the keys. She starts talking again but this time she keeps her eyes on her laptop screen.

“It's only me and Walt Hasting, our play-by-play announcer and the man that time forgot, up in the booth. Walt's about as useful and nimble around electronics as a mummy and he's got no idea what the hell I do. He nips from a whiskey flask the whole game, tells me how much tougher the players were in his day—which to look at him, I'm guessing was back before fire—and refers to me as ‘devil girl.' But as long as I get in the ‘Big Munch Crunch' plug from our sponsor and turn on the feed from your helmet mic-cam, they let me do whatever I want.”

She stops typing and unplugs the recorder from the laptop wire. She also unplugs a flash drive sticking out from her laptop.

“Here,” she says, handing the drive and recorder to me. “You'll like this stuff, and if you don't, you should. It might expand your brain—what's left after the concussions. It'll definitely expand your music horizons.”

I take the recorder and flash drive from her and notice how warm her hands are when we touch. “The flash drive can plug directly in the recorder for extra music storage or to swap out songs,” she says, and then reaches under her desk and passes me a nice set of earphones, similar to what she's wearing. “These have noise reduction with bass-boost. When you listen to track three, make sure you crank up the bass. It'll blow you away.”

I nod.

“Also, the microphone is built into the recorder. The sheet you gave me said ‘speech therapy,' not that I was snooping, so if you need to record your voice, all you have to do is hit this button here and you're good to go.”

I nod again and heft the little device in my hand. It feels small enough I might lose it faster than my phone.

“If you need help using it, you can come back here and I'll show you. And I can give you more cool downloads once I refine your tastes.”

“Duh-duh-do you hear everything in muh-muh-my helmet?” I ask, feeling suddenly exposed.

“That's right, my friend.” She smiles in a way that makes me bring a hand in front of my crotch. “
Everything
.”

I gather up the dangling headphone cords and turn to leave with my new goodies.

“Wait, you've got to sign the sheet or I'll get in trouble,” Tina says. “I get class credit for running the AVT club. If you don't sign for this stuff, Ms. Jinkle's gonna get mad.”

She thrusts a sheet at me and I reach for a short golf pencil on her desk and start to sign.

“Seriously, track three will blow your balls off. It's that good. I'll slip another flash drive in your locker with more music.”

“Okay,” I say. “Thuh-thuh-thanks.”

She rolls her eyes at me. “Don't mention it.”

W
hen our doorbell rings, I'm expecting a neighborhood Mormon or Jehovah's Witness to take another stab at converting our household, but Coach Nelson standing there is a surprise.

“Hey, kiddo, how ya doin'?” Coach asks. I'm not sure this is a trick question since I've skipped practice again, claiming to be sick.

“All right,” I say, then rub my stomach and frown, hoping that conveys the proper amount of sickness to him.

“Your parents home?”

“No. My dad's still at work.”

“You got a minute?”

I nod yes but keep my hand on my belly in case I need to fall back on a quick escape excuse. Coach Nelson doesn't make a move to come into the house. Instead he turns around and walks back to his pickup truck with a gun rack in the back window and bumper stickers that read KILL YOUR TV and THOSE WHO CAN MAKE YOU BELIEVE ABSURDITIES CAN MAKE YOU COMMIT ATROCITIES. I follow him outside. He leans against the back part of his truck, not shadowed by our house and still catching rays from the falling sun.

“Heard you had yourselves a good time up at the quarry,” he says while squinting out at the orange sky. He doesn't see me nod yes and I don't say anything. “A little bee told me you jumped off the cliff. First one over. Real gung ho. Figured Fisher or Bruce would be the first. Normally I wouldn't recommend that, but since you're still alive, consider me impressed.” He turns his gaze from the sun to me. “Didn't know you had it in you. Fact is, it doesn't seem like something you'd do at all. Thought you were a little more careful than that.”

“You mean
chicken
,” I say, surprised by how angry I sound.

“Not chicken.”

“And weak. Same reason you knew they'd pick me to go against Jankowski on the bet in the weight room. You knew everyone thought me and Ronnie were little weaklings.”

“And you showed them all, didn't you?” Coach chuckles. “Never underestimate the power of underestimation,” he says, and slaps the panel of his truck. He's the only one laughing. “We sure showed them.” He stops smiling when he realizes I'm fuming at him.

“You set me up. Everyone was laughing at me that day. They couldn't wait to see Tom cream me.”

“But you kicked his butt, didn't you?”

I don't answer back.

“You know the crazy thing about life?” Coach asks, and now he's looking off at the sun again. “On any given day, you have the chance to be a hero or a victim, predator or prey. Most times, circumstances are beyond your control. Other times, you got a choice but you think about it too much and you freeze up. Sometimes, though, you're forced to react and it's all instinct. May not make a damn bit of difference in a bad situation. But sometimes instinct squeezes the good out of you, forces you to be a hero before you even realize it. Danny, that day in the weight room, you were our hero. It was David versus Goliath in there and you nailed it. Now, what if I let you in on the plan and you listened to your fears, backed out before you even set foot in that weight room and had a chance to become a hero? I knew you were strong. I knew you'd win. I just had to make sure your brain didn't cheat your heart out of the chance to become a hero.”

“I don't remember feeling much like a hero that day. Just tricked.”

“Is that what's really bothering you?” he asks. “I mean, besides Ronnie's death? I understand you boys taking it hard but you can't just fall apart.”

“I'm not feeling very good. I don't much feel like practicing.”

“So that's it? You're just going to quit on the team?” He takes a second to glance at me before going back to squinting at the sun.

“I don't know,” I say. Truth is, I never thought about skipping practice as quitting on the team until Coach calls it that.

“Danny, I can't force you to come back. I
can
tell you that you're throwing away promise and talent every day you miss practice. Maybe no one's told you this lately but you're good. Real good.”

This kind of talk embarrasses me, especially since Coach doesn't know the whole truth, doesn't know how I abandoned my teammate, let him kill himself because I
am
a chicken and I
am
weak.

“Danny, I've coached enough seasons, now, to recognize a kid that's got some talent. I mean, hell, you're only a sophomore and you got a shot at placing in the top three on high bar at state. I don't know why you suddenly want to throw it all away. You think Ronnie would want his death to make you do that?”

What Ronnie would want is for me to have spoken up for him when he was still alive. My stomach cramps for real at the thought. No faking necessary.

“You're on track to be a co-captain next year. The boys in that gym look up to you. What you do on that high bar scares and thrills all of us. You're one of the best advertisements our team's got, and not just for new guys, but to keep the guys we have now from drifting off next year. The way you've improved in the off-season, you could place top three
all-around
next year, too. Senior year, you could mop up. Maybe get a scholarship. I'll be happy to write some letters to schools. I've got a few contacts and it's not just from coaching.”

Mention of a scholarship makes me feel real hopeful and doubly guilty at the same time. As much as I want it, why should my dream be rewarded when I denied Ronnie's cry for help?

“But none of that is going to happen if you don't get your skinny butt back in the gym and start working out.” Coach drapes an arm over the side panel of his flatbed, then turns to face me. “I was hoping your mom or dad was home so I could tell them what I just told you. Maybe they'd help kick your butt for me,” he says, grinning.

“My mom's dead,” I blurt. Coach's grin fades. In the orange glow of the sun, his stubbled face softens. I hate telling people because of this exact response, but I can't stand hearing him mention her like she's alive; sounds like he's teasing me even though I know he's not.

“Aw, hell ... Danny . . . I'm sorry ... I didn't know.”

“It's okay,” I say, even though it's not okay at all. But it's not Coach's fault, either. Not long after I break that news, he gets back in his truck, and when it starts up, the tailpipe pops like the muffler is about to snap off.

“We need you back soon as you feel better,” Coach tells me, sticking his head out the truck window, and then he backs out of the driveway and leaves me alone.