Playing the Field

By Janette Rallison

Copyright 2011 Janette Rallison

Other titles by Janette Rallison

Deep Blue Eyes and Other Teenage Hazards

All’s Fair in Love, War, and High School

Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Free
Throws

Fame, Glory, and Other Things on my To Do
List

It’s a Mall World After All

Revenge of the Cheerleaders

How to Take The Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend

Just One Wish

My Fair Godmother

My Unfair Godmother

My Double Life

Slayers (under pen name CJ Hill)

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Chapter 1

Mrs. Swenson was one of those teachers who
probably got into the profession because she enjoyed making dour
expressions. Her expression was especially dour when she gave me
the news: “Mr. Conford, unless your test scores improve, and you
start doing your homework, you’re going to fail algebra.” Mrs.
Swenson likes to call us by our last names. I guess it sounds more
dour.

When my parents found out about my algebra
grade, they used my first name. Repeatedly. With increased volume
every time they said it.

“McKay, why haven’t you been doing your
homework?”

I had been doing it. I just hadn’t been doing
it right.

“McKay, why didn’t you study for your last
test?”

I did. Sort of. During the commercial breaks.
I mean, it’s October for heaven's sake, and the World Series is
on.

“McKay, if you can’t do the work right,
you’ll have to get a tutor and pay for it with your own money.”

With the amount of allowance I got, I
couldn’t afford to hire anyone who actually knew more about algebra
than I did. (By the way, I didn’t actually say any of this; I just
thought it. I may be failing algebra, but I’m not stupid.)

“McKay, if your grade hasn’t improved at
least to a C by the end of the quarter, you’ll have to drop off the
baseball team. That gives you just over a month to turn your grade
around.”

My parents know how to pack a threat.
Granted, at the moment I was just playing fall ball. The regular
season wouldn’t start until spring, but baseball was a way of life
for me, and I couldn’t imagine not playing it. Besides, this year
the league was having a districtwide fall ball tournament at the
end of November, and my team was sure to win. I had to play.

I don’t know why adults are so hung up on
algebra, anyway. Why should I care what the letter x equals, when
4x + 7 + 8x = 43? I have my life all figured out, and it doesn’t
involve algebra. I’m going to be a professional baseball player.
All the math I’ll need to know is how to add runs, how to average
batting scores, and of course, how to calculate interest on all of
the money I’ll make. I don’t care which train reaches Philadelphia
first—the one leaving from New York and traveling 55 mph. or the
one leaving from DC going 40 mph. I live in Gilbert, Arizona. When
I’m a professional ballplayer and do start to travel, I’m going to
use a private jet.

I’ve tried to explain this to Mrs. Swenson.
On the last test, when she asked one of those stupid train
questions, I wrote, “Professional ballplayers let their managers
worry about their travel schedules.”

Mrs. Swenson has no sense of humor. When I’m
famous, I’m never going to autograph a baseball for her.

That night I sat down at the kitchen table
and tried to do the next day’s assignment. I wrote 2x
²
+
12x = -18 neatly on my piece of paper. Then I stared at the
mysterious x for a while, hoping it would give me some hint to its
identity. I tried to remember how Mrs. Swenson had explained these
problems to the class, but I hadn’t been listening carefully, so I
didn’t get very far.

When Mom walked by, I asked her if she could
help me figure it out. She sat down next to me at the table and
picked up the book. She scanned over the equations and then said,
“It’s been a long time since I’ve done this type of math problem.”
She tapped my pencil against the table, then wrote down some
numbers. “Let’s see, I think you’re supposed to divide both sides
of the equation by twelve . . . wait, that’s not it . . .” She
wrote down a few more numbers, then scribbled them out.

“Just wait until they put those equations on
trains and send them off to Philadelphia,” I told her.

She laid down the pencil. “Maybe your father
will remember how to do this stuff.”

We looked at one another silently for a
moment. Dad is the one who refuses to balance the check book
because he can’t get his figures to match the bank's. He sits at
the kitchen table, shaking his head at the bank statement, and
insists that the bank has messed up again and computers can’t be
trusted.

Mom let out a sigh. “Or maybe we really are
going to have to get you a tutor.”

I slid my paper back in front of me and
stared down at it with determination. “I don’t need a tutor.” My
allowance doesn’t even cover the cost of decently updating my
baseball card collection. The last thing I wanted was another
expense. “I’ll call Tony and see if he knows how to do this.”

Mom raised an eyebrow. Tony is my best
friend, but not the best at algebra. “Isn’t there someone else in
your class you could ask?”

“I’ll ask Tony first.”

“Well, don’t spend too long on the phone.
Remember, you don’t do anything with friends until your homework is
done.”

“I know, I know.” I picked up my math book
and trudged over to the phone. I bet Cal Ripkin Jr.’s mother had
never given him these types of lectures when he was growing up.

Tony tried to explain the assignment to me,
but it still didn’t make a lot of sense. I just couldn’t get some
of the equations to work out. Instead of my trains meeting
anywhere, I think they both got derailed in hideous wrecks.

My dad wasn’t much more help when he got
home. Before bed he looked over my algebra problems, but it was
only a symbolic gesture. It was because my mom made him. He held my
paper up and got a studious look on his face. “Well. Yes. I see.
Very interesting.” He put the paper down and nodded. “It’s nice to
know some things never change. After all these years we’re still
searching for the meaning of x.”

My mom glared at him, but he ignored her and
leaned closer to me. “This is exactly the reason I became a
plumber.”

Mom said, “Bill, you’re not helping.”

“Well, I would if he ever brought home
assignments about installing water lines.”

In a lower tone Mom told him, “United we
stand, divided we get kid-sized footprints on our faces.”

“Uh, right,” Dad said. Then he patted my
shoulder. “Do your algebra, go to college, and become an aerospace
engineer.”

Mom rolled her eyes. “If you’re not being
serious with McKay now, how do you expect him to take us seriously
when we tell him he has to pass algebra or quit baseball?”

Dad shrugged. “I told him to do his algebra.
What’s not serious about that?”

“I think I understand it now,” I said because
I hate it when my parents fight.

Mom looked at me skeptically. “You understand
it now?”

“Yeah. Tony did a good job of explaining it
to me. See. I finished all of the problems.” I picked up my paper
and showed it to her.

She looked it over. “X equals 5.342?
Shouldn’t x be a whole number like 7 or 12 or something?”

“Not necessarily,” I said.

How could she argue the point? After all, she
didn’t know how to do the problems any more than I did.

She handed me back the paper. “All
right.”

“See,” Dad said. “McKay is on his way to
engineering school right now.”

Mom didn’t say anything more and left the
kitchen.

Dad watched her leave. “I don’t think she
likes engineers. Maybe you’d better become a brain surgeon
instead.”

* * *

The next day at school when we went over the
assignment in class, I got thirteen out of twenty right. That’s
only sixty-five percent. I may not be great at algebra, but I’ve
been figuring out percentages since I could read the back of a
baseball card. Sixty-five percent was a D. Not exactly the kind of
grade that would get me into medical school or keep me on the
baseball team.

I felt sick for the rest of class. This time
I’d really tried to do the homework, and I had still failed. All
through lunch I kept saying, “I’m doomed. My baseball career is
over.”

“No, it’s not,” Tony said. “You’ll get a
tutor, and you’ll be fine.”

“I’m doomed, and my allowance will be gone,”
I said.

“Maybe you could get someone at school to
help you for free.”

“You helped me, and I only got twelve
problems right.”

“Someone who’s better at math than I am.”
Tony nodded toward the other side of the cafeteria where Serena
Kimball sat.

Serena was good at math. In fact, Serena was
good at everything. She was not only a straight-A student, but she
was also the vice president of the eighth grade. Every year, while
the teachers looked on in admiration, she played a piano concerto
for the school talent show. In all the years I’d gone to school
with her, I’d never once seen her long brown hair out of place.

“Right,” I said. “I’ll just waltz up to her
and ask her if she’d like to come home with me and run some
equations.”

“You could at least talk to her. You know, be
friendly. Chat about things. Then when you mention you’re having a
hard time with your math, if she likes you, she’ll volunteer to
help you.”

“If she likes me?” I asked. “Why would she
like me?”

“Why not?” Tony said. “If you tried, you
could be—” He waved his hand over me like he was performing a magic
trick. “Irresistible.”

I picked up my empty sandwich bag, crumpled
it up, and threw it at him.

Tony had shown an increased interest in girls
since we’d entered the eighth grade, but I still thought of them as
odd creatures who couldn’t throw a ball the right way and always
went to the bathroom in packs. Oh sure, there had been Stephanie
Morris in kindergarten—we held hands during recess, and she told me
she wanted to marry me. But after a couple of weeks of walking
around like a small paper-doll chain, she said she’d decided to
marry Randall Parker instead. No explanation. She led Randall
around the playground for the next few weeks until she got tired of
him, and then she started holding hands with Bobby Friedman.

That’s when I decided girls were more trouble
than they were worth.

Still, I looked over at Serena. She was
leaning across the table and telling her friend Rachel something.
Both of their faces were animated and laughing. The end of Serena’s
hair brushed against the table, and her face tilted sideways like
she was about to tell Rachel a secret. I tried to imagine Serena
sitting at my kitchen table, talking and laughing like that.
Somehow it just didn’t seem likely.

Tony nudged me again. “Serena would be tons
better than a paid tutor. Don’t you remember that tutor my sister
got for her French class? It was some college student who spit when
he talked and smelled funny. You don’t want to pay some guy to come
over to your house and spit at you, do you?” He nodded toward
Serena again. “Trust me, Serena is the way to go. You just have to
think of some casual way to talk to her.”

“Like what?”

“You know, go up to her and say
something.”

I looked from Serena back to Tony. “Like
what?”

Tony wadded up his lunch sack and made a hook
shot into the garbage can. “Don’t you know anything about girls?”
When I looked at him blankly, he said, “It’s a game. The next best
game after baseball. Only instead of a bat to get on base, you use
your words and a Hollywood smile.”

I gave him my most skeptical look.

“Watch a master at work. I’m about to turn on
the old Manetti charm.”

Ever since Tony had noticed girls, he’d been
drawing upon his Italian heritage to help him radiate charm. He was
also working on what he called a “cool walk.” It was sort of a
cross between a rooster strut and a cowboy swagger -although
sometimes, when he didn’t coordinate it right, it looked like he
had something stuck on the bottom of his shoes, and he was trying
to scrape it off. Now he walked up to Serena’s table doing the cool
walk, and his strut and his swagger were almost perfectly timed. I
followed him with my hands shoved into my pockets.