Safety Net (21 page)

Mrs. Menacker’s smile was knowing. “From
the looks of it, she’s either having twins or one Erick-sized baby. I didn’t
ask, though I guess I’ll have a chance to find out tonight. We’re having dinner
with them.”

The meeting of the families
,
Dale thought uneasily. Would they miss how Lowell and Erick looked at each
other? How close they stood next to each other? The little touches between
them? Could Lowell and Erick hide for one night under the scrutiny of their
families?
Not my problem
, he told himself firmly. And wondered why he
felt responsible, anyway.

Kaylee came in, quite a different
girl than the one Dale remembered from their stop in Indiana last season. She’d
dyed her hair black and had an ankle tattoo of a Chinese character she said
meant good fortune. She was texting on her phone and nodded an acknowledgment
at Dale.

“Honey, we have to get ready to
meet the Wests for dinner. They’re taking us someplace nice. You can’t wear
those shorts.”

“It’s Miami! Of course I can wear
shorts.” Kaylee looked at Dale from over her phone and shook her head in
disgust at her mother.
No sympathy, kid
, Dale thought.
I’m already on
Team Mrs. Menacker
.

Mrs. Menacker looked her daughter
over. “Not those shorts, you can’t.” To Dale she said, “You’re probably right
about those pants. I got those so he could wear them tonight, and I don’t think
he has a belt.”

Dale was certain Lowell didn’t have
a belt. Lowell hated belts and would rather risk droopy drawers than wear one. “I
have one he can borrow. We’re, uh, of a size. Horizontally, not vertically.” He
inwardly winced from the memories his choice of words invoked, and lifted his
hand in the air at Lowell’s approximate height, five inches taller.

“Oh, would you? That would be so
sweet.” Mrs. Menacker paused. “I’m sure you could join us. The Wests probably
wouldn’t mind...” The doubt in her voice was so thick it could be carved into
slices.

Dale smiled. “That’s okay. I
already have a dinner date. I’ll go get that belt for Lowell.”

He left, acknowledging Kaylee the
same way she had him; she was too engrossed in her phone to notice.

Dale’s dinner date was meeting up
with Wotoa and Boylan in the hotel lobby and watching the Fiesta Bowl on the TV
over the bar. When he got the full description of the West-Menacker dinner
afterwards, he figured he got the better deal.

The game was tomorrow, so it was
strictly a water and juice night. They ate bar fare and some of the other guys
drifted in to watch the Fiesta Bowl with them. Texas A&M were slugging it
out with LSU in a dull, defense-heavy match. The Aggies scored the first
touchdown of the game in the fourth quarter, after each team had earned nine
points in field goals. Dale couldn’t imagine what it was like to play a game
where the offense was so peripheral to the outcome.
Thank God for Erick West
,
he thought, raising his glass of water in a silent toast.

By the end of the Orange Bowl the
next day, probably all of his teammates and all of the Crocker fans were also
thanking God for Erick West. It was like the Notre Dame game, only better.
Erick threw for three hundred and nine yards and seven touchdowns.

Lowell scored four of those, one of
them a dramatic dive over a WVU defensive lineman into the end zone, and
another a basketball-style jump at the second yard line to grab the ball
one-handed before toppling back, perfectly balanced on his long legs, and
striding into the end zone to make the six. Dempsey scored two and had his own
glamour moment by leaping over the legs of the guy who’d tried to tackle him
and running another twelve yards for the TD. His other touchdown was one for
Erick’s highlight reels: a jaw-dropping eighty-one-yard pass. Babcock scored
the seventh TD in a running play. Boylan kicked two of his perfect field goals.
No interceptions. Two incompletes. Erick was unstoppable.

The play Dale would always remember
best was the pass he caught early in the third. Erick had drawn back, his
target Dempsey, who was rushing into place for a catch to put them on WVU’s
thirty. But one of the Mountaineers eluded capture and went gunning for Erick,
his only sack in the game. As Erick was going down, he saw that Dale was open
and let fly. A twelve yard throw, and the impact hit Dale as strongly and
surely as if Erick had been standing and taking his time when he threw it, not
tumbling under three hundred pounds of WVU defensive tackle.

It wasn’t a complete rout. The
Mountaineers’ defense caused enough trouble to keep everyone alert, and their
offense got in some good quick plays in the second quarter, putting fourteen on
the board. But Crocker’s defense figured them out, and after adding ten in the
third, WVU failed to score again. Crocker won the Orange Bowl, 55-24.

The enormousness of it didn’t sink
in until Dale, crushed in the mass of players and press and security and bowl
officials on the field, looked around and saw the red half of the stadium
standing up and screaming with joy. MacAdam hoisted him from his feet in a hug and
passed him over to a sophomore hulk on the D line. Next thing he knew he was in
a dancing huddle of specials teams guys with a few O mixed in, and everyone was
singing the school song at a cameraman filming from the middle of the circle.

A blur after that. He looked for
Erick, but every time he caught a glimpse of him, Erick was rushing from one
player to another, running to shake hands with the WVU quarterback, running to
say a few words to a reporter, running to hug Tomasovich and Boylan. Grinning
hugely the whole time. Dale scanned the crowd for Lowell and saw him cornered
by reporters, smiling and looking goofily bewildered. Dale yelled out at him, “Four
touchdowns, dude!” and his voice was swallowed by the roar of the stadium.

When Coach Bowman finally managed
to corral his players, they filed onto a podium and lined up according to
position, with Erick at the front next to Coach Bowman and Stephen Dennis, their
safety. A huge glass bowl of oranges was presented to them, Coach Bowman
praised his team’s hard work, Dennis thanked God, and Erick thanked WVU for
giving them a great game then thanked his team. A corporate sponsor handed out
special tee shirts to all the players, the press cornered Coach Bowman and
Erick again, and Dale was swept up with his teammates in the euphoric chaos.

More than one guy cried in the
locker room later. Pure tears of overwhelming joy and relief. Dale slumped down
on a bench and simply stared at nothing for a while, trying to get it to sink
in. They had just won the Orange Bowl.

When they got out to the fans and
families again, past security, Kevin Babcock’s mother, a short large woman with
amazing braids woven with beads in Crocker colors, ran up and hugged him. Dale
was baffled until she let him go so she could run up and hug the next Crocker
player she saw. He walked toward the buses in a stupor.

“Dale!”

Lowell waved him down, brought him
over to Mrs. Menacker and Kaylee. Mrs. Menacker had one arm around Lowell,
beaming with pride. Kaylee looked bored and restless, but at least she wasn’t
holding her phone.

“I can’t believe it,” Dale said.

“That was an excellent catch in the
third,” Mrs. Menacker said to him.

Dale grinned, shaking his head. “No,
it was an excellent pass I had the honor of receiving.” To Lowell he said, “Dude.
Erick.”

Lowell grinned back, eyes full of
love and admiration and maybe a touch of hero-worship. Dale figured everyone at
Crocker had a touch of hero-worship tonight. “Erick. He was fucking awesome.
Oh, sorry, Mom.”

Mrs. Menacker laughed a little and
gave him a squeeze. “I’ll let it slide. It’s true, anyway.”

Dale punched Lowell on the
shoulder. “Four touchdowns, dude. Four.”

Lowell got that goofy grin again,
the one he’d flashed for the cameras. “Yeah, but if Erick didn’t throw ‘em, I
wouldn’t make ‘em.”

Kaylee made an exasperated sound. “Ugh,
this mutual admiration society crap is gonna make me puke. You won the game,
yee-ha. Can we go now?”

Mrs. Menacker gave her a calm,
no-nonsense look, and Lowell said, “I thought college was supposed to make you
more mature, not less. What is your problem?”

Kaylee put on a tough-girl frown
and stared him down for a moment, then Dale saw the cracks in her armor right
before she relented and gave Lowell a brief hug. “You guys were fantastic
tonight. I can’t believe the great player who scored four touchdowns is my
brother.” She stepped back and grinned. “I am so totally posting embarrassing family
photos of you when I get home.”

Without warning Erick bounced into
their group, first hugging Dale, then Lowell, then Mrs. Menacker, and finally
Kaylee, whom he lifted off her feet. When he let her go, he kept bouncing,
jumping from side to side, grinning, giddy. He looked like a five-year-old boy.
A six foot four inch five-year-old boy with a day’s growth of beard.

“I have to go, my parents are
waiting,” he said, and hugged them all again before bouncing away.

“Good heavens,” Mrs. Menacker said
with a laugh, watching him go.

“That’s our Erick,” Dale said,
smiling after him.

“Yeah,” Lowell sighed, looking
goofy again.

-----

Erick got up at 3:30 a.m. and
slipped out of his hotel room. The hotel lobby wasn’t as dead as he’d expected
it to be -- some Crocker fans sitting around on the plush sofas, quietly
reliving the game -- so he found an empty spot outside, on a bench in front of
the closed day spa.

Candace answered on the first ring.
“Erick? Baby, what time is it there?”

“It’s um, late. Early.” He rubbed
his eyes. “I wanted to make sure I caught you. Pumpkin, we won. We won the
Orange Bowl.”

Candace’s laughter lit up the
night, sounding so close, like she was right there next to him. Erick shut his
eyes tightly, tried to imagine he could feel her warmth, smell her skin. “Oh,
babe. I am so proud of you. I am so, so proud of you. You out partying with
your teammates?”

Erick smiled a little. “No. We’re
flying back later today. That’s why I wanted to call now. How was Ireland?” Candace
had spent her Christmas week traveling in Ireland with a classmate she had met
over there, a girl named Perry.

“It was beautiful. The people are
so nice. On Christmas Day the family we were staying with took us to this old
church. It was in ruins, but it was so magical. You have to see this place. I
could feel how much history was there.” Candace paused for a moment. “You’re
with your family?”

“Yeah.” Erick picked at a splinter
of wood on the bench he was sitting on. “Trisha’s about ready to pop. I could
be an uncle in a month.”

“You said it’s twins?”

“Boy and a girl. Mama and Trisha
argued over baby names the whole time.”

Candace chuckled low. “My poor
babe. But at least you had your football to go to, right? You said something
about extra practice.”

Erick smiled. “Yeah. I had a great
excuse to get away from them. Extra practice again, even though it was eleven
at night and no one else on the team was practicing.’"

Candace laughed. “Soon as I can I’ll
look for your game online. I wanna see all the highlights.”

Erick gushed, “We made seven
touchdowns. Look for Dempsey’s. I threw eighty-one yards for one of them.
Eighty-one yards! I knew I could throw that, but I never have in a game before.
I was going to pass to Dale, but he was blocked, and I looked, and there was
Dempsey way down the field, wide open, so I popped it to him. It was so sick.
And Lowell made four TDs, and two of them, I can’t wait to see the TV angles on
those. He’s such a great athlete, not just for catching but for running and
jumping. He used to play basketball, did I tell you? He wanted to be an NBA
player, but ended up loving football so much he switched. Oh! And see if you
can find Dale’s reception in the third. I think you’ll like that one. I’m
amazed I pulled it off, but damn, give Dale credit for spotting me in time and
being there to catch it. And Babcock’s TD... Oh, pumpkin, when he finds a way
through the maze, there is no stopping him. He’s the best for weaving around
these heavy guys and getting through. And Boylan’s field goals, you gotta see
those. His kicks are a work of art, seriously. And to look at the guy, you’d
think he’s about twelve, not even shaving yet. The whole game, really... It was
just amazing. And WVU, I give them credit. They didn’t look too bad out there.
They have some heavy-duty linebackers, and their quarterback isn’t bad. Real
tall guy. I shook hands with him after the game, and he said, ‘Next year,
Heisman. Next year.’ I thought he meant himself, but Janine said he must’ve
meant me. He was complimenting me.”

Erick stopped for breath. “I’m
babbling.”

“Mm-hm.” Candace sounded amused. “Listen,
babe, I don’t have much longer. We gotta leave for the train station pretty
soon, and I haven’t finished packing yet.”

“Train station?”

“Yes. The train to Paris? We’re
going through the Chunnel.” She paused. “Babe. I told you about this. Perry and
Giles and I decided to spend the rest of our break in Amsterdam. But we’re
taking the train, gonna spend a couple of days in Paris first.”

Paris. Paris had been
theirs
.
Erick knew he was being irrational, but he was wrapped in memories of holding
Candace in a Paris park, of making love to her in an empty room in a youth
hostel, of sitting in a bistro for hours, watching her watch Paris.

“Who’s Giles? Perry’s boyfriend?”

“No. We met him in Ireland, went
around Cork with him for a couple of days... Baby. Erick. Please. He’s a
friend. He’s a nice guy. He’s meeting us at the Eurostar station and we’re
traveling together.” She used the voice that meant this was, as far as she was
concerned, the end of the conversation.