Sea Glass Winter (7 page)

10

Another of the things that had attracted Claire to Shelter Bay was its abundance of Pacific Coast sea glass, which she’d first learned about from a jewelry-maker friend who lived a few miles north in Cannon Beach. According to the archives in the historical society’s museum, early residents of the town took care of their garbage by simply dumping it over the cliff. It might not be ecologically popular today, but after years of being washed out to sea, then back onto the shore, all those old bottles, dishes, and even chandeliers offered an amazing array of sand-polished sea glass. Also appealing were the agates and small shells that were scattered on the beach at low tide.

The tide was out when she arrived back at the cabin shortly before noon with several items from Farraday’s, along with detailed instructions on how to prepare the dishes. Although Maeve Farraday, who ran the shop while her husband and older son fished, had been friendly and helpful, not quite trusting her skills, Claire had also stocked up on frozen bag dinners from the grocery store. Just in case.

She knew she should attack the rest of the moving boxes that were taking up so much of the floor space. But the beach was like a siren’s call. After a cup of creamy clam chowder, which was even better than advertised, she went down the cliff steps in the drizzling rain. She found a small glass float wrapped in a bit of netting that had gotten caught up on a driftwood log. Probably more of the flotsam she’d read was drifting into the Pacific Northwest coast from the tragic Japanese tsunami.

Carefully placing the float into the canvas bag she carried, along with two small pieces of green glass and a handful of agates, Claire climbed back up the steps.

She’d originally started blowing glass eight years ago; when she’d tired of trying to find glass beads to add to the sea glass jewelry she’d begun making at home shortly after Matt’s birth, she’d decided to make her own.

As she’d branched out with her art, she began having small showings up and down the West Coast. When the owners of Art on the River, a chichi Portland gallery, heard Claire was relocating to the Pacific Northwest, they invited her to have an exhibition the week after Thanksgiving, just in time for the Christmas shopping season.

When Claire had agreed four months ago, November had seemed a very long time away. Then she’d gotten sidetracked with all the details involved in handling her mother’s estate and selling and buying a house, which left her in a bit of a time crunch.

Fortunately, at least one idea had been simmering in her mind during the drive up from Los Angeles. One she thought she’d finally figured out how to execute.

Knowing that her mother’s property would be easier to sell if the old carriage house was converted to a guesthouse rather than a glass studio, she’d shipped her equipment ahead of the move to Oregon, and a glassblower she’d met at a conference had volunteered to drive down from Lincoln City and set it up in the garage for her.

Unlike jewelry making, which allowed her mind to wander to problems with insurance companies, hospitals, finding a hospice nurse, and medications, not to mention Matt’s growing rebellion, she’d quickly discovered that working with molten glass required absolute concentration.

During this past very sad and challenging year, it had become an escape from all the problems raining down on her.

As she entered the studio, which, in contrast to the chilly outdoors, was an arid one hundred degrees, Claire took a deep breath and cleared her mind.

This was her domain, where fire and glass came together in a seductive dance and, she hoped, would give birth to the shimmering vision glowing in her mind.

After readying her supplies and tacking the drawing she’d done of the piece she planned as the centerpiece (and so far only piece) of her show to the wall, Claire put on her safety glasses and was on the verge of taking her first gathering of glass from the crucible when her cell phone dinged with a message.

Got ride home. C U L8R.

As brief and uninformative as the text was, it lifted her spirits. If Matt had a ride, he must have already made a new friend.

Although his text didn’t say, the most likely thing would be that it was a player on the team. And the fact that he said he’d see her later suggested he’d be staying for tryouts. Claire truly hoped that was the case, because playing ball would give him a purpose and focus he’d been missing over the past several months.

Feeling more optimistic than she had in a very long while, she put Enigma on the CD player, heated the tip of her blowpipe, then dipped it into the molten glass inside the furnace, gathering the glass as she might swirl honey from a jar, spooling it onto the end of the blowpipe.

She took her time, going back and forth between the furnace, where the glass lay molten and without form, and the glory hole—a smaller furnace used to reheat the glass so she could roll and shape it on the marver.

From the first, admittedly flawed, bead she’d blown, Claire had been delighted to discover that unlike the lovely solid pieces she’d been working with for years, glass was organic. It was a living, breathing thing, hungrily taking in oxygen, which was why ventilation was imperative. Along with the exhaust fans she’d had installed in the walls, she’d opened the windows a bit to let in the fresh sea air.

Glass also had moods. It could be as calm as a soft and sunny summer day or as mercurial as a teenage girl with PMS, depending on the weather and the oxides she’d added to the sand to control the hardness and create the colors. And, all too often, for some mysterious reason she’d never understand, it would refuse to cooperate.

As it was doing today.

Glassblowing not only took enormous patience and attention to detail; it could on occasion, be ego deflating.

While she was happy with the shape, she was dissatisfied with the way the thin layers of glass had flash-fused. The colors lacked the drama she’d intended.

Discarding this first attempt into the hot pot, which was basically a fireproof wastebasket next to her bench, she began heating up her blowpipe again.

“If at first you don’t succeed . . .”

11

Aft
er his last class, Matt made his way through the crush of students leaving the building, and although he still wasn’t happy about the move, at least, now that he’d figured out how to get his mojo back, he was feeling like it might not be the end of the world.

He had to admit that the gym was as good as some of the best he’d played in back in California. It also, for some weird reason, had a bunch of folding chairs set up all over the court.

“It was remodeled last year,” Aimee, who’d come along to watch the tryouts, said when he mentioned it. “Is it true about the gym at your old school? That it’s the one where the floor opens up and Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed fall into the swimming pool beneath it?”

“Yeah. That’s it.”

“That is way cool.”

He shrugged, even though he secretly agreed. “I guess.”

Coach Slater was already there with two other guys. One was holding a clipboard.

“You don’t have to wait around,” he told Aimee. “You can go to the library or somewhere.”

“That’s okay.” She glanced over at the near-empty bleachers. “I don’t have anything else to do right now, and hey, maybe you can convince me to like basketball. And I can convince you to go skiing.”

“Maybe.”
Not
.

The other players were strolling into the gym as if they belonged. Which they did. Watching them laughing and punching each other, the way they had in the cafeteria, Matt wondered again if this outsider feeling was the way other kids in BHHS had felt when he and his team had walked down the hall.

Of course, it had been harder to impress kids at his old school. Especially when you were a freshman. And when kids’ parents collected Oscars, Emmys, and Golden Globes the way his mom collected shells, beads, and sea glass, being a high school basketball player didn’t put you on as high a pedestal as it did at most other schools. Especially when you played for a 3AAA division team that had a 20-11-1 record last year and had been ranked ninety-eighth in the state.

But that hadn’t mattered, because he’d been the best frigging freshman in the state, with everyone saying he could only get better. Which was going to be hard to pull off now that his mother had forced him to play on a team that hadn’t even managed to have a winning season in a crappy Podunk 4A division.

In California, papers from Redding to San Diego and even over to Blythe on the California/Arizona border had sent reporters to watch him. One sports blogger had even named him “Mad Matt,”
because whatever gym he was playing in turned into a Thunderdome.

The name had stuck, and although his mother and grandmother hadn’t liked it all that much, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t fantasize about some TV play-by-play announcer calling him Mad Matt in the NBA finals.

The locker room benches and lockers had been painted the same blue that was on the bleachers. Unlike the student lockers lining the hallways, these had diamond-shaped perforations in the doors to allow fresh air in.

A poster featuring Coach John Wooden’s famed Pyramid of Success had been tacked to the wall. Although it hadn’t been required at BHHS, Matt had memorized the fifteen points on the pyramid back when he was a little kid playing YMCA Junior Lakers ball. A piece of blank white poster board was tacked above the door.

“Okay,” the coach said after they’d changed out of the clothes they’d worn to class. Although Matt still thought a dolphin was a lame mascot compared to a Norman, it felt good to be back in uniform. Even if it
was
a practice uniform with his name written on masking tape on the back and he was having to win the right to wear it.

“It’s good to see a lot of familiar faces from summer camp,” Slater continued.

His mother had sprung their move on him too late for Matt to attend summer camp, but he figured he was so far ahead of the other guys in skill and talent, it wouldn’t matter.

There
was
the problem that they’d already formed a cohesive unit, which he’d be bound to screw up. Which wouldn’t make him the most popular guy on the team, as he’d been last year, when the other players rode his coattails to a winning season. But there had been a few varsity guys who hadn’t been happy having a freshman on their team.

What if this team decided to haze the new kid by making sure he never got his hands on the ball? That would keep the coach from seeing that he was the player Shelter Bay had been waiting for.

“We have a new player, transferring in from Southern California. Matthew Templeton. But he likes to be called Matt, right?” he asked.

“Yes, Coach.” It had come up during physics lab, which, thanks to Aimee’s wicked organizational skills, his red team had won, blowing out those loser blues.

“Coach Daniels”—Coach Dillon nodded at the guy with the clipboard—“and I have been watching the films both from the past two seasons, along with those we took during summer camp, and we’ve already got a pretty good idea who’s going to make the roster, and, probably what you’re all waiting to hear, who’s going to be a starter and who’s coming off the bench.”

Looks were exchanged; there was a low murmur of agreement.

“Here’s the thing everyone needs to know. Whatever you did last year is history. I worked with a lot of SEALs while I was doing bomb-disposal work in the military, and those guys have a saying: ‘The only easy day was yesterday.’

“Along with making sure every one of you can repeat Coach Wooden’s fifteen building blocks to success before tip-off of our first game, we’ll be adopting that as our team motto this year.”

“I thought we were Dolphins, not seals,” said a kid Matt recognized as being the one who’d thrown the French fry that started the food fight.

A couple of the guys laughed.

The coach did not. He merely nodded toward the coach with the clipboard, who pulled down the poster board, where that SEAL saying had been painted in Dolphin blue paint on the wall over the door leading out to the court.

More looks were exchanged. Matt realized that some of the guys were worried. As if just maybe this new coach was going to turn out to be tougher than he looked.

“Like I said, it doesn’t matter what your record was last year,” Coach Dillon said.

“Good. Because it was lame,” someone muttered.

“Yeah. It was. But here’s the good thing . . . you’ve nowhere to go but up. It doesn’t matter what your shooting percentage was, the number of steals or assists you made, or even your individual state ranking.”

He looked straight at Matt.

The coach might be the guy in charge, but, not wild about being singled out that way, Matt squared his shoulders and stared back.

“We’re starting with a clean slate. Right here. Right now.” The coach opened an equipment locker and pulled out a bunch of what looked like gardening gloves. “Okay, let’s get out in the gym so you can show me what you’ve got.”

12

A
fter putting them through a series of warm-up exercises, Dillon handed out the gardening gloves, which would challenge their ball-handling ability. Then he set them to dribbling down the court, in and out around the chairs he’d set up earlier, as if they were skiers cutting across moguls.

Every so often he’d shout for the equipment manager to run out onto the hardwood floor and move the chairs closer together, which had some of the players bumping into each other.

All but one.

“Damned if that Templeton kid can’t pivot on a dime,” said Jim Thompson, the JV coach, who also taught AP senior English. “I’ve been watching players come up through the ranks for fifteen years and I’ve never seen anyone like him. He’s freaking unbelievable.”

“He’s good,” Dillon agreed. “At running and dribbling. Let’s see how he is at shooting.”

He blew the whistle, had the kids sit down on the bleachers, then, one at a time, gave each one three minutes to shoot unguarded.

Having never coached before, Dillon had gone to a clinic for high school coaches at OSU in Corvallis before school started. Despite what he kept telling everyone in town about needing more than a single year to turn the basketball program around, his takeaway from the clinic was that ideal shot statistics would be fifty percent field goals, forty percent from three, and, because it was something kids could and should practice on their off time at home, seventy-five percent free throws.

That was the ideal.

Being a realist, and knowing these players, Dillon knew to expect a lot less.

But nothing this bad.

“It’s like they’ve forgotten every damn thing they learned at camp this summer,” he muttered.

“It’s only the first practice,” Jim Thompson reminded him. “Give them time to gel.”

“Easy for you to say.” Dillon shook his head in frustration when his power forward threw up yet another brick. “You’re not the one who’s going to be living on frozen microwave dinners all season because you can’t show your face in any restaurant in town.”

“My wife’s been taking lessons from Chef Maddy,” the JV coach said. “We’re mostly eating at home these days so she can try out recipes.” It was his turn to shake his head as a ball went sailing over the top of the backboard into the end bleachers. “But I know what you mean. . . . Maybe Templeton’s got them spooked.”

Dillon followed the other two coaches’ gazes to the bleachers, where the new kid was sitting all alone. By choice? Or were the other boys cutting him out of the herd? Either was possible. Neither was a good omen.

“What’s the combined percentage?” he asked his assistant coach, who’d painted the SEAL saying over the door yesterday afternoon.

Don Daniels consulted the calculator on his smart-phone. “It’s down a bit from summer. “Thirty-three percent field goals and twenty from three.”

“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me.”

It was a rhetorical question. Don Daniels taught algebra and trig. He could undoubtedly do those percentages in his head. He was also the baseball coach. Since the district budget didn’t allow for assistant coaches, with the basketball season ending in February and baseball beginning in March, Don was able to serve as an unpaid assistant and scorekeeper for Dillon, while Dillon returned the favor.

“I wish I were.” He looked as pessimistic as Dillon felt.

They’d gone through the returning players. Which left them with one guy. “Templeton.” Dillon took a ball from the center coming off the floor and threw it to the Beverly Hills phenom. “Here’s your chance to show us what you’ve got. But before you go out on the floor, tuck your shirt in.”

“It’s not a real game,” the kid countered.

There were strictly enforced rules in high school basketball; playing with your shirt tucked in was one of them.

“That doesn’t matter. I don’t know how they do it in California, but here at Shelter Bay, the coach—who would be me—expects shirts to be tucked in during scrimmages. And, although if you do make the team, I’m not going to spend the entire season explaining myself to you, just this once I will, so you’ll understand I always have a reason when I tell you to do something.

“If you leave your shirt untucked during practice, it screws up your form. So. Tuck. The. Damn. Shirt. In. . . . Now.”

It was obvious from his lowered brow that Templeton wasn’t happy about the criticism, but without another word of argument, he did as instructed.

Dillon didn’t know what type of competition Matthew Templeton had faced back in L.A., but so far he was living up to his press. It was as if the kid had wings on his rubber-soled shoes and a computer in his brain as he proceeded to shoot a dozen layups. First from the right, then the middle, then left of the court.

“Damned if he isn’t ambidextrous,” Jim Thompson said as the kid switched back and forth from his left to his right hand. Again and again, never missing a beat. “If you’re not going to put him on varsity, I could sure use him.”

“As a sophomore, he belongs on JV.” Though his skill set was definitely varsity level. “Let’s see some jump shots. From ten, then twelve feet out,” Dillon called out.

It was the same thing. The pebbled brown ball sailed through the air, right into the hoop.

Swish.

Nothing but net.

“Twenty feet,” Dillon upped the challenge.

It didn’t make a difference.

Swish
from the left. Center. Right. On the rare occasion the ball did hit the rim, Templeton set himself up to recover his own rebound, then
swish
!

“Unbelievable.” Don hit the keypad of his phone again. “While managing to get off twelve percent more shots than the average of what we’ve seen from the entire group of returning varsity players, he just single-handedly pulled you back up to fifty-six percent on field goals. And forty-four on three-pointers.”

Dillon could hear the buzz of conversation behind him on the bench. He glanced back. The kids who were talking did not look all that happy to have a possible savior land in their midst. Others were sitting there quietly dumbfounded, mouths half-open at the shooting exhibition taking place on the court. Only one kid, Johnny Tiernan-St. James, who’d taken Dillon’s clinic at summer basketball camp, seemed to be enjoying the performance.

“No point in wasting time having him shoot free throws, which he can probably make blindfolded,” Dillon decided. “Let’s put him in a scrimmage and see his defensive skills.”

There was no point in having a scoring machine on your team if the other team was still able to outshoot you. Which, from what he’d been able to tell, was pretty much what had happened at Beverly Hills High.

He blew the whistle, motioned Templeton off the court, then had kids line up and call off numbers. “Even numbers will play shirts. Odd, skins.”

He set the assignments, putting Templeton up against Dirk Martin, a returning senior who’d proven to be the best shooter at summer camp. He was also a power player who could plow his way to the basket, drawing fouls from frustrated opponents assigned to guard him.

Not today. Although growth spurts like Templeton’s usually tended to result in a lack of finesse, the sophomore managed to tip the ball away from the older, more experienced player as if he were merely flicking away a fly.

After eight blocked shots in a row, it was obvious the senior was getting frustrated. Dropping his shoulder and using his superior bulk, he barreled forward, trying to force the ball inside.

Not only did Templeton not give an inch, but each time Martin made the move, the kid cut him off and forced him to lose control of the ball.

“He’s definitely a complete player,” Don said.

He’d no sooner said that when, deftly switching from defense to offense, Templeton stole a pass from Martin to Brendan Cooper, another senior. Then, as graceful as a gazelle, he switched hands on the dribble back down the court.

There was some elbowing beneath the basket, and as Martin landed with a thud on his back, Templeton went in for the layup.

Swish.

Dirk flew back up onto his sneaker-clad feet like a rocket. “That’s a fucking foul,” he shouted in Templeton’s face.

“I just brushed your elbow, which was trying to land in my ribs.” Outweighed by probably twenty pounds, Templeton still stood his ground and thrust out his chin. “If you’re looking for an Academy Award nomination for best faked-foul fall by an asshole, then I’ll nominate you.”

“I wasn’t faking.” The senior’s face turned the blazing scarlet of a boiled crab. “You know damn well you charged. And everyone saw you.”

They were standing face-to-face, neither one looking inclined to give an inch.

Dillon had always had a low boredom threshold, one of the reasons he’d enjoyed EOD, where every mission could prove a challenge. He might not make all the fans in Shelter Bay happy by taking his team to state this first season, but at least he wasn’t going to be bored.

Deciding that he should probably intervene before those fists balled at the two players’ sides began swinging and he ended up with a melee on his hands, he blew his whistle, then walked out onto the court, through the semicircle of kids watching the showdown.

The shirts on the even-numbered players were soaked with perspiration, clinging to their bodies. The other players’ skin glistened with sweat. More sweat rolled down all their faces.

“That’s enough. For what it’s worth, I played high school ball in Texas for a real hard-ass of a coach. On away games we’d go to schools where anyone could tell the players ran the place. We’d bitch about how we’d have to run up and down the bleachers whenever we mouthed off or got in a fight with one of our teammates.

“I don’t think there was a single player on the team who didn’t spend four years believing we’d been dealt a lousy hand to land in such a tough program.

“But later on, when I was downrange, crawling on my belly across a field loaded with land mines, working to keep my focus so I didn’t blow up myself and all the other guys around me while taking apart an IED, I was damn grateful for that discipline Coach Randall hammered into me. . . .

“So here’s the deal.
This
team is going to be run by the grown-ups. Shelter Bay players don’t trash-talk with opponents, and they don’t disrespect or get in fights with teammates.”

Dillon didn’t raise his voice. Given the fact that very few, if any, people had grown up in families like the Cosbys or the Waltons, it was logical to assume that some of these kids had learned to tune out yelling.

So he kept his tone quiet. Calm. But firm enough to let everyone know that he damn well meant business.

“Shelter Bay players don’t—ever—argue with an official,” he continued. “Try it and you’ll find yourself suspended from the team so fast you’ll think you’ve been shot into hyperspace.

“The Dolphins may not take state, like a lot of people around here keep talking about, but we
are
going to be a team people look up to. A team admired for our poise on the court and our leadership off the court. Each and every one of you is going to set an example for every student in this school. And for the younger kids, many of whom are your brothers and sisters, who come to the games and dream of someday wearing a Dolphins letterman jacket.

“There will be rules. And I don’t care if you’re Wilt Chamberlain reincarnated—every Dolphin player will be held accountable. And if those rules I just stated are broken, believe me, there
will
be consequences.”

He waved an arm around the gym. “This isn’t
your
court. It’s mine.” He jabbed a thumb against his chest to drive his point home. “And on this court, we play by
my
rules. And the first rule is from Coach Wooden’s handbook—the star of the team is the team.
We
supersedes
me
. The Dolphins will be Coach Wooden’s type of team at all times. On the court and off. Anyone who doesn’t think they can get with the program is invited to leave now.”

He paused. Waited. The only sounds were a few squeaks from sneakers’ toes being rubbed onto the polished wood floor. Not a single player said a word. Or moved to take Dillon up on his offer.

“Good.” He nodded his satisfaction. “Now, go shower, change, and come back here and wait. We’re going to have ourselves a little discussion here; then I’ll talk to each of you individually in my office.”

One of the players tentatively raised his hand.

“Travis,” Dillon recognized the small forward.

“Are you choosing the team today?”

“That’s the plan.”

Everyone exchanged looks.

Dillon knew such a quick decision wasn’t always the case, but he knew all but one of the players from summer camp and had seen all he needed to see. “We’ve got a lot of work to do before our first game,” he said. “No point in wasting time making you all wait around to see who made the cut.”

They’d strutted into the gym like the rock stars they were in their own male teenage minds. Having been there himself, Dillon could empathize. But the way he saw it, no one had hired him to be Mr. Rogers.

“Well,” Jim said as the kids all walked out, far more silently than they’d entered. “That was interesting.”

“You think I was too hard on them?” The way the air had gone out of their sails left Dillon feeling a lot like Voldemort from the
Harry Potter
DVD he had watched while stationed out in the middle of nowhere near the Pakistan border. Though he would’ve preferred an action flick with a lot of explosions, beggars couldn’t be choosers, downrange especially.

Damn. Coaching a bunch of kids was turning out to be a lot tougher than leading troops who’d already been through basic training, where someone else got to yell at them.

“Someone needed to be,” the JV coach assured him. “Pete Houston was a good guy. Everyone in town liked him. Even Ken Curtis, who, if you cut him, probably bleeds Dolphin blue. But it was obvious to everyone that he’d burned out on coaching a long time ago and was mostly just going through the motions until he got enough years in for retirement.”

“No one thought about replacing him?”