by Kara Bietz
“Oh, good lord.” Camille hangs her head in her hands. “It’s a prank, boys. A prank. I’m not asking you to go into battle against Taylor. How can you not see that not pulling a prank is what started the mess with your fathers in the first place? How are you so clueless that you can’t see that? Taylor will just keep escalating and at some point, at some point, they’re going to do something you can’t ignore. Or that the team can’t ignore. And then there will be hurt feelings because y’all are toddlers who cannot handle your emotions and boom… brawl on the football field again. Homecoming canceled.” Camille stands up again, pulling at her hair from the roots. “I swear to y’all if my homecoming is canceled my senior year? You are not going to want to be around me. I’ve got my garter for… for whoever I’m taking all planned out. I’ve ordered a red dress with more sequins on the bodice than all the dresses in the entire Miss Texas pageant. If you can’t guarantee me that I’m going to be marching in the homecoming parade with my sparkliest Guardettes outfit on or accepting my homecoming queen crown and sash on Hartwig Field four weeks from now, then you better just get on out of my room right now because I am about to blow.”
“Whoa,” I whisper under my breath.
“Homecoming is not going to be canceled, Camille. There’s no reason for all the drama,” Julian says, sighing loudly. “You’re letting your imagination get out of hand.”
“Okay, maybe. But can’t you see that this isn’t just about you?” she says to Julian, sitting back down next to him.
Julian hangs his head. “It’s supposed to be about football.”
“It’s supposed to be about tradition!” she almost yells, jumping up again. “What makes you think homecoming is only about football? That’s a pretty narrow vision, don’t you think? The entire school gets involved! Everyone wears mums and garters! There’s a dance! A parade! A king and queen! The alumni have a huge bonfire! Sure, there’s a football game, but this is about so much more than that, Julian. It’s about so much more than just you!”
Camille is completely out of breath, and her face is bright red.
Julian gets to his feet. “But if I’m the one who is supposed to make the decision about what we do, then I’m the one who is going to have to take the fall for it when it all goes to hell! That’s probably the reason my dad didn’t want to do all of this, either!” he yells back.
“Hey, hey, let’s all just calm down a little bit,” I say, trying to ease the tension between the two of them. It doesn’t work.
“Who says it’s going to all go to hell?” Camille shoots back. “This is supposed to be fun, Julian. Fun! Taylor hanging their flag on our flagpole is hardly revolutionary stuff,” she says. “Not exactly going to start World War Three with that, are they?”
“Camille’s right,” I say quietly.
“I thought you were on my side,” he says, angry. “I’ve already told you both that things don’t always go off without a hitch during these pranks. I’m sure Taylor didn’t come to the game twenty years ago prepared for WrestleMania SmackDown, either. People have gotten hurt; some guys lost scholarships. I don’t have the luxury of taking those chances. And I don’t want to get anyone else on the team in trouble, either.”
“I am on your side,” I tell him. “But I’m also on the team’s side. No one is expecting you to have some brilliant plan of attack that involves doing something that’s going to get you into hot water with the administration or get you kicked out of school. It’s okay to plan something harmless. Something small. I think that would be enough to get the team and the alumni off your back. Show them that you do care about what they think. That maybe their traditions aren’t so bad.” I shrug.
The room falls silent after that.
The memory of the newspaper clipping that I saw in the shed drifts through my head. The picture of Julian’s dad and my father loading wrapped Christmas presents into a pickup truck. “What if we did some kind of community service? As a team? After the prank. Give the guys what they want, without getting too out of hand, and still find a way you can honor your dad.”
Julian looks up at me.
“Hey, that’s not a bad idea,” Camille says quietly, bumping Julian gently with her shoulder.
“I could think about that,” Julian says.
I can hear a crowd gathering outside the door in Camille’s kitchen. I know eventually we’re all going to have to come out of the bedroom, but it doesn’t look like Julian ever wants to leave.
“We better show our faces before my mother comes looking for us,” Camille says.
Julian agrees, but he’s the last one to get up and follow us through the door and into the fray. We join the party in the kitchen and on the back patio. Pastor Ernie and Figg are there, and they both give me high fives. There are some faces I recognize from bingo, including Mr. Cooper and Ms. Brownie and a few team members and their families. There are plenty of people I don’t recognize, too. I try to stay either close to Julian and Camille or alone in a corner.
The food is spread out on several tables on the patio. Professor Robles-Garcia made pernil with arroz con gandules, and a huge platter of tostones with an avocado cream sauce that I could eat by the spoonful. Figg tells me that Pastor Ernie made the gumbo with crab legs and he brought the lentils and flatbread, so I make sure I take heaping helpings of both. Before I know it, I’m carrying a plate and a bowl, both piled high with so much food I barely know where to start.
I find a quiet spot outside at a wooden picnic table, and Julian and Camille eventually join me.
“You know you can take more than one trip through the food line, right?” Julian says, dipping a chicken skewer in tzatziki sauce.
“I’m afraid I’ll miss something. And I’ll probably take at least one more trip.” I laugh.
“Yeah, you didn’t even hit the dessert table,” Camille says, peering at my plate.
Neither Camille nor Julian says anything else about the prank for the rest of the evening. The three of us help Professor Robles-Garcia clean up the food tables, and I use that time to take small bites of all the plates I didn’t try the first time around. By the time I get to serving myself a second one of Ms. Brownie’s blondies (I know, right?), I’m glad I’ve worn elastic-waist shorts.
Everyone is quiet on the way home. Ms. Birdie’s banana-pudding bowl was scraped clean, but we’ve still got a few slices of buttermilk pie and some salad in the trunk. Not to mention the leftovers Professor Robles-Garcia put into Ziploc bags for us.
“I hope that’s not a weekly thing,” I say, leaning back on the headrest. “I don’t think my gut can handle it.”
Ms. Birdie laughs. “You’ll learn to pace yourself next time.”
Julian and I help Ms. Birdie bring the dishes in, and then she grabs a paperback and settles into her La-Z-Boy. I let Julian take his shower first, and I sit down with Ms. Birdie in the living room. The creeping realization that tomorrow is Monday started to sneak up on me on the way home from Camille’s, and I’ve had a nervous flutter in my chest ever since.
Between the excitement about the game and then the campout and then the dinner at Camille’s, Monday was the last thing on my mind. I know I have to give Coach Marcus the uniform fee tomorrow, and I don’t have enough left in my wallet to cover it. I don’t have a choice but to ask Ms. Birdie for it, and just the thought of having to do that is making me nauseous.
“Ms. Birdie? Can I ask you a favor?” I say, my stomach in knots.
“What is it, sweetheart?” she asks, putting a bright bookmark in her book and lowering her reading glasses.
“I have to pay Coach Marcus the uniform fee tomorrow, and I don’t have enough to cover it,” I say, embarrassed. I don’t know what else to do, though. I’m afraid if I don’t give him the fee, he’ll bench me until Ma and Frankie get here and I can pay.
“Oh, Elijah, why didn’t you just ask me? Of course, you can borrow. I’ll settle it up with your ma when she gets here. You wipe that worry off your face now,” she says,
standing up.
She disappears down the hall, and I hear her rummaging around somewhere. She returns with three folded twenty-dollar bills, handing them to me.
“Thank you. I’m sorry I had to ask. I’ll make sure I tell Ma that I borrowed, and maybe she can send it in the mail, and you won’t have to wait for her to get here to pay you back.”
“Oh, hush now,” Ms. Birdie says. “I can wait until she’s here. Don’t you worry about that. You just keep doing what you’re doing on that field and we’re going to have us a season, aren’t we?” She laughs.
“Thank you,” I tell her again, tucking the money into my pocket.
“Don’t you keep worrying about it. Focus on that o-line.” She winks.
Julian is still in the bathroom, so I go to my room and text Frankie.
I have never eaten so much in my life
Frankie answers with a vomit face emoji. Ooh! We had soup from a can. Tell me every single detail.
I explain the dishes with as many adjectives as I can while Frankie texts me back drooling emojis and hearts.
Coley misses you. She keeps asking for Uncalijah to read Knuffle Bunny and her pigeon books, she texts.
The school library has a few of those books on the shelves. What if I record myself reading one or two and then you can show her on your phone? I answer.
That would be perfect! She’ll be so excited! Frankie texts back.
I don’t tell her that I broke the news about Coley to Julian. I don’t think she’ll stay mad about it forever or anything; I just need to think of a way to tell her gently. When I hear Julian finish in the bathroom, I tell Frankie good night and text her a picture of me blowing a kiss. She texts one back.
Once I finish washing my face and brushing my teeth, I notice that Julian’s door is already shut and lie down on my bed. I have just leaned over and clicked the lamp off when there’s a soft knock on the door. So soft that I’m not sure I even heard it correctly the first time.
There’s a second knock, a little louder this time. “Come in?”
Julian pushes my door open and whispers, “Hey,” leaning against the door frame. “Can I come in?”
I sit up in bed but don’t turn the light on. “Of course.”
Julian closes the door behind him and sits down on the edge of the bed. Other than the backyard lights peeking through the curtains, the room is dark.
“What’s up? You okay? Is it your ribs again?” I ask, the nearness of him making my heart race a little bit.
“No, I’m feeling better. Since the cayenne and the parsley.” He chuckles softly. “I feel like a pot roast.”
I laugh.
“I just… I wanted to say that I’m sorry again. And thank you… for telling me about Frankie and Coley. Do you have any pictures of her?”
My heart slows down a little, and I grab for my phone on the nightstand. My hand brushes Julian’s, and he grabs it and holds on. I pull up the pictures with my other hand and show him Coley.
“She’s everything to me. I can’t even remember what things were like before she was born,” I tell him. The dark stillness settles between us.
“She’s so adorable,” he says, turning his body sideways on the bed but never letting go of my hand. He’s facing me now, the glow of the phone between us on the bedspread.
“Do you really think we can manage to pull off a prank without getting in trouble?” he says into the quiet.
“I think we probably can,” I tell him. “Camille is on board with helping now, and she’s pretty smart about stuff like that. Social things. Keeping everyone happy.”
“She is,” he says, hanging his head. “I think you are, too.”
I laugh a little, wanting to brush it off, but instead I let the compliment settle in my bones like warm syrup.
“Hey, ’lijah?” Julian whispers.
“Yeah?” I whisper back.
“Thanks for knowing how important it is that I make my dad proud,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say, lacing my fingers through his and squeezing.
“I want you to know that it meant something to me. That moment in the locker room all those years ago. You meant something to me. It… it never stopped meaning something,” he says, his voice whisper-quiet in the shrinking space between us on the bed.
I lean forward and put my lips on his. My hand finds the waistband of his shorts and I rest my fingers there on his hip while my other hand still holds on to his. He puts his other hand around my back, just above my waist.
He breaks away first, leaning his forehead on mine in the dark quiet of my room.
“It never stopped meaning something to me, either,” I tell him.
· twenty-three ·
JULIAN
I don’t sleep much. The feel of Elijah’s lips on mine lingered when I finally left his room to go to bed. I ended up staring at the ceiling for hours, wondering about Coley. Wondering about Frankie. Wondering why he kept his secrets for so long.
I feel like I’ve barely fallen asleep when my alarm goes off in the morning. I slap around on my nightstand for my phone and eventually pull myself out of bed and get dressed.
“I’ve got another meeting with Pastor Ernie this morning,” Ms. Birdie says, dressed and frantically searching for her keys. “You boys want a ride to school today?”
“Another meeting on Main Street?”
Birdie looks at me with kind eyes and puts her hand on the side of my face. “Julian, I promise everything is going to be okay,” she says. “I’m sorry about the building, but I really do think this is best.”
“It was important to Dad,” I say, feeling a strength from somewhere outside of myself. I stand up taller.
“I know it was. It’s very important to me, too,” she says, stroking my cheek with her thumb before planting a kiss on the side of my head. “Trust your old Birdie, okay?”
“I do,” I tell her, even though I don’t fully feel it yet. I wish I had more control over what was going to happen to the old place. All I can do is hope Birdie keeps it. But is that selfish of me? It’s not like I’m going to be around here forever to help her take care of it. A creeping sense of guilt starts to build in my stomach, but I squash it down quickly. Birdie will do what’s best, I tell myself.
“I think we’ll walk,” I tell Birdie. I want a few extra minutes alone with Elijah before we walk to school with Camille.
She meets us at the end of the driveway as usual. The sun is already beating down, and all three of us are hot before we even make it up to Main Street. Elijah’s shoulder bumps into mine, and we share a secret smile. I bump him back gently.
“Hey, wait a minute.” Camille stops us as we turn the corner onto Main.
“What’s up?” Elijah asks.
“I should be asking the two of you that. Is there something going on here? I’ve got instincts about this kind of stuff,” she says, giving both of us serious side-eye.
I share a look with Elijah. The corner of his mouth turns up very slightly, and I can feel the tips of my ears start to burn.
“What’s going on with the two of you?”
I look over at him again, and we both stifle a laugh. I reach for his hand and loop his pinkie in mine. I look Camille in the eye and say, “Oh, nothing.”
She looks down at our hands. “All right, then.” She laughs. “I like this kind of nothing. The two of you have been fighting this nothing for way too long. I’m happy to see that nothing is happening, finally.”
We walk the rest of the way to school like that, our pinkies linked together. We talk about the prank and try to come up with a few simple ideas that won’t get anyone into trouble, but none of them sound good enough.
“We’ll think of something. Write them down or text them to me if you have any ideas during the day,” I say as we turn into the Crenshaw driveway.
I spend almost the entire day thinking about the prank. How can I do something that will make the guys happy, and make sure we’re not letting down all the dads a
nd uncles and grandpas, while still keeping our asses out of trouble? We don’t need whatever we do blasted across the internet for the whole world to judge.
And I’m not going to lie, kissing Elijah is taking up a huge amount of my brain, too. If I think about it hard enough, I can almost feel his lips on mine again. I know I have to try to push it out of my head so I can get through the school day without failing every single class, but all I want to do is daydream about it and plan when I can kiss him again. I’m finding secret hiding spots in every hallway I’m walking in, and inevitably my thoughts turn back to kissing Elijah. Over and over and over again in one of those secret spots.
I spend so much brainpower thinking about both these things that I miss turning in my homework assignment in calculus and have to backtrack during lunch to find Figg.
“Hey, I’m glad you’re here. I forgot to ask you last night if you could come over after practice this afternoon and cut the front grass. We’re looking a little shaggy at Casa de Ernie and Figg.” He laughs, pulling leftovers from last night’s potluck from his blue lunch box.
“Absolutely,” I say. “And, hey, I’m sorry I spaced out in class. Here’s my homework.”
“That’s not like you to forget to turn things in. You doing okay? You seemed okay yesterday,” Figg says, digging a spoon out of his box and tucking a napkin into his shirt collar.
I just shake my head and grind my teeth. I don’t know if I can talk about all this with Figg again. He always has outstanding advice, but sometimes I feel like I lean on him too much. “Eh, you don’t want to hear about all of this stuff.”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t care about it, Julian,” he says, chuckling. “You know you can talk to me. Always got time for you.”
“It’s still this prank business,” I say, sitting down and pulling a bag of granola bites and a yogurt from my bag.
“Oh? I thought I heard that you were going to try to stop that from happening this year?”
“Pressure from the guys,” I say. “Not to mention Camille. I guess a bunch of the guys went to her to complain about me when I tried to stop it all. I don’t want the team to hate me. Especially over something so ridiculous.”