by Alex Light
I followed as the crowd trickled from the bleachers and over to the locker room doors, waiting for the players. The night was cool, with stars covering the entire sky like a blanket. I tugged Brett’s jersey around me a little tighter to get rid of the goose bumps running along my arms. I was bouncing on my heels, rubbing my hands together to stay warm, when the door finally opened and Brett walked out. Our eyes locked and I expected him to be smiling, not looking sad. His eyes were searching the crowd as he walked toward me.
“You were great,” I said lamely when he was in front of me.
It was like the words weren’t even registering in his brain.
“Have you seen my parents?” he asked, frantically searching the crowd.
He didn’t even look at the jersey I was wearing or comment on my cheering.
“No.” I began looking around, as if I’d even recognize them.
“My dad said he’d be here tonight. I haven’t seen him. Or my mom.” He was mumbling to himself at this point, eyes still scanning.
“I’m sure they’re here somewhere, Brett. Text them?”
“Right.” He nodded and pulled out his phone. A minute later his face fell.
“What is it?”
“She said my dad had to stay in New York longer. He won’t be home till Monday.” His fist clenched when he said this, and I didn’t miss the way he shoved his phone into his pocket like he was mad at it.
I couldn’t understand why he was so angry. His dad missed one game. So what? My dad had missed half my life and I wasn’t snapping at people because of it.
This didn’t seem like a good time to say that, though.
“He’ll be at your next one,” I offered.
“I guess. Do you need a ride home?” He looked at me then for the first time, his eyes going down to the jersey. “You wore it.” Smallest of smiles. “It looks good on you.”
I pulled at the hem self-consciously. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“For the ride or the compliment?”
“Both?”
Brett grabbed my hand then and led me through the crowd. We were making our way toward the parking lot; I could see his car parked in the corner. He didn’t make small talk this time, and I had a feeling he was still upset about his dad. When we arrived at his car and were sitting inside, I tried again.
“About your dad,” I began, “he’s really never missed a game?”
Brett began to drive, a little faster than normal. “Never.”
“What about your mom? Do they come together?”
“Yeah. She said she didn’t want to come alone tonight.”
“So what would have happened if they came?”
He glanced at me quickly, then back to the road. “What do you mean?”
“Like . . . Would you have introduced me to them as your girlfriend or something?” I asked, trying to keep his mind off his dad’s absence.
Brett laughed, reaching over to flick my knee. “Probably, yeah. I already told my dad about you, remember? He would have wanted to meet you.”
For the record, he had not told me that.
“You’ve really never had a girlfriend before?”
“Never.”
“That’s weird,” I whispered so he wouldn’t hear.
We drove past two traffic lights before Brett spoke again. “I know what you’re trying to do, Becca. It’s not working.”
I rolled down the window, letting in the air. “And what’s that?”
“Trying to make me forget about the bakery yesterday. And how you stood me up during the rally.”
I felt my face heat up just thinking about it. “For the second time, I didn’t stand you up! I was going to study before my mom called. And believe me, the interrogation I went through that night was punishment enough.”
“Interrogation?”
“My mom may be your new number one fan.”
“Your mom doesn’t even know me,” he said.
“Isn’t that how it works? Everyone knows bits and pieces about you and loves you anyway?” Now Brett gave me this funny look, his eyebrows drawn together. “What? You’re an enigma.”
“A what?”
“An enigma,” I repeated. “Do you even pay attention in English class? It means a puzzle, a mystery. Whatever.”
He was smiling when we pulled into my apartment building.
“I’m not a mystery,” he said, “people just make assumptions and no one bothers to find out the truth. That’s it.”
With the moonlight slanting across Brett’s face, this entire conversation had taken a sad turn. Uncomfortable and never being very good with talking about deep stuff, I opened the door and began to get out of the car. Brett’s hand wrapped around mine, stopping me.
“Your bag,” he said, reaching across the car and picking it up. “Why is this so heavy?” When his hand began to reach inside, I shrieked and tried to pull it away. Too late. Brett was holding my book.
I coughed. Pretended to look confused. “Wow. How did that get in there?”
“You brought a book to my football game,” he said, all serious and offended.
I looked over my shoulder, pretending someone was calling me. “I did not.”
I was telling so many lies lately I could barely keep track.
Brett placed it back in my bag and handed it to me. At this point I was half in and half out of the car. My back was beginning to hurt.
“Was being at the game that bad?” he asked.
This time, I was honest. “Not at all. I kind of liked it.”
“So no book next time?” He was giving me puppy eyes.
I caved. “No book next time.”
I waved goodbye and was halfway to the doors when Brett called my name. The window was rolled down, his head sticking out of the car like a dog. “What are you doing tomorrow?” he yelled.
I had this irrational fear my mother would hear this conversation from eleven floors up and come barging outside like a shark smelling blood. I shushed him and quickly ran to the car. “Nothing. Study—”
“Studying for calculus. I know. What else?”
I blew out a breath, thinking. “That’s it.” Pause. “I have a very intense social life.”
Brett laughed, and it was like whatever heaviness weighing him down earlier was entirely gone. “Do you want to hang out tomorrow? There’s something I want to show you.”
I felt my face scrunch up. “Is this, like, a date? For show or something?” I didn’t want this relationship to start taking up my weekends too. A five-day school commitment was enough. Plus my Friday nights!
He shook his head. “Not this time. Just two friends, together. You said I was a mystery. Right?” I nodded. “Then let me show you I’m not. It doesn’t make much sense if my own girlfriend doesn’t know anything about me.”
He made a good point.
“I know you like football.”
“I like other things too.”
“Like what?”
“Come with me tomorrow and find out,” he said, grinning.
The guy was good. I’ll give him that.
“Pick me up at two,” I said. Then I ran inside before my mom could look out the window and spot us together.
Brett
I WAS TEN MINUTES LATE to Becca’s apartment. I was still obsessing over my dad and spent almost an hour trying to call him. Where was he? Even my mother said she hadn’t heard from him since yesterday. What was he doing that was so important he couldn’t text either of us back? I told myself he was busy, probably in another meeting—or maybe he got an early flight to come home tonight. It would justify why he wouldn’t call, and it was easier to think of than him simply forgetting.
But my dad didn’t forget. So there had to be an explanation for all of this.
I ended up going to the gym in the morning with Jeff just to get my mind off it. He wasn’t any help. When I told him about my dad, he blew up, said it wasn’t a good idea to idolize people because they can never live up to your expectations
. But this wasn’t a celebrity or some random person in a magazine. This was my dad, and there had to be a reason why he didn’t show up. I only hoped everything was okay.
Either way, I was pretty sure Jeff was pissed at me. Which wasn’t unusual. He had a rough time at home, watching his sister while his parents worked around the clock, so sometimes his frustration boiled up and I happened to be in the line of fire. I wasn’t mad. He’d apologize on Monday and we’d be cool again, back to talking about football.
Now I was waiting in my car for Becca to come outside, preferably with something for me to eat from her mom’s bakery. When she finally walked out a minute later, a brown paper bag in hand, I wasn’t disappointed. She was smiling when she opened the door, and I realized that this—the two of us hanging out—could be a new kind of normal.
“Afternoon,” she said, waving the bag in front of me. “I brought you a surprise.”
I was already feeling better.
“Cupcakes?” I asked, sniffing.
“No. It’s better than that.” I reached for the bag and she pulled it away, stuffing it into the side of the door before I could reach it. “It’s for later,” she explained. “If I like what we do today, you can eat it.”
“And if you don’t like it?”
She smiled. Maybe the biggest one yet. “Then you can watch me eat it.”
I started driving through town with purpose then. The good thing about living in Crestmont, a town with under ten thousand people, was that it’s so small you could drive through the entire thing in less than ten minutes. We had one high school, one church, one gym, one theater—pretty much one of everything. There were a few run-down hotels and diners lining the interstate for travelers stopping for the night. And it was always one night. People passed through Crestmont like a revolving door. No one wanted to stay. Unless you were born here and had no other choice.
I planned on leaving after high school. Getting a football scholarship in another city with hundreds of thousands of people, where there were more streets than you could count on one hand. Coach said scouts would start coming to our football games now, to scope out the talent. And I wanted the talent to be me. I needed a one-way ticket out of here. More important, I wanted my dad to be at my games and witness it—witness me living out his dream like he intended.
Like she could sense my thoughts, Becca said, “Have you heard from your dad yet?”
I liked the way she asked that. There was no judgment. Unlike Jeff.
“Not yet,” I said, turning off Main Street and onto a side road. The ground was gravel and we were bumping along. Becca opened her window and the humidity crept in, making my T-shirt stick to my skin. She didn’t say anything else about the situation, which was for the best. I was over thinking about it.
I made a sharp left and pulled into a parking lot. There was a pharmacy, a convenience store, a post office, and—
“The old arcade?” Becca asked, leaning forward to look out the windshield. The sun was right above the building and we were both squinting.
“The old arcade,” I said. A few of the neon letters had burned out, so the sign read ARC. From the outside, it looked run-down. There was no open sign or cars in the parking lot. Someone driving through town would think this place was a dive, that it had closed a decade ago. But they’d be wrong. And that was the cool thing about Crestmont. That it had all this secret charm that was known only to the people who grew up here. Like if you scraped off enough of the dirt, there’d be a shiny diamond waiting underneath.
“I haven’t been here since I was a kid,” Becca was saying to herself while we walked to the door. The town was so quiet today—there was no wind, no cars driving by. All I could hear was the crunch of gravel beneath our feet and the rustle of the paper bag Becca had gripped between her fingers.
I held the door open, we stepped inside, and the air-conditioning blasted us. It was one of the greatest feelings. We both stood there for a second, cooling down. Then I grabbed Becca’s hand and pulled her through the second set of automatic doors and into the arcade. I didn’t grab her hand for show either. There was no one here to lie to. I was starting to do it out of habit.
The arcade was exactly like I remembered it. Dimly lit, with rows and rows of games. There was the counter to our left, with a wall of prizes to trade tickets for. There were stuffed animals and plastic jewelry on display, and the air smelled like grease, popcorn, and a little like pot. I heard Becca gasp. Her eyes were wide open.
“I thought this place closed down years ago,” she said, scanning the room. “I had my birthday party here when I was seven. I hit the jackpot on that Wheel of Fortune game.”
Samson stood up from behind the counter then, eyes half-closed and red. Well, that explained the smell. “Wells?” he called, staring at the two of us.
“Hey, Sam.” I walked to the counter and shook his hand. He looked older than he had last time I was here, more gray hair and wrinkles around his eyes. He was diagnosed with cancer a few years back and the arcade had closed while he was undergoing treatment. It reopened last summer when he was cancer free. I’d come in from time to time to check on it while he was in the hospital, make sure no kids were breaking in and playing without paying. I stopped coming by since the reopening. Until today.
“Feels like I ’aven’t seen ya in years,” he said, thick accent replacing all the h’s. Then his attention shifted over to Becca. “And ’o’s this?”
She held out her hand. “Becca. It’s nice to see you again. I had no idea this place was still open.”
Samson nodded, pulling out two bags of tokens from under the counter and handing one to each of us. “It would ’ave closed if it weren’t for this man right ’ere,” he said, smiling at me. “You two ’ave the entire place to ya’selves. Enjoy.” I paid for the tokens, thanked him, and followed Becca.
“What did he mean that this place would have closed without you?” Becca whispered when we were out of earshot. I briefly explained Samson’s illness, but didn’t really want to get into how I watched the place. Becca gave me this confused look, like she was trying to decipher a code or something, then walked right up to the racing game. There were two seats, red and blue, with matching steering wheels. She was eyeing the blue one.
“Let’s play,” I said, taking a seat on the red one. She sat down on the blue, slowly. “Something wrong?”
“I don’t know how to drive.”
I immediately started to laugh until I was doubled over, resting my head on the steering wheel. When I saw that she was being completely serious, glaring at me, I cleared my throat and straightened up.
“Oh. You’re being serious?” She nodded. “This isn’t like real driving, Becca. You’ll be fine. Look.” I grabbed her hands and placed them at ten and two on the wheel. “Spin it like this to turn right, then left. Yeah, just like that. The brake is the big one. Got it?”
She was concentrating so seriously. It was kind of cute.
“Brake is the big one,” she repeated. “Got it. Put some tokens in. And Brett?”
I dropped in two tokens and hit the start button. “Yeah?”
“Don’t let me win,” she said, pointing a finger at my chest. “I mean it. Don’t be all chivalrous. It’s rude.”
I tried to make sense of that. “You’re saying being respectful is rude?”
She was staring at the screen, hands on the wheel. “In this situation, yes.”
“Got it, ma’am.”
The game started. Becca was horrible. She spent half of the first lap driving backward. When she managed to turn the car around, she was driving on the grass and running into buildings. She may have hit a person or two. Definitely a few mailboxes. It was physically painful for me to win each lap and not at least try to help her out but, like she said, chivalry is dead when it comes to gaming. So I finished that third lap with a smile on my face. I threw my fist in the air too. Just to show her how respectful and aware I was of her lack of talent.
“Jeez. Y
ou can tone it down a little,” she grumbled, staring at the screen showing the match replay. It was footage of her hitting a tree.
We moved on to the next game. It was a huge wheel divided into different sections, each with a prize amount. The jackpot was one thousand tickets and the smallest was five. I spun it first—I was shocked the wheel didn’t break because of how old it looked—and landed on one hundred. Becca went next. The arrow landed on five hundred. She pulled the tickets out happily, eyeing me the entire time with this smirk on her face, like she was making up for sucking at the racing game. I stuffed our tickets into my pocket and we moved on to the next game. This time, it was Skee-Ball. It was a large table with a ramp and holes in the upper half. Each had a different ticket amount. The point was to grab a ball, roll it across the table, and have it bounce into one of the different holes. The smaller the hole, the greater the prize.
“Let’s make this interesting,” I said, handing Becca the first ball. “If you get a ball in, you get to ask the other person a question. You said you wanted to get to know me better, right? Here’s your chance.”
“So this is like the Skee-Ball version of twenty questions?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
Becca nodded, squaring her shoulders and cracking her neck. “Let’s do this.” She rolled the first ball and into the hole it went. The smallest one too, right in the middle.
I whistled, watching her grin spread. “Impressive. Ask away.”
She sat on the edge of the ramp, glancing up at me. “What’s your connection with this place? You seem really close with Samson,” she said, nodding toward the counter.
“I worked here when I was fifteen, just for the summer,” I explained.
“But I thought your family . . .” Was rich, was what she meant but didn’t say. She looked uncomfortable, chewing on her lip.
I shrugged, gesturing for her to stand so I could take my turn. “My family is well off, sure. But this was my favorite place as a kid. It was the only real time my dad and I spent together that didn’t involve a football. So when I saw that Sam needed the help, I volunteered. He couldn’t pay me for most weeks so I just played the games for free and ate loads of popcorn. It was pretty sweet.” I rolled the ball, missed, and handed the next one to Becca. She was giving me that confused, who-are-you face again. “Your turn.”