“I’m calling from the university library in Charlottesville. I came to check it out and to get admissions materials.” The news was both stunning and gratifying. The sheer ordinariness of what Emily was doing in the midst of her situation was amazing. At the same time, Yuki had long dreamt of helping her make choices like this one.
“Is that where you want to go? What will you study?”
“I don’t know yet, Mom. I wish I could talk it all over with you. But we have so little time.” Yuki sighed. She felt so cut off from the life of her child, so deprived of the joys of motherhood, and yet so relieved to hear about her resolve.
“Honey, we have to talk about all of this. There’s so much to consider. We have to find a way.” The two of them stretched out the call as long as they dared, and she promised to call again soon.
Emily found the guys waiting for her lounging across the front steps of the library. Although they’d enjoyed wandering around campus for the last hour, looking at dorms, the gym, the main quad outside the Rotunda, they were pretty bored by this point. More urgently, Wayne looked hungry.
“Hey, guys. How long you been here?” she asked, clearly relieved to be able to put the events of the last hour or so behind her.
“Not long,” said Danny. “How about you? Did you talk to the admissions people?”
“Yes,” she said truthfully, and glad to be able to speak the truth again. “Plus, look at all the stuff they gave me,” she crowed waving a large envelope in front of them.
“Lemme see,” said Billy, reaching the envelope.
“I’m hungry,” moaned Wayne. “Anyone feel like eating?”
“Me, too,” said Danny.
“The food in the student center sucks,” said Emily. “But the Admissions people told me about a pretty good Greek place a couple of blocks this way.”
“Let’s go,” roared Wayne, and off they went.
It was a relief for Emily to be heading away from the part of campus where Meacham’s people were. Michael was probably right that the attack meant he didn’t know she was Yuki’s daughter. Also, it was possible he didn’t know what her living arrangements were, or even that she was trying to finish high school. She suspected this was true of Burzynski as well, but was a little less confident on this point.
They ate Greek and middle eastern food, and then bummed around the big city for a few hours. Everything was bright and shiny compared to Warm Springs or Goshen. They were all very impressed. Suddenly the meaning of going away to college had a specific, concrete significance for each of them, even Danny. College meant independence, freedom, in an exciting new place. Later, Emily collected her bike and her new truck and headed home. She was exhausted by the time she got there, and fell soundly asleep almost immediately.
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Chapter 13: The Big Game
Well, maybe it wasn’t the “big” game. To be precise, it was really just another game, an away game, down in New Castle, against the Craig County High School Rockets. But Wayne wanted to go see it, and Emily thought it would be good to see her friends in action. She’d never been to a football game before. Of course, Wayne went to all the home games. He was especially looking forward to explaining the game to her. When Billy heard she was coming he got her a Chargers football shirt. It was bright orange. Emily wondered what she could wear with it. This was all new to her, not just the football game, but also wondering how to match clothes in an outfit. In the end, she decided just to wear it under her new UVA hoodie with some old cargo pants. In other words, back to her old style camo. Except for all the orange.
Emily picked up Wayne around ten. Because of the long weekend, the game was held a little earlier than usual, at noon. The ride to New Castle took about an hour and a half. They drove on winding mountain roads through the Jefferson National Forest. The trees were losing their autumn colors, but it was still a glorious landscape. She knew the roads back here well, the trails less so.
She had explored much of this area with her father the previous summer. They hiked back here for weeks. It was one of their more rigorous “survivalist” trips. They brought no food or water with them. Just sleeping bags, some empty bottles, the usual camp tools and a sling shot. Emily had wanted to bring a bow, but her father said no. He claimed it would require a special license and he didn’t want to take the trouble. Of course, she knew that wasn’t the real reason. He had a Sportsman’s License already. He always had one no matter what. She also thought it was extremely unlikely a Ranger would ever find them back in the woods. He just wanted to make her learn how to use the slings. And she got to be pretty good with both kinds, though she preferred a sling to the sling shot. She didn’t manage to bring down any game with either one, but she got good enough to hit a stationary target from fifty feet even with the sling. One side effect of this training: she noticed little round rocks on the ground. When she checked her pockets at the end of a day, she often found one or two, even if she couldn’t recall picking them up. The best, she thought, were about the size of a peach pit, though rocks about the size of a chicken egg would go further in the sling.
Wayne rambled on about the rules of football the whole way down. Apparently, each team is really composed of two separate teams that take turns wrestling their opponents for control of the ball. That part sounded dreary enough, but it seemed likely that every once in a while, one player would break out from the melee with the ball and everyone else would chase after him and try to bring him down. This might prove to be quite exciting for everyone involved. Running away with the ball, she gathered, was Danny’s role on the team. Another possibility was that someone might back away from the crowd and hurl the ball to a teammate running in the other direction. Wayne explained that it was Billy’s job to see that the other team did not succeed in this effort. Emily wasn’t deeply interested in the trivialities of this arcane game. But she was very interested in seeing her friends prove themselves on a suitable field of glory.
In this case, the field was on the south end of town, a couple of blocks from the school. There were no stands, just a big open field ringed by trees. Most people brought folding lawn chairs or blankets and watched the game from the sidelines. About four hundred people were in attendance, mostly from New Castle. But a few dozen Bath County supporters came down as well. They were mainly clustered on one side of the field, behind the benches where their team sat. Almost all of them were wearing orange. Emily fit right in with this group. The team arrived about an hour early in a couple of school buses, along with a small marching band and cheerleaders. The bands from each school got to perform before the game and briefly at half time. Emily found it charming that the game provided an occasion for all sorts of displays of student interests. The cheerleading squad was perhaps a bit more mystifying. They wore bright orange outfits somehow coordinated with the uniforms the team wore, and carried orange and black pompoms as well as enormous colored cones. At various breaks in the game they would yell slogans through the cones and perform intricate gymnastic stunts. Their athleticism was impressive, though oddly derivative. Emily couldn’t fathom its purpose. She supposed that was true of the football game itself, too. But the game involved a struggle with opponents, however contrived it might really be, which both sides took very seriously. Here, at least, there seemed to be an opportunity to achieve something noteworthy, perhaps even to be justly celebrated for it by the people watching.
Wayne had brought a couple of lawn chairs for them to sit in, which he placed a bit to one side of the field. While he was setting up the chairs, and chatting with other kids, Emily wandered over to the refreshment stand and got a couple of sodas and three hot dogs, two for Wayne and one for her. By the time she returned, Wayne had become the center of the contingent from Bath County, about fifteen teenagers. They all looked familiar. Emily knew some of their names, but she didn’t really know them personally. She sat down next to Wayne and handed him his hot dogs. He wolfed the first one down in two bites--“Thanks, Em”--and then paused
to contemplate the second one. She took a couple of little bites of hers. It wasn’t exactly the taste treat she had been led to expect. She wished she had put more condiments on it, and got up to go back to the stand.
As she walked away she heard a lot of chatter and even a couple of howls. She looked over her shoulder and saw Wayne with a blushing big smile on his face playfully pushing a couple of guys away. She smiled as she thought about it. Wayne was not often the center of social attention. He obviously enjoyed being seen with her, and she just liked being around such a big, kind soul. There would probably be some innocent gossip as a result of this afternoon, but she didn’t mind. She had never given a fig for anyone’s opinion of her before. She was certainly not going to start now. She even wondered if the gossip played some important role in bringing kids together and apart. Like a game of “telephone,” idle social chatter was a way to see one’s self in the social world through the eyes of others. It could be harmful or harmless, she supposed, but not because it was true or false. It was always sort of false, as all projections of one’s inner life onto the social world must necessarily be. But it was also a means of developing and unfolding one’s self, of expanding one’s possibilities. So she didn’t mind that the other kids were confused about the true dimensions of her relationship with Wayne, or that he obviously took no trouble to disabuse them of their error. She was even amused by it. She liked Wayne.
She was also quite surprised by how many of the other kids wanted to say her name, to ask her questions, to tell her their opinions. She enjoyed their attention and reflected it back toward them. She asked about them, about their plans, their hopes and desires. She told them about her generic plan to go to college somewhere, but tried not to say too much. One of the girls who was there, Wendy Williams, was particularly interested in getting to know her. She was a goth, which meant she dressed much like Emily used to, though in more somber colors, and she had some piercings and favored dark makeup. During the game, she made a big show of not being interested in what was happening on the field. She said she was only there because her brother was on the team. But it was easy to see that she very much enjoyed the occasion, even if she pretended to be above it all.
The paradox of Wendy’s demeanor caught Emily’s curiosity. She pushed herself to the margin of social life, but still longed to be included, even if she couldn’t admit it to herself. She had come with a couple of other goths, but clearly had no interest in hanging around them. Emily found her intriguing. She was smart and pretty, but trapped in a rather self-defeating form of social behavior. She defined herself almost entirely by what she disapproved of, rather than by anything she actually wanted to accomplish. By contrast, Emily was determined to achieve a normal social life, to extricate herself from the web of deadly intrigue that had engulfed her family, but as yet had not been able to articulate any genuinely specific goals. The end result was that she ended up seeming to the other kids to be just like Wendy and her friends, at least before she started wearing Andie’s clothes. The thought occurred to her that it might be good to get to know Wendy a little bit better.
The lawn chairs proved to be superfluous once the game started. Everyone stood along the sidelines in groups to cheer their team on. Danny had a frustrating day. He was tackled before he could go anywhere on almost every play, while the other team seemed to run all over their defense. But on one play toward the end of the first half, Danny managed to break free from the scrum. He burst through the left side, pushed one defender aside, ran straight over another and went the length of the field for a score. Everyone in orange went wild. Even Emily, and Wendy too. He had two more long runs in the second half and scored once more. Billy struggled in the first half against the players he was matched up against. They were mostly quite a bit taller, and could catch balls thrown over his head. But he was quite a bit faster and didn’t let anyone past him with the ball. In the second half, he stepped in front of a receiver and intercepted the ball. Later, he scooped up a fumble and ran it in for a score. Emily and Wayne cheered louder than anybody on that play. Billy saw her on the side line and made a mock-ceremonial bow in her direction. Wendy noticed and teased her.
“Aren’t you the social butterfly,” she said. “I had no idea you were so popular with the football team.” Emily laughed and smiled, but said nothing.
Unfortunately, it was all heroics in a losing cause. Craig County High won by two touchdowns. They were bigger and faster at most positions this year. But at least there were a few highlights the Bath County contingent could console themselves with. Emily hardly noticed the final score at all. Sure, somebody won and somebody lost. That was inevitable, but it wasn’t what really mattered in her mind. The game was just an occasion for her friends to grapple and to achieve. The fact that they were facing a bigger, stronger opponent only made their successes that much sweeter. As she saw it, everyone who played that day forged a little bit of character, developed themselves in the struggle, and were that much the better for it. But none more so than her friends!
Afterwards, while Wayne was over by the benches congratulating the guys, Wendy plumped down in his chair.
“Emily, how come we’ve never hung out before? What’s it been, like three and a half years and I barely know you.”
“I’ve been kind of a loner. I hardly know anyone,” Emily replied wistfully.
“Yeah, right!” Wendy snorted. “Everyone here knows you, or wants to know you.”
“Yeah, I noticed. I was kind of surprised by that myself.”
“We should go do something one of these days. Whaddya think?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure. I was thinking of going for a ride up in these mountains tomorrow. Wanna come along?”
“I’m not really a nature person, if ya know what I mean,” Wendy hedged.
“It’ll be fun, you’ll see,” Emily persisted. “I’ll pick you up at ten, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Why not?” Wendy replied uncertainly, perhaps a little worried as to exactly what she’d gotten herself into.
On the ride back to Warm Springs, Wayne could hardly stop crowing over Danny and Billy. He was completely taken by their exploits. The only other thing he could talk about was how much smaller this new truck was. In fact, it was a little tight on him.
“I liked your old truck better, Em,” he ventured. “It fit me better.” Emily laughed.
“This one’s better for going off road,” she said only half seriously.
She glanced over at him and saw how tightly he was packed in on his side, and smiled. He gave her one of those looks that said he was well acquainted with all the ways an ill-fitting world might pinch. Then they both started laughing. He had a way of communicating with facial expressions that just seemed to strike a chord with her. Hardly anyone got Wayne the way she did.
As they were passing through Covington, Wayne persuaded her to swing by an ice cream stand for a snack. He got a big cone with sprinkles. She got a fruit sorbet. They parked in the library lot by the river and sat down on a bench. From that vantage they could see past some empty fields across the river to the mountains in the distance. Wayne was very fond of rivers and lakes. He didn’t want to get wet. He just liked being near large bodies of moving water, and sometimes speculated that the evaporation cleared his sinuses. Emily thought it was because he had a liquid soul, flexible and soft, no hard edges, but still capable of great forcefulness.
“Tell me the truth, Emily,” he began in a serious tone. “Do you really know what you’re gonna do next year?”
“Wayne, I’m not even sure about next week.” She spoke truthfully, even more than Wayne could possibly realize at the moment.
“Me neither,” he confessed. “But you seem so together, like you’ve got everything under control.”
“I know I’m going to college, but I don’t know much more than that. I may even end up taking a year off first. The one thing I know is that I can’t stand still.”
She was speaking as candidly as she thought she co
uld. Wayne’s anxieties about college were almost a perfect mirror image of hers, she thought. She had to keep moving to create a safe future for herself, while Wayne only wanted to stay safe at home. Going away to college clearly terrified him. She was afraid of staying put too long, of letting her pursuers catch up to her. But she had to stay put, to finish high school, in order to move on. The irony of her predicament reminded her of those Chinese finger traps: if you try to pull your fingers out they grab on tighter. The only way out involves pushing your fingers further into them.
“I think I want to wait a little bit, too,” Wayne said with relief. “My mom keeps pushing me to do the applications. But I’ve got no idea how to choose. And how the hell is any school gonna want me?”
“Come on, Wayne. Don’t be ridiculous,” said Emily. “Lots of schools’ll want you. It’s not about who you are right now. Just tell ‘em who you want to be. That’s what they want to know.”
“I don’t know what I want, Em,” he replied. It would be hard not to see how much distress he was in.
“Don’t worry, big guy, it’ll come to you,” she said with a little laugh. “There’s still plenty of time to figure it out.”
She looked him in the eye as she spoke. Wayne had never looked so directly at her before. Of course, he had long been dazzled by her, was perhaps almost afraid of her. What he saw now, at the bottom of her black eyes, was a deep reservoir of human sympathy. He also saw something darker that he recognized from the dojo. It gave him a bit of a shiver, but in the end only confirmed the sympathy he felt. It had a remarkable calming effect on him.
“Thanks, Em,” Wayne said with a deep smile.
At times, he had indulged the fancy that he had a crush on her, until now. She was beautiful, exciting, cool. How could he not be infatuated? But what he saw in her eyes was deeper than that. He didn’t quite know how to articulate it, but on some level he understood that a crush was a ridiculous misapprehension of what Emily had come to mean to him. Friend was the closest word he had for what she really was. He thought that she may well be the most important friend he would ever have. But that meant a confession was in order.
Girl Fights Back (Go No Sen) (Emily Kane Adventures) Page 12