by Andrea Cale
He silently scanned the short prose before reading it aloud to the class of his harshest critics. Henry read the piece with perfect rhythm and diction, just as Teach knew he would. The man couldn’t help but wonder whether Henry’s red-and-gold Falcons sweatshirt was life’s funny prediction at the winner while Henry, a boy his grandmother lovingly called the best autumn news she ever received, wondered if the poem’s title was a sign.
“Anyway, easy question, but who can tell me what a couplet means?” Teach asked.
Teach’s voice trailed off in Henry’s head as the boy knew he was safe from being called on again for a while. His mind immediately searched for a topic that mattered to him. It was a dilemma that would preoccupy him for the rest of the school day, helping to silence the kids yelling “Polly Ester” later that afternoon in the same singsong rhythm as “Yankees Su-uck,” a phrase one of the bullies heard his father chant during many Red Sox-Yankees games. Not even his best and only friend could easily break Henry’s focus.
“Hey, Henry, wait up. Are you OK?”
“Polly Es-ter.”
“Hey, Oscar. Yeah, what’s up?”
“Polly Es-ter.”
“Um, nothing, Henry. Hey, do you want to hang out this afternoon?”
“Well, I can’t today. Maybe tomorrow? I have to, uh, help my grandmother with something. There’s her car. Gotta run. See you tomorrow, Oscar.”
Inside the apartment, Henry barely had his winter coat off before fetching his journal from beneath his pillow and bringing the composition book into the living room to get straight to work. His grandmother was happily humming an Irving Berlin tune in the kitchen. It made the boy think about how older people’s singing sounded like an old-fashioned movie. Her voice was shaky and polished at the same time.
Within the modest kitchenette, his grandmother often made dinner the moment they got back from the school, insisting the boy must be hungry from a day of work and play. On this special afternoon, she was cooking Henry’s favorite: spaghetti with meatballs from a can and toasted white bread and margarine with Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. “Grandma’s Specialty,” as the family called it, was not a dish of which Misty approved as there was nothing green in it, but the elder woman worried only about the genesis of the boy’s mood on the previous day, and sought to bring him some comfort.
As Henry busily worked in his notebook, jotting down a variety of ideas for topics, his grandmother was already feeling less worried in the kitchen.
“I like when you work out he-ah instead of bein’ holed up in that room of yours,” she said. “I get to see ya handsome face. Is my singin’ botherin’ ya schoolwork?”
“No,” Henry said.
She walked into the living room to cover him with the crocheted multicolored blanket that she had made years ago. It was a piece well worn in an apartment that was kept at 65 degrees during the frigid months, when the average cost of gas heat for their two-bedroom apartment totaled $220 a month.
Between his grandmother’s humming, the smell of her simple comfort food, the warmth of her blanket, and the hope of getting to witness his dream, Henry was in grand spirits.
His grandmother clinked ice cubes into a fizzing glass as she poured Henry’s favorite orange soda, purchased earlier that day. She gave Henry a big grin. He gave one back, realizing that the perfect subject of his poem had been in front of him all along. The subject wouldn’t be cool or popular with his classmates, but it might just win him the tickets to the best game of his life.
CHAPTER 27
MAXINE
The Lonely One
For only the second time in her professional career, Maxine found herself on an airplane ride to an assignment. The photographer watched with envy as the other business passengers on the small plane fell asleep before their brief seventy-minute ride from Syracuse to New York City began. Working in the financially strapped industry of print and wire media made her ride feel much more intense. Worry filled her tired head instead of dreams, just as it had a decade ago on her first traveling assignment to Washington, DC.
On this particular trip, the photographer felt stressed over a call that had come in when news of Syracuse College’s trip to the Orange Bowl came out.
“Maxine, I need you to get into my office right away,” her photo editor had called out a day ago within the newsroom of International Presswire’s Syracuse bureau. “The sports editor at New York headquarters is on my line for you and me. I take it you are well aware by now that Syracuse College is heading to the Orange Bowl? Just a reminder that these are the types of things I need to be kept aware of. Immediately. We are in the news business, after all.”
Maxine had walked with quick steps behind her boss’s even quicker high heels. She had nodded in agreement, even though the news had been released only seconds before and she had intended to provide a prompt bowl game update all along. Maxine had taken a seat in the woman’s office, a sunny space filled with happy faces of children in holiday cards, family vacations, and school pictures. The images had made Maxine wonder how the woman managed to juggle a high-powered job, a relationship, and multiple children. The photographer couldn’t help but feel lonely as she pictured her more barren desk.
“Sir, I have Maxine on,” the woman had said with her eyes fixed on the phone. “Sorry to keep you waiting. She is aware, of course, of her team’s trip to the Orange Bowl. What a coup, by the way.”
“Is the city going crazy?” the bellowing voice asked.
Maxine had watched her boss peer between the office blinds toward an empty street to come up with anything but an empty answer.
“People are ecstatic,” she said while shifting her gaze to Maxine for help.
“Exactly, sir,” Maxine added. “The city has been waiting a long time for the team to get back to the caliber they had grown accustomed to over the years. I think fans can thank Coach Flash and JP Hemmings for this wonderful gift.”
Her boss had given her a silent nod in the office as they both waited for the man’s reply. Maxine had always served as a calm voice of reason even though she was battling so much professional worry—and personal loneliness—in her own head.
“Well, that’s why I’m calling, Maxine. Everyone in sports is talking about your underdog team. All eyes will be on them this holiday season in viewers’ living rooms next to aging Christmas trees and leftover New Year’s bean dip. I’ve been fairly pleased with your insider-like coverage of the team, and I trust you’ll be able to do the same for Boston’s Falcons, even though they haven’t played Syracuse yet this year. Anyway, I’m telling you that I’m putting trust in you to be our lead photographer when the two teams meet at the Orange Bowl.”
Maxine had felt cautiously excited as the news from headquarters made a personal dream of hers feel instantly in reach. She had looked at her boss, who beamed with pride. Maxine knew that in her hardworking life, there was often a catch.
“You should know that I’m giving this assignment to you over a veteran in our New York City office who has covered the Orange Bowl for the last dozen or so years,” the voice announced.
Maxine’s face had fallen while her boss had looked even more proud over the competitiveness of it all—especially with their Syracuse office coming out on top.
“I want you to fly here for a day and come meet him,” he said.
Not even Maxine’s boss’s face could hide the difficulty of that type of awkward encounter.
“He knows the ins and outs of Sun Life stadium, the city of Miami Gardens, the press passes for events,” the voice had continued over the phone. “Absorbing his insider knowledge will complement your own connections with your team. I want your meeting with our veteran to be in person because I’d like the chance to meet you too, Maxine. I need to finally see the talent behind these hard-to-get shots.”
“Thank you, sir, for the opportunity and the honor of coming to the wire’s headquarters,” Maxine had managed.
She had sounded confident and appreciative
despite feeling similar to how she did on a day when her boss had told her she could upgrade to a desk with a window view, but it would have to come at the expense of a colleague whose work had been lacking. Maxine had a difficult time making eye contact with that coworker ever since, even though she had pleaded with her boss to keep their seats where they were.
As the plane cruised along now, Maxine kept her seat upright, reminiscent of her work flight a decade ago. She worried this time over whether the veteran photographer would be bitter at the sports editor’s selection. She wondered what she would say when they met in mere moments. She fretted over how she would assure the sports editor he made the right choice. The photographer had some ideas, but none of them felt quite good enough. She questioned whether she was the right choice after all.
Maxine looked across the aisle to notice a family of three sitting together with a pregnant mother and wife in the middle. Her husband poured a bit of water onto a cloth so she could wipe her head. He held a paper bag for her in anticipation of sickness. The woman’s toddler attempted comforting the woman on her other side with an innocently sweet voice.
“Is baby makin’ you sick, Muh-muh?”
The woman looked pale green, shaky, and beyond uncomfortable. Maxine wished she could change places with her in a second. The ailing woman locked eyes with Maxine, who, in contrast, looked put together in her best photographer’s suit, healthy and solo, carrying no dependents. The woman’s pained eyes in that moment seemed to be sharing Maxine’s wish.
The plane landed uneventfully, and Maxine gathered her single bag. She guiltily accepted the family members’ offer to let her zip down the aisle first. Her pangs for a husband and children of her own stayed with her until she reached Manhattan, where the sounds of automobile horns and a collision of scents from street vendor offerings, perfumes, and pollution snapped Maxine back into her reality: her career. As her cab approached West 33rd Street, Maxine eyed the grand, box-shaped International Newswire headquarters. Intimidation gripped her now as she thought about the successful people who must be inside and wondered which one was scheduled to meet with her first.
A salt-and-pepper-haired man with an unsteady voice and handshake greeted her outside a bay of elevators and provided the answer. She knew in an instant that he wasn’t the sports editor with the bellowing voice.
OK, she thought to herself. Gear up for the veteran you’re being forced to replace.
Maxine mentally scanned the conversation ideas she had come up with during her plane ride. None of them felt good enough.
“Follow me,” the man whispered. “We can talk in my office.”
The man’s colleagues eyed Maxine as the pair walked. The staff had clearly heard about her arrival, she thought. She could feel their stares crawl up and down her suit, but she still smiled as politely and humbly as she could manage. The veteran walked quickly, almost too quickly for her to keep up, and weaved between cubicles on the way to his corner office.
He was embarrassed, Maxine thought. It was the very thing she didn’t want. The veteran immediately closed his office door and checked his pride enough to pull out her seat. Maxine wished he hadn’t taken that last step. He was not only embarrassed, he was a gentleman too, she observed.
She took in the veteran’s shots of tennis greats, basketball legends, and Super Bowl players—all captured in motion, yet hanging beautifully still on his walls. They were images that had graced the A1 pages of the country’s most prominent dailies. Maxine recognized a couple shots that had appeared in the textbooks for her sports journalism courses during her communications studies.
“Look at the motion. The champion isn’t just holding the trophy, he’s tossing it in the air. This is a memorable shot,” one of Maxine’s professors had said so many years ago. “See how the player is perfectly framed? Never cut off a subject at the joints. It makes viewers uncomfortable, even though they might not be able to consciously figure out why.”
The office was still and silent as her eyes enjoyed a quick, inspirational journey around the four walls.
“Wow, I recognize so many of these pictures,” Maxine finally said. “You’ve covered every championship.”
“The Orange Bowl has been my favorite of them all, you know. It’s pretty special. Those are kids just playing their hearts out for their fans, their friends, their families, their school, themselves. Most of them obviously don’t go on to the NFL. For the seniors, it’s their last game. You can feel the desire on the sidelines of that field.”
There was no friendly smile or excitement on the man’s face. There was only sadness. He continued.
“So I was told I’d have to meet with the whipper-snapper who succeeded in going after my spot.”
At thirty-seven years old, Maxine hadn’t thought of herself as a whipper-snapper, but the look on the veteran’s face told her it wouldn’t be wise to disagree with that characterization. She would take issue with his other point, though.
“Going after your spot was the very last thing I intended to do,” she said. “I was just focusing on my job up in Syracuse. I won’t deny that being called in here is an honor, but you clearly deserve to cover the bowl more than I do. I’ll take your lead on the assignment if it’s what you and the sports editor really want.”
The man forced a chuckle.
Maxine relayed her seriousness. She asked if she was scheduled to meet with the sports editor next.
“Do you want to see if he is available now?” she continued. “Why don’t we propose both covering the bowl? This assignment is a dream for me and I’d honestly do it for free. You can take the lead on the play-by-play shots, and I’ll back you up whenever I can assist with the relationships I’ve built with the Orange and Navy. Let’s propose this idea. Together.”
The veteran looked at her and finally calmed himself down enough to see a woman who was unshaken, genuine, and giving. The aging man wasn’t used to her kindness inside a building of go-getters who seemed to vie for his position more vigorously with each new appearance of his white hairs.
Maxine watched one of the man’s colleagues stroll slowly by the veteran’s office window to see how the less-senior photographer was faring.
“Should I signal to that guy that I’m still in one piece or feign I’ve been attacked?” she asked.
The veteran finally gave Maxine a smile. It felt nice on him, even though he had been struggling for days with the fact that the higher-ups at headquarters clearly wanted him off the bowl game he most loved. Other coveted assignments would be going next, he thought.
“My agility on the sidelines is not what it used to be,” he admitted.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Maxine said. “You moved pretty quickly through your peers to get me tucked into this nice corner office a moment ago.”
As she winked at him, the veteran decided that if anyone deserved to take his place on this assignment, it was Maxine. To his own surprise, he thought he might even help her succeed.
“I saw your insider coverage of JP’s game,” he said.
“Sometimes after being behind the quiet of a lens, you put your work out there and you don’t realize just how far-reaching it is,” Maxine said.
“I was impressed.”
“Well, that makes my career, coming from you.”
“Listen. The Orange Bowl is your assignment—and yours alone—to screw up,” he said. “Congratulations. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you have my blessing to take over. I’m going to help you succeed as much as I can.”
Maxine had always wanted a mentor, but until now she relied solely on her tireless work ethic to guide her through the most challenging assignments from the most demanding directors. She hoped today’s visit marked an unexpected change.
“I just want to listen to whatever you have to offer,” she said. “I can’t tell you how much I value your time.”
“OK, let’s get back to the listening part then, little whipper-snapper,” he said. “How much do you weigh, anyh
ow? Oh, never mind that. Between my age and your appearance—which lends itself more to covering gymnastics than football—we are a couple of misfits in this industry who have proven we can make it. Don’t let me down now.”
Maxine’s notepad and pen were made ready.
“Now, Syracuse College and the University of Boston are two teams who’ve been to the Orange Bowl before, but not nearly often enough to make this trip old hat for either of them. Syracuse has had three dates there to Boston’s one. Neither team won any of these games. History will change this year when one of them finally succeeds. Will it be the team with the flawless record or the one with the heart? I’m not sure the answer is as clear as everyone is expecting.”
Maxine found herself wishing she knew her journalism colleagues’ shorthand techniques as she tried to put to paper the man’s thoughts on the bowl’s past, present, and future. She knew his insights would bring texture to her coverage and captions, and for that she was beyond grateful. The veteran spoke without interruption for nearly an hour. When he finally stopped, Maxine was left with only one question.
“What about this angle of Boston’s golden quarterback wanting to win this thing for his own unique family history? Is this as big of a deal as everyone else is making it out to be?” she asked. “If you turn on the cable sports channels, it’s all you hear.”
“That is an obvious angle and one that I omitted on purpose,” the veteran explained. “Being in this business so long makes you hear rumors you don’t want to hear and believe things you wished you didn’t believe. You know how the best political beat reporters don’t vote in government elections because they don’t want their participation to influence their news coverage? When it comes to buying Devin Madison and his stories—and believe me, he has many great ones—I try to keep my vote out on that. I don’t want it to influence my own angles. You’ll meet the obsessive young man when you accompany an assigned journalist on pre-game press opportunities. Keep in mind that on the field, a superstar’s impressive play is more important than his words. I’ll leave it at that.”