“Give it time,” she said. Then she exhaled as though he’d said something funny. She waved his paper in front of her air conditioner. “Must be hot out there. This feels like it just came out of the wash.”
He looked at the slackened pages, drooping in her hand, then looked at his own palm, moistened and pink with heat. Half-disgustedly, he rubbed it on his leg.
“So,” she said. “Miami. You ready?”
He bucked his head forward and back. “I leave tomorrow.”
She made a brainy noise and set off from her desk toward the windows, where she kept a series of black plastic organizers marshaled together on the sill. He tried to think of her as Laura. Laura whose job was teaching, just as his was playing football. Laura who used black plastic organizers.
“Well,” she said, turning back to him, having deposited the paper in its slot. “Don’t forget us.”
She’d always had plenty to say in class, so he waited now for her to offer some further piece of wisdom. Maybe a quote from a famous writer or something, to really gather up the moment.
But she just smiled and escorted him toward the door the way a teacher did, herding him, following him to make sure he didn’t veer from his course. She held out one hand and, with the other, touched him lightly on the back. For some reason, probably because she was Laura now and not Mrs. Murray, he became aware that she was doing all of this with her body. Like a player actually, like an athlete, claiming a position that would force his body into a particular position of its own. And for some reason, probably because he was an athlete, and on his way to playing at a higher level than he’d ever played before, he found himself wanting to resist her. No guy on the field who ever tried anything could avoid having to answer to Mitch. That was his signature. On defense he’d fly over to wherever the action was, and he’d blow that action up. Like a time bomb, just stop it in its tracks.
In the doorway, he cut back, and because she was such a dogged herder, there she was right behind him, her witchy hair and chin hovering just inches from his chest.
He had a reflex then to swoop down at her and catch her in his mouth. Which, being a creature of reflex, he did. He felt her tender lip inflate against his teeth, her dense know-it-all breath pushing back. He held her there in place against him, and yeah! It felt exactly right.
When he stepped back she was still smiling in her superior way, and he saw now that she’d been kissed by plenty of men, not just her husband, maybe even by a student or two. In fact she seemed almost bored. As if she’d expected it. As if she’d known from the moment he’d turned up at her door that he was going to hand her his pointless paper, and sit in a gummy desk, and kiss her with sudden possession on the way out. Which meant that everything she’d done in the interim—the questions she’d asked him, the way she’d dangled her leg off her desk, the business with the black plastic organizers—was merely her way of resigning herself to the inevitable. The thing even he hadn’t known he would do. He felt himself deflate a little, felt his shoulders hang a little more heavily. Even now, about this, she was smarter than he’d ever be.
“Come back and see us sometime,” she said, still holding her line at the door.
Back in his truck, he flung into gear to an explosion of Lynyrd Skynyrd. He left the lot in a fury, suddenly starving, and instinctively turned towards home.
It was barely two o’clock; he wasn’t due to meet Caryn until four. She’d picked the place, a diner in Buckingham County, about an hour from his house. “Best root beer floats in all of Central Virginia,” she’d told him when they made their plans on the phone. He’d lain there in his bed with the window open wondering how the hell this girl knew a thing like that. If it had been up to him, he would’ve said Hardee’s, because that was where he always went.
He headed there now, and as he drove, the mountains stayed with him in the rearview, blue bodies, the pastures tagging along underneath. People always said Monacan County was beautiful. Some even went so far as to call it the most beautiful place in the world. And to them maybe it was. Just not to Mitch. To him it was all the same. Green trees, green grass. Blue sky sometimes, sometimes not. Whatever the weather, the cows, those standing rectangles, staying put. It depressed him that nature was all there ever was, nature and brick boxes with attached carports made of the same material they used for Coke. Who could love a place with nothing interesting in it, not even a crappy little place that could claim the best root beer floats in all of Central Virginia?
But as the road discarded itself behind him, the natural world began to look a little better, and the beast in his stomach began to settle down. It wasn’t like Mrs. Murray had broken his heart. He’d taken his kiss, hadn’t he? When you got right down to it, that was pretty fucking bold. He was bold. He was a monster. Fuck, he was headed to the U! The Hurricanes, the outlaws! The fucking National Champs! He pressed the gas a little more, feeling better every second.
And then, suddenly, there was Hardee’s, floating red and yellow on its little curve at the intersection of Lakeview Drive. He sailed under the light, and pulled into the lot, at the last minute whipping around to the drive-thru lane, where he ordered a double quarter pounder with cheese and an extra-large Coke and fries. The pimply black guy at the window was new, nobody he recognized from countless drive-thrus—though sure enough, the kid recognized him. “Yo, Wilkins!” he said, passing him his bag, no charge. “You the man!” Mitch saluted and pulled over to the side of the lot where he ate his burger out of its waxy wrapper and watched through the glass windows of the restaurant as people came in, balanced their trays of icy drinks, threw wrappers at each other’s heads, and left.
His next thought was that the burger was gone. He was now only vaguely aware of it doubling and tripling itself to pin down the beast in his stomach. He had a memory of the taste though, a flush of warmed salt and fat, a drip of cheese, a breath of bread, a shadow of something on his lips. He licked them and thought again of Mrs. Murray, more fondly now than ever. He closed his eyes and let the sun pound his face through the windshield. He sat there feeling completely still, happy to be himself, and barely there, until the smell of his empty wrapper caught up with him, already growing rancid in the heat. If he didn’t book it he’d be late for his date.
He drove east to the girl and the root beer floats, coming back to himself in specks the way he sometimes did on the field after a bell-ringer hit. The world would glide by softly as it did now, his path warm and quiet, the sharpness filling in drop by drop, until all at once, he rocketed forth, into the noise and the air and the wilting flank of the target who would know damn right not to dare ring his bell again. He popped half a roll of breath mints in his mouth and at lights flashed his teeth in the mirror, saw his veins on alert in his neck.
At the diner he stood for a moment in the doorway, evaluating the space, testing it for signs of opposition. He’d hardly registered the music, the counter, the scattered heads of old guys in green-cushioned booths, when his eyes keyed into a welcome sight on the far wall of frames: the familiar arrangement of figures and lettering that was this year’s Warrior team photo. He was co-captain, the brown-haired Caucasian smudge in the front row, right of center, which he could see without even seeing it.
So he’d preceded himself. Good. They knew him here already.
Caryn hadn’t arrived yet, which was unfortunate, because he particularly hated to wait. He felt a little panicked as he turned to choose his booth, but when he did the diner opened up to him and a second aisle revealed itself around the curve of the central counter. She was in that aisle in a booth by the emergency exit, behind a giant, frosted red cup of water. He recognized her immediately. Her hair was big and brown, beauty queen style. She probably was a beauty queen for all he knew. She looked expensive enough to be one.
“Hey,” she said, before he could.
“Hey.” He slid in and she smiled, nestling into the booth a little further. He filled his side, his knees bruising up into the table, his arms wi
th nowhere to go but along the back of the bench.
“You made it.”
“I’m good for something I guess.”
“Good for a lot of things, from what I hear.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said. “How do you know Jeff anyway?”
She flapped her hand as though Jeff were beside the point. “My mother’s cousin. You play with him, right?”
“I let him hang around.” She laughed and he found himself continuing. “Naw, he’s my boy. I’d trust him with my life. Just maybe not on the field, you know.”
“I was gonna say, I bet he’s not exactly a starter.” She held her straw wrapper on its end and let it go, tsking as it toppled. He laughed. It looked just like Jeff. He could relax now, stretching his legs out on either side of her, wide enough that she wouldn’t know. Expensive or not, she was making this easy on him, and he liked an easy girl. Not sexy-easy, though that was fine, too, but easy with life, not having to make everything a fight or a game. He had plenty of that as it was.
When the waitress came they ordered the famous root beer floats, and after she left Caryn went right on talking and generally having a good time. He hardly had to do a thing, just sit back and let her tell him about her family, her ballet classes, and all the stuff she’d do in Miami. The dance team she’d join, the clubs she’d hit.
The more she talked, the more he understood that she was advanced. She’d thought about the world beyond the one where they were sitting; she’d made reservations, planned the trip. She spoke quickly and her eyes were blue and extremely bright, as though they were capable of seeing more and seeing it clearly. She was like Mrs. Murray, maybe, but the difference was that she was including him. She was taking him along on her ride.
“I’m in Stanford. The freshman towers,” she was saying. “You’re in Foster, right?” She gestured at the booth behind her, as though Foster had temporarily installed itself there and was plowing through a BLT. He wished he had a map. He’d barely glanced at the one that came with his orientation packet. They took care of you at the U, was his impression. His mom had talked to his advisor herself. When he got there, the advisor assured her, he’d always know where he’d have to be.
“Anyway, you probably are,” she went on. “Mine’s this kind of new thing they call a residential college. For regular students. But Foster’s where all the football players live.”
She really was in deep with Miami, a whole new world of people and places he hadn’t even begun to plumb. He’d been in deep with Monacan County and the Warriors, benching three-fifteen to the rafters, and thinking it was the world. But it wasn’t. At least not anymore. It was already fading. All the small-town trophies, all the small-town girls. A bigger, badder world, harder and hotter, was coming to push them aside.
“So come on,” he said, now that the root beer was singing in his nose and he was growing ever more comfortable in the presence of this fancy babe. “Tell me. I gotta know. What’d Jeff say about me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t get the impression you have root beer floats with every guy who calls you up. There wouldn’t be time. He must’ve said something.”
She liked this characterization of herself, and she savored it as she took a sip of her float, which she also savored, if not quite as much.
“No, you’re right.” She swiveled to look him in the eye. “Well, if you want to know the truth, he said you were going to be a star. And not just at Miami.”
He’d heard this before, of course. From Tim and Coach Long and all the die-hard, gator-lipped fans who hung around the bench after games and after practice, and from the scouts and Erickson and his many khaki-wearing assistants with their binders and gas puddle shades. Every time it felt great, a thump of air in his chest, a shock of light in his brain—better than any drug. From Caryn though, it was magic. It was as though everything all those other guys had promised was now finally coming to pass. You no longer had to know him to know how good he was. You didn’t have to be an expert either. Pretty girls knew it. Pretty girls from miles away. People weren’t hedging anymore. They were confidently spreading the word.
“You know what,” he said. “I think I am.”
“Well, that’s good. Hey—how tall are you anyway?”
“Tall enough.”
“No, really. How tall?”
“Just six three.”
There were bigger dudes, even in Monacan, but she was small, and probably didn’t know much about sports, so the number alone seemed to impress her. “Show me.”
“You saw me walk in.”
“Yeah, but I was sitting.”
“You’re sitting now!”
He liked it when women bossed him around, and maybe that was something she could tell. She leaned back in the booth like someone at the beach and looked up, waiting for him to rise. “Well, show me again.”
He did it every day just getting around in a too-small world, unfolding, unrolling, extending himself. He could do it this once for her. He sighed for show and shuffled his foot out to the edge of the booth, slid after it, and dragged his left foot behind. Up came his knees, his ass, his back, his chest, his shoulders, his arms, his head. He straightened himself, growing taller still in his legs, in his spine, and in his neck, a lifetime of growth replayed in mere seconds. Something cracked in his back—a good crack—the kind that meant his body was finally approaching its God-given size. He had always believed in God, and even more, he believed in what he’d been given.
He stood there reborn, perfect, a moment worth preserving forever, except there really wasn’t any need. It was only his own body. He’d have it all his life.
“Yep,” she said. “You’re definitely gonna play football when you grow up.”
“Oh, yeah, and how about you?” He gathered himself over her like a storm.
She touched her hair and lifted her small, bare knee to her chest. “That’s easy. I’ll be a football player’s wife.”
Hours later he hardly knew what had happened. He drove home magnetized, with Caryn’s Glamour Shot in his wallet, drawing everything in. It was like after a punishing pre-season practice, the kind where you learn to play the game again, where you leave your body for a bit, and escape with just your breath. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d eaten, couldn’t imagine ever requiring food again. It was night and the universe was made of movements and dark shapes. The mountains came to him as shadows, the road as a never-ending tongue, flicking this way and that way in pale yellow blinks.
He knew time better than most people. He’d been raised on the game clock, the stern ticking away of seconds from twelve minutes at the start of a quarter, to eleven minutes and fifty-nine seconds and right on down to the constant white-lit double zero, some stretches lasting an eternity, others lost in blackout pops. However fast or slow the time passed, and however often it was stopped or adjusted, the clock could not be denied. Everything you were going to do you had to do before time was up. It was just that simple. He wasn’t like some people: lazy, dragging themselves through life without a drop of urgency. He knew the clock in his bones. The best habit of his career.
But somehow today, he’d let it get away from him. He’d kept his family waiting, and on this, his last night at home. He crept up the three steps to the door.
“Hello?” he called, sucking back his volume even as the word left his lips.
The front room was dark and smelled of burgers. He’d forgotten all about that. He found them in the kitchen—Tim, his pregnant wife Tracy, his grandparents, and his mom, all gathered around the coated-cloth-covered table, their dishes already in the sink.
“We thought you left,” his mom said.
“Sorry, I was catching up with some of the guys.”
She blinked. She was fierce. She had to be to have brought him up: she the lone woman, he the freak monster son. “Well, nice of you to join us. Your grandparents came all the way out.”
No one asked her to give him a break. He looked at hi
s grandfather, whose lungs were doing poorly, and at his grandmother, who squeezed her eyes shut as if to conquer a sudden pain. He pulled his chair up between them and took their wrinkly old hands, catching Tim’s glance across the table. Tim flicked his eyes at the ceiling as if to tell him he better watch out.
“You all packed?” his grandma prompted, helpfully.
He told her he was, told her about the photos and keepsakes he was taking with him, to remind him of them and of home.
“You want to take a burger, too?” his mom asked. “You’re liable to get hungry on the road.”
He was confused. “I figured we’d stop someplace. Tomorrow.”
“Oh we will, huh? Sure you don’t want to do this on your own, too?”
“Come on, Mama. We have to fight now? Don’t do this. I’ve had a long day.”
“It’s settled then. To be honest, I could use the sleep.”
“Mama.”
“Just call me when you get there. That’s all I ask.”
It was her same, sorry, pity-me bullshit. He’d heard it now a million times, as often and as phony as a drinking boast from Jeff. She’d never abandon him. She could carry on all she wanted, act the prissy, offended queen. When he needed her, she’d be there.
But today was different, wasn’t it? All kinds of things were coming to an end. He looked at Tracy’s crowning belly, which seemed to carry a replacement for him. Without warning the back of his skull surged as though he’d stepped wrong, and his brain remembered it’s bound to stop. The panic overtook him and shoved him to his mother’s side.
“You gotta come with me,” he said, crouching at her knees. “I’ll die. I’ll die if you don’t come with.” He really meant it. He meant it so much he might have died right there while she sat calmly on her kitchen throne.
A Short Move Page 6