Bouncing

by Jaime Maddox

  Brit knew she was rambling, and averted her eyes to refocus. Why did Alex make her feel so nervous? It wasn’t as if she was a potential date. She was just a beautiful, intelligent, fun…friend. Colleague. Coworker. No need for anxiety. Brit stretched in her chair and willed herself to relax.

  Alex leaned closer and tried not to smile at Brit’s fidgeting and rambling. Was Brit feeling as nervous as she was? Alex’s heart sped up a little at the thought, and she willed it to slow. Friends. They were just going to be friends. Brit was adorable, though, so how could Alex not notice, not react? She cleared her throat before she spoke. “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t drink beer. What do you do at softball games?”

  Brit nodded her pointer finger at Alex. “That’s why I don’t play softball.”

  “You don’t play softball?” Alex asked, and then, after turning her head to assure no one was in earshot, she lowered her voice and asked, “Are you sure you’re a lesbian?”

  Brit hunched her shoulders and laughed, then looked up to meet Alex’s gaze. “I’m quite sure.”

  The heat in Brit’s eyes set Alex on fire, and she forced herself to quiet a retort that would have been too telling. Swallowing hard once again, Alex averted her gaze. “Well, at least you play hoops.”

  The bartender arrived to take their drink orders. “A Sam Adams,” Brit told him, nodding toward Alex, “for her.”

  “Bottle or draught?” He looked at Brit for the answer, and she in turn looked at Alex. “I’m going to say bottle. With a glass.” She smiled at the man.

  Alex nodded her approval again. “Good choice.” Alex turned her gaze toward the bartender and spoke. “And for my friend, I’d like a cabernet.”

  He looked to Brit for her approval and she gave a nod.

  “The house special?”

  “Uh…Help me out here, Brit.”

  “What do you have?” Brit asked the bartender, and both of them listened as he named several varieties.

  Brit picked the last brand mentioned.

  “Equally good choice,” Alex said when the bartender had left them.

  “I’ll let you know in a minute,” Brit said.

  “That’s a wine, right? Cabernet?” Alex smiled to tell Brit she knew the answer.

  “One of my favorite reds, as a matter of fact.”

  “But you’ve never had this brand before?”

  Brit shook her head.

  “So you’re willing to spend eight bucks on a glass of wine you may not even like?”

  Brit nodded. “Yep. I’ll chance it. I like most wine, some more than others, but it’ll be fine.”

  “This is why I drink beer. I know what a Sam Adams is going to taste like. It’s always the same. And it’s always good.”

  Their beverages arrived and they raised their drinks in a toast. “To the Falcons,” Alex said.

  Brit nodded as their glasses met midair. “And to new friends. Now tell me, Coach Dalton, what are they saying about me?”

  “Don’t you want to talk about the season? Discuss the game plan, what offense we’ll run, how we’ll play the defending champions?”

  Brit shook her head as she swallowed her wine, then waved her glass dismissively. “I’m not talking hoops until you tell me what my students are saying about me.”

  “How’s the wine?” Alex asked, ignoring her plea.

  “Fine. Tell me what they’re saying, Alex, please.”

  “Eight bucks and it’s only fine? That seems so unjust, because my four-dollar beer is fabulous.”

  “Alex! Please?”

  “Well, I won’t name names,” Alex said, shaking her head. Leaning back in her seat she glanced sideways at Brit. “But I will tell you what they’re saying. Sweet. Funny. Tough. Oh, and hot.”

  Brit took a sip of her wine, then placed the glass on the bar before looking at Alex. “That’s it?” she asked, incredulous. “Just hot? Not incredibly hot? Not smokin’ hot?” Flirting with Alex just a little couldn’t hurt anything, could it? Besides, Alex had started it.

  “Well, I didn’t want to inflate your ego…but yeah, it was totally hot. They said totally hot.”

  “They?” Looking over the top of her wineglass, Brit’s eyes met Alex’s, and although she would never get used to the vertigo she felt at such moments, it no longer surprised her.

  “Well, yes. They.” Alex ignored the glass Brit had ordered and took a long pull of her beer directly from the bottle.

  “They who?”

  “Well, let’s see.” Alex studied the stamped tin ceiling in the old bar. “The janitor with the black greasy hair. The cafeteria lady who makes the sandwiches. The principal’s assistant.”

  Brit pursed her lips. “The short janitor or the fat one?”

  “You’ll have to buy me another beer for that information.”

  “You’re tough, Coach.” Brit shook her head and then sipped her wine.

  Unexpectedly, Alex reached out to Brit and squeezed her fingers gently. “They like you, Brit. The students say you engage them in the classroom. You discuss instead of lecture. You listen. You make them think. They’re learning.”

  Brit’s mouth opened in surprise. “Really?” Teaching was the profession she’d aspired to since she was in kindergarten, and it was wonderful to finally be in the classroom. To hear such great things said about her was much more, though. It touched her heart and filled her with an unimaginable joy.

  Brit was shocked at the tears that filled her eyes, and they came so quickly she couldn’t stop them. She wiped them away with a knuckle as Alex graciously looked up at the television, giving her a moment to collect herself. After a few minutes of silence, Alex suggested they order appetizers.

  Filled with an array of emotions—joy, fear, excitement—Brit felt almost as dizzy as she did when she looked at Alex. The wine only amplified her vertigo. It was a bad idea to stay and eat with Alex, yet she would have enjoyed nothing more. If she had a business dinner with Alex and discussed basketball, she had a valid excuse for missing the bachelorette party. By mentally arguing that she needed time to recover from the wine, she was able to justify her decision. When she caught the bartender’s eye, she asked to see a menu.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sacrifices

  P.J. left school along with a thousand other students, but instead of going home and getting ready for the big football game that night, he went to work. With the recent change in his job duties, his need for a car had become critical. Greg understood and had procured one for him, but instead of feeling happy about finally having his own ride, he just felt miserable.

  Waiting to pull out of the school parking lot after selling a bunch of exams, he saw a group of underclassmen walking home. They were laughing and talking, no doubt making plans for their weekend. It would have been much more fun walking with them than riding alone.

  He’d never felt so alone. He had no time for anything except school and work, and his friends had gotten so used to him declining invitations they’d stopped asking. Even Justina, who’d been his partner for science projects since grade school, seemed to give up on him. When he’d seen her in the library earlier in the day, she was huddled with another student, studying the diagrams in a textbook. When he approached, she told P.J. the young man was working with her on a physics team project.

  Ouch! That had stung. It wasn’t just that he was smart and used to everyone asking him for help. It was Justina. He’d always had a secret crush on her, and had seen her a few times since the party at the lake. They’d been talking more at school, and texting for a while, but now that seemed to be over. Like everyone else in his life, she’d moved on. He had no friends, no life, and not even a secret girl crush to make him smile.

  P.J. followed the line of cars from the high school into downtown Clarks Summit, making his usual stops. He spent almost three hours driving around, making his deliveries, collecting money. When he finished his work, he followed a winding country road through farms and forests of the Lackawanna Valley. A
s he approached Olyphant, he slowed and turned into a well-concealed driveway cut into the woods. A hundred yards in, he stopped at a security gate. “It’s P.J.” he said when a raspy voice demanded to know his identity.

  A second later, the gate lifted and P.J. drove through, then followed the road another two hundred yards into the woods. There, the trees had been cut away, and a large block structure filled the clearing. He drove toward the door, and before he was even close, it began to rise. He drove inside the building and parked his car along the right side, fifth in the line of cars driven here by other teenage couriers working for The Man.

  Turning off the engine, P.J. glanced around. He’d been in the building a few times already, but the sight still amazed him. Dozens of trucks formed a convoy, ready to exit in the morning with early deliveries. They were an impressive sight, but nothing like what stood opposite them. At the very front of the building, as if waiting to escape as soon as a door opened, stood a collection of sports cars that made P.J. stop and stare. Antique Corvettes and Mustangs, a Porsche, a McLaren, an Aston Martin. On his first visit, P.J. had sort of floated toward the cars, unaware of anything else around him except the utter opulence of those machines. He’d knelt to study the hood ornaments and the tires, not daring to touch them. The Man had approached him and laughed. “Maybe one day, little man,” he’d said.

  “Do I have to worry about my collection?” The Man asked as he approached P.J., pulling him from his daydreams of one day. “You look a little jealous.”

  “No, I, I…” P.J. gulped and began to shake. Ever since he and Wes had confronted The Man, he’d been acting weird. It seemed he was trying to intimidate P.J., and it was working. Staring him down, standing a bit closer than necessary. Cracking his knuckles. P.J. and Wes were working with him, paying off the thousand dollars he owed, plus another thousand dollars The Man had decided on to cover incalculable losses, but it still seemed The Man was unhappy. P.J. didn’t know how much more they could do. He had no time, no energy left for anything after he gave his pound of sweat to The Man.

  The Man laughed and slapped him on the back. Hard. “Let’s go count my money,” he said, and P.J. followed him, carrying a backpack stuffed with envelopes of betting slips and twenty-dollar bills. Business was booming.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Assists and Turnovers

  As usual, Brit spent Sunday with her family. Awakening early, she arrived at the church in plenty of time to sit quietly and reflect and argue with God about all the injustices of Christianity, the most important of which, to Brit at least, was the church’s position on homosexuality. The arrival of her family interrupted her silent debate, and after that she heard little of the celebration of the mass as she distracted the youngest of her nephews. When it was over, she chauffeured them to her parents’ house for dinner.

  After throwing her first load of laundry into the washing machine, Britain joined all of the women in the kitchen. The aroma of roasting beef filled the air, and around the table the female members of her family were peeling, dicing, and otherwise preparing vegetables. Not a male of any age was in sight—and that was just how they all preferred it. This time in the kitchen gave mother and daughters a chance to catch up on what they’d missed during the week.

  They had been celebrating their family with Sunday dinner for as long as Brit could remember. Her fondest memories of childhood were of those long-ago Sundays, when both sets of grandparents visited and her father was home instead of at the hospital. The dining-room table was always a dynamic place, alive with gossip and stories, with the faces and seating arrangements changing over time as older members of her family died and new ones were born or connected by their marital ties.

  It was a rare occasion when the sanctity of their family time was broken and outsiders were invited to join them. If she weren’t so distracted by the constant thoughts of Alex playing like background music in her mind, Britain would have raised an eyebrow when her mother announced they were expecting company for dinner. But she’d been thinking of Alex’s blue eyes and her full lips, hearing a reel of her laughter playing over and over for only her ears, and she’d paid vague attention to the conversation as she’d prepared potatoes.

  As a result, Brit was totally taken by surprise when, an hour later, she heard the doorbell ring and saw her mother running out of the kitchen to answer it. That surprise was surpassed when, a minute later, her nephew appeared in the kitchen and summoned Brit to the living room. And the surprise of the day—and perhaps the year—occurred when she arrived in the living room to find her parents chatting with the Thornton family.

  Dr. Arthur Thornton was one of her dad’s partners in his cardiology practice, and Brit had known his family her entire life. Emily, his wife, had been a friend to her mother. Their son Tommy, who was now in his third year of medical school in Philly, swam with Brit at the country club. He stood before her now looking uncomfortable but trendy in a corduroy blazer over a button-down shirt and a pair of skinny jeans.

  Not forgetting the manners that had been drilled into her for two decades, Britain hugged all of the Thorntons in turn before sitting beside her father on the couch, feigning interest in the conversation as the former colleagues caught up. What was going on? Why were the Thorntons crashing their family dinner party? She was oblivious to the banter as she looked around the room and began to understand the situation. As she sat seething, silent and seemingly attentive, anger oozed from her pores.

  They were trying to fix her up with Tommy! How could they do this, after she’d told them she didn’t want or need their help in finding a husband? Her parents’ obvious meddling in her love life, their failure to respect her declinations to the offers of dates with their friends’ children devastated her. Even if she weren’t gay, Tommy Thornton was about the third-to-last person on the planet she would have dated. He was full of himself and had no sense of humor, and was so smart that half the time Brit needed a translator in order to have a conversation with him.

  When she thought she’d spent the correct amount of time to satisfy the requirements of proper social etiquette, Brit excused herself to return to the kitchen. They stopped talking as she entered the kitchen, so Brit knew her sisters were in on the fix.

  “How could you?” she asked, looking first at Jordan and then at Sam. Then, raising a defiant middle finger and waving it from one sister to the other, she further spewed, “I am so pissed! No more free babysitting for either of you.”

  “Oh, baby sister, lighten up. They love you and just want you to be happy.” It was Jordan defending their parents.

  “I am happy!”

  Sam walked closer and hugged her. “Brit, they’re not getting any younger. Daddy’s going to be seventy this year. They worry about you being alone when they die. They want you to have someone.”

  She turned to Sam and sighed in frustration. She was tempted to tell them the truth, right then and there, but this wasn’t the right time. She had met someone—someone who excited her and delighted her and made her feel and want things the young man in the living room never could. “Sam, it’s not my fault they waited so long to have kids. They can’t just marry me off to anyone who comes along so they can die in peace.”

  Sam playfully messed up Brit’s hair. “You’re right, Brit. I’m not arguing that. I just want you to understand their point of view.”

  Still angry, Brit pulled away and announced her own surprise. “Well, it’s a good thing for me that I have to leave right after dinner.” She looked at her sisters’ startled faces and knew they didn’t believe her. When they started to protest, Brit silenced them with her hand.

  It was unlike their well-behaved little sister to rebel, but they’d better get used to it, because she refused to tolerate this nonsense anymore. By allowing her family to push her around for so many years, she’d been a fool. But if she ever wanted anything to change, she had to start somewhere. It might not be the right time and place to come out, but it was the perfect time and pla
ce to tell them all to shove it. “I have a meeting with my head basketball coach.”

  Brit wasn’t lying. She and Alex did have a date to meet that evening; that much was true. Alex was beginning to feel nervous about her coaching debut, and Brit had agreed to meet so they could start planning their practice schedule. A typical day at her parents didn’t end until the late afternoon, so they’d agreed to meet at six. She didn’t tell her sisters that, though.

  “Oh, Mommy’s going to be pissed. She’s really excited about you and Tommy.”

  “I’m pissed, Jordan. Mommy doesn’t even know what pissed is.”

  At that moment her mother burst through the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the pantry. “Britain, let your sisters finish dinner, dear. Tommy wants to talk with you.”

  Brit forced a smile. An argument with her mother wouldn’t do anyone any good. Dinner would be uncomfortable—or more uncomfortable—and her mother’s embarrassment in front of Dr. and Mrs. Thornton would be a deep wound to her mother’s pride. But that didn’t mean Brit intended to allow this ambush to proceed. As soon as she’d swallowed her last bite, she was heading for cover. For now, though, she’d be the polite young woman her mother had raised. “Okay, Mom. Just let me get my clothes out of the dryer before they wrinkle.”

  Her mother pursed her lips and her tone was curt. “Don’t keep him waiting.”

  As her mother marched out of the kitchen in one direction, Brit went in the opposite. Fuming, she quickly folded the wet clothes from the washer and placed them in her laundry bag. She was going to have to find a Laundromat close to her apartment so she could be less dependent on her parents. Didn’t Alex say her family owned Laundromats? She’d ask when she saw her. Brit added the already-dry clothing to a pile on top of the bag. The laundry was ready when she made her escape. If she hadn’t been out of clean socks, she’d have left the entire wash to rot in the laundry room.