Front and Center Read online

"So you coming?" He squeezed my shoulder.

  "To what?"

  "To my party." He sighed this huge sigh. "I can't believe you forgot already. The parental units? Post-game? You're coming?"

  "Beaner! You just asked. Give me a bit of time here."

  He looked at the ceiling and whistled to himself. "Okay ... Was that time enough?"

  Now he had me laughing. "No! This is my first day back—I'll have a ton of homework—"

  "Homework, schmomework. This is a date, girlfriend."

  "A date?" I grinned at the joke, even though he wasn't grinning that way.

  "You betcha ... Hey, my man! Wait up!" And with that he zoomed away.

  A date? Like—like what people in the movies do? What was he talking about?

  "Hey!" Beaner shouted. Far down the hall, he was holding himself up on two guys' shoulders. Don't blow me off now! This is a date, you know!" Then he shot me a pretend lay-up and disappeared into the crowd.

  Everyone— everyone —in the hall heard him. Maybe everyone in the whole school. And every single one of them turned and looked straight at me.

  Double quick I spun away, my face burning five kinds of fire, and made a big project of opening my locker.

  Which was just wonderful considering I hadn't been all that confident about the combination before this, and Beaner's little announcement sure didn't help any.

  I got it open, finally. The good news is that nothing smelled. It was just snapshots of Win and Curtis and Bill, and our good dog Smut with the slimy football she carries everywhere, and books I could have used in Minneapolis, and an old Red Bend Basketball sweatshirt that wasn't even dirty.

  I should have been relieved, but I didn't feel relief at all. Well, I was a little relieved my locker didn't smell like a lab experiment. And it was nice to see those pictures I like so much, and my favorite sweatshirt, after six straight weeks of not seeing them once. But it wasn't enough. Four snapshots and a sweatshirt weren't nearly enough to balance out all this other weirdness.

  By which I mean: How are you supposed to hate a guy who prays for your family? How mind-blowing, how totally mind-blowing, is that?

  Not to mention the whole locker business. Don't get me wrong: it was super nice of the team to spend all that time making my locker look like a homecoming parade. I should have been totally, 100% grateful. But now all around me I could hear kids laughing and whispering about it. About me. And now everyone would know where my locker was, and maybe even think about it—think about me —whenever they passed. Sure, I was stoked to be back for hoops season, and I know I'm a pretty big part of the team. But I'd never in a million years want anyone thinking I expected this sort of number-one treatment; that's the last thing I wanted. I just wanted, you know, to play. The girls should have saved their wrapping paper and balloons and all their enthusiasm for someone else. Someone who didn't want to trade it for a boring old anonymous life.

  Speaking of which, it's also pretty hard to have a boring old anonymous life when your best guy friend in school decides to announce the two of you have a date. Which I'm not even going to get started on except to say WHAT THE HECK WAS BEANER THINKING? Meaning what was he thinking to be saying that in front of two hundred kids, and what was he thinking about us even dating, whatever a date with Beaner even means?

  That's the thing. When I said that it sure felt good to be going back to school, I didn't mean just going to school. I meant having everything go back to the way it used to be. The way it's always been. With D.J. Schwenk in the background, just like always. In the background where I belong.

  But instead, it was the exact total opposite. Instead of being a nobody, now I was front and center.

  And let me tell you something. Front and center sucks.

  2. D.J. Schwenk Is #1!!

  IF YOU DON'T KNOW BASKETBALL, you probably don't think too much about positions. I mean, I'm sure it looks pretty crazy out there sometimes, players running around everywhere all over the court. And really, it's every player's job to score and defend and pass, and put that way positions don't matter a lot. But there are positions in hoops, even if they're not obvious. And just like the quarterback is the most important position in football because he holds the ball and calls the plays, the most important player in basketball is the point guard. More important even, because point guard plays both offense and defense the way a QB doesn't, and calls plays continually, changing strategy and directing the four other players almost like a coach, because of course the coach can't be out on the floor. And just like quarterback gets shortened to QB, at some point folks started calling the basketball positions by numbers instead. Like small forward is three, and center is five. And point guard is number one.

  Which is why I was so freaked about my locker even after it was clear that it wasn't mean or anything. Because all those #1 signs—even though I'm sure the girls didn't mean it this way—they were bringing up, yet again, that I should be playing point.

  Ever since grade school it's been obvious that I have the potential to be a pretty good point guard. I've got the ball skills, after all, and I know my way around the court like nobody's business, and both of those are really important attributes. From my very first day of practice, coaches have been nudging me that way. But then after a while—sometimes it only takes a couple of minutes—the coach will decide I'm probably better as a forward, or a center. And instead they'll play as point guard a girl who maybe can't dribble so well, and isn't such an accurate passer, and who doesn't get strategy in that automatic Schwenk way. But that girl, whoever she is and however bad she plays, is always a better number one than I am because she can do the one thing I can't. The most important thing of all for a point guard. That girl can speak.

  Freshman year of high school, Coach K had big plans for me. Amy Hagendorf was starting at one but she was a senior, and he figured he'd have a whole season to break me in, slipping me in so I'd get a feel for the position. It didn't work. I mean, it worked when we were really far ahead so there wasn't any pressure, and once it worked when we were really far behind and everyone knew we'd never make up those seventeen points, not if we had the whole NBA playing for us. Then I was okay. But crunch time? No way. Maybe if you stopped the clock and everyone in the gym shut their mouth and gave me a couple minutes to figure out how to express myself ... But that's pretty much the opposite of how crunch time works. Dump that kind of pressure on background-loving D.J., and I might as well be out there with a piece of duct tape over my mouth.

  Sophomore year Amy Hagendorf was gone, of course, off to UWM, and so it was all on me. Which lasted one game until Coach K decided Kari Jorgensen should play one and make the position, you know, an actual asset to the team. Which is why we beat Hawley in a total upset, because Kari played point and I played the game of my life as center, just taking the court apart and not even fouling out until the last minute of the game. There were times actually when Kari and I would sort of pair up together and I'd whisper what to do, or what to say, and then she'd get it done in a way neither of us could working alone. And then after that, well, it didn't matter anymore because I had to quit basketball because of Dad's hip.

  Looking at those D.J. IS #1!! balloons now, the numbers the girls had drawn in bubble letters, I felt a little sick to my stomach. Like I said, the girls didn't intend anything mean I'm sure, but those #1 signs just reminded me of how I'd failed in the past. How many times coaches had told me I could do it, and how many times I'd proved them wrong. Now, I couldn't help but suspect, Coach K was going to try one more time. And I was going to disappoint them, Coach K and Kari and all the rest of the team. Disappoint them again.

  All day long everyone asked a million questions about Win—the same million questions, over and over, until I actually thought about writing something on my forehead with a Sharpie, just to save my breath. The teachers were just as talky, asking the same questions but in a quiet, you-can-tell-me voice. And you could tell they were pleased I'd gotten so much homework done, and I didn't
get any grief—not yet, anyway—about how maybe the quality of that homework wasn't so great. It's not like I had anyone in the rehab hospital to chat with about Ethan Frome, and anyway, who'd want to talk for two seconds about such a depressing book. And let's not even get started on algebra.

  Mrs. LeVoir, the Spanish teacher, even said she'd have lunch with me to help me review. Which should have been nice—I mean, it is nice that she volunteered to give up her free time like that, make her own little contribution to the whole Schwenk Family Tragedy. But it's not like I could say, That's okay, I'd rather flunk Spanish and let you eat your cottage cheese with the grownups. So I just thanked her, and all the other teachers, especially Mr. Larson, who I actually really do like and who in three minutes explained small intestine membranes so that I finally understood what the anatomy textbook was talking about.

  Plus Amber finally showed up.

  Amber's the one who had all that awful stuff done to her locker last fall—that's how I know how bad it can get, how locker stuff can get really hurtful. It got so bad for her finally that she and Dale (which explains the meanness on some people's part, the fact she has a girlfriend) left town altogether. They'd spent a month living in Dale's truck camper, which is barely big enough to turn around in, especially for two people like Amber and Dale who aren't exactly size zero. (Did you know that zero is actually a size? Who the heck is a size zero? Do they walk around all the time saying I fit into nothing," ha?) Then they moved in with a friend of Dale's in Chicago but apparently that place wasn't much bigger than the camper and Dale hadn't ever been too pleased about Amber dropping out of school, so when they found out I was coming back to Red Bend, they came too, and Amber more or less made up with her mother, who was as big a jerk about Dale as the biggest jerks in school, and now Amber's trying for her diploma.

  Which meant Mom—my mom, who has much more important things to worry about than sexual perversion, which Amber's mom actually said out loud even though that's a laugh coming from her—called a bunch of school administrators, administrators other than herself, and worked it out so Amber could show up for classes and nothing else. Because she was being bullied. Which somehow ended up as Principal Slutsky lecturing me about how I should have reported it. To which Mom said, "I guess no one has been pulling their weight like they should have, wouldn't you say?" Just to make the point that Mr. Slutsky had dropped the ball last October. Sometimes, you know, Mom can really shine.

  So there I was answering the eight millionth question about Win when Amber shows up still in her coat, I'm sure to rub it in to everyone that she has permission to come in late, and gives me a big hug and starts complaining about the work she has to make up.

  To tell you the truth, if I hadn't known her so well, and Dale, who's about the coolest girl ever, that hug would have wigged me out just as much as it seemed to wig out the kids around us. There was a time over the summer when just the thought of Amber gave me the shivers, particularly seeing as we'd spent years as best friends on sleepovers and everything without me knowing about her particular, you know, preferences. But it didn't bother me so much anymore, because I was smart enough now to know it isn't disgusting when a girl who likes girls touches another girl. It's just, you know, life. Like just because a guy who likes girls touches one, it doesn't mean they're going out. Like me and Beaner ... although now maybe that wasn't such a good example. Anyway, it sure felt nice to have my oldest friend there, complaining in a way that just cracked me up and also blocking me from all the Win questioners, because most kids weren't rude enough to interrupt, and the ones who were weren't brave enough or dumb enough to interrupt Amber.

  ***

  The only downer was that she wasn't playing basketball. Not with school, plus all her makeup work, plus her job at the Super Saver. Which really stinks, because Amber is an awesome defender. When she sticks herself to another player, you can just write that girl off. But no matter what I'd said, and Dale too, which was nice considering how much they need money, Amber said no. So it was a real bummer to suit up without her there in the locker room, although at least someone had stuck wrapping paper on my gym locker as well. And then once we were all out on the court, Kari got everyone going on this cheer she'd made up just for me. Even Coach K cracked a smile and said he was glad I was back.

  Coach K isn't the Coach K—like the Duke coach commutes to Wisconsin for a bunch of girls!—because he's Kibblehouse, not Krzyzewski. But he's still Coach K to us. He teaches shop and he's very strict, which I guess you have to be if you're teaching a roomful of guys about blowtorches. He used to coach boys until his son was a freshman, but then even after his son graduated, he kept coaching girls because he says they create a team automatically. Which I guess we do. I mean, could you imagine a bunch of boys decorating each other's lockers and making up cheers? He says it's a lot easier to train a girl to shoot than it is to train a guy to pass.

  You know how our football coach chews his mustache when he's thinking? Coach K always twirls a pen, a special kind of pen that comes with a chain so he won't lose it. All the way in one direction until it's wound tight around his hand, then all the way around in the other. Late in a game it's best to stay to his left if you don't want to lose an eye.

  Boy, did I miss Amber. I didn't have someone to goof off with for one thing, but we also flat out needed her. Kayla Frolingsdorf and Brittany Graebel are okay—they're juniors too—and we had some underclassmen I barely remembered, but it wasn't like Amber's shoes were going to get filled by any of them. And Jessica Hudak, who's a senior with Kari, and one more senior as well: Ashley Erdel. What that girl was doing here now, as a senior, I had no idea. Ashley hadn't played hoops since middle school! Just a few minutes into practice, she was red-faced and puffing, her hair stuck to the back of her neck in dark sticky curls. She might get the best grades in Red Bend, but she had benchwarmer written all over her.

  You could tell it was a huge relief to Ashley when practice ended, though I could have gone another couple days, I was enjoying it all so much. It didn't hurt that Beaner showed up right at the end, all ready for his basketball practice, and the two of us played one on one until his coach told me I was making the boys look bad.

  Beaner is really fast, which shouldn't surprise you, and he can jump like just about anything, so when you're playing against him you have to be super alert all the time for his steals. But he's also ... Well, if I was his coach I'd call him lazy, or cocky maybe, because half the time he stole from me I'd steal it right back, grab it when he was still hooting away. The other guys liked that a lot, I could tell. Plus whenever he went in I'd be right there in his face rebounding, which might surprise a guy who didn't know me, but Beaner doesn't get bothered one way or the other. He never treats me like I'm a girl, which means he's not too cautious but he's also not a bully either, just because the person guarding him happens to wear a bra. I've played against guys like that and you just want to dump a bucket of ice over their heads, or down their shorts, which would be more appropriate, just to get them to grow up a little. But Beaner treats me like I'm human. Which means he does everything he can to beat me and then afterward tells me how good I played, no matter who won.

  "You still thinking about Friday?" he asked as he was grabbing some water.

  "You still got a hoop in your driveway?" I asked.

  He looked at me like I was crazy, but I couldn't keep a straight face and we both started laughing. Because hello, this is Wisconsin, where we've already had a couple feet of snow and it's not even officially winter. "I'll get it shoveled for ya," he said.

  "Okay then. I'll be there." And I grinned at him and headed off to the showers.

  ***

  Normally after practice I go to the library, hanging out until Curtis's practice finishes because neither the middle school or the high school has enough room for the girls and boys to practice at the same time. But Coach K was waiting by the locker room entrance when I came out, waiting like he'd been there awhile, and before I could say a w
ord he asked if we could talk.

  Every time we play an important game, Coach K puts a little tag with the opponent's name and score and the year on his pen and hangs it in his office as a souvenir. Right there in the middle was the pen from last year's Hawley game, where he got so excited that he actually snapped his pen off its chain and it went sailing onto the basketball court and Jessica stomped on it by mistake and they had to call a time-out so the refs could pick up the pieces. So now it was really easy to identify because of all the Scotch tape.

  "So. Betcha you're wondering why you're here," he said, tilting back in his chair and working his latest pen, catching it in his hand every time.

  "Point guard," I said. Might as well rip that Band-Aid off right away.

  "I have been doing some thinking on that subject. But you know ... I stopped by your folks' place last week, and your dad, well, he passed these along." Coach K lifted up this big shopping bag with a grunt and dumped it out onto his desk.

  It was envelopes. A couple dozen at least. With fancy logos in the spot where you write who the letter's from, big capital letters that took me a few minutes to figure out were university logos. And beneath the logos, the words Women's Basketball Program.

  And right in the middle of every envelope, above our home address, or the school address sometimes, was my name.

  I finally figured it out: recruiting letters. "But—but I didn't even play last year!"

  "Lot of folks read People. A girl linebacker who scores twenty points a game, well, that caught their attention."

  That stupid article! A couple months ago these two guys came by our place and of course I was really nice to them, me and Brian together because we thought they were farmers, but it turned out they were really from People magazine come to do a story on Red Bend's girl football player. And in the article they made a huge deal out of the whole Brian thing, which was great news for him and for me both—I'm kidding, it was absolutely horrible—and no matter how much time passed, people kept bringing it up. It was like a curse, a dead hand or something from a horror movie that kept coming back no matter how many times you buried it. The photograph stuck to my locker this morning, and now here it was again.