Beyond Lucky (13 page)

The bag is empty.

Even though I know I brought the card with me, I look in my top drawer and pull out every single one of my cards.

I have 157, including Wayne.

Now I have 156.

Wayne Timcoe, where are you?
I am about to lose it.

I review my day. I took it to the field. We passed the card around. When everyone was done, I wrapped it up and put it back. I zippered the flap. I know I did. I made sure it was safe. The Wayne Timcoe poster looks down on me.

“It has to be here.” I sift through every piece of paper, every shirt, towel, and sock one more time. When you are stressed out, it's easy to miss something. Mom always says, “The third time you look in the same place, you'll find what you are looking for.”

So I look three more times.

It can't be gone.

But it is.

 

What usually happens when my luck turns sour:

I call Mac.

He comes to my house.

He solves the problem.

We get a milkshake.

What happens today:

Big Dave answers the phone. “Can you call back later?”

Click.

Dial tone.

I sit for one minute, which, in my dictionary, is technically later. He picks up on the fourth ring. “What? Didn't I just say—”

“I'm sorry to bother you, but I would appreciate it if I could speak to Mac for just a minute.” I talk very fast. “I wouldn't ask if it wasn't really, really important.”

He asks, “Is your house on fire?”

“No.”

“Then it isn't an emergency.”

I pretend that he is someone else. Someone small. And nice. With small hands and no tattoos. I picture him sitting on the dock fishing with Mac. I tell myself his bad mood is a figment of my imagination. “If you just let me talk to him, I promise I'll make it quick.”

He groans. The phone goes silent. I try not to read into it.

While I wait, I scan my room again, the top of my desk and underneath my bed, even though I know it is not in either location. Even though there is no chance my Wayne Timcoe All-Star League trading card is in my room, I go through every drawer while I wait for Mac to come to the phone.

Click.

Dial tone. When things go bad, they go really bad.

This time when I call, Mac's mom picks up on the first ring. She sounds tired. “Ari, it's been a long day. Can you talk to him tomorrow?”

It's not cool to beg, but she leaves me no choice. “I just need to talk to him for one minute. Please. It's urgent.”

She yells, “It's urgent!”

There are no familiar sounds, like Mac running to the phone or his mom telling him to hurry up and take care of business, for god's sake. I prepare to apologize, for bugging him when he said he didn't want to go out, for calling when he is busy, for not letting Big Dave take his extremely important call uninterrupted, but then his mom comes back on and says, “Honestly, make it fast,” in a tone that requires no guesswork.

But at least Mac picks up. “What's the matter?”

I try not to freak out. “I need you to come to the field. Now. It's an emergency. Wayne is missing.”

For exactly four seconds, he says nothing.

“Are you there? Hello? Did you hear me? The card is gone. I looked everywhere. It was in my backpack and now it's not. Can you come over and look with me? I think I must have dropped it.”

Seventeen seconds of total silence. Then footsteps. Soft voices. Then more steps. “I'm really sorry,” he says, “but I can't.”

Deep breath. “I'll talk to your mom.”

“I can't do it.”

“Mac, can you just ask?”

When he comes back, he doesn't sound any different. “My mom says I'm not allowed to go anywhere. She thinks I'm not meeting my potential, and I'm not going anywhere extra until my grades improve.”

Mac's mom has never cared about his potential before. She usually loves when he comes to our house. “But did you tell her? That this was an emergency? I'm sure she'll—”

“No. Yes. Look, Ari, I'm sorry. Deal with it. I can't come. She doesn't care about your trading card.” When I start to beg again, he sighs. “Are you sure you looked everywhere? Did you check your bag?”

“Yes. Of course I checked my bag. Three times. And every drawer in my room, even though I know we—”

“What about the car?”

No. The car! Of course! It's a good idea. “Bye,” I say, and hang up the phone. I run to the car, but the floors are clean, the seats uncluttered. The card is not on the floor. It is not under the mats. It's not stuck in the seat or the glove compartment or the crack behind the cup holder. The windows are shut.

The card has to be at the field. If I go over there, I'm going to find it, and everything will be okay.

I pick up the phone to call him, but there's no point. I get the message. He is not coming with me.

I listen to the dial tone. A long flat line.

—Dwight D. Eisenhower

 

 

 

I run downstairs, almost smack into Mom. She is carrying an overflowing basket of laundry. Wrinkled shirts tumble to the floor.

“Sorry.” I pick up the clothes, dump them back into the basket, and talk fast. “Mom. I need to go back to the field. I lost one of my trading cards. I know I brought it to the game, and now I can't find it. I must have dropped it. It was in my bag—but now it's not.”

She walks to her room, dumps the clothes on her bed, and begins folding. No sympathy. “Honey, you have so many of those cards. Do we really need to go to the field? You have schoolwork. I'm tired. And your father needs to get to the restaurant. What if I give you some money? You can buy another pack later.” She notices a faded grease stain on one of Dad's shirts, balls it up, and tosses it into the corner basket.

I grab the next shirt and fold it the way she likes it—with the buttons up and the arms in the back. “Mom. Please. It's not just any card.” I fold a pair of pants and find two sock matches. “It was a Wayne Timcoe.”

My dad walks into the room. “Ari? Did you just say you had a Wayne Timcoe card? You're pulling my leg. Let's see it. That card is supposed to be valuable.”

“What do you mean, valuable?” Mom asks. “Ari, if you found something valuable, why didn't you tell us?”

Now I feel stupid. “I didn't find it. Mrs. Elliot gave it to me. And I don't know. I just didn't. You have other things on your mind.”

Dad grabs my mom and makes for the stairs. “Come on. Let's go.”

She still won't believe it. “Are you sure you lost it? You never lose anything . . . you've always been so careful with your things.”

Thank God, Dad drives. As we pull into the parking lot, he says, “Don't worry, Ari, if it's here, we'll find it.”

An old gray car speeds away, but the field is not empty. Parker is still here, and now she's sprinting around cones. Seven balls sit in the back of the net. When she sees me, she runs to the elm tree. “What are you doing here?” she asks.

She sounds a little annoyed.

“The Timcoe card . . . it's gone.”

I don't need to say anything else. We get down on our knees, and together, we comb through the grass near the tree and every bench. Under the bleachers. Near the net. My parents check out the bathrooms. We start running when my mother yells, “Ari. Come over here. I think we found something.”

It's the letter from Sam, and it is wet and soiled and decomposing as we speak. My dad holds it as far away from his nose as possible. “It was where you think it was. Near the top. Crumpled up in a ball. Disgusting.”

Beyond disgusting.

Dad returns to the Porta-Potty to throw it away. Mom says, “Don't worry—the card wasn't there. Your father looked.” She pinches her nose, but it's not funny. “I made him stir.”

I want to scream. Parker grabs my arm. “Come on. Let's check the field.”

That seems too crazy, too illogical, but if I don't do something, I'm going to scream. We leave my parents to search through the garbage cans and run as fast as we can, and the crows fly away in all directions.

There is nothing on the grass. If Parker weren't here, I'd probably cry.

But she is. So I keep looking, until we both have to admit, it's pointless. The letter did not accidentally flutter into the Porta-Potty, and the card did not fall out of my backpack onto the field. I lie down and stare at the sky. Parker sits down next to me and stretches her legs. She is wearing the cleats I wanted, the latest detachable kangaroo leather cleats for advanced players. Her father is gone. I ask, “What are you still doing here anyway?”

“Practicing.”

“No one likes soccer that much.”

“You don't have anything to prove.” When she straightens her knee, her muscles bulge. She does the same thing to the other leg, then puts her arm behind her back to stretch her triceps. “I always loved playing soccer, and playing on this team with players like you was my dream. But lately, it feels more like a nightmare.” She shakes out her arms and pulls up a big clump of grass. “Even practice is frustrating. When I'm wide open, no one passes to me.”

“That's just part of being new to the team—you know that.”

She sighs. “My dad says they're doing it on purpose, and that I have to push the issue with Coach. I asked him if I should go back to the girls' league, but he says that now that I've committed to the team, I have to stick with it. Otherwise I'll look like a quitter.” She sighs. “It's a lot of pressure.”

I look at my parents, who are now sifting through garbage. They couldn't care less about soccer. They tell me all the time, “We just want you to be happy and healthy,” which also means I can play soccer only as long as I have a bar mitzvah, get good grades, and go to college. Last year, when I was hoping for new cleats, I got a leather laptop case instead.

I think I see something small flicker near the opposite net, but it's a supermarket receipt, not the card. I shout, “Wayne Timcoe, where are you?” Parker startles extremely easily, which makes me laugh. “What are you so nervous about?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing. I'm just tired, and you yelled really loud.” She rolls onto her stomach and props her chin in her hands. “Tell me the truth. Are your friends ever going to stop laughing at me?”

It is nicer to lie. “They don't laugh.”

“Mac does.”

“Well, he's different. You just have to understand—”

“Don't try to tell me he's insecure. Or that once I pass his test, he'll be nicer. When you let me touch the card, he looked like he wanted to explode.”

Girls are so sensitive! “You have to understand, he's just looking out for me. He's my oldest friend—we're practically brothers. He sticks with me; I stick with him.”

She looks skeptical. “But you're so different.”

I forget she's new in town, that she doesn't know everything. “Mac didn't always have it so good. His mom, if you haven't noticed, is really young.”

“When would I have noticed? She's never here. My dad wanted to talk to her, but he couldn't find her. Coach told him that she doesn't come to the games. I was sure he was lying—sometimes my dad makes a scene. But then she didn't return his calls.”

“She must have been working. When she's not busy, she comes to our games.”

I'm lying. The truth is, Mac's mom doesn't come to anything—not even the playoffs. She doesn't drive unless my parents can't, which is basically never. And I would never tell Parker, but once she spent a night in jail.

But maybe things will change. Maybe now that she has Big Dave, she'll be able to relax. Maybe he'll be the dad Mac never had, or better yet, his real dad will finally come home. We never talk about it, but deep down inside, I know that's what he wants. His dad. Or at least,
a
dad. Someone who will stand on the side and cheer for him.

My parents finish what they are doing and go back to the van. They don't call out to us. They don't even wave. This is unofficially the longest conversation I have ever had with a girl in my entire life. Even if we are talking about Mac, we are talking.

They are the best parents in the world.

I say, “You know, he could play premiere, but he doesn't.”

Parker doesn't think this is so special. “If he played premiere, he wouldn't be the star of the team.”

“If he played premiere, we would probably have lost today.” That gets her. “Look,” I say. “Do me a favor and stop worrying about Mac. Eventually, he'll deal. You'll be friends. He has to. It's a rule.”

Now she laughs. “What rule is that, Ari?”

“The team always comes first rule.”

She thinks about this for a minute. “So let me get this straight—now you want me to believe that none of you ever put yourselves above the team?”

“When you put it that way, no. Of course not. But when it's necessary, we all suck it up. So even if he thinks you should have stuck with the girls' team . . .”

“Which he does.”

“Could you let me finish?” She nods. “Even if he thinks that, he won't jeopardize our record.” I am absolutely one hundred percent positive this is true. Plan Freeze-out is just a joke. “He may complain. He may act like a jerk. He'll even threaten to change teams. But he won't leave. And neither should you.” I can't believe I just said that. “I mean, that's the rule. But don't. Okay? You're good. Really good. You just need a little more confidence.”